Page 35 of Resurrecting the Enemy
As the entire night played over in my mind, the one thing that stood out the most, more so than that fucking slap, were the tears.
Those goddamn tears.
I had pushed hard enough that her rage had spilled out in the form of tears, and I’d never been good around female tears. From random chick, that shit didn’t faze me, but from someone I cared about? Yeah, that shit sat very uncomfortably. I remember when D.J. had first cried over a boy. It had been brutal, and we’d all been ready to murder him until we’d found out that the poor bastard hadn’t even know D.J. liked him when he had asked another girl to go out with him.
I also couldn’t stop my mind from going dark. What if she went to Metcalf as revenge for my fucked-up comment? I’d kill him, of course, but that wouldn’t change what happened between them before I killed him.
“Alright,” Chance announced as he and Maddox walked into the game room. “We’re here.” He stopped in the middle of the room and glanced back and forth between me and Dash “What in the fuck happened back there?”
Maddox didn’t say anything. He just walked over to the sub-zero refrigerator, grabbed a beer, and sat in the recliner opposite Dash. But the kid was eyeing me the entire time. He knew me best, and he knew I was barely holding on by a thread.
Dash jerked his head my way. “Let him tell you,” he said. “I was waiting for you guys to show up, so he wouldn’t have to repeat it.”
When Lake and Eden had raced out of the bedroom, the only reason they had gotten as far as they had was because me and Dash had gone in search of Mad and Chance to let them know we were leaving. Chance had still been with the brunette he had claimed when he got there, and Mad had been with the blonde he had picked out. Everything had been rated PG, but I knew the second they saw me, they would cut their night short.
And here they were.
I tossed back the bourbon I had been guzzling since I got here, and then told them everything. And when I was done, not a one of them said a word.
The silence was fucked, and Chance, who had been the only one without a drink in his hand, had gotten up and got himself one. He’d gone for the liquor, too.
After he downed his first pour, he went for a second while Maddox finally broke the silence. “Are you sure you want to keep pushing this, R.J.?”
My eyes shot his way. “I’m not giving her up, Mad,” I told him. “Not for anything.”
“R.J., man, you gotta admit, this is fucked-up,” Chance remarked.
“Not saying it’s not,” I agreed. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
“What are you going to do?” Dash asked. “Seeing that shit firsthand, I don’t think she cares what you’re capable of.”
I thought about that, and he was right. Lake didn’t know me well enough to be afraid. In the four years I’ve been going to Windsor, I’ve lost my shit a time or two, so they’ve seen what could happen if anyone ever crossed me. They were wise to be afraid because they’ve seen the fallout from getting on my bad side. Lake’s never seen that side of me. She didn’t know how bad it could get.
It was like watching the news and hearing about a tornado ripping through a town; you knew it was bad, but without having experienced it firsthand, you really had no clue.
And Lake had no clue.
“She just doesn’t really know what I’m capable of,” I replied. “That’s the problem. She thinks I’m just fucking around or bullying her, and I’m not.” I looked at each guy in the room. “I’ll burn this entire fucking place to the ground if this goes badly.”
“Ifit goes badly?” Chance echoed. “Dude, I’m fairly certain it’s already going badly.”
“Yeah, R.J., you told her you were going to hit up another girl,” Mad joined in. “What the fuck, man?”
“She kept lying about feeling anything for me,” I said, doing my best to defend something that couldn’t be defended. “I was just proving her wrong.”
Dash stood and went to get himself another beer. After grabbing one, he went to go stand near the window. Pushing it open, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes, lit one, and inhaled like it was his life’s blood. But I didn’t blame him. He could probably see the same thing Mad could see. Dash probably knew I was close to losing it, too.
“Well, what’s done is done,” Dash said after exhaling, stating the obvious. “What we need to figure out is what do to next.”
Chance’s brows shot up towards the sky. “If he wants any chance of that girl loving him back, then he needs to beg for some damn forgiveness,” he retorted. “That’s what’s to do next.”
I side-eyed him. “I’m not begging for forgiveness,” I informed him. “While what I did was shit, Lake shouldn’t have gotten in the ring with me. She might not know what I’m capable of, but she still knows who I am.”
“So, if you’re not going to beg for forgiveness, then what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to give her some time to cool down.” I looked over at Chance as he scoffed. “Do you mind?”
“That you’re making the biggest mistake of your life? Yeah, R.J., I do mind,” Chance shot back. “Why in the hell would you give her time to cool off? Time to cool off equals time to exact revenge or file a restraining order.”
