Fire Inside

Chapter Fifteen Come Inside

The next day…

“Hop, please call me. I was an idiot. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I promise I’ll get a hold on the drama. I promise, Hopper. Swear.” I took a deep breath. “We need to talk this out, honey. Please call me,” I begged into my phone.

I’d given it the night but this was my third voicemail that day.

I put my phone on my desk, ignored the cautious vibe coming from the staff in my office that I knew was caused by me, and tried to get to work.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about Hop. What I’d done, what he’d said, how to make it better. Needless to say, I didn’t get anything done.

Hours later, I called him and left another voicemail.

Hours after that, before going to bed, I called him again but since he didn’t answer, I hung up.

Tomorrow.

I’d try again tomorrow.

I settled into bed.

I didn’t sleep.

Three days later…

I know you’re angry, honey, but please, PLEASE, call me. I need to apologize face to face.

That was text two of the day. It was nine o’clock in the morning.

There would be five more before I laid my head down on my pillow in order not to get a wink of sleep.

Two days later…

I sat sipping a beer in the Compound. Brick was with me, shooting the shit.

I knew he knew or suspected. All the brothers did. I knew they knew I was hanging there hoping to see Hop.

This was kind of embarrassing.

I did not care.

Hop had his kids so it was a long shot in the evening he’d show but I was willing to take it. I was willing to do anything.

“Gotta hit the head,” Brick muttered. I gave him a smile I knew he knew I didn’t commit to by the sweet smile he gave back and the squeeze he gave my knee before he took off toward the bathroom.

I felt a hand warm and strong at the back of my neck and I twisted to see Big Petey standing close.

“How you doin’, sweetheart?” he asked quietly.

Yes. They all knew.

I stared at Big Petey thinking I had nothing left to lose.

Nothing.

“Do you know where Hop is?” I asked and his face got soft.

“No, Lanie darlin’. Sorry to say, I don’t,” he answered.

“Have you seen him?” I asked.

“Seen him around. Haven’t had words with him in a while.”

“Is he okay?” I went on, needing something, anything, even just the knowledge Hop was in a bad mood would feed the need.

“Don’t know, honey.”

I pressed my lips together before I went for broke.

“If you see him, can you ask him to call me? It’s important. Like really important,” I stressed.

His hand still at my neck gave me a reassuring squeeze that didn’t reassure me. “Will do.”

“Thanks,” I whispered, then said, “Can you tell Brick I have to go? I forgot, there’s something I need to pick up at the drugstore.”

“No problem.”

I smiled another smile I didn’t commit to. Big Petey let my neck go and I skedaddled.

Hours later, lying in bed, I called Hop.

“You’re worrying me, honey,” I said into my phone, my voice sounding strange, hoarse.

Scared.

“Call me,” I finished then I hung up.

Again, I didn’t sleep.

The next day, Hopper didn’t call.

Four days later…

I’d been sitting in my car at the curb outside Hop’s house for a very long time before he pulled up on his bike. It was Monday, after his kids were gone.

It was also time to know.

He didn’t return a single message I left and I left many. He didn’t return a single text and I sent loads of those too. And he didn’t show at the Compound in the evenings. I knew he didn’t because I went there every night and had a drink just in case I’d run into him.

So when Hop showed at the Compound the day before, walking in, spotting me, turning right on the spot and leaving, even though I made a fool of myself running after him, calling his name, he didn’t look at me when he threw a leg over his bike, made it roar and rode away.

After that, I needed to know.

And as I watched the single headlight approach, watched Hop ride into his front drive, watched him switch off his bike, walk to his front door and then walk through it, all without glancing my way, I knew.

He was done with me, no going back.

So he needed to know.

I took a deep breath, threw open my door, walked up to his house and hit the doorbell.

No answer.

I hit the bell again then knocked.

He made me wait.

I fought back tears.

He finally opened the door and, with a bottle of beer in his hand, cut me off before I could start.

“This isn’t going to happen.”

“I was eleven, I was in the city with my class on a fieldtrip, we were there to see a Broadway show when I saw him,” I began.

His eyebrows drew together but his lips said, “Lanie, whatever you gotta—”

“My dad in a restaurant, kissing the neck of a woman who was not my mother.”

His mouth snapped shut.

I held his eyes and gave it to him as I’d practiced during the two hours I sat in front of his house.

“He saw me, right through the window. I just stood there, staring at him. I didn’t get it. I was too young. But I sure grew up fast, standing on that sidewalk staring at my father with another woman.”

“Lanie—”

“Our teacher shouted my name because I wasn’t moving. That’s why he turned his head and looked out the window. He must have heard her shout my name.”

“Lanie—”

“You bought this, you take it,” I whispered and his chin jerked back before his face went soft.

I wasn’t immune to the beauty of that look. It took a lot, but I didn’t give him a single indication I wasn’t immune.

“He didn’t move, Dad didn’t. Didn’t get out of his seat and come to me. Didn’t even mouth my name. He just sat close to her, holding her hand on the table, staring at me until the teacher pulled me away. Dad never mentioned it. Not a word. He never explained himself. He never even lied to try to make it better. But, I figure, with what happened next, he decided, since the cat was out of the bag, he didn’t have to bother with pretending. Hiding. So he didn’t.”

“Come inside, lady,” Hop invited gently.

Lady.

Gutted.

Again.

Like he did after every call he didn’t return, every text he didn’t reply to, walking away from me the night before as I ran after him, calling his name.

Gutted until I was hollow.

Again.

“I’m good out here.”

Hop’s jaw clenched but he said nothing more.

I did.

“I don’t know if she moved there or he moved her there or what, but they didn’t carry on their affair in the safety of the city anymore. He wasn’t blatant about it but he didn’t give keeping it under wraps a lot of effort. People saw him going to late movies with her. Saw them eating dinner together one town over. Saw them shopping together. My sister Lis saw them, too.” I paused. “I saw them, too.”

“It’s cold, baby. Come inside,” Hop urged, but I didn’t move.

“That’s why my mom is an alcoholic. It’s an addiction, a weakness; it isn’t all his fault but I know that started it. Looking back, I think she knew he was stepping out on her even before he moved his mistress to our town. If she didn’t spot them together sometime in all these years, it would be a miracle. But people talk. She’d hear the whispers. She’d catch the looks. Her friends would find their times to tell her. I know. I heard the whispers, I caught the looks but I was too young to drown in a bottle the pain I felt living in a house where love was a lie.”

“Lanie, honey, please, come inside.”

“That’s why I picked him.”

Hop closed his eyes, opened them and I saw disquiet in them when he murmured, “Baby—”

“Don’t get me wrong,” I interrupted him. “I loved Elliott, I really did. I didn’t put myself in front of bullets just for a guy I felt safe with, knowing he’d never cheat on me. But, having thought on it for years, as much of a bitch as this might make me sound, I gave him a shot because he wasn’t in my league. I gave him a shot because I knew he’d worship the ground I walked on and never treat me like dirt. I’d had guys treat me like garbage for a long time, my father being the first of them, so it wasn’t lost on me that having a man that devoted to me was a good thing. So I hooked my star to his. At first, he made it worth it, and not because he treated me like gold but just because he was a good man who loved me. You know how it was in the end.”

“You don’t come inside, Lanie, I’ll carry you inside.”

“You touch me, Hop, you’ll never see me again.”

His body went visibly solid even as he flinched.

“You’re right,” I continued. “I heard Tyra talking about you and I did what I always do. I flew off the handle. I had no idea about Cody. I knew your breakup with Mitzi was bad but that kind of bad never entered my mind. But you know I’m like that. You know I blow things out of proportion. What you didn’t know was, even if I was wrong, thinking for even a second you’d cheat on your woman would hit me somewhere deep, somewhere that’s been wounded and bloody since I was eleven. You got angry with me for not giving you a shot at explaining. But you didn’t give me that shot either, Hop.”

“You’ve done it, lady, now come inside so we can finish talking this shit out where it’s warm.”

“That isn’t going to happen,” I declared and his head jerked.

“What?”

“I am who I am and I can’t be something else for you. For over a week, I’ve called, texted and sat in the Compound while your brothers knew I was waiting for you, humiliating myself by sitting there, hoping I’d get the chance to make things right with you. They did their best to be nice, it’s their way. But you didn’t give me that shot, they all knew it and I knew it too. You didn’t return a call. You didn’t send back a text. You walked away from me, twice, and just now you saw me and walked into your house without looking at me. You don’t need my drama in your life, Hop? Well, I don’t need a man who can so easily cut me out of his.”

“You didn’t know about Cody, babe, I didn’t know about your dad.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I’ll remind you, you didn’t either.”

“Oh, you don’t have to remind me, Hopper. I remember. God, I remember,” I told him, the words sounding choked in the end so I swallowed as Hop shifted toward me but I took a step away so he stopped.

“This doesn’t work,” I declared.

“Yes, it does,” he contradicted.

“No,” I shook my head. “It doesn’t. We fight all the time.”

“We also fuck all the time.”

He had a point there, just not a good enough one.

“We don’t work,” I stated.

“Baby, the good we got, how can you say that?” he asked.

“I have a week and a half of knowing it, Hop,” I answered. “You cut me out.”

“You fucked up then I fucked up, babe. We’re gettin’ to know each other. That’ll happen and, just a head’s up, even when we got time and experience in, it’ll still happen.”

“You cut me out.”

“I fucked up.”

I leaned in and hissed, “You cut me out,” and he blinked at the sudden harshness of my tone. “Do you have any clue, any fucking clue how much pain I’ve been in? A week and a half, knowing I hurt you like that, knowing I forced you to relive that, knowing I did wrong, calling you, texting you, begging you to let me talk to you, apologizing and you not giving me anything?”

He stepped out on the stoop and I took another step away.

“Lanie, come here,” he urged.

“No.” I moved back another step.

“Goddamn it, Lanie, you’re gonna fall off the fuckin’ stoop,” he growled so I stepped down the two steps and stood on his front walk. “Jesus, lady, just come inside the fuckin’ house.”

“I wanted one night,” I reminded him.

“Lanie, baby—”

“That’s it. One night. But you pushed in, I let you in and now I remember, Hop. I remember what, for seven years, I’ve been guarding against.”

He stepped down. I stepped back.

“You have something, you have something to lose,” I went on, slowly backing up. “You don’t have anything, you have nothing to lose. I didn’t want any part of it but you made me want it then you gave me something and you took it away and reminded me how bad it hurts, how it kills to have something to lose.”

“Please, honey, fuckin’ come inside.”

“We’re done.”

“Take a deep breath, calm the drama, think a second then come the fuck inside.”

I stopped dead, he stopped dead and I pinned him with my eyes.

“This isn’t a drama, Hop. Pay attention. I’m not ranting. I’m not in a tizzy. I’ve given this a lot of thought. Thanks to you, I’ve had a good amount of time to think about it. And we’re done. I don’t need this pain. I’ve had twenty-eight years of living with this kind of pain, watching my mother endure it, and I’m done.”

His face went hard.

“I’m not doin’ to you what your motherfucker of a father is doin’ to your mother,” he growled.

“It’s not the same but it’s still heartbreak,” I returned and, just as quickly as it came, the hardness washed out of his features.

“Do not do this, Lanie.”

“It’s already done. It was done when you got off your bike, walked into your house and broke my heart. Just like my father. You didn’t even have it in you to do it up close and personal.”

He grabbed my arm but, with a savage twist, I pulled away and took two steps back.

“It was good you shielded your kids from what we might have been, Hop. I’ll miss them but they won’t miss me.”

“Jesus, fuck, babe, I’m beggin’ you, come inside.”

“Good-bye, Hop.”

“Baby—”

I turned and ran.

He turned and ran into his house.

He didn’t have his keys.

This was good.

This meant I got a head start and when I hit a motel parking lot, Hop had no idea where I was.

It was only when I was sitting cross-legged on the ratty bedspread did I allow myself to burst into tears.

Two days later…

I sat on my couch, twisted toward Tyra to my left, lifting a bent leg just like hers to rest it on the couch and I sucked back some wine.

Since I gave her the wineglass before I sat down, she’d already had her sip, so when I took my glass from my lips, she was prepared to launch in.

“I don’t blame you.”

I closed my eyes.

“Lanie, honey, look at me.”

I opened my eyes.

She leaned toward me and wrapped her fingers around my thigh. “I don’t blame you for me getting stabbed.”

“I know,” I whispered something I did know but had been denying for insane reasons until that moment I wouldn’t allow myself to get. Understandable fear after what happened that led to irrational guilt that no one gave me any indication I should feel. I just fed off it, or more to the point, let my monster feed on it in a vain and crazy attempt to keep myself safe from ever being hurt again.

“I hope so,” she told me. “Since I told you way back when that I didn’t.”

I drew in breath then confided, “I hear it over and over again in my head.”

Her head tipped to the side and she scooted closer. “You hear what in your head?”

“Our conversation. You telling me to end it with Elliott. You advising me that his getting us kidnapped was a concrete wall you can’t scale when it comes to love. Me telling you—”

“Stop it,” she interrupted, squeezing my thigh.

“I think that’s it, sweetie. I think that was why I couldn’t forgive myself even though you and Tack never blamed me. I think it’s because I play that conversation over and over in my head and it reminds me there was something that needed to be forgiven,” I admitted.

“Honey, you didn’t kidnap and stab me and you have to find some way to get that straight. I don’t know how to stop you playing that conversation in your head,” she stated. “I just know, together, Lanie, we have to find a way to do that.”

I took a sip of wine, my way of being noncommittal. I couldn’t tell her we could do that, since I hadn’t been able to do it for seven years. With this, I’d taken a big step. Who knew how long it would take me to get to the next one.

The day after the break with Hop, I’d called her and told her I was ready to do this. Not surprisingly, she’d told me to tell her when and where and she’d be there.

I gave her the when and where and last night, sleeping at home again, I waited for Hop to show or call.

He didn’t.

It was over.

That killed but I’d survived worse (I told myself) so now it was time to move on with my life. Do this. Fight the monster myself without Hop at my back.

And hope I won.

“I think this all might have to do with, uh… well, me getting you hurt, feeling guilt about it since you told me to dump Eli but also, mostly, that whole thing,” I waved my hand around, sloshing the wine I held dangerously, so I righted it and finished, “in Kansas City.”

“Do you think you need to talk to a professional?” she asked.

I put the wine to my lips, murmuring, “Maybe,” before I took a drink.

Her next question was voiced with hesitancy. “Do you want to talk about Kansas City?”

I didn’t.

Even so, I looked her straight in the eye and declared, “He used me as a shield.”

“I know,” she said so low I could barely here her.

“You know and you knew,” I stated and her head gave a slight jerk of confusion.

“I know and I knew?”

“You know what happened and you knew it would happen. That was what you tried to warn me about.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t know the Mob would find you in—”

“That’s not what I mean,” I cut her off. “You knew, in that situation or any situation in life, Elliott getting involved with the Mob at all stated it clear to you, he would not protect me.”

She sighed before she scooted closer, took another sip of wine, then locked her eyes with mine.

“Yes, I knew. There are some guys, and Elliott was one of them, that just aren’t built that way. Luckily, the Mob doesn’t normally enter someone’s life so they aren’t put to that test. I didn’t know, if it came down to bullets flying, he’d use you to take them for him. I just knew that he made a bad decision on how to invest money. Then, when he lost his money, he made a bad decision on how to get it back, and it just went downhill from there. So, yeah, I knew. But I didn’t love him, Lanie. Tack is the exact opposite of that. He’d fight, kill and die before he let anything happen to me, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t sometimes a pain in my ass. He is. Elliott made it worth it to you in his ways. Tack makes it worth it in his. It’s just the way it is.”

I couldn’t argue with this so I said nothing.

She took another sip of wine before she finished.

“It’s easier to see this stuff clearly when emotion isn’t involved and, remember Lanie, you didn’t want Tack for me in the beginning. You hated him, wanted me to quit and walk away. Pretty much any good girlfriend at that time, before he exposed the man he really is, would say the same thing because they care about their girl, not the guy. They see stuff from the outside, not with emotion coloring everything. Sometimes they’re right, like I was with Elliott. And sometimes they’re wrong, like you were with Tack. But neither of us had all the information. It’s just that you got it all when it was too late.”

That was very true.

I took a sip of my wine then set the glass on my coffee table, dropped my hands in my lap and looked at her.

“I dream of Kansas City.”

Sorrow suffused her face and she whispered, “Oh, Lanie.”

“I see his eyes open and staring at me. He looks surprised. Not just in my dream. When it happened. He was dead but still, he looked surprised.”

She grabbed my hand and squeezed.

“I think he was surprised I didn’t save him.”

I watched the tears start shimmering in her eyes.

“I wanted a man who’d save me,” I confessed.

“Maybe, if you looked, you can find that man,” she suggested.

That wasn’t going to happen.

“I think I need to give that more time,” I evaded.

“Lanie, honey, I want to be sensitive but don’t you think that seven—?” She stopped talking and turned her head just as my eyes shot to the sliding glass doors because we both heard a Harley roar up to the back of my house.

My entire body strung tight.

“Tack knows I have my car and he doesn’t have to come and get me. God, do you think something’s up with the boys?” she asked, setting her wineglass aside, quickly getting up from the couch and hustling to the door.

She was out the door and in the courtyard when I heard the Harley roar away.

I closed my eyes.

It wasn’t Hop.

“How weird was that?” Tyra asked, back in the house, and I looked at her.

“Weird, sweetie,” I agreed.

She walked back to me and sat. “Could swear that bike came right up to your garage but it was gone before I got to the back gate.”

“Maybe bad sat nav directions,” I murmured.

She grabbed her wine. I followed suit.

Again, she got her sip in before I did and thus she could sock it to me.

“Mitch and Brock have a guy they want you to meet.”

“Ty-Ty—”

She shook her head. “I know Tack talked about him with you, he was going to call Mitch about it but maybe things with Tabby got him off track. I’m going to call Mara, get things back on track.”

“This really is too soon,” I told her.

“You wait any longer, honey, it’s going to be too late,” she replied, her voice sweet but firm.

I closed my mouth because she wasn’t wrong. But she also was and I couldn’t explain how.

“Right, I want you to do two things for me,” she started and when I nodded, she continued. “One, think about going to counseling. Even if it’s short-term counseling, get rid of those dreams. Talk to someone about Kansas City. Try to let that go.”

I could do that.

And I should do that.

It was time.

“Okay,” I agreed, then took a sip of wine.

“Second, go on this date with Mitch’s buddy,” she stated, and I nearly choked on my wine.

“Ty-Ty!” I cried when I recovered.

“Not tomorrow, not next week, just let Mitch give him your number. Talk to him on the phone. Get to know him a bit. Then,” she grinned, “maybe the week after that, just meet for coffee. No pressure. Just coffee.”

I stared at her a moment before I suggested, “How about this? You corral Elvira and maybe Gwen and go on a reconnaissance mission. Find this guy, follow him around, get pictures, go through his trash, stuff like that. And, in a month or so, report back to me and I’ll make my decision then.”

“I’m not going through trash,” she replied.

“Get Elvira to do it.”

“Lanie, do you know Elvira? I’ve never seen that woman in jeans. She is not going to wear one of her fabulous dresses and heels and go through trash. Hell, she’s just not going to go through some guy’s trash.”

“Maybe Gwen will,” I kept trying.

Her eyebrows shot up. “Okay, now, do you know Gwen?”

That was true. Gwen wouldn’t do it, either.

“Maybe we could get Gwen to get Hawk to—”

Ty-Ty broke in. “Let Mitch give him your number.”

I ignored her. “Or maybe I could just go and talk to Hawk and Gwen won’t have to—”

“Lanie!” she exclaimed on a laugh. “It’s just giving a guy your number. If you don’t like the sound of his voice or he’s a terrible conversationalist, you don’t even have to have coffee. But let Mitch give him your number.”

She thought I was being crazy mostly because I was but that was my way.

She also didn’t know about Hop. She would. It was just that I figured I’d tell her that later, after we got the tough stuff we were currently processing out of the way.

This all meant that I had no choice.

“All right, tell Mitch to give this guy my number.”

She grinned huge.

I sucked back more wine.

“I’m so glad we did this.”

I stopped sucking back wine at the tone of her voice. It wasn’t smiling. It was thick.

“Ty-Ty, sweetie,” I said softly.

“You don’t cry anymore,” she told me and I blinked.

“What?”

“You used to cry at the drop of a hat. You don’t cry anymore.”

I swallowed before I shared, “I fight it. I… don’t want to be that woman anymore.”

“Nothing wrong with that woman, honey.”

“Crying is weak,” I declared.

“Crying is a release and if you let yourself feel the feelings your mind is telling you to feel rather than fighting them, maybe you could let some of this stuff go.”

This idea held merit so I gave her a small smile

“I’ve been so worried about my girl,” she admitted and I felt the guilt hit me again like a moving brick wall going at the speed of sound.

“I’m a terrible friend,” I announced.

“You’re a woman who went on the lam with her fiancé, watched him die and got shot in the process. That’s big shit to deal with. I let it go on too long. I’m a terrible friend.”

“You didn’t know what to do,” I defended her. “Tack told me, you were torn and didn’t want to set me off.”

“Well, that’s true,” she agreed.

“So I should have noticed you were worried, come to you sooner and ended it,” I stated and she smiled.

“I’m thinking we could talk about who was the worse friend until we’re old and gray,” she said.

“Maybe, but I suggest we don’t since I don’t think this bottle of wine will last that long,” I returned.

She made a choking noise then burst out laughing.

I grabbed her hand, held tight and smiled.

When she stopped laughing, we sipped more wine, then I squeezed her hand until she looked at me.

“I’m going to be okay,” I shared and strangely, the words came out resolved.

I meant it.

I would.

And I knew that because, throughout the conversation, my monster hadn’t made an appearance.

Not once.

I didn’t fool myself it was over. It was just that, the first step was easy so maybe the next ones wouldn’t be so hard.

It was bittersweet to admit that Hop had been right. We talked and Ty-Ty felt better.

So did I.

“I know,” she replied.

She believed in me.

Yes, maybe the next steps wouldn’t be so hard.

“Mostly, I’ll be okay because I’ve got you,” I whispered.

She pressed her lips together.

I lunged toward her and hugged her.

Ty-Ty, my best girl, hugged me back.

Tyra had been gone for five minutes when I heard the Harley pipes pulling up my back alley.

I was standing at the sink, rinsing out the wineglasses and I went still. My eyes slowly moved to the back doors when those pipes stopped in my back drive.

Oh God.

Had it been Hop who came earlier? Did he see Tyra’s car in my drive and ride away?

The answer to these questions came clear when I saw him walk through the gate and into my courtyard.

Oh God!

Damn.

I watched him, eyes on me, walk through my courtyard.

Right. This was okay. I’d locked the door. I always locked the doors. I would ignore him, finish rinsing the wineglasses, turn out the lights, go upstairs and fall apart up there where he couldn’t see.

I turned off the water, set the glass aside and did all of this with my eyes on Hop, who came right to the glass door but didn’t knock. He didn’t call. He crouched, pulling something out of the back pocket of his jeans. Then he worked at the lock.

My mouth dropped open.

I heard the lock click.

My breath caught in my throat.

Wow.

He picked my lock.

He straightened and walked in, sliding the door closed behind him.

I stood staring at him, statue-still.

He took three steps in, stopped and asked, “You talk to Tyra?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“No, babe, did you talk to Tyra?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Good,” he whispered back and God, that whisper, full of pride and relief.

It killed.

I straightened my shoulders. “Hop—”

“Now we gotta talk,” he declared.

I shook my head. “That isn’t happening.”

“Lanie, I gave you some time. Now we gotta sort this shit out.”

Oh. He didn’t show last night because he was giving me time.

That was nice.

And supremely unfortunate because it was too late.

“There’s nothing to sort. It’s over,” I announced.

“Babe,” he leaned toward me, “it isn’t.”

“Hopper,” I leaned toward him, “it is.”

He leaned back and studied me.

Then he said, “What we got, you know, it’s worth gettin’ past this.”

“I know what we have and it isn’t worth that work,” I retorted and his body twitched.

“Come again?”

I threw out a hand. “I know how this goes, Hopper. I’ve been here before. I fall for a guy and he makes stuff about me he doesn’t like clear, and I knock myself out to stop doing that stuff, and I’m not me anymore.”

“You fell for me?”

I clamped my mouth shut.

Hop’s face got soft and he took another step toward me. “We’ll let that go for now and start with the other. What is it you think I don’t like about you?”

“The drama,” I answered.

He grinned. “Babe, I like the drama.”

“You throw it in my face all the time when we’re fighting.”

“And lady, I fuckin’ love it when we fight because I love how we make up and don’t bullshit me, you love it too.”

He wasn’t wrong about that.

“Anyway, I never said I didn’t like it,” he went on.

“You’re always bringing it up.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t like it.”

“Well, I’ll give you some insight. Insight, I’ll note, that you already know with your speech about stuff soaking into women, burning a wound that will never heal. If you mention something, it’s going to be on my mind and since I…” I tried to find the right word that didn’t expose too much, “cared about you, I’d work myself into a tizzy trying to tone it down. Willing to do anything to make sure I don’t drive you away, drive you to do what my dad does to my mom.”

“I’m not your dad,” he returned instantly.

“That doesn’t matter, either, Hopper. It’s just who I am, how I work, what I do,” I shared.

“What your dad does to your mom is not on your mom. It’s on your dad. He’s a dick, he does that to his family and a bigger dick, he does it for decades,” Hop continued like I didn’t speak.

“That’s true. But that’s not the point.”

“Yeah, it fuckin’ is. You think you gotta tone down you so you won’t drive your man to another woman’s pussy. That shit’s whacked, Lanie.”

“Well, it’s how I’ve been conditioned to think.”

“Then stop thinking it.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Then let me help you work that shit out.”

“God!” I cried, throwing up both my hands. I’d tried, I’d really tried to tamp down the drama but he wouldn’t shut up! “Hopper, we don’t work!”

“Lanie, that’s total fuckin’ bullshit and you know it.”

“How, if you look back from start to finish, is any of the mess that was us a good thing? Fighting. Drama. Me pushing you away, you pushing back. You cutting me out then thinking you can just say you fucked up and all would be okay. It’s lunacy.”

“That’s a goddamned relationship, Lanie.”

“Well it hurts,” I hissed. “And I didn’t spend seven fucking years guarding myself from that pain only to have it shoved down my throat!” I ended on a shout.

“Jesus, lady, are you seriously gonna stand there and tell me you don’t remember all the good we had, and there was a lot of good in there, Lanie, good so good it was the best and it totally fuckin’ outweighed the bad in time and importance, and you’re gonna throw us away just because you’re shit scared?”

“Yes, I’m seriously going to stand here and tell you just that, Hop,” I shot back.

“So you’re okay, in taking that away from you, taking it away from me.”

My breath pressed out of my lungs on a wheeze and I stared.

Hop continued.

“On the road groupie pussy. Biker pussy. Fuckin’ Mitzi. I’ve had a lot and some of the women in there, they were good. Fine women. Sweet women. Excellent lays. But never, not in forty fuckin’ years of life, have I had a woman who I felt about like I feel about you. You tell me you care about me and yet, we both fuck up and hurt each other, you won’t make the effort it takes to forgive and get back on track? In doing that, taking away the only shot I’ve ever had in forty fuckin’ years of being genuinely happy?”

I didn’t say anything because I hadn’t thought of it like that and thinking of it like that made the pain I’d been feeling for nearly two weeks unbearable.

So unbearable, it was a wonder I stayed standing.

Unfortunately, I battled the pain too long. It gave Hopper the time to jump to a conclusion.

And Hop, being Hop, did just that.

“I did not fuck around on you. I did not use you to shield me from bullets. I did not lead you to heartbreak. I did none of that shit, Lanie, and you’re makin’ me pay for all your,” he jabbed a finger at me, “mistakes. You wanna stand with an island between us, not touch me in weeks, not talk to me for days and be done, baby? You got it. We’re done.”

My body listed to the side, preparing to go after him, my mouth opening to call his name but he stopped in the opened sliding glass door, turned to me and landed his last blow.

“You know, this reminds me of Mom and my old man. All this bullshit fighting about fuckin’ nothin’, two people just so shit scared of the love they feel for each other, they’d rather drive each other away than take a risk on feeling the fullness of that feeling.” And if that wasn’t enough, then came the coup de grâce. “So I guess that means I didn’t fuckin’ learn after Mitzi.”

Did Hop just kind of say he loved me?

“You love me?” I breathed.

“You’ll never know,” he replied, turned, slid the door to and walked away.