Almost as much as it pained me to look at his mother.
***
“Hadley looked great,” Evan said later that night.
“Yeah, she did,” Jared agreed with him.
We were at my parent's house after dinner. It was just the three of us, sitting around and drinking Scotch after my parents had gone to bed. We were on the patio, enjoying the cool early summer breeze. Before long, it would get warmer, though thankfully not too warm here in Colorado. Given the fresh air and cool temperatures, this was my favorite time of year. Warmer days, less snow on the ground, and nights that still held a bit of crispness to them. It was one of the reasons I had no desire to leave the area, even though my business was booming in other parts of the world.
That, and of course, it would mean leaving my brothers. My family was the most important thing to me. It was rare that the three of us got together, all in one place, these days. We all had our own lives and our own careers going, but we stayed in touch with group texts and phone calls as much as we could and relished a time to get together like tonight. I didn't say anything, and I hoped the conversation would move beyond Hadley. I'd had enough and was on Hadley overload. I sipped my Scotch and stared out at the trees surrounding the property.
“Think she'd be interested in dating another Walker brother?” Jared teased.
My gaze flicked over to him, something like irritation flashing through me, and he noticed. He smirked at me in response. Everyone knew that Hadley was the One Who Got Away for me, even though I tried to deny that I still had any feelings at all for her.
“Why don't you ask her out sometime?” I responded dryly.
“Maybe I will,” Jared said. “Take her to the bar, show her a good time.”
“She doesn't strike me as a nightclub type of person anymore,” Evan said.
Jared shrugged. “She just needs to let loose a bit,” he said. “Needs a little motivation to step out of her mommy role.”
“Yeah. Good luck with that,” I said, focusing on my now almost empty glass.
I stood up and headed back inside for a refill while my brothers talked amongst themselves in hushed tones. They were trying to keep it down, but I still heard every damn word they said.
Evan was scolding Jared, “Man, you know he's still got feelings for her.”
“No, I don't,” I called out, glaring at them from the other side of the patio door. “Seriously, go for it, Jared. You too, Evan. If you think she's so hot, go for it. I'll personally congratulate the winner of this little game.”
“It's not a game,” Evan said. He stood and came toward me, shaking his head. “Hadley is Chris's wife. She has his kid. She deserves better than that.”
He was right. She did. I shook my head and continued making my drink. My parent's house had a nice mini bar in the living room, right beside the patio. I stopped there and poured another drink, filling my glass almost to the brim this time. All this talk of Hadley was driving
me to drinking. It had been a long time since my brothers goaded me about her – mostly because she'd been married. They also knew she was a sore spot with me and were usually kind about fucking with me.
“Listen, man,” Evan said, sidling up beside me and pouring himself another glass, “Jared doesn't mean the shit he's saying.”
“And I don't give a damn if he does,” I said.
Evan sighed. “Gabe, we all know you never got over her.”
“That's not true,” I countered. “I was engaged to Jessica for a while, wasn't I?”
“Yeah, after dating her for two whole months. We all knew that one wouldn't last,” he laughed. “You were just kidding yourself.”
My body stiffened. Jessica and I had seemed like we'd be perfect together – at least, we did on paper. Both of us were Ivy League grads. Both of us came from good families. She was beautiful, intelligent, sexy as hell – she was everything most men would want in a woman. She just wasn't Hadley. It had been too soon for me, and I'd moved too fast. An overreaction to the emotional ass-kicking I'd just taken.
Hadley had just married Chris and I’d realized my dreams of being with her were gone. Knowing that the dream was over, never to be revived again, I'd gone all in with Jessica. We'd hardly known each other when I first proposed to her, but it was a whirlwind of emotions that, at the time, felt a lot like love. Little had I know, she was only interested in my money and I was only interested in trying to numb the pain from the wound Hadley had inflicted upon me.
I took a long, hard swallow of the Scotch and walked back out toward the patio. No need to re-hash the past. Evan was right on my heels though, continuing to pepper me with questions.
“So how long has it been since you've dated anyone else?” he asked.
“I'm busy, with work,” I said. “I don't have time for dating.”
“Or is it because no one meets your impossibly high standards and expectations?” Evan said with a smirk.