Page 94 of Elusion

“If you need a place to crash tonight, I have two cots in the back we can set up.”

“Believe it or not, it sounds better than my Jeep.”

Pete locks up while I finish my beer. Each of us grabs a cot from the storage room along with a pillow and blanket and set them up on what serves as a dance floor up front, near the jukebox. All the overhead lights turn off, leaving the place lit with neon beer signs hanging on the walls among the animal heads. The shadows cast around the room are a mixture of creepy and cool as I settle in for my slumber party with my girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend.

I led such a normal life at one point.

“She’s worth the work, you know,” Pete says from his cot.

I lock my fingers behind my head and stare up at the glowing purple ceiling. “I really do.”

He sighs. “It would be a lot easier to hate you if you didn’t.”

Not only does Pete not bother me anymore, but I also have to admit that I can see myself liking the guy in the future.

Eventually.

How fucking annoying.

The sizzle and smell of bacon wakes me. In the light of day, the animal heads hanging above me fall solidly in the creepy category. I roll off the army cot and fold up the blanket.

Through the small window behind the bar, Pete’s visible, cooking in the kitchen. After I put away my cot and bedding, he emerges through the swinging door.

He hands me a tray of food. “Beer and eggs.”

“You work here, live here, cook here. Do you own the place, too?”

“My grandparents do,” he says, popping the tops off two bottles. He adds them to the two plates of eggs, bacon, and toast and tosses a set of keys on the tray. “Let your groveling begin.”

Goddamn it, he’s officially made it impossible not to like him.

“Thanks, man.”

He shrugs. “She could do worse than you. Now go.”

I walk through the curtain and up the stairs to the apartment at the end of the hall. The tray requires a balancing act to unlock the door. In the room, thick curtains block out most of the light, presenting another challenge, but I set everything down without dropping anything.

A giant open area holds the kitchen, living room, and the bedroom with two doors that I assume lead to a bathroom and closet. Callie is sleeping on top of the bed, curled up under a camouflage blanket. I crawl in and curl myself around her, wanting closeness to detract from our fight. She rolls over to face me. We stare at each other, neither of us willing to speak first.

Every road introduces an impasse of some kind. Frequently, I am willing to bend and often meet her more than halfway. Not this time though. She needs to live with the fact that I will choose her over everyone. In all honesty, I don’t think I even have the option anymore.

An eternity passes before she sighs. “Pete will never get his place back at this rate.”

“I’m sorry, Callie.”

I press my lips to hers, then to her cheek, her forehead, and to her lips again. She kisses me back, which makes what I say next all the harder, knowing she will stop.

“But I’m not sorry for what we did.”

As expected, she sits up to put distance between us. “Then what exactly are you sorry for?”

Round two commences.

“I’m sorry Lauren threw you out because she’s incapable of putting you and your best interests first.”

“You still don’t get it, and I’m tired of explaining it to you. Connor and Cate need to come first, not me.”

I sit up next to her, running a hand through my hair. “Maybe to you, but for me, it’s you. It will always be you. And you’ll never convince me otherwise, so you might as well stop trying.”

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