I’d ignored them both.
I wasn’t compromising the future I wanted for anyone. Not ever again. Earlier this week, I’d dropped off an application at a car dealership. I wanted a job in the garage, but they offered me a sales position.
I accepted it.
I could talk, and better yet, I was an asset because I understood what was wrong with any trade-in someone drove into the lot. I proved it when I identified what was wrong with a transmission just by hearing the grinding/humming sound it made.
Since I’d said yes to Lassiter’s GMC, I turned in my notice as busboy to Devlin and compartmentalized my breakup with Tasha as best I could. It helped to lump Brooke and Tasha together in my head, but it was a coping mechanism. They might’ve both hailed from wealthy families, but that’s where the similarities ended.
The paint scrapes on the fire hydrant seemed to morph into a wailing face. I wondered if Brooke would have stuck around through my injuries. But I knew.
She wouldn’t have.
Before she’d been knocked up by some other guy, she’d had her sights set on a future with a specific time line. I tried to wedge myself into her life even though part of me knew it wasn’t where I fit.
A new thought intruded, one I didn’t like. A voice suggesting I was in the wrong when it came to Tasha. Had I overreacted? Had I let my temper over the past speak for me when I accused her of plotting against me?
No. That was stupid. I’d had every right to stand up for myself. To be myself.
Right?
“Y-yes,” I said aloud.
My lie detector seemed to be back in business. That was the first stumble I’d had in weeks.
Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no such thing as a telltale stammer.
“I don’t c-care about T-Tasha,” I ground out. I gripped the steering wheel, the water causing my hands to slide.
I tipped my head back and let the rain splatter on my face as my eyelids fluttered. Then I tried something else. I tried the truth.
“I love her,” I said, blinking as a raindrop hit my eye. My chest tightened in that way it does when you realize you really, really screwed up. “I love Tasha Montgomery.”
Damn. I fucking knew it.
I had been so determined to hold on to my being right and Tasha being wrong. I was good at holding grudges. Skilled at staying angry. And for what? I had only succeeded in making myself completely miserable. Not bothering to put the top up, I put Ice Blue in gear and navigated around the same corner where I’d wiped out one frigid, bleak, winter night.
The same night Tasha sat with me until the ambulance arrived, and then followed it to the hospital.
If I was lucky—probable, given my track record—Tasha had a forgiving heart and would let me come back to her.
But I knew her. She’d been burned before by Tony and there at the end I hadn’t treated her well either. Getting her back was going to take some groveling on my part. And maybe a little public humiliation.
“I can do that,” I said, blowing through a green light, needle-tipped raindrops hitting me in the face as I pointed Ice Blue toward my destination.
Not giving a shit about my reputation, or if I stuttered out every word I tried to say to her, I drove straight to Ridgeway University, formulating a plan on the way.