Sweet Ache

Before I even look through the peephole, I’m mad at myself for wanting it to be Hawke and then I’m confused because even if it was, I wouldn’t respond anyway. Or maybe I would give in once I saw him face-to-face. I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m surprised at who stands on my porch.

Through the lens of the peephole I take in his buttoned-up shirt and clean-shaven face before unlocking the door and opening it. “Hi?”

“Hey, Quin,” Vince says cautiously, eyes studying my reaction to his unexpected appearance. “Sorry for just showing up, but … I got your address from Hawke’s phone….” His voice fades off midexplanation, and I can see him trying to figure out how to say whatever he’s come to say. He’s obviously uncomfortable, and I’m unsure whether it’s because he’s here clearly butting into Hawke’s and my business or because he saw me naked and coming the other night.

I definitely know the reason why I’m shifting my feet back and forth in unease.

“You clean up nice. Hot date?” I ask to try to break up the awkwardness, and no sooner than the words are out of my mouth does it dawn on me why he’s dressed so nicely. “I … Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay. This was a knee-jerk thing to do on the way to the courthouse … but I had to say some things to you.” The gravity in his tone is unexpected and has me immediately curious.

“Come in.”

“Just for a minute,” he says as he walks past me. I lead him into the family room, watching him check everything out. “Nice place you got here.”

“Thanks. Is there anything I can get you?” I ask, manners prevailing despite suddenly being nervous.

“Nah,” he says, but remains standing when I motion for him to sit. We stand, staring at each other for a moment. “Look, I don’t even know where to start other than to say I’m really sorry.” He blows out a breath and goes to run his fingers through his hair but stops when he remembers it’s stiff with gel. “The whole bet thing … at first it was a joke … and then as I started seeing how Hawke was being with you … I kind of forced the issue to try to make him see shit about himself…. It was too convenient—you being there was too convenient and made it easier for me to force the issue. I … Shit, I’m sorry.” Despite his fast-paced ramble, his last words are barely audible, but the regret laced with shame in his voice tugs at parts of me. So many questions whirl and race through my mind, and there’s a tangled mix of emotions that I can’t put my finger on except for one: anger.

“So … he’s not getting any response from me so he sends you to do his dirty work for him?” I know it comes off bitchy, but I can’t help it, he’s at fault here too. He just confessed to using me and I’m supposed to sit here and kumbaya with him? Best friends like Vince, like Layla, go to bat for you, so how is this any different?

“No,” he says quietly, his eyes pleading for me to listen. “He has no clue that I’m even here.”

And why should I believe that? “What was the bet? How’d it come about?” I need to hear it from him so I can use the words as a validation for the anger I’m harboring and to withhold the forgiveness I feel.

He looks down at the floor for a moment and then back up. “It was after the first lecture. You’d given Hawke a run for his money, and I teased him that you might be the first woman he’s ever met that would turn him down. He had a knee-jerk reaction, said bet me. I’d recently lost a really crappy bet so I took the chance to brand him with that ridiculous heart for once, betting him that he couldn’t sleep with you by the last day of the seminar. Due to a bet I lost where there was no proof, he jokingly offered for me to join in if I was so desperate for it … so I agreed.” He looks at me sheepishly.

I take the damn piece of paper I’m holding crumpled in my hand and toss it into the trash can. The decision to not flatten it out, see where I stand, was just made that much easier.

I force a swallow down my suddenly dry throat; I hate hearing the details but need to all the same to reinforce my resolve. How I felt then, how I feel now, and the tears I feared would come if Colton hugged me, all come barreling down on me. Consumed by my thoughts, it takes a moment for me to come to the here and now, to Vince standing before me trying to see how the confession sits with me.

“Quin … I used you and I’m an asshole for it.”

“You can say that again.” Sarcasm thickens my voice.

I expect him to argue but he just nods his head and wins a few points with me. “Here’s the thing though—I saw something in Hawke that I’ve never seen before when he was around you. He’s spent his whole life living by whatever his dad made him say that damn day … always pushed anyone away when they got too close and yet with you he struggles with it. It was like something about you made him question himself, question the fucked-up shit in his head,” he says and a part of me stands up at attention, allows me to know that Hawkin did in fact care about me somehow, some way.

It’s bittersweet. It pisses me off. And it makes me miss him that much more.

And it makes it that much harder to deny that damn piece of paper is out of the trash can, still balled up, but with new significance.

“I screwed this up in so many ways—”

“Look, I get that you’re protecting Hawke, but he’s a big boy, he can make his own amends,” I cut him off, using anger to fuel my bravado, and at the same time realizing that I’m the one shutting Hawke and his attempts down, that he has tried to explain. Talk about an emotional clusterfuck.