Page 24 of The 7 Rules of Moving On
“Why don’t you just tell her you like her? Offer to be her hookup? You’re both adults.” He frowned at Trig. “I think.”
Because I don’twantto be her hookup. “I can’t. I don’t… I don’t know.”
“You’re being an idiot.”
Trig’s restraint snapped. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know that my brain melted out of my ears the second she showed back up here?” He gritted his teeth. “I have not been able to get that woman out of my head for two years. And now she’s here, in my bar, and I can’t have her because—”
“Of what? Some stupid rules?”
“Yes.”
“Trig, they’re only words written on a card.”
“A card she laminated.”
“How important could the rules be?”
Trig sighed while Kissie laughed at something Dave said, and Dave wasn’t even funny. “So important she barely let me kiss her last time she was here because she didn’t want to break them.”
“Did you ever consider that maybe she just isn’t into you?”
“You are such a dick.”
Ryan shrugged.
“Look, Kissie and I had a moment two years ago,” Trig confided. “It was real and significant. At least it was for me. But when she left last time, I couldn’t let her go. It took me weeks to stop trying to find reasons to go to Missoula so I could look her up. I never went there, but I knew she was the kind of woman I would blow my entire life up over if she ever came back here. I just never expected her to actually come back, and definitely not fresh off a breakup looking for anything but a person who’d blow their entire life up over her. I can’t be her hookup for the weekend, because it’s pretty obvious she isn’t here for me.” He exhaled through his nose. “And I can’t get all fucked up over a woman who’s only going to leave.”
“I’m sorry, man. I had no idea it was that bad.”
Trig scoffed. “I have her jingle as my ringtone, Ryan. It’s that bad.”
Ryan snapped his fingers. “Oh, shit. That’s her jingle? Well, that whole thing makes a lot more sense now. I’d kind of thought you’d lost it.”
“I have lost it!” Trig cried, throwing up his hands. “But she can’t know I’ve lost it. She’s only here until Tuesday. I just have to keep my shit together until then.”
“And since you can’t be the person showing her a good time, you’re, what? Trying to at least ensure she won’t have a good time with anyone else?”
“Licker isn’t too bad,” Trig said, weakly defending his undeniably questionable tactics.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind tongue baths. Who taught that man how to kiss? His golden retriever?”
“She’s having a good time, though,” Trig said, nodding toward her. “Look at her, she’s smiling and happy. Isn’t that what’s important?” And she was, dancing with Dave, throwing her hands in the air, her head back, eyes closed. “Even if she might not enjoy her end of the night kiss?”
“I love you, Trig. But you’re seriously messed up.”
Admitting defeat, Trig put his head in his hands and said, “Yeah, I know.”
* * *
Playingwingman all night wasn’t as hard as Trig thought it would be, but it sure as shit wasn’t fun. During one particular slow dance where Dave’s hands slipped a little too far south on Kissie’s body, Trig had nearly gone over the bar to grab Dave by the shorthairs and kick his ass out of his bar. But he hadn’t. He’d behaved. He’d also bitten every single one of his fingernails to the quick.
When Kissie left with Dave, who was staying on the second floor—not that Trig looked up his room number so he could entertain the notion of walking past their room like a total creep—he didn’t expect to see her again tonight. He expected to clean up the bar, take a dip, then go to bed sad and alone. But when he’d finished moping the floor and reached up to turn out the lights, he saw her through the window, getting ready to knock on the door.
“Hey, Kissie,” he said, opening the door and backing away when she stormed in past him. “Is everything okay?”
“No. Everything is very much not okay,” she spat, rounding on him, squaring off. “Tell me something, Andrew. Do I look like a cat to you?”
He felt like he was suddenly standing on vanishingly thin ice. “No. Or, wait, is this a trick question? Do you want to look like a cat?”
