Page 51 of Two Wrongs

“I’ve got some groveling to do, no thanks to you,” I grumble.

Like the jackass he is, he tries to shoo me out the door. “Better get on with it then. I doubt she’s getting any less pissed off since you didn’t chase after her.”

I flip him off. “Sometimes I forget why we’re best friends.”

He shrugs. “I picked you first for kickball and you shared your fruit snacks with me.”

“It might be time to re-evaluate how I make my life choices,” I mumble to myself.

“If that is what makes you realize that, and not starting an affair with your son’s wife, I think you have bigger problems than how you and I came to be friends,” he yells after me.

* * *

I slipinto the bar without Wren noticing me and watch her interact with Bess and Donovan. More importantly, I watch how Bess and Donovan behave around each other. She was right, there is definitely something going on with the two of them. I’m not thrilled that she’s developed a close friendship with one of the more eligible men in town. He’s ten years younger than me, and although still nine years older than Wren, that’s much more appropriate than dating someone nineteen years older.

When he reaches over and ruffles her hair I have to force myself to stay in my seat. It’s a big brotherly show of affection, but it still makes me want to rip his arm off and beat him with it for touching her. I can’t do that though. Wren’s world has been very small for too long.

I didn’t help that with the way I treated her. If I’d been a better man, less envious of my son, perhaps she’d have had Charlie looking after her. She could have come to me with her struggles. Maybe we could have figured out that Liam had a drug problem before it got to the point he was stealing from us. We’ll never know, because I am a jealous asshole.

Happy hour is almost over by the time I show up, not that the bar completely clears out. I’m seated off in the corner in a spot not readily visible from the bar. It’s a pretty serious design flaw if you ask me, because I can see them while they’d have to know I was here and search me out. Naturally, this table isn’t the most popular one, because as one would imagine, it’s not the best to get the attention of a server. It’s great for spying though.

They sit at the bar drinking a beer when the demand slows down. I debate letting her finish her shift and approaching her in the parking lot, but there would be nothing stopping her from driving off and staying somewhere else. She might be speaking to Donovan and Bess now about crashing at either of their places. I can't let that happen. My time with her is already painfully limited. I won’t give up any of it over a misunderstanding.

“Can I talk to you?” I ask, walking up behind her.

She jumps when she hears my voice. “Have you been standing there long?” she asks.

Her eyes shift attention to the side and Bess fights a bout of giggles. “Am I missing something?” I ask them.

They look at each other and reply in unison, “No!”

Donovan rolls his eyes and hands me a bottle of my favorite beer. “Ignore them. Neither of them can drink for shit, and they’re a bit giddy after all the running around for the last couple hours.”

“I mean it, we need to talk,” I say again.

“Go ahead and use the supply closet,” Donovan offers looking right at me, “I believe you are familiar with it.”

Wren’s face turns a bright red, and suddenly I’m aware of what they were talking about. She lets me take her hand and pull her into the closet. I take several steps away from her so we don’t have a repeat of the last time we were in here. There’s not nearly enough noise in the rest of the bar for something like that.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come straight after you. I wanted to confront Charlie without you around so you didn’t have to overhear anything else that might hurt you,” I explain.

Her arms wrap around herself protectively, and she waits for me to tell her how it went. The pain I can see in her large green eyes makes me want to punch him, even though we already worked out what he was trying to do.

“I choked him a little if that makes you feel better.” The corner of her lip twitches as if this does make her feel somewhat better. “It was a huge misunderstanding. Charlie, being an enormous dumbass, thought he was helping prepare you for what is going to happen once people find out.”

She licks her lips. “So he wasn’t asking me about Liam because he thought I should be more concerned about how my actions were going to impact him, but— No, I’ve got nothing. Explain it to me.”

“He said he wanted you to think about how you were going to handle his reaction. He wants you to think about how you are going to handle when other people find out, to prepare yourself for the fallout,” I tell her.

She looks down at her feet. “I don’t plan on sticking around to deal with it. I guess that’s unfair of me to leave you with the consequences. Charlie was right to worry, but asking about Liam was the wrong string to pull. He should have asked me how I’d deal with you possibly losing your son.”

When she looks up at me her eyes glimmer. It’s amazing how something so sad, like her eyes filled with unshed tears, could be so pretty. “We have to stop this. Too many people have already found out, and if one of them lets it slip to Liam, he might not ever forgive you.”

I cradle her face in my hands and kiss her softly. It should be a kiss goodbye, but I can’t seem to end this. “I can’t walk away from you. I know I should. Everything you said is right, but I can’t do it.”

She gives me a fake smile. “Then let me do it. I’ll do it for both of us.”

It occurs to me if she can walk away at all then Charlie’s right and I’m risking everything for no good reason. “Can you walk away, just like that?”

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