Page 22 of Fighting For You
That was the tricky line here, wasn’t it? I wasn’t going to take back my words. I’d said things I’d often fantasized about saying to him because they were honest and true.There’d been some catharsis in actually verbalizing them. And yet, even without knowing his circumstances, it hadn’t felt solely good.
Not the triumph I’d imagined it would be.
So, I drank, especially because watching him drain his glass, his strong throat working as he swallowed, made me wildly thirsty.
His eyes didn’t leave me, and I ended up chugging down every bit of the spring water in the jar before setting it a little too roughly on the counter, though still far less brusquely than he had. Being in his space was turning me into a bumbling fool and I needed to get this over with before I ended up breaking something, and then get out of here.
“Listen,” I started, words and breath oddly labored. But apologies were hard, weren’t they? Even if I wasn’t taking anything back, knowing I’d done something wrong—that I might’ve made his real sadness worse—didn’t sit right with me. And it did require humility.
I didn’t mind that. Being a soldier taught humility. Being a woman in the military taught it even more. Working with the best of the best had trained me to admit wrongs, to admit when I didn’t know something, to try my darndest to see myself in a true light. But with this person I used to know, this man I hardly recognized and couldn’t stand to be around, any amount of humility felt like weakness instead of strength.
I hated this feeling even more than I hated him.
And yet, I wasn’t going to let any of that stop me because once I decided to do something, I did it. Period.
Clearing my throat and bracing myself on the counter, I met his eyes. A flashbulb of nerves burst in my belly.
His impatience won out before I found the words.
“I don’t know why you’re here, but it’s a waste of time.” He paced toward the living room like he wanted to lead me back to the door.
I breathed in, searching for calm, and a wave of nausea rolled through me. I hadn’t had much of an appetite for at least a day, and the mental preoccupation with getting here to face him, never mind the process of ferreting out where this place was located after grilling Kenny, had taken it out of me. I indulged in sliding a barstool out a few inches and resting my backside there to take some of the burden from my legs.
My bones were heavy in my body, like they might’ve started weighing more and were pulling me down. My jaw and head ached from clenching my teeth and lack of sleep, and no doubt the stress of coming to see him.
“I’m not trying to waste your time,” I said, my head spinning as I squinted over at him.
He stomped back. “I’m not trying to be an asshole, but you can’t just show up here and expect to—whatever. I’m not ready to apologize to you and?—”
“Please, just let me?—”
“No, dammit, Pop. I know you’re hell bent on hating me for everything that happened back in North Carolina and maybe you’ve decided every other thing in your life has gone wrong because of me, too, but I call bullshit. I’m not going to take it anymore.”
Takeit? How had he taken anything from me? He gave me nothing but grunts and scowls, took nothing from me but my own frustration and impatience, and somehow multiplied it. The solid plan I’d walked in with had fractured into a million pieces, and I shuddered with anger.
A chill ran through me and I glanced at the fireplace, wishing he’d light it, though being as humongous as hewas, he probably didn’t need basic human things like heat until the ground had frozen hard and icicles hung from his nose.
Fury pulsed through me, and my head throbbed. “I can’t believe this. I came here to apologize to you and now you’re acting like I’m some enemy combatant. I’m just a person,Beast.” I spat the nickname like an insult.
“Welcome to the club,Pop.I’m a person, too. I have a life outside of you. I don’t need to encounter a snarling shrew every time I enter work or walk around or want to grab a drink with my friends. I don’t need someone trying to put me in my place every damn time I do anything. I’m alreadyinmy place, okay? I’m in hell here, like practically on fire, and you’re only fanning the flames.”
His frustration—the pure number of words—I couldn’t compute. All I could make sense of was his anger, and the rising ire in my chest pulsating through me so intensely I shook with it. I might be on fire, too, now that he mentioned it, because I felt swallowed by flames of rage.
Through gritted teeth, I spoke. “I. Can’t. Stand. You.”
He shook his head with one swift jerk and moved to the door, then flung it open and stormed out of the cabin.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jude
Snow crunched under my feet—far more than I realized had accumulated when I’d opened the door minutes ago.
Had it really only been a few minutes?
My warm skin steamed out here, the cold biting at everything so aggressively I could feel it through my clothes within seconds of exiting the cabin.
Good. Let it bite and burn—something external instead of this churning feeling in my gut, a sense that every card in a too-large house was about to fall.
