“You brought him up.”
Anson sent me a cold glare. “Do you know what it was like to have him ask me if I wanted to compare notes on how you fucked, Bri?”
Lord, I could only imagine. I shook my head.
“Do you have any idea how that made me feel? Knowing you’ve slept with him?”
“I wasn’t going to wait around for you, Anson. If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else.”
He let out what almost sounded like a growl.
“I read the dedications,” I blurted out, without thinking. “It was a mistake for me not to read them all this time, and I fully admit that. But, Anson, why didn’t you send them to me? If Ida and Pearl read them, why didn’t they tell me to read them?”
“My family wasn’t going to force anything down your throat, Bri. And Grams said she told you that you needed to read the dedication when the first album came out.”
Had she? My mind raced through memories of me and Ida talking about Anson. Lord, there were too many to think about.
“I’m not going to stand here and argue about what I should or shouldn’t have done. But Josh was there for me when I needed someone, and yes, I was with him for all the wrong reasons, so I ended it when I realized he was more serious about us than I was.”
Anson drew his brows in tightly. “What do you mean, you were with him for all the wrong reasons?”
I tossed my hands up in the air. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
“He made me feel…closer to you.”
That had his eyes widening in shock. “He reminded you of me? So, you fucked my best friend and what, thought of me?”
I flinched and took a few steps back.
Suddenly, I felt dirty. Like I had done something wrong. My arms instinctively wrapped around my body, a shield to protect me from the hurt, and I felt my eyes burn with tears I fought to keep back.
“I thought we were over. He was a friend who became something more.”
He nodded. “Did you love him?”
My head jerked up to look at him. “No. I always told him the truth about how I felt. I wasn’t interested in taking the relationship beyond what it was.”
“Sex?”
I sighed. “Can you honestly look me in the eyes and judge me like this? You can stand there and say you never slept with anyone in hopes of forgetting me, if for only a little while? Even when I was with someone else, Anson, you were always there. I loved you even if I was angry and confused about you. So don’t judge me like that unless you’re innocent of doing the same damn thing.”
His hand went to the back of his neck, and he rubbed it. “No. I guess I’m guilty as charged.”
My stomach jerked once more.
I dropped onto the sofa and closed my eyes. The past twelve hours had been too much. I was about to tell Anson I wanted to go home when his cell phone rang.
He walked across the room and picked it up. “Hey, Mom.”
Then his face went white, and I stood.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
The fear in his voice had me wringing my hands together.
“I’m on my way home.” Anson ended the call and then rushed over to his bag. “I need to leave. My mother took my father to Peterson Regional ER. He’s having chest pains.”
Bristol
ALMOST A WEEK had passed by since I last saw Anson. He had sent me a few text messages to tell me his father had been discharged. It wasn’t a heart attack, thank goodness. The other texts were short. He asked how I was. Then, that was it. Nothing else from him.
As I watered the flowers outside the tea room and my house, I tried not to think of that night we spent together. Or how he hadn’t called me to talk about that night or about anything else. Coincidentally, since that night with Anson, Josh had the nerve to stop by the tea room to apologize for what he’d said to Anson. I politely asked him to leave and to not bother texting or calling me ever again.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out while trying not to get myself wet from the water hose.
Mindy: We have to talk.
Me: About?
Mindy: I’m walking down your way, give me a bit to get there.
Me: Sounds good, see you soon.
I finished up watering the plants, then made my way into the tea room. I turned off all the lights, made sure everything was ready for tomorrow, and headed back out.
As I locked the door, I heard Mindy’s hello from behind me.
“Hey! You look amazing,” I said as I made my way down the steps of the tea room and hugged my best friend.