Page 34 of Worlds Collide

Gretchen is back with our plates before I can tell Linda, in explicit detail, where she can shove her smartass remarks. It gives me enough time to breathe through the rage and think about what she said.

“You wanna know what I think?” Rich asks from the booth behind me. He always sits there, but normally he has the decency to pretend he’s not listening to every piece of my heart and soul that I lay out for Linda.

“Yes, please,” she says at the same time as I speak.

“No, asshole.”

Rich spins in his seat and ignores me completely.

“He’s just scared because CJ is so pretty that he can’t even growl properly when he’s near.”

“Avoiding vulnerability, huh? Classic.” Linda nods wisely.

“You both suck,” I say before either of them can keep chatting like I’m not right here.

“And you probably said some pretty awful things to CJ and need to apologize.” Linda turns to look at me with a raised eyebrow just to punch in her point.

I don’t dignify that with a response. CJ didn’t even deny that he’d done it.

Birdie’s waitingfor me on the steps of my front porch when Rich parks the car in my driveway, and if I wasn’t still annoyed with him crashing my time with my sponsor I’d beg Rich to keep driving around the roundabout and then head north for Carmel-by-the Sea where I can avoid the fucking lecture that’s waiting for me.

“Wolfie,” my brother calls out when I don’t open the door after Rich shuts off the car.

Time to face the music I guess. I step out and ignore Hawk. Maybe that will clue him in to what kind of mood I’m in.

“I don’t understand you,” he starts out strong with the guilting tone he’s so damn good at.

“How about you stop trying,” I suggest when I pass by him.

“Wolfie,” he calls out when I’m on the first step.

“What, Hawk? What do you want me to say, huh? I clearly already suffered the consequences of this fuck-up, so why don’t you fucking leave it alone.” He looks stricken as soon as I call him byhis first name and not the nickname I gave him as soon as I could speak.

“Uh...” He hesitates then pulls his shoulders back and looks me straight in the eyes.Oh, goodie. He’s probably about to impart some wisdom he learned in his Al-Anon group a million years ago, because ofcourse, Hawk goodie two-shoes was well aware I’m an alcoholic before I was.I hate myself for every word in my head, and for every vicious wave of emotion they bring out in me, but it’s not like any of it is incorrect. “Tristan wants to talk to you,” he says quietly and looks down.

“Of course, he does,” I mumble and stuff my hands in my pants pockets.

“And Dee and I left your presents in the kitchen for you. I’m supposed to invite you over for dinner tonight, but I’m sure you don’t want to?—”

“I’ll be there at seven, Birdie. Just please let me be alone for a while.”

“Yeah.” He nods a few times. “’Course.”

“Thank you.”

I get inside the house and see the two boxes wrapped in fancy wrapping paper. Probably best that I open those later.

God, clearly my plans for a quiet birthday—for once—were all shot to shit, and now Hawk and Deedee probably think I lied to them when I told them what I really wanted for my birthday was to be alone.

I bite the bullet and call Tristan right away. Better to get that part of the day over with.

“So, is this a PR stunt you forgot to tell your PR manager about? Or is this real and will you make my life a lot harder?”

“Zero for two, Tristan. Of course it’s not fake, why would it be fake?”

“Well, for one, it’s doing wonders for your image. I literally just found out thanks to the article—and these people really did an amazing job gathering all that info so quickly—so of course being associated with CJ is going to be good for your image.”

“What the hell did he do?” I demand.

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