Page 16 of Survival

I cringed at the voice behind me and sighed, picking up my cup and taking a sip of water. Watching the workers pour drinks behind the bar as I tried to ignore the trainwreck of my past decisions behind me.

“Uh, hello. Earth to Tucker.”

“What do you want, Lisa?” I barely held back a growl.

“Why so rude?”

“Why so obsessive?”

“This isn’t like you. You used to be much nicer before you started your thing withIzzy.” Her nose scrunched in distaste at my girlfriend’s name.

I took a deep breath. “I’m still nice.”

“Not to me.”

“Being nice doesn’t work with you. I tried that.”

“I was hurt back then. You stabbed me in the back. Used me and ditched me. Just when I thought we had a shot.”

My grip tightened on my water, and my eyes rolled in frustration. Not this again. How many times did I have to go over this with her?

“Lisa, we hooked up. Twice. And yeah, that’s more than other girls got from me, but that’sall it was. I had already told you I didn’t want you before I got with Izzy. You didn’t listen. Just like you haven’t listened any of the dozens of times I’ve told yousinceIzzy and I got together. You need to get over me.”

Lisa paused but only for a few moments. “See, I don’t buy it. I was hurt and did some stupid stuff, yeah, but Idon’t thinkI’mthe one that needs to get over something.You’rethe one clinging to something that doesn’t have a shot.”

I tensed, my eyes glued to a woman dragging out a bucket of ice from the back, watching her struggle to lift and dump it into the bin of sodas. Anything to focus on to ignore what Lisa was hinting at.

“I get why you’re upset,” she continued.

“I doubt that.”

Lisa stepped up to my side as a space opened at the bar and placed her arm beside mine, her fingers reaching for my hand. I tensed, the cords of my muscles hardening into steel in warning, and she paused when my grip started to crush the bottle I was holding, my water threatening to spill. She placed her hand down on the polished wood of the bar instead.

“You don’t have to be all noble and everything. You’re not tied to her anymore. Not with the baby gone, and she turned down your ring. You don’t have to stay with her.”

“Go. Away. Lisa.” I clenched my teeth.

“No. I’m trying to get through to you.”

“There’s nothing to get through to me about.”

“Oh, I think there is. I think you need something more than what you have. Something that Izzy isn’t willing to give you. At least, not anymore.”

I froze, the water a mere inch away from my lips. Those words were an instant reminder for why I’d needed the drink in the first place. Slowly, I lowered the bottle back down. “What Izzy and I do is none of your business.”

My voice had grown cold and hard, but it was like she was immune. I felt her shoulder brush against my upperarm as she leaned in, looking up at my stony expression with one she must have thought was seductive.

“I wouldn’t turn you down.” She ran a finger along my arm, and I jerked it away. If my stomach wasn’t already churning, that had done it.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” I spat.

“Yes, I do,” she insisted. “You don’t have to worry, though. I wouldn’t trap you like that.”

“No, you’d just fake it. Argh.” I dragged a hand back through my hair as I glared. “You just don’t know how to fucking listen, do you?”

ANNIE

My foot tapped against the floor to the beat of the music as I watched my friends dance, anxious to be in Jet’s arms again. Every second without his touch now felt like hours, he’d been gone for so long.

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