Page 110 of A Love Letter to Whiskey
Which left him staring up at me.
For a moment, we moved slow, his eyes locked on mine, his hands wrapped around my waist. We breathed together, bodies slick with water and sweat, and I felt it. I felt every ounce of pain, of abandonment — all the emotions I’d fought into a closet over the last two years broke down the door and flooded out. Jamie’s brows bent as one tear fell down my cheek and he caught it with his thumb, wiping it against my bottom lip before pulling my mouth to his. He kissed me with a promise I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear, because in that moment, I wasn’t thinking. I only wanted to feel. I wanted to burn.
You know, they say that Bill Wilson asked for whiskey as his dying wish. The man was dying, at the end of the line, and he wanted the one vice he’d been fighting all his life. Even the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous wanted whiskey on his deathbed.
And so I laid in mine, hand around the bottle, lips pressed to the rim, and I didn’t regret a single minute of the night I sealed my fate.
Not one.
• • •
I regretted everything.
“Oh God.”
Those were the first two words out of my mouth when I woke the next morning, lying in bed with Jamie, his arm across my stomach. My eyes adjusted to the light streaming in through the window, the sky a bright gray, and I counted the half-packed boxes. Boxes I would be moving. Moving into my fiancé’s house.
My fiancé.
“Oh God.”
I threw Jamie’s arm off, scrambling to my feet with the sheet still wrapped around me. It twisted at my ankles and I fell, squeaking. Jamie popped up then, hair mussed, eyes still half-closed.
“Wha— you okay?”
Popping back up, I wrapped the sheet tighter, lifting the fabric from around my ankle and storming over to my closet. “No,” I said firmly, closing the door to the closet behind me and dropping the sheet. I pulled on the first pair of jeans and shirt I found, still hopping into them as I spoke through the slits in the door. “No, Jamie, I am not fucking okay.”
“What’s going on?”
His voice was gravelly, thick with sleep, and it made me want to curl up with him. I kicked myself internally, huffing as I threw the door open, now fully dressed.
“Oh, I don’t know. There’s a naked man in my bed and it’s not the one I’m engaged to.”
Jamie scrubbed a hand down his face, watching me as I paced. “You’re not getting married.”
“What? Of course I am,” I scoffed.
Jamie’s eyes widened then, like my words were a shot of scalding espresso. “You can’t be serious.”
“Listen, last night was a—” I paused, waving my hands, still pacing.
“A what?” Jamie asked, standing. He was still naked, abs hard and rippling down to a V that pointed straight to the promise land. I tried not to stare, failed, and made a face when he didn’t even attempt to cover himself. “A mistake?”
My brows bent together and I crossed my arms, meeting Jamie’s eyes and regretting it immediately. Too many thoughts were flowing through me, each one combatting the one that preceded.
“Don’t you fucking say it, B. Don’t you say it was a mistake.”
I cleared my throat, eyes on the window behind him. “I’m engaged,” I croaked, and Jamie let out a loud growl, cursing and running both hands through his hair before storming into the living room. I followed, guilt swallowing me. All I could see was Brad’s face, his smile, his trusting eyes. He would be so hurt if he found out what happened. The man who saved me from myself, and I repaid him by falling back into bed with the man who broke me in the first place.
So fucking stupid.
“I can’t believe you did this to me!” I screamed as Jamie tugged on his briefs. He swiped his jeans off the floor next, angrily shoving one leg in before the other. “I was happy, I was okay, I let you go. And then you just show up here, after two years without a single word, and you—”
“You’re not happy. You’re numb. There’s a difference.”
My mouth popped open. “Don’t tell me what I am, Jamie Shaw! If you’re so desperate to tell me something, how about telling me why you never called? Huh?”
“Does it really matter?” He threw back, pulling his shirt over his head. It was wrinkled from the rain, but he still looked mouthwatering in it. “You said you’d wait, and I said I’d come. Why did you give up? Why are you trying to push me away right now?”
“Because this isn’t right! This,” I said, motioning to my empty living room between us. “Isn’t okay. We’re toxic, Jamie. All we do is hurt each other, hurt the ones who love us, hurt ourselves.” I was trembling, and Jamie noticed. He exhaled, moving toward me like he wanted to comfort me, but I held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t.”
