Bittersweet Catastrophe (Second Chances #2.5) Page 11

  “Um…” Lance looked down at the amber liquid and noticeably cringed. “I don’t think you’re catching my drift, Shayne.”

  Just then, I heard the rumble of Hunter’s motorcycle pulling up out front. The door swung open, bouncing against the wall with a loud crack, and before I could offer him a shot, his fist was flying straight into my face. I outweighed him by a good thirty pounds, but with the state I was in, he knocked me clean on my ass. It took a moment for the room to stop spinning before I could get back on my feet.

  “What the fuck was that for?!” I reached up and felt the skin just above my brow was split. “Do you make a habit of coming in here, guns blazing, and knocking the shit out the first person you see? Fuck!”

  “No, but I do make a habit of letting assholes like you get what’s coming to them.” He shook his hand out, and I could see my blood smeared across his knuckles. Or maybe it was his. I couldn’t be sure, but I wasn’t going to wait around for him to land another hit in on me. I lunged for him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, and connected my fist with the smug grin plastered across his face. We got a few more punches in before the rest of the peanut gallery decided to step in and pull us apart.

  “Jesus Christ, knock it the fuck off, guys, before I throw you both out.” Brett pulled my arms behind my back while Robbie grabbed a hold of Hunter. Once we were finally separated, Maddie came running toward the bar with tears streaming down her face. Oh Jesus, what now?

  “Oh my God! What did you do to each other?!” She took Hunter’s face in her hands and dabbed at the blood caked in the corner of his mouth. “I told you not to go after him! You couldn’t let the past stay in the past, could you? Now you’ve gone and made things worse!” She cried harder, which pissed me off even more.

  “I’m sorry, babe, but I couldn’t let him get away with that.” Hunter swept her hair away from her eyes and kissed her nose, but his glare easily reached me over the top of her head.

  “Look, this is all very touching, but would someone care to explain why I’m sitting here with my eye swelling shut and blood pouring out of my nose, when all I came in for was a fucking drink?” Brett grabbed a clean towel from behind the bar, passing it over to me, and I held it up to my nose. Shit, there really was a lot of blood. “Well?”

  “He knows, Shayne.” Her voice lowered.

  “Knows…?”

  “About you…and the abortion.”

  “Wait…hold up.” I held my hand up in front of me and couldn’t hold back the laugh bubbling up inside of me. “You mean to tell me that you had his kid, married him, and not once during the course of your relationship did it occur to you that maybe you should’ve told him that? Wow, you really are a steel trap, Maddie.” I clapped my hands together slowly.

  “Shayne!” Maddie screeched.

  ‘’Watch it, Thompson.” Hunter made a move to get up, but Robbie held him back.

  “Shayne, he knew about that, but he didn’t know it was you. I never told him who it was that got me pregnant all those years ago.”

  “Yeah, well that makes two of us, huh?” I threw my head back, laughing a little louder. “I guess that’s water under the bridge though, right? We’re all one big happy fucking family now.”

  “Why are you acting like this?” She leaned forward and scrunched up her nose. “And why do you smell like you bathed in liquor? God, you reek!”

  “Maddie, maybe now isn’t the best time…” Brett chimed in, but Maddie wasn’t having it.

  “No, I want him to answer me. I came all the way down here to stop Hunter from making a huge mistake, and the least he could do is be a bit more grateful.”

  “Too little, too late, sweetheart,” I snapped back at her.

  Her jaw just about hit the floor, and then Brett spoke the words I hadn’t had a chance to yet. “Maddie…Liberty has cancer.” His face fell, and I knew it pained him just as much to say it.

  “What?” Her eyes flickered over to me, wide as saucers, and it wasn’t long before they were pooling with unshed tears. “No. No, you’re wrong. Sh-she can’t. She’s only twenty-two, Shayne. This has to be a mistake.” She shook her head, unwilling to believe there was any truth behind Brett’s admission. “Maybe…maybe she just needs a second opinion. You know, p-people get second opinions all the time, and it turns out to be nothing. I’m sure it’s–”

  “It’s cancer,” I said, confirming Brett’s words. She continued to shake her head in disbelief, and I moved toward her tentatively. “We just found out for sure today. She’s still in the earliest stage, and it hasn’t actually developed into cancer just yet, but it will.” I took a deep, cleansing breath. “And she’s decided to forego treatment for now, at least until the babies are born.”

  “She…she what? Why would she do that?” She grabbed her keys, ready to make a beeline for the door. “I need to get over there. Maybe I can talk some sense into her.”

  “Better you than me. I’m pretty sure she can’t stand the sight of me right now.” I sank back down on the empty stool and grabbed another shot, hoping that one more might help me forget this day had ever happened. Maddie reached for my arm before the liquor hit my lips, and her gentle eyes did me in.

  “I’m so sorry, Shayne.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me in for a tight hug. She was pretty strong for such a tiny thing, but her strength was exactly what I needed right now. Sometimes being a man meant shoving aside your pride and allowing others to carry the weight of the world for you, and I had to admit I was running on nothing but fumes here. If this was just the beginning, how was I supposed to stand by and watch the only woman I’ve ever loved disappear before my very eyes?

  Maddie kissed my cheek, releasing her arms from my neck, and she smiled sadly. “Do you want me to give you a ride home?”

  “He can crash with me tonight. She shouldn’t have to deal with his sorry, drunk ass anyway.” Brett turned his attention to me and smirked. “You’re welcome.”

  “All right. I’ll let ya’ll know if anything happens.” She moved over to Hunter, stretching up on her toes, and crushed her lips against his. “And you…behave yourself.”

  Hunter grinned and drew a cross over his heart. “Always.”

  Maddie rushed out the door, leaving us men behind to clean up the mess we’d made. While Brett, Robbie, and Lance got down to business, Hunter pulled me aside. “Shit, man. I’m sorry about the way I handled that, but you gotta understand where I’m coming from. My wife tells me you’re the reason she went through with the abortion all those years ago, and something in me just snapped. I couldn’t let go. I felt this need to protect what’s mine.”

  I knew exactly how that felt, because here I was trying to protect what’s mine from something that could ultimately rip her away from me. “I should be pissed at you, but to be honest, I probably would’ve done the same thing if I was in your shoes. And just for the record, I didn’t know she’d gotten pregnant or had an abortion until Liberty came into my life. Maddie and I hadn’t really spoken since the night we’d hooked up. It was a one-time thing, and we never crossed paths after that. I feel terrible that she had to go through that all on her own, but if you’d known me back then, I wasn’t exactly father-like material. I’m sorry you had to hear about it like this, man.”

  “Truce?” He extended his hand out to me, but I shook my head and shoved it aside.

  “There’s no need for a truce. I saw this coming from a mile away, but I figured she would have told you sooner.”

  “Regardless, I shouldn’t have come at you like that, especially with the shit ya’ll are going through now. I don’t know how you’re even keeping it together, man. I’d be a fucking mess.”

  He had no idea.

  I was hanging on by a thread here.

  Waking up the next morning with the sun peeking through the curtains and threatening to singe my eyelids, I cursed myself for stepping foot in that restaurant last night. I slowly peeled my lips apart and tasted remnants of Jack and John
ny, causing my stomach to roll. “Ugh, those fucking assholes”, I groaned, mentally flipping off the bottles of liquor that had gotten me into this mess.

  I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and kicked back the blankets, only to find I wasn’t in my bed, and Liberty wasn’t by my side. Thinking back to how I’d ended up here was fuzzy at best, but as I stood and took in my surroundings, it all came flooding back to me. Fuck me. What was I doing? Did I really walk out on Liberty like that? I needed to fix this…now.

  Luckily, I had just the plan, but I needed a little help from an unlikely friend.

  Once I managed to get to my feet without stumbling over myself, I ran my hand over my face, sloppily wiping the sleep from my eyes, and followed the smell of grease frying. I propped myself against the wall leading to the kitchen and finally let the corners of my mouth turn up. “Mornin’, Betty Crocker.”

  Brett turned around, wearing nothing but a pair of black basketball shorts and a frilly pink apron, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek not to laugh. “Well, look who decided to join the land of the living? How ya feeling?”

  “Like shit.”

  “Yeah, I figured as much.” He nodded. “You’ll feel better once you get some grease in ya.”

  I sank down into a chair across from him and waved my hand up and down enthusiastically. “So is this your usual cooking attire? ‘Cause I must say, the pink is very fitting, and the lace…nice touch, bro.”

  He flipped another piece of bacon and cocked his head to the side, looking over his shoulder. “I’ll have you know that Iris has a matching apron, and we wear them when we bake cookies together.” His grin spread wide. “Got a problem with it, you take it up with the little princess.”

  I smiled, imagining him cooking with his niece, and then it got me back to thinking about why I was really here. Brett set a plate piled high with toast, bacon, sausage, and home-fried potatoes in front of me, and though my stomach continued to churn, I had to admit I was pretty damn hungry. Besides, I wasn’t one to turn down a free meal. “Shit, man. If I knew you cooked like this, I’d be coming around more often.”

  “I doubt that.” He smirked and went back to making up a plate for himself.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.” I cleared my throat, getting straight to the point. “So, in all seriousness…I have a favor to ask of you.”

  He snorted out a laugh and began pouring a mug of coffee. “This should be good.”

  “I need you to talk to Liberty.”

  “You need me to talk to her?” he stressed, shooting me a questioning look. “Maddie already went over there last night. I don’t know how much more help I’d be.”

  “Brett, if she’s going to listen to anyone, it’d be you. You guys have some weird bond that I’ll never understand, but for some reason, she trusts you like you’re her own brother, and that’s something I can’t give her right now.”

  “I don’t know. I feel like this isn’t something I should get in the middle of –”

  “Do you love her?”

  That seemed to catch him off guard. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, and ran his hands vigorously through his short blonde hair. I already knew his answer, but I wanted to hear it straight from him. “C’mon, Shayne. You know you don’t want to hear this. It’s only going to stir shit up, and you’ve got enough on your plate as it is.”

  “Just answer the question.” My expression softened. “Do you love her?”

  Brett released a heavy sign and slowly nodded with a shrug. “You know I do.”

  “Then do me this one favor. For her. If you ever truly loved her, and I believe that you do because you wear your fucking heart on your sleeve for everyone to see, then talk to her. Please.” I paused, choosing my words wisely. “Otherwise, we might both end up losing her.”

  Brett sat back, lacing his hands behind his neck, and stared up at the ceiling. His breaths were slow and measured, and I knew I’d finally broken through to him. “Fine, but if I do this for you, you need to stop giving me dirty looks every time I come within ten feet of her. She’s one of my best friends, and just because I can’t have her doesn’t mean I love her any less.”

  “I think I can manage that,” I answered genuinely. “As long as you stop drooling like a damn bitch in heat whenever you’re around her. I mean seriously, dude, she’s my wife. It’s getting kinda weird.”

  It was. It really was.

  “Oh, come on, don’t you think you’re exaggerating a bit?”

  Stretching back in my chair, I folded my arms across my chest and, with an eyebrow raised, gave him a look that clearly showed I wasn’t amused.

  Brett threw his head back laughing, but conceded. “All right, all right. I think I can handle toning it down a smidge.” He finished scarfing down his breakfast and set the dishes in the sink. “Why don’t you grab a shower, and I’ll drop you off at the restaurant to pick up your Jeep before we meet up at your place.” He started to walk past me, but stopped short and turned back with his nose wrinkling in disgust. “On second thought, maybe I should just take you out back and hose you off.”

  I laughed. Considering the amount I drank last night, I must’ve smelled like death. “That bad?”

  “Bro, I don’t think tomato juice would even help at this point, and that’s saying something.”

  “Glad I can always count on you to be brutally honest with me.” I squeezed his shoulder and started making my way back to the spare bedroom, but not before I caught him noticeably cringing out of my periphery.

  “Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s burn the bed sheets, too.”

  I huffed out a laugh. Dick.

  Standing there, staring at the same blue door that I’d passed through so many times before, I felt my heart begin to thunder violently in my chest. Fuck, this was bad. I couldn’t even bring myself to enter my own house. We’d been pacing out there for nearly ten minutes, and as I replayed everything I’d planned on saying to Liberty, suddenly none of it seemed right. There were no words that could ever erase the look of sheer pain that came across her face when I walked out that door, and that image continued to flash through my mind like a broken record.

  “You gotta face the music sometime, man.” Brett sighed, flicking paint chips off the porch railing.

  Easier said than done. I drew in a long, healing breath and turned the handle. The house was dark, daylight just barely peeking in through the blinds, and apart from the soft whimpers coming from the end of the hall, the place appeared to be empty. I set my keys and wallet down on the end table and motioned for Brett to come in. He did so…hesistantly.

  I rapped my knuckles lightly against the bedroom door, and the whimpers suddenly came to a brief halt. Feet shuffled on the other side, and when Maddie appeared through the thin slit of the door, I noticed her eyes were bloodshot and listless. Her gaze fell back on Liberty, and I peeked in, only to find that she was lying on the bed with her back to me, trembling. Maddie stepped out, quietly shutting the door behind her, and the sudden change in her demeanor was evident. She wasn’t happy with me. In fact, she looked downright pissed.

  “Has she been like this all night?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.

  “Yeah, no thanks to you!” she shouted just above a whisper. “How could you say those things to her, Shayne? She’s been nothing but over the moon since she found out about the twins, and then you had to go fuck things up!”

  “I know, and I’m going to fix it.”

  “Yeah, well, you better.” Her anger began to dissipate, and tears pooled in her eyes. “I’ve never seen her like this. She hasn’t stopped crying or calling out for you since I got here. Honestly, I think she’s more upset that you never came home last night.”

  I nodded, hit with the realization that, by staying away, I was only hurting Liberty more. Now more than ever, she needed my love and support, and instead of hearing her out and trying to understand the choice she had made, I went running for the hills like a fuck
ing coward.

  I had to make this right…but not before making one last attempt to change her mind.

  Brett sidled up beside me, and I nudged his shoulder, letting him know it was okay for him to enter the bedroom. Maddie turned to me, eyes growing wide. “Um, did I miss something, or did you just let Brett into your bedroom? With your pregnant wife. Alone.”

  I let out a soft chuckle because the look on Maddie’s face said it all. I must’ve lost my damn mind to think that this was a good idea, but I was a desperate man, running on borrowed time. If he couldn’t convince Liberty to go ahead with treatment now, no one could. I was simply out of options. “I’m hoping he can get through to her because I sure as hell couldn’t.” I shook my head, unwillingly to accept the inevitable. “I don’t know what else to do, Maddie. I can’t lose her. I can’t. ”

  Maddie smiled a sad smile and reached up, brushing her hand against my cheek. “You’re a good man, Shayne, and no one knows that better than her. I’m not going to say that I agree with her decision, but as a mother, I can see where she’s coming from. Those babies mean everything to her, and she’ll fight for them until she takes her last breath.”

  “I just hope that doesn’t happen sooner rather than later. I’ve only had her for two years, Maddie. Two years isn’t enough.”

  “She’s not going anywhere. She’ll fight this. I know she will.” She kissed my cheek and turned to leave. “You gotta have faith.”

  God, let her be right. Faith was about all I had left.

  After she let herself out, I slid down the wall opposite of our bedroom, feeling bleak and utterly defeated. Minutes had passed, and Liberty’s heavy sobs picked up again, causing the fractures in my heart to spread like wildfire. Hearing the pain behind her relentless cries brought on a whole new wave of guilt and self-loathing. I never should have left her the way I had last night. It was a dick move, and I knew it. The irony of it all was that she was right. If anyone was being selfish here, it was me. I was the one asking her to take a risk; to put her body through hell in order to save her life, while possibly giving up the two lives she carried inside of her. What I had yet to realize until now was that Liberty didn’t just consider herself a mother-to-be. She was already a mother to our children, and by asking her to go under the knife and pump her body full of harmful toxins, I was virtually stripping her of that title. That was the look she had given me as I walked out on her. Jesus, how had I not seen it before?