just believe there was more between you two than friendship.”
I growled. “He would have told me.” I smacked the flat of my hand on the table and my dad glared at me.
“No, son, he wouldn’t have. Remy struggled with it. He struggled with who he was supposed to be versus who everyone else thought he was, and that’s not something you’ve ever done. You’ve always owned you, and screw anyone who didn’t like it.”
I looked at Shaw and then at the table. I had tried to change for her and it had been an epic failure. I climbed to my feet again and let my gaze fall on my mom.
“I don’t understand why you’ve never been able to love me the way I am when you obviously had the capacity to love him regardless of his choice not to tell everyone the truth. He lied to all of us for years. It just doesn’t make sense. I need to get out of here.”
“I’m with you.” Rome looked as wild as I was feeling on the inside. I looked down when a soft hand clasped around my forearm. I flinched involuntarily and I think I actually saw her heartbreak in her eyes.
“Rule.” Her voice was a broken whisper. “I’m sorry.” She let me go and I almost couldn’t talk over the lump in my throat.
“I understand what you meant about those closest to you hurting you the most now. I’ll be in touch.” But as Rome and I hurried out of the restaurant, I wasn’t sure I was telling her the truth and I refused to think about how much walking away from her like this hurt.
CHAPTER 16
Shaw
It had been three weeks, give or take a day, with no contact from Rule. No text messages, no phone calls, no emails, no carrier pigeons, just a whole lot of silence and heartbreak on my end. Rome hadn’t even returned my calls or texts telling him good-bye and that I would miss him while he was gone. He left for the desert mad at me, and as upsetting as that was, the daily battle I had with myself about whether to call Rule and beg him to forgive me was soul crushing. I wanted to plead with him to understand that it was never my secret to tell regardless of our relationship. Ayden kept saying he would cool off and come around while Margot and Dale firmly believed he wasn’t going to speak to any of us ever again. They were in the same boat as me; neither of the boys was speaking to them, and Margot had nearly had a nervous breakdown when Rome had refused to allow them to drive him down to Fort Carson for his send-off. Instead, the brothers went together, leaving the rest of us out in the cold.
I was hurting but I was also sick and tired of my love and affection not being enough for anybody. I had loved Rule longer and harder than anyone else in my life and that still wasn’t enough for him to look beyond his own hurt feelings and sense of betrayal to work things out with me. I was still pissed that he had spent the week prior to the bomb being dropped trying to act and behave in a way I had never asked for or wanted, but when I was alone at night and crying in bed I had to admit that it was a sweet—if misguided—gesture. I remembered telling him to be aware of how bad things could be if we tried to do this and it didn’t work. Somehow, even finding him in bed time and time again with every skanky girl this side of the Platte River couldn’t hold a candle to this complete freeze-out.
I tried really hard not to worry about what he was doing or who he was doing it with, but every day that passed I became more and more fatalistic. Whatever he had felt for me wasn’t enough to get him past the hurt he was feeling, and it obviously came nowhere near the heart-wrenching emotion I felt for him. As much as it pained me to let it go, I had to get over him. I had to work at moving on because, even if he did get back in touch with me, there was just too great a chance he had relapsed into his old ways, and there was simply no way I would survive that kind of betrayal from someone I cared so deeply about. So instead of languishing, I forced a smile every day, picked back up the shifts I had dropped at work, threw myself into my studies, and spent as much time as I could with Ayden and Cora. I was careful around Cora to give nothing away and she was just as careful to never, ever mention Rule or anything having to do with him.
To say my parents were excited that Rule was no longer in the picture was an understatement. Unfortunately, I had let it slip that we were no longer seeing each other during a less-than-friendly conversation with my mom. My dad was so happy he took my newly repainted BMW and traded it in for a Porsche Cayenne because I had mentioned wanting an SUV for the snow. I tried to refuse it. I didn’t need to be bribed, considering Rule had effectively left me, but the title was in my name and the BMW was already gone, so I reluctantly accepted it. My mom was even worse. She called every day to check on me. The woman who had never had the time of day for me was suddenly overly interested in everything I did and everyone I spent time with. I think she was trying to subtly let me know that as long as I kept unsavory characters out my life, I would eventually gain her approval.
The funny thing was now that Rule was gone, I didn’t want it. I would have taken being disowned and disinherited a million times over if it meant I could just get him to talk to me, just get him to feel one-half of what I had always felt for him. I think my disinterest made both my parents nervous. They were so used to dangling approval and acceptance in front of me like a golden carrot, they didn’t know what to do now that it held no appeal for me. Having the power now should have felt exhilarating, but instead it just left me hollow. I should have fought them sooner. I should have felt this way as soon as Rule and I started whatever it was we had been doing. I had wasted so much time, and it just piled more sadness and regret on top of what I was already managing.
“Thanks, Lou.” I gave him one of the strained smiles that I was becoming a pro at and let him scoop me up in a bear hug as he walked me to my car after my shift. I hadn’t heard a word from Gabe in weeks, but it made me feel better to know someone cared enough to make sure I was safe, so I never turned Lou down when he offered to see me to my car. This was an odd night on for me, meaning I had just picked up a shift because one of the girls was sick, so Ayden wasn’t working and I was alone. In fact, my roommate seemed to have shaken out of her funk and was on a date with a very cute physics major who just happened to be as different from a rock-and-roller as one could get. She had gone out with him twice this week and seemed a little more like her old self. I was happy for her even if it meant one more night I spent wallowing in misery by myself. No one said the road to recovery was pretty, after all.
Lou set me back on my feet and gave me a peck on the forehead. “I miss that young man of yours, Shaw. He was a smartass, but a good kid.”
I sighed because I kept having this same conversation with Lou. “I know. I miss him, too.”
“Take care, girly.”
“I always try.”
My new car was awesome; I’m not going to lie. It purred like all good sports cars should, but had no trouble navigating the icy downtown streets as I made my way across town to my apartment. I listened to the Avett Brothers sing me sad songs about broken hearts all the way. It was well after midnight on a weekday, so there wasn’t really anybody out on the road. A dog barked somewhere, it was cold and dark, and I shivered involuntarily. I hated this part of the drive home; it just hammered home the fact that I was really and truly on my own now. I was lucky to get a spot right in front of the building and sprinted to the security door because my uniform wasn’t meant to be worn outside at the tail end of a Denver winter. I heard the familiar click of the lock when I punched in my code, and ran inside.
I blew a warm breath on my fingers and dug around in my purse for my house keys, since I still hadn’t added the new key for my SUV to the set. Normally, I had them out and ready to go, but lately I had been so distracted by all the noise in my head and the heavy weight in my chest,
