Chapter 8
“Eli?”
Eli looked up from his phone. He’d been killing time on it since they’d let him into Riley’s room in the early hours of the morning. The battery was nearly dead and he didn’t have any way to charge it, so he sent Shane a text before he answered her.
“She’s awake.”
Then he turned the phone off, shoved the phone into his pocket and looked at her. She looked like hell and she probably felt like it too.
“Yeah,” he said simply.
“So I guess you got my text?” She flashed him a short smile. There was a scrape on her cheek and she put her hand to it quickly. She probably hadn’t realized it was there.
He didn’t return the smile. “Yeah,” he said again. “Why’d you text me, Riley?”
“Well, you did a great job of taking me home last time. I thought I’d just stick with what works.”
“This is funny to you?” he asked.
Eli gestured at the IV drip and the bandages on her arm. She probably had a hell of a case of road rash. She hadn’t been wearing a helmet or any protective clothing and it was only the fact that the driver had been so drunk that they’d basically been going at a snail’s pace that had saved her from much more serious injuries.
Riley shrugged. “Not particularly, no.”
“Who were you with?”
She gave another shrug. “I don’t know. Just some guy.”
“Were you going home with him?” Eli heard the edge in his voice, but it was too late to do anything about it.
“No. We were just going to a different bar. He said the next place was more fun.”
“And after that bar, what were you gonna do?”
Riley smiled again. “Jealous, Eli?”
“I might be,” he admitted, but he didn’t give her a chance to speak before he went on. “If I thought we had any chance at a future, that is. Since I know we don’t, I guess it doesn’t matter much who you go home with.”
Her mouth dropped open and hurt flashed in her expressive eyes. “What do you mean by that?”
“I’ve been down the road you’re on,” Eli said simply. “I don’t plan to make a trip back.”
Riley scoffed. “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
He leaned back in his chair and stared at her. “Almost as dramatic as riding a motorcycle drunk as shit with no helmet.”
“I wasn’t that drunk,” she muttered, dropping her gaze to the bandage on her arm. It was a little bloody.
“Hospital records say different.” Eli contradicted.
“Okay, fine. So I drank a little--”
“You drank a lot.”
“So I drank a lot one time--”
“You drank a lot at least twice.”
“You know what?” she demanded, jerking her head up and narrowing her green eyes at him. “You’re a real asshole, Eli.”
“Yeah? I never said I wasn’t. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re making some fucked up choices here.”
Riley gave a bitter laugh. “It seems like I can’t please the guy I’m sleeping with no matter what I do.”
Eli raised an eyebrow. “How do you figure that?”
“I didn’t do anything right for a year and a half with my ex,” she said, her cheeks flushing with angry color.
“I guess I find that just a little hard to believe,” Eli said. “Nobody can fuck up an entire year and six months. Especially not if you’re really the perfectionist your brother says you are.”
Riley scoffed bitterly. “Perfectionist? I guess that’s one way to put it. You want to know what Mike said right before he dumped me?” she asked, her hands clenching on the thin hospital blanket. “He said that I was too predictable. That being with me had gotten stale and boring. He wanted some adventure in his life before he hit thirty.” She practically spat out the words. “Nearly ten years! We’d been together nearly ten years, and now suddenly I’m not what he wants?”
“So you left because he thought you were boring?”
She laughed. “I didn’t leave him, Eli. He...he was seeing someone else. Before I even knew that he wanted out.” Her mouth twisted. “She wanted to move in, so I had to go. There wasn’t time to find another place. And if I was going, I figured I’d just go home. He probably expected that too.”
“I’m sorry,” Eli said honestly. He could see the hurt in her eyes when she’d mentioned the other woman. “That’s shitty.”
“I didn’t even get the pleasure of dumping him,” she said. “He said that he was tired of me and I said that I’d work on it, that I’d try to schedule in some time for just us and he...he laughed at me. Then he told me that he was seeing her.” Tears filled her eyes but she blinked them away without letting them spill down her cheeks. “And I told him that I’d change. That I’d be what he wanted.” She shook her head. “I never thought that I’d beg someone to stay with me, but I did. I told him that I’d forgive him for having an affair and he said that he didn’t want my forgiveness. He wanted her.”
“He’s a fucking moron,” Eli said, shoving down the urge to find the guy and beat him to a pulp for hurting Riley like that. It was one thing to leave a relationship because you weren’t happy but it was another to make a woman feel replaceable.
“I wonder who takes care of the bill calendar now that I’m gone,” Riley said. “She didn’t look like the organized type. And Mike can’t keep track of money to save his life. He also can’t remember to buy toilet paper or put his keys by the door. I did all of that.” She looked at Eli. “And now you probably think I’m boring too.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I think you sound pretty responsible.”
She scoffed. “Right. And responsible is what every man is looking for in a woman, I’m sure.”
“I’m serious. It takes a lot to do what you did...carrying the weight for both of you. I’d like to get to know that Riley. She sounds a lot more interesting than the one who can’t even manage to text me unless she’s falling down drunk.”
Riley’s face flushed, but she didn’t respond. There wasn’t much that she could say to that and they both knew it.
Eli stood. Shane would be on his way soon and he had a feeling that he wouldn’t want to see Eli just yet. He brushed his fingers down Riley’s cheek and then smoothed her wildly tangled hair.
“Take care of yourself, Riley. And don’t be too hard on your brother. He loves you like crazy.”