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“Hi Sherry! You look lovely today,” he said in passing, not even attempting to make eye contact. Smart.
“Shut it, Wyatt.”
“You got it,” he said, chancing a glance at me before taking off.
“What do you want, Sher?” I feigned indifference, which only made her face mottle more.
The natural pink hue of her cheeks turned a violent red. “I want to kick your ass.”
I held my arms out. “Take your best shot.”
She clenched her fists. “Don’t tempt me.”
I stayed in position, waiting… even hoping she’d take her best shot. I deserved it.
“You hurt her,” she said, and the pain for her best friend was so evident in those three words that it made me hate myself more. “Not only that… You gave me no warning about what I was walking into. I showed up with a change of clothes when she really needed coffee and a punching bag.” She poked my chest hard… but not hard enough. “You hurt her. Why?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You never mean to.”
“You know what, Sher? There is nothing you can say to me that will make me feel worse than I already do. Okay? So save your breath. You’re wasting your time. I fucked up. I know I fucked up. I should have stayed.”
“Should have stayed? You never should have slept with her.”
I shook my head. “I’ll never regret that.”
Her light brown eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. Pinky swear it.”
I held up my pinky and she didn’t even acknowledge the lone digit. I dropped my hand to my side.
“Okay, let’s think this through,” she said. “Say you did stay, then what?”
I had thought about it over and over. If I would have just held Lainey tighter and went back to sleep, she could have woken in my arms. We could have gone for round three, showered together… I could have got us coffee while she did her hair and makeup, then watched her while she finished up. We could have gone to the mechanic together and driven back like we were supposed to.
“We could have had a nice morning,” I said.
“And after that? After you two got back to Vine Valley, huh? Were you thinking you would go your separate ways amicably and go on like nothing happened, or do you think you’d start seeing each other? We both know you are incapable of relationships, and you would hurt her, anyway. So by staying, you would have prolonged the inevitable.”
My lips parted, the argument at the ready, but what the hell did I have to argue? Sherry was right. I wasn’t boyfriend material, that was damn sure. So where did that leave Lainey and me? Friends with benefits? That’s not something Lainey would go for, and she shouldn’t. She deserved better than that. She deserved someone who could love her.
So why did the thought of her meeting someone who could give her everything she deserved feel like I’d been sucker-punched by one of my brothers?
I didn’t want a relationship, but I didn’t want anyone else to have her. What kind of fucked up shit was that? I swept my hand over my hair, trying to find stability in a world that felt like it was knocking me on my ass.
“That’s what I thought,” Sherry said before turning away. She didn’t even look to see if I had something to add. She knew I didn’t.
I wanted to run after her and make her realize what Lainey and I shared was special to me, but Sherry wasn’t the one who needed to hear that.
The only person who needed to hear anything was Lainey.
I hurried my ass into the tasting room and went about my day. It was relatively quiet, which gave me time to think about Arthur’s scarecrow display and how I was going to make it all come together.
As the weather cooled and summer officially shifted into fall, the leaf peeping crowd donning their flannel shirts and desire for that fall fun day would ascend on our town. The tasting room would boom even on a random Wednesday.
Unfortunately, those crowds were still a week or two away, and I was stuck with my own thoughts. Arthur’s project was a nice distraction, but even my creative process wasn’t strong enough to block my night with Lainey out of my mind.
