Page 26 of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Fox held up his hands. “Look, I’d rather not have this conversation in the hallway for every asshole in the club to listen in on. If you don’t want Liza to hear what we have to say, send her away somewhere. She’s become buddy-buddy with Rabbit too from what I’ve seen. Send her to him. Hell, she can stay and listen, for all I care. We just want a chance to talk things out with you before we end up losing a friend.”

I turned my back on them, but left the door open so they could enter. Liza sat up on the bed abandoning her sketchpad where it lay, next to the one I had been working in. “I’ll just go, and leave you guys to it,” she suggested.

“You don’t have to,” I told her.

“It’s okay. I texted Rabbit. He told me to come learn how to mix drinks down at the bar with him and Charlie. You guys need some alone time to sort your shit, and I could use a drink.” She offered up a bright, encouraging smile, patted me on the arm, and took off for the door. Before she could get it open Fox stopped her.

“I just wanted to say that we are really sorry for the way Amy has treated you since you’ve been here. It’s not been fair to you, and you shouldn’t have been dragged in the middle of all our mess.”

“That’s all well and good, but any apology needs to come from her, and I just don’t see her doing that.” Liza answered him before turning and leaving the room.

“She’s not wrong,” Whiskey responded to the closed door.

“No, she’s not,” I agreed before turning to my buddies who were looking around my place like they’d never been here before. Hell, to be honest, it had definitely changed, and I couldn’t help but hear that little voice in my head that said, ‘it’s for the better too’.

“Things look different in here,” Fox finally announced, mirroring my own thoughts, and proving we still had the chance to get back to that close-knit friendship we once had where we enjoyed being on that save wave-length.

“Well, things change with time.”

“Yeah, I get that, but it looks almost like a fucking home in here. You have your guy shit,” he pointed to some of my clothes strewn across the loveseat. “And you have the girly shit,” he added as he pointed out some of Liza’s makeup sitting on the bedside table on her side of the bed. She didn’t wear a lot, but she had it just in case her ‘face was fucked up in the morning’. Her words, not mine. Fox pointed to the bed where Liza and I had been working before they interrupted. “Then you have that,” he stated with a wave of his arms as he stepped closer and took a glance at what each of us had been working on. “You’re doing work together?” He finally asked.

“Yeah, she helped me on a tattoo consult I had last week, and now I’m helping her with a rebranding campaign she’s working on.” I shrugged my shoulders as if that were no big deal. Fox took the time to really take in my response. He seemed to come to some conclusion as he stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest.

He shook his head back and forth for a minute as if he couldn’t believe the words that were about to come out of his mouth. He spoke them anyway. “We haven’t been there for you.” It was a simple statement, but it had both Whiskey and myself snapping our full attention to him. Fox turned from me to Whiskey and frowned. “We haven’t. We’ve been failing our best friend, because we were too caught up in our own shit. We didn’t even help you get Liquid Lines set up.”

“We offered, a few times, and he kept refusing,” Whiskey protested.

“Yeah, I imagine that’s because he was trying to run away from our bullshit instead of getting sucked into more of it.” Fox turned back to me, as did Whiskey. “I’m not wrong, am I?”

“You’re not wrong,” I agreed.

“Why the fuck couldn’t you talk to us about it?” He asked then.

“I tried.”

“The fuck you did,” Whiskey argued.

“The fuck I didn’t. You just wouldn’t hear me. Every time I told you that the group sex wasn’t my scene you pulled me in anyway, and told me it was time to get over Camilla. I was long over Camilla, but you never gave me even a second to talk about her, the fact that I was over her, or anything else. You just blew it off every time like I was still pining away because I wasn’t jumping on the nearest pussy. I knew what I fucking wanted and needed in my life, and it wasn’t easy pussy to take the memories away. I wanted a fresh start with someone who wouldn’t walk into a tainted past if they came here and found 10 club whores and your girlfriend that I’d been fucking. I never wanted to bring a woman into a situation where she would have to wonder about my fidelity or what some sweetbutt might say when I wasn’t there to hear it.” I slumped into the chair I had in the corner, ignoring Liza’s clothes that were spilling off of it.

“I was making sure that when I found the right woman, she would be okay with my lifestyle, comfortable being around my friends and family. I wanted to make sure I deserved her as much as she deserved me. You get what I’m saying?”

“Hell,” Fox breathed out. “And we stole that shit from you.” I didn’t answer as he looked around and took in the well-lived in state of my room. “She’s perfect for you, isn’t she?” He finally asked.

“Yeah, she is,” I told him.

“And we fucked it up before she ever got here, because we were too stupid to listen to what you were actually telling us. We thought…”

“I know what you thought, Fox. I just couldn’t convince either of you that you were wrong, especially when you had your girl telling you that I was just in denial the whole time. I don’t know what her deal is with me, but I’ve told her, in more ways than one that I was ONLY her friend. There should have been no misunderstanding there.” I sighed. “Then from the moment I brought Liza here, she’s been in her face about how I belong to the three of you. I fucking don’t. I explained everything to Liza so she would understand. I did that the first day Amy got in her face while trying to get into my room – a room she should have never felt she had the right to enter without my permission – and I thought that would be enough. You know? I thought, okay, this is all out in the open. She knows my truth, but damn it, every time we get settled, and I feel like we might be able to move forward a bit, there’s another load of drama popping up. I watched her cringe, as I had to go over what kind of sex I did and didn’t have with Amy while she stood there listening and watching earlier. Do you think that’s how I want to try to start something with a woman I’m falling for?”

Both Whiskey and Fox stood there looking shell-shocked. “I shouldn’t have to put off my feelings for a woman I’m sharing space with, because I’m afraid of the drama that’s going to creep up on us. I shouldn’t have to fucking deal with having to talk about sexual acts with another woman in front of her. I shouldn’t have to deal with having a woman claiming to be pregnant, and me being the possible father when that’s damn well impossible, in front of the woman that I am falling in love with. And she shouldn’t have to be dealing with any of that shit at all, period!” By the time I got that all out, my voice had risen to a bark, just below a yell. My bark was starting to into a bit of a bite as well, because all the anger I had been shoveling away finally found a way to the surface, and my inner calm was no longer capable of holding it at bay. “I blame all of you for this. I’m fucking pissed as hell at you both and at Amy too. You’re all fucking ruining something that could be so fucking good!”

I pointed to the bed. “Look at that! Fucking look!” I yelled when Whiskey didn’t seem inclined to take his eyes off of me. “I’ve never been so at peace before in my life as I am sitting side by side with her just doing our thing. Look what happens though. We couldn’t even keep that peace for more than two hours, because she was trying to talk me through all the shit that just went down in the kitchen a while ago. You took a moment that should have been fucking Nirvana for me, and you spoiled it with your selfish ass bullshit.” I tugged at the lengthy spikes on the top of my hair in frustration as they both glanced back my way. “I never wanted to lose any of you as a friend, I never would have thought there would come a time when I didn’t have your backs and you didn’t have mine. I gotta say though, I don’t want any of you near me right now, because you’re taking the one good thing I have had in a really long time and you are laying a taint on it so thick, that I don’t know if I can dig my way back out. The one thing I was trying to avoid happening if I ever found a woman that was worth my fucking time… and it’s coming from my best friends. Not some strange club whores like I had imagined when I avoided random pussy. No, she’s getting kicked out of our room so we can rehash the drama you guys and your girlfriend have brought into my life, unwanted and uninvited. You are supposed to have my six, man.” I slumped over a bit, because it literally felt like the weight of the world – at least my part of the world – had dropped right on top of my shoulders.

“I tried being her friend. I tried placating you guys even when it fucking didn’t sit right with me. I tried to make everyone else happy, but when the fuck were any of you going to think about me and what I actually wanted? Now, you’ve fucking spoiled what I wanted. How the fuck do we carry on a friendship now when all I see is what you’ve ruined for me with your selfishness?”

“Jesus, man!” Whiskey finally spoke up after my voice broke on the last. “Holy fucking hell. I didn’t… we were…” he glanced in desperation at Fox who looked just as lost. “How the fuck do we make this right?”

“Take Amy away from the clubhouse. You guys have a place in town. Take her there, and keep her away for a while. I don’t fucking want to see her after that shit she just pulled. You guys might not have known I never had sex with her, because she led you to believe otherwise, but she damn well knew better. I am not okay with what she did today. That was purposeful and malicious, and then she tried using her tears and crying to get you to miss the fact that not only did she lie to you about the extent of our alone time, but she was knowingly starting drama in front of Liza, and doing it repeatedly. I can’t make myself be okay with it. She purposely attempted to sabotage something for me. Whether it was just a simple friendship with Liza, or a budding relationship, it doesn’t matter. Amy set out to fuck that up for me, and you two stood by helping her out. Whether you realized you were doing it or not. You want to make shit right, keep her the fuck away from me until I am ready to deal with her. Her feelings on the matter mean fuck all to me at this point.”

“We will,” Fox said without hesitation.

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