Chapter 24
Bryson
“What’s the use of being Irish if the world doesn’t break your heart?”
~ Rowan O’Sullivan
I made a left onto Kelsi’s street and cut my eyes to my right. Goliath was hovering over the bag sitting in between us on the bench seat; drool was collecting on his jowls. “Leave it.”
With a loud sigh, he flopped down, still eyeing the bag filled with banana split fixings. I’d just left the store when I’d texted Kelsi to see if Milo was back and if they were up for banana splits and she’d said, yes, come over. I was a little shocked—in a good way—that she’d said yes, since my request to take her and Milo to dinner got shot down. She’d said they were just going to hang out and have dinner at home.
She was shutting down and shutting me out. I knew that she wasn’t ready for a relationship. I knew that I needed to take things slow. I knew that she needed time. I knew that Milo might even need time. But, I couldn’t just stop seeing her cold turkey. I’d happily be relegated to the friend zone if that meant that I got to see her. I’d friend zone that shit out of her. Exhibit A: Banana split fixings.
As I pulled up in front of her house, I saw the pizza boy on the porch.
I might just have dinner with them after all; I thought as I snatched the bag and got out. Goliath followed behind me and was sniffing the bag as we rounded the truck. When I looked up, I saw Kelsi paying and when she saw me her eyes widened. I would guess that the color drained from her face, but I couldn’t say for sure because she had some sort of lotion on her face.
It seemed like she wasn’t expecting me.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” she asked as Carter left and Goliath beelined to her side.
“Banana splits.” I lifted the bag. “I texted you.”
She closed her eyes. “Milo has my phone.”
That information was like a punch from The Hulk right in the gut. She hadn’t wanted me to come over. I was texting with Milo. As shitty as that was, I did feel like I’d dodged a bullet by not texting anything inappropriate. But, If Kelsi didn’t want me here, I didn’t want to be here.
I was lifting the bag to hand it to her so she and Milo could have banana splits and I turn to leave when a man stepped into the frame of the door. “Is everything okay here?”
“It’s fine, Russell.”
Russell.
I lowered my arm. I wasn’t going anywhere.
I’m not sure what I expected Kelsi’s ex to be, but he wasn’t it. He was a little older than I’d expected for sure. He was good looking enough, but he just seemed like a guy. Like any guy. I think I’d subconsciously built up the guy that she’d spent years with and had planned to marry up to rock star or movie star status. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d had the thought that any guy that could walk away from Kelsi must be like David Justice cheating on Halle Berry. But this was just a guy. An idiot that had let her go.
His loss, my gain. Hopefully.
Goliath’s tail was thumping against the screen door as he sat beside Kelsi, excited to see both her and the pizza. He lifted his nose, sniffed the pepperoni and knocked the box out of her hand.
“Ahh,” she yelled.
I dropped the ice cream bag, and I reached out. I caught the box midair and saved about eighty percent of the pizza.
When I was sure the box was secure I peeled off the slice that had somehow ended up plastered to my shirt. Goliath quickly cleaned up the casualties that had met their untimely fate on the sidewalk—without realizing that one piece had landed on his head. I looked up at Kelsi, who was standing in the doorway of her house in sweats, a T-shirt and with goo all over her face.
It was a ridiculous scene.
Her eyes met mine and we stared at each other for a moment, neither saying anything, before we both burst out laughing.
Russell stood beside her like an idiot looking at us like were either crazy, or we’d been hitting the whacky tobacky as my dad liked to say. Kelsi leaned forward, holding her stomach from her hysterics as I roared with laughter. Several times, one or the other of us was able to compose ourselves, but as soon as we looked at each other again, we lost it.
When we both got our hilarity under control, Kelsi took a deep breath and sighed to herself, “I needed that,” before motioning to her ex. “Russell was just leaving. Bryson, would you and Goliath please take the pizza in the kitchen and wait for me there?”
“Yep.” I picked up the fallen grocery bag and grinned as I started forward with the pizza in one hand and the makings of banana splits in the other. It was probably a cockier grin than it should’ve been, but I never said I was a saint.
Kelsi moved to the side, so Goliath and I could enter the house. Russell, on the other hand, wasn’t as accommodating. He stepped to his right blocking the entrance.
“Who is this guy?” He asked dismissively, looking at me like I was gum on the bottom of his shoe.
I cleared up his confusion over my identity.
Moving the large pizza box to the side, I stepped directly in front of him. We would’ve been nose to nose, but I had a good three or four inches on him, so instead, we were nose to forehead. “I’m the guy that’s staying and you’re the guy that’s leaving.”
“Stop,” Kelsi spoke with authority and command as she stepped between us and pushed us apart, clearing a path for Goliath and me to head to the kitchen.
Which we did. I resisted the urge to give him a satisfied look as I walked into the house while Kelsi was escorting him out. It took a lot of self control, but I’d managed.
After putting the ice cream in the freezer and the whipped cream and cherries in the fridge, I took off my shirt and ran it under the kitchen sink to rinse off the tomato sauce. I was wringing it out when Kelsi walked in, wiping her now clean face off with a towel. When she saw me, her eyes zeroed in on my chest and stayed there. “We need to talk.”
“Hey, my eyes are up here,” I teased in a feminine sounding voice.
She let out a small laugh as a blush stained her cheeks and she crossed her arms. Her gaze lifted to mine. “I’m serious. We need to talk.”
We need to talk, hands down, topped the list of phrases a person did not want to hear coming out of the mouth of the person they had an uncertain relationship with. Adding I’m serious to it made it a thousand times worse. “Okay.”
She waited for a second as if she expected me to say something. I was trying to figure out what that might be when she asked in a frustrated tone, “Aren’t you going to put your shirt back on?”
“Don’t you remember? I always eat dinner shirtless,” I referred back to the first time Milo and Kelsi had shown up on my doorstep. “But, if it makes you uncomfortable I can…”
A small smile split her lips, but I could see she was fighting it. “Put your shirt on.”
I liked that even though she obviously wanted to have a serious conversation with me, I could still make her smile. I pulled my shirt back over my head, and when I tugged it down, I saw that she was putting a few slices of pizza in a Ziploc baggie.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s for Goliath. For you to take home.”
Shit. This really was a serious we-need-to-talk talk.
When she finished making the doggie bag, she was all business.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” she said as she turned and started heading in that direction, leaving no room for argument.
As I followed her out, I felt like I was walking to my execution.
She turned as we got to the sidewalk and lifted her head, pinning me with her gaze. “I’m sorry about the confusion with the text. From now on, unless there’s an issue with Milo, I think it would be best if you didn’t text or call or bring over ice cream.”
“Kelsi…” I could hear the desperation in my voice as I stepped forward.
She stepped back and waved her hand between us. “This is not going to happen.”
I wanted to argue with her and tell her that it was, but I knew that wouldn’t get me anywhere, so instead, I tried to friend-zone myself. “We can still be friends. I want to be your friend.”
“No,” she said with a bitter laugh. “You don’t. You don’t want to be my friend. Look, I appreciate all that you’ve done for Milo and me. I’ve had fun with you, but I’m not your friend. And you’re not my friend. You want more than that, and I can’t give you what you want.”
“I just want to spend time with you. I just want to be there for you.” I started to reach for her, but she jerked away.
“I don’t want to spend time with you!” She yelled but then quieted, speaking in a whisper-scream. “I don’t want you to be there for me. I want you to go. I want you to stop texting me. I want you to stop calling me. I want you to leave me alone. Does what I want matter to you at all? Or are you just a selfish asshole like the rest of them and the only thing that matters is what you want?!”
I’d thought I’d known what pain was before. But hearing the woman that I loved say those things to me was pain like I’d never experienced before. I was gutted. She’d just ripped my heart out of my chest, threw it to the floor, and stomped on it with cleats.
Knowing there was nothing else to say I silently walked to the driver’s side of my truck. Goliath must’ve sensed my devastation and decided not to kick me when I was down because he left his vigilant watch over the pizza Kelsi was holding and followed me.
As I drove away, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Kelsi still standing on the sidewalk. I had no idea how things had gotten so out of hand or how I could’ve handled things differently, but I did know that I wasn’t like the other assholes in her life. I did care about what she wanted, I’d just thought it was me that she wanted. I was wrong.