The Fragile Line: Part One (The Fine Line #2) (4 page)

“Please,” I said calmly.

“O…kay?  I’ll be back with that in a minute.” 

Dipshit.

The steak was even better than the bread.  It literally melted in my mouth.  Chloe laughed when I moaned again at the taste, and I smiled, knowing that my mission for the night had just been accomplished. 

We savored our meals quietly for a few minutes before she broke the silence, continuing our conversation.  “Maybe I’m not interested in anything serious with
anyone
.  Maybe taking what I want and being…less than nice…is the best way to make sure they don’t get all googly with me.” 

“What the hell does ‘googly’ mean?”

“Come on, you know.”

I shook my head no. 

“It’s the lovey-dovey look in someone’s eyes.  Whether it’s a boy or girl, man or woman, we all do it.  It’s the way someone looks at you when they want you to think they’re falling for you.  They look at you with ‘googly-eyes.’”

“Ha!  You seem like an expert.  Maybe your nickname should be ‘heartbreaker.’”

“Yeah, right.  I’ve only gotten that look from one person.  And I’m not the one who did the heart breaking in that situation.”

I nodded in understanding.  It couldn’t have been Logan.  He’s never felt that way about her.  My curiosity piqued.  “First love?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

She continued stuffing spaghetti into her face as if this conversation were over.  I cleared my throat to get her attention.  It worked because she looked up from her plate with a WTF look.  “Go on, Pink, spill it.  You know you want to.”

She laughed again.  Just a small one, but a laugh nonetheless.  It took her another moment before she finally started to talk. 

“Fine.  I was young.  Still in high school and living at home.  He said he loved me until he...well…until he didn’t anymore.  After that, I left home and never saw him again.  And why am I telling you this anyway?”  She picked up her lemonade and peered into the glass.  “Did you put some kind of truth serum in my drink?”   

“Yes, now tell me all your secrets.”

“Very funny.”

I thought about what she said for a moment and then blurted out the obvious question, “Why keep doing something that’s not working, though?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, all of it.  Using the bitch act to keep from falling for someone or having them fall for you.  Clearly, you have a thing for Logan or you wouldn’t have gotten so worked up tonight.  But I’m not sure he’s ever seen you act normal like you are now.  Like you could be more than…you know…what you are to him.  And he loves Liv now, anyway, so it’s basically a lost cause, and—“

“Stop!”  She banged her hands on the table, causing the few patrons in the restaurant to glare in our direction.  “This topic is off limits.  Okay?”

“Hey, I’m just telling it like it is.  You don’t have to get all crazy.”

She continued to scowl at me.

“Fine!”  I complied with hands surrendering in the air.  “I will never bring it up again.”

She sighed and started twirling a spaghetti noodle onto her fork.  “You might just be the bluntest person I have ever met.” 

“At least with me, what you see is what you get, Sweetheart.”  I wiggled my brows.

Her face softened.  “I don’t have a thing for Logan.  We just give each other what we need without—I don’t know—needing too much, I guess.  It’s the perfect relationship, actually.  Anyway, I think you’re just avoiding
my
question.” 

“Hmm?”  God, this steak is amazing. 

“Look at you.”  She glanced at my biceps.  “You’re ripped.  Tattooed.”  She looked directly into my eyes.  “Handsome.”  Wow.  I never realized how crystal blue her eyes were.  “And I hate to admit it, but a little bit fun too, when you’re not being so blunt.  And annoying.  And macho.  And stupid.  Other than that, you’re pretty much every girl’s wet dream.”

I’d be lying if I said that the last part of that comment didn’t affect me or make her seem even hotter than she already was. 

Her expression changed as we made eye contact and something shifted in the air that made her begin excessively cutting her meatballs into tiny pieces.  Was she embarrassed about something? 

“And I’m only saying that because I’m not interested in you.  Not like that, anyway.” 

“Uh-huh.  But wait.  Girls have wet dreams?”

“You know what I mean.  C’mon, let’s hear it.  Why no girlfriend?”

“Oh.  That question.”  I used my fork to stab the last bite of sirloin on my plate and proceeded to slide it all around to make sure it was thoroughly drenched in every last drop of Marsala sauce before placing the bite ceremoniously in my mouth. 

“Yeah.”  She rolled her eyes.  “That question.” 

I shrugged.  She told me ‘hers.’ I guess I’d have to tell her ‘mine.’  “I loved someone once too.  I decided to join the Army right out of high school, but I didn’t talk to Maya—my girlfriend—about it before signing up.  I just wanted to serve my country, and I thought she’d be cool with it.  Maybe even proud.  She wasn’t.  She was actually pretty fucking pissed.  We didn’t speak much during my basic training, and when we did, we argued about the ‘choices I made.’”

“By the time I left for Afghanistan, I was tired of hearing how much I fucked up our relationship.  So I told her not to wait for me if I made her so unhappy.  Truth is, I didn’t want her to spend our time apart being miserable, so I told her to just live her life and do what she needed to do to be happy while I was gone.”

Chloe’s eyes were on me, waiting for me to finish.

“So, that’s what she did.  She was already engaged to some pansy computer geek when I came home a year later.  I mean, talk about making a statement?  This guy is the complete opposite of me.  So…I guess in the end, she told
me
.” 

I took a drink of water.  “I was an idiot to assume I could try to pick up where we left off when I got back.  I mean, it’s not like we had kept in touch after we broke up or anything.  The thing is, when you’re over there, away from the life you used to know, it’s almost like time stands still.  Logically, you know your loved ones lives are going to change, but since you’re not there to witness it, or hear about it, it almost doesn’t seem real.”

I wasn’t about to tell Chloe that all the months I spent overseas, without the woman I loved, put my feelings for her under a microscope and into better perspective.  That when I came home, I was ready to make Maya my wife.  That the same day I got home, I went to a jeweler to look at engagement rings.  No way, Chloe didn’t need to hear that.  Nobody did.  “So why no girlfriend you ask?  I guess it’s because I haven’t felt that way about anyone since.  And I don’t want to or plan to.  Because love bites big sweaty balls.” 

She kept quiet, as she absorbed my long-winded answer, until her expression gradually morphed into a grin.  Then, she slowly nodded in agreement.  “Word.” 

My laugh escaped immediately.  “
Word
?  Did you just say ‘
word
’?”  

“Yes.  Word.  To your mother.  It means I get it, you dweeb.” 

Damn, this girl was cute as hell when she let her guard down.  “Okay, let’s forget the fact that you just explained ‘
word
’ to me like I don’t know what it means, and let’s focus on the fact that you also just said ‘dweeb.’  Have I been transported back to eighth grade?”

“Only cool people say ‘dweeb. ’”

“Well, that sucks.  Now I know I’ll never be cool.” 

“To each their own,” she teased.  “It’s not for everyone.” 

~~~

I didn’t speak to Chloe for months after our night at Ricci’s.  Not on purpose…I just never tried to contact her and vice-versa.  I had no idea that I’d keep wondering about her, though.  No clue she’d find her way into my dreams…

CHAPTER SEVEN

~Chloe~

Present Day

The cold had chilled me to the bone, and all I should’ve been thinking about was taking a long hot bath.  Yet I couldn’t get the expression on Logan’s face out of my mind.  Disappointment.  Pure hatred.  He had never looked at me like that before.  Never.  What the hell had I done? 

Pandora cranked through the speaker plugged into my phone.  Hot water gushed into my bathtub while I took a long look into my bathroom mirror.  Eyes smudged and bloodshot.  Lips dry and cracking from the cold.  Nose still bright red and runny.  I looked like a freaking heroin addict.

Why the need to throw myself at someone who doesn’t want me?  I’m not an idiot.  Regardless of the unique and pretty damn perfect connection we have, I could clearly see that Logan’s heart didn’t belong to me.  I’d never chased a boy in my life.  Well—not after Ryan anyway.  Since him, I’d made a pretty bold point not be one of those needy girls who bases her level of importance on whatever guy she happens to be with. 

But now that’s
exactly
what I was.

The mirror began to steam up.  The hypnotic beat of Tove Lo’s “Crave” came through the speaker, the lyrics mirroring my thoughts.  Thoughts of mistakes worth making.  Thoughts of waiting for the opportunity to make the same mistake again and again just to get that feeling he gives you when you’re with him.  But today, Logan didn’t give me what I needed.  He didn’t give me what I expected. 

Today, he made me worse.

My finger found the mirror and began to write letters into the condensation.

F.M.L.

Yeah, that summed it up pretty well.  Fuck my life.

I turned off the tub faucet and tested the water with my toes.  Way too hot.  The music from my phone paused to alert me of an incoming text, the sound of it freezing me colder than the winter air ever could.  It caused my stomach to rise to my throat and my heart to stop beating.

Now I don’t know how many people actually do this, but I like to assign specific text-tones to each individual contact.  At least for the ones I used frequently.  And the specifically-assigned text-tone that I just heard was one that hadn’t graced my ears for over two years. 

I looked at the phone for a moment, not wanting it to be real but knowing it was.  The fear and hurt that the ringtone unleashed quickly bloomed into a growing cloud of anger.  Did he seriously have the audacity to try to contact me?  Was
she
making
him
do her dirty work, or was it his bright idea? 

I grabbed my phone to check the text. 

Ryan:

It’s been long enough Chloe.

She misses you. 

Let’s talk.

“No,” I said aloud in an immediate reaction of skepticism and contempt.  They didn’t get to decide how long ‘long enough’ was.  As far as I was concerned, my time away from them would never be long enough.

“No!” I shouted this time as my phone wailed across the room, landing between the toilet and the wall, tiny glass and metal cracking as the battery flew out of it.   

“Shit!” I gasped, caught off-guard by my stupid reflex.  I crouched down to inspect the damage. 

Cracked screen.  Entire base bent.  Even the battery was dented.

I wrecked my phone.  I wrecked my fucking phone.  Because of Ryan.  Because of me not being able to come to terms with the sick idea of Ryan with
her.
  Because no matter how hard I tried to stop caring, I couldn’t seem to get the hell over it. 

Can’t get over Ryan.  Can’t get over Logan.  Why, no matter how hard I try, was it so difficult for me to remain detached?

“Ugh!” I dropped the phone contents into the garbage.  This day had just begun and already it was too much to handle.  It needed to end.  I needed to sleep. 

I added some cool water to make the bath bearable, took my clothes off, and stepped in.  The soothingly warm water eventually washed away some of the frustration, but I remained restless, the anxiety in my stomach continuing to burn.  It kept on flaring as I dried off and dressed into my comfy grey sweatpants and snug white t-shirt.  And when I laid in my bed exhausted from the morning’s events and the sleepless night prior to them, the uneasiness persisted, keeping me awake.

I don’t know what possessed me to do what I did next.  Maybe it was the way he made me laugh this morning.  Maybe it was the way he took my mind off the hurtful events from the night we “broke bread” at Ricci’s. 

I took my tablet from my bedside table, opened up Facebook, and messaged Matt.

Come over

CHAPTER EIGHT

~Matt~

Present Day

“Mornin’, Sunshine!” I called out as Logan walked into the garage, beer in hand.  I stepped out from under the hood of the ’74 GTO the old guy had me working on.  “Old guy” was a term we used for our best customer, Gary, who had a collection of classic cars to show off to his rich friends.  He never drove them, though.  Always brought them into the shop on a trailer.  If you ask me, cars like his are meant to be driven, not just looked at.  What a waste.

By chance, I was the one to work on the first car he brought in and since then, his contingency for business at Tanner Automotive was that I would be the only one to work on his cars.  The guy had me doing everything from tune-ups to engine rebuilds.

The digital clock on the wall read 9:30 a.m. I chuckled as I pulled out the drawer of my Craftsman tool chest and grabbed a spark plug socket and ratchet. 

“A little hair of the dog, huh?” I said, pointing the ratchet at his beer.  “I hear you had a fun night.”

“Not really,” he said solemnly as he sat at his desk and stared at the John Wayne poster on the wall in front of it.  Logan’s dad was a huge John Wayne fan.  “It was fucked up, dude.  And not in a good way.”  He swiveled his chair toward me and gave me a quizzical look. “What do you know about it?  What the hell did you hear?”

“Nothin’, man.  I just got here as Pink was leaving, that’s all.”

“What did she say to you?”

“Jesus, Logan, nothing.  Why all the fucking questions?”

He finished the last of his beer in one swig and crushed it with his hands, tossing it to the wastebasket by his desk, missing by a foot. “I fucked it all up, man.  It’s over.  Liv is gone.  What she saw?”  He shook his head, “We’re done.”

“Oh, shit, dude.  Liv was here?”

He nodded.

“Wow, that’s kind of an asshole move, man.”

His head dropped down.

“What did she see?” I asked.

He gave me a look like he had no intention of spelling it out for me.  I sighed as I walked to the other end of the garage where the coffee pot brewed.  I filled up my coffee and poured a cup for Logan.  The guy is a good friend, but I couldn’t help but be irritated at him for being so stupid.  Not only did he just fuck himself over, but Liv didn’t deserve that shit.  What got me most, though, was that underneath it all, I was even more pissed about who he was stupid with.  Why should I care if he got with Chloe? 

I shouldn’t.  And I decided right there that I wouldn’t.

“Alright,” I said, as I handed him his mug.  “Tell me.”

Together, we drank our coffee and tuned up the GTO as he spilled his story.  What he could remember of it anyway—which wasn’t much.  Turns out, if what Chloe told him is true, he’s as fucked as he thinks he is. 

“How can you not remember that shit, bro?” I stopped wrenching to ask him.  “I sure as hell wouldn’t forget those pretty lips on me.” 

“You think she’s lying?”

“Someone’s lying.”

“You think
I’m
lying, dickhead?”

“I don’t know, man.  You should’ve seen her run out the way she did.  In tears like that.  Looked to me like
she
was the one who got hurt.  You couldn’t have let her get dressed first?  Before you threw her out?  The poor girl was freezing.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Matt?  The reason I don’t remember is that it didn’t happen!” He slammed his palms down on car.  “It couldn’t have happened.  You know me better than that.  I threw her out because she’s a liar!”

“Hey, no reason to beat up the car!”

“Get the fuck out of my shop, dude.”

“What?” I laughed in disbelief.  “Look, I know you’ve had a rough morning, but you know damn well the old guy wants this done by tomorrow, and—“

“You need to leave, man.  I’ll take care of the car.  Just get the fuck out.”  

I raised my hands in surrender, “Fine.” 

With that, I wiped my greasy hands on a blue shop rag, grabbed my coat, and walked out.

My phone buzzed as I walked to my truck.  A Facebook message.  From Chloe. 

Chloe:
Come over

After the things Logan just told me, she was the last person I wanted to see.  Besides, did she think I was her errand boy?  That I’d just jump at her every request?  Who did this girl think she was anyway?

Me: 
No

I threw my phone into the passenger seat and started the truck.  It buzzed again as I waited for the truck to warm up.  Now what did she want?

Chloe:
Fine.  Forget I asked.

Good.  That did it then.  I was out.  Free of the melodrama that encompassed Chloe McCarthy.  I should’ve felt relieved.  Happy, even.

The only problem with it was that this girl had been in the back of my mind for the last few months.  Seeing her this morning brought her to the forefront.  It triggered something that I didn’t even realize was there. 

Hell, hearing what Logan said damn near made me sick.  And the worst part?  Her supposed lies weren’t the only thing that gave me that reaction.  The thought of
him
doing with
her
what I had pictured doing with her ever since our night at Ricci’s was what killed me more. 

I didn’t know what the hell to believe, and I needed to stop caring about it.  But still.  I couldn’t help but get excited over the fact that she wanted me to be there with her.  And I was genuinely disappointed that I had to tell her no.  With the story that Logan told me, there was no way I’d go running to satiate whatever visceral craving I currently had to be around her. 

My phone buzzed again.

Chloe:
  The next time you feel the urge to tell someone to call you if they need you?  Do me a favor.  Don’t.

“Ah, fuck,” I grumbled.  I did tell her to call me, didn’t I?  And I was being a dick. 

In all reality, she wanted Logan, not me.  There was no reason for me to think about her the way I was thinking about her—it just wasn’t gonna happen.  For many reasons.  The primary one being I enjoy my drama-free life.  And she was all drama.  It was probably just my cock putting those thoughts in my mind anyway.  She is a hot little piece, and I am, after all, a man.  Who could blame me?

I had nothing to do with whatever happened with her and Logan…and I could be a friend to both of them.  Time to let those kinds of thoughts go.

Me:
You’re right.  I said that.  And I meant it.  What do you need, Pink?

Chloe:
I need you to stop calling me Pink.  You know my name.

Me:
But your hair.  It makes total sense.

Chloe:
What if I say please?

Me:
Not gonna make any promises, Princess ;)

Chloe:
Seriously kicking myself for contacting you right now.

Me:
Aw, c’mon.  You’re not mad at me, are ya?  How about a truce?

Chloe:
Okay.  Truce.

Me:
I’ll come over.  But only on one condition.

Chloe:
I’m listening.

Me:
I get to call you Pink.

Chloe:
Fine, but if I hear Princess again, I might puke.

Me:
Damn, that was easy!  Where’d your spunk go, woman?  In that case, I’ve got another condition.

Chloe:
Not feeling too spunky today. What’s your condition?

Me:
You answer the door in your underwear when I get there?

Chloe:
Nice try. Um, no.

Me:
Hey Pink?

Chloe:
Oh God.  This should be good.  What?

Me:
Tell me that made you laugh.

Chloe:
Still laughing, you dope.

Me:
Good.  I’ll be over in an hour.