Page 30 of What If I Hate You
Would Marlee give it to her?
“Doesn’t matter. She’s never going to talk to me again.”
He shrugs, swirling his glass. “That’s not how it works, and you know it.”
“You don’t know her.”
“Maybe not,” he says, “but I know you. If you didn’t care, you’d have let her take the first swing and be done with it. But you let her in.”
“She slapped me. Like physically slapped me.”
“And you’re still here, moping over it instead of doubling down. That’s progress for you, Bear.” The sarcasm isn’t even thick, just a thin coat, expertly applied. He leans in. “What’d you call her?”
I don’t answer. The word makes me want to dry heave just thinking it. Harrison studies me, then nods, like he’s connected the dots.
“Did she deserve it?” he asks quietly.
Fuck no. She didn’t deserve it.
“Does a woman ever deserve to be treated that way?”
“Then fix it.”
I drain my bottle and scowl, but it’s not at him. It never really is with Harrison. “She’s asleep by now. I doubt she wants to see my face.”
“There’s always tomorrow,” he says, and then tips his glass back, draining the last of whatever overpriced drink he’s ordered. “Don’t let it fester. You’re already an asshole. No sense in being a coward, too.”
He stands, claps my shoulder, and leaves without another word. I sit alone at the table, finishing the beer, but my appetite for self-destruction is gone. All I want to do is rewind to ten minutes before I detonated and make myself invisible.
But I can’t, so I pay the tab and slip out into the frozen dark, following the drag of shame all the way down the street. The night air stings a bit, sobering the edge on what’s left of my buzz. I walk, hunched and hating myself, past guttering bar lights and trash bins glinting in the moon. My boots scuff the salt-dusted sidewalk, every step a reminder that nothing ever comes clean when you want it to.
The hotel lobby is empty, just an expansive room with fake marble and the buzz of an overpriced sleep. I take the stairs because I can’t bear the idea of small talk with the overnighter at the desk. Third floor, all the way at the end. I know Blakely’s room because the front desk gave us the assignment sheets at check-in, not that I’d ever tell her that. I pause outside her door and listen for movement.
Nothing.
Good.
She’s asleep.
She deserves to sleep.
I, on the other hand, can’t sleep at all. I lie in my hotel bed and stare at the ceiling, replaying the night over and over, each time wishing I’d bit out my own tongue instead. Even though it’s past two, I don’t let myself check my phone. I don’t text anyone, not even my brother, who used to let me call in the middle of the night when I needed to drag my head out of a dark hole. Some things are too ugly for even the people who love you.
I finally roll over and shut my eyes at three, but all I see is Blakely Rivers, face bright with anger and disappointment, eyes hard but also hurt. I wonder if she’s lying awake, too, or if she’s already filed me into the same bin as the rest of the men who never learned how to talk to girls without breaking something.
My alarm goes off at six. No snooze button, no mercy, just an airhorn of regret. My head pounds, probably just as much from the booze as the shame. I hate that I can’t just take the day off, but that’s not what you do when you’re being paid more in a single season than most people make in a lifetime. You show up. You block pucks. And you pretend you didn’t completely fuck up last night.
Downstairs in the breakfast lounge, the whole team is already halfway through an All-American cholesterol orgy when I walk in, ball cap pulled low. The minute I set foot in the room,I hear Marlee murmur at Ella, “Told you he’d look like a kicked puppy.” Bodhi hoots and waves me over, so I quickly survey the table hoping Blakely isn’t sitting anywhere close.
“She’s not down here yet, Teddy Bear,” Oliver tells me, knowing who I was looking for just now.
“Why not?”
I don’t know why I just asked that.
I shouldn’t care.
I don’t want to care.
