Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lucy
We were driving down the road toward town, and I was wondering what we would get into doing today. I’d had a few bum hunting and fishing outings, and I was excited at the prospect of turning my luck around with Jason. He had sprung the date on me this morning and told me to dress in something that made me feel beautiful, so I put on a nice pair of jeans and a sweater.
But, when we pulled up to the nicest restaurant in town, I realized I was going to be severely underdressed. This was, probably, the very last place I’d expected him to bring me.
“We’re here,” Jason said, smiling.
“Oh, wow. Bustin’ out the big guns, I see,” I said. “I don’t think we’ve done one of these dates yet. Very traditional.”
“Well, sometimes traditional just works. You hungry?” he asked.
He got out of the car with me, but he didn’t come around to open my door. Usually, he did, along with helping me out, but this time I watched him walk to the sidewalk before I barreled out of his truck myself. I figured he was probably just hungry, so I brushed it off and walked behind him into the restaurant.
While also shrugging off the fact that he didn’t hold the door for me.
It’s not like any of that stuff mattered. Jason didn’t need to help me out of things or open my damn doors for me, but it was very unlike him. I wondered if he’d had a rough day with Jenna, and maybe his mind was elsewhere.
“Table for two, please,” he said.
“Right this way.”
The hostess sat us in the middle of the restaurant, and I felt like all eyes were on us, like we were sitting in a spotlight. It was another part of his personality that had been overrun with something different. Usually, Jason wanted to go places that secluded us, that gave us a chance to just be with one another and talk about whatever we wanted without interruptions. Going to the busiest, and best, restaurant in town while being sat in the middle screamed that something was wrong.
Different.
Off.
“So, how was your day today?” I hoped his answer would give me some sort of clue where his head was at tonight.
“All right. A bit tired. How was yours?”
“Well, I was off work today, so that was nice. Decided to try another fishing excursion this morning, but it failed.”
“No fish jumping?” he asked.
“Plenty of fish jumping, just none that wanted to jump on my hook,” I said.
“Seems you've been havin’ that problem lately with hunting,” he said.
“I guess not having my good luck charm makes a difference.”
I winked at him and expected a little chuckle in return—a glint in his eye, his hand reaching to grasp mine, a small grin that tickled his chin. But, all I got was this half-assed smile while his eyes focused on something behind me instead of at me.
“Jason, you sure you’re all right?” I asked. I reached for his hands and curled my fingers around them, but he didn’t move. He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t make any motion to take my hands, and I felt this sinking feeling plummet to my toes.
“Is Jenna all right?” I asked.
“Oh, Jenna’s fine. Sorry, I’m really just hungry and tired. Where’s our waitress?”
He was distracted, and he wasn’t talking to me. Maybe it was because I had told him I loved him during the last time we were together. I knew it just kind of slipped out. Hell, it had shocked me, too. but it wasn’t worth him becoming distant. I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable; I just wanted him to understand that I felt alive with him.
For the first time since David died, I felt like my life was gonna be all right when I was with Jason.
“What can I get you guys to drink?” our waiter asked.
“Um, I’ll just have a Coke, and Lucy will have—”
“Iced tea with lemon, please,” I said.
“I’ll be back with your drinks, and then, I’ll take your orders,” the waiter said.
I was about to mention something about the last time we were together, but he dove his nose into the menu. His eyes were completely covered from me, like he was intentionally trying to hide, and I knew I’d made a grave mistake. I should’ve never opened my damn mouth in the heat of the moment, and now, I had isolated the one person who had brought me any semblance of happiness since I’d lost my husband. We needed to talk about it before this awkwardness became the standard when we were together.
“Look, Jason—”
“Lucy, I promise you, your luck will turn around with hunting. Maybe I can get out with you soon, and we can do something,” he said.
“Oh. Y-yeah, sure. That would be nice,” I said.
Maybe something wasn’t too terribly wrong if he was offering future plans. Men didn’t do that if they didn’t plan on sticking around, right?
The waiter came with our drinks and took our orders, and then things fell silent again. Jason was being reserved and nowhere near being the cocky human being I knew him to be. He always had these anecdotes about Mike from work or had some weird story about Megan to tell me, and I always got a kick out of the fact that he seemed to tell me those stories about her just to rile me up. He enjoyed fluffing my feathers just to see how protective I would get of him and his daughter, but tonight was different.
And it was making me a bit sick to my stomach.
“So, I guess I can say I now know why women called you Maximum,” I said, grinning.
“Oh, really? And, why’s that?” he asked as he sipped his drink.
“Oh, come on. You know why,” I said, cocking my eyebrow in the air. “I mean, it’s obvious.”
“I suppose. But, those days are behind me, I guess,” he said.
I had given him the perfect opening for all his stupid, cocky little jokes, and he intentionally closed it off. So, I tried another route.
“I suppose it depends on the angle you wanted to take with it,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You know,” I said under my breath. “Size versus girth type of thing.”
“Lucy, you know we’re in a public restaurant, right?”
“Well, yeah. But you’re not really acting yourself,” I said.
“Because we’re in a public restaurant,” he said.
“Which is odd anyway because neither of us really enjoy doing this type of thing.” I couldn’t believe he was passing his strange behavior off on the location.
“Lucy, please. Can we just have dinner before we get into this?” he asked.
“Get into what? Really, Jason, I wish you’d clue me in.”
“I don’t think I can see you anymore,” he blurted out.
“Wh-what?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can see you anymore,” he said.
“Oh, come on, Jason. Quit being an idiot,” I said.
He has to be joking. I mean, he smiled at me after I said it.
“Lucy, look. You make those jokes about me being Maximum and shit, but what comes with that is that it’s just not my style, you know?”
“What’s not your style?” I asked.
“Staying with women for long. I just don’t do it. I’ve got Jenna to think about and a career to keep tabs on to support her and, I mean, it’s been a lot of fun and everything, but it’s just not me.”
“Not you to... to what?” I asked breathlessly.
“To stay with a woman for a long time,” he said.
All at once, the room darkened, and all the noise fell into the background. My chair disappeared from underneath me, my body floating in this endless expanse of darkness, as the air was ripped from my lungs. I felt tears lining my eyes as my throat went dry, and I started to cough to try and rid the knot from my throat. My head was spinning, and my vision was becoming fuzzy. Soon, I was gripping the chair with all my strength just to make sure someone didn’t rip it out from underneath me.
It was happening.
Jason was leaving me because I had told him I loved him.
“But what about all the things we shared with each other, huh? On our first date. About David? And Danielle?”
I could’ve sworn I saw him wince. I could’ve sworn that, just for a split second, he was regretting every word that poured from his face. Our food was set in front of us, and he thanked the waiter silently, but when the waiter was out of earshot, he threw his gaze up to mine.
And the tears poured down my face when I realized he was serious.
“Emotionally, it was nice. You know, to find someone who got that. And, I’m always gonna be here for you, Lucy, if ya ever need someone to talk to. But, I just don’t—”
“Stay with women who tell you they love you?” I asked.
I couldn’t believe it. He held my stare with all the sincerity in the world while he dumped me in the middle of a fucking restaurant full of people in this town who’d chew him up and spit it out the moment they realized what he’d done. He’d manipulated me into sharing everything with him so he could feel good for one fucking second.
And now that he was done with me, he was tossing me out.
Like a used condom for his Maximum dick.
“I really was, wasn’t I?” I asked.
“You really were what?” he asked.
“Another notch on your bedpost. That shit about your nickname: it’s true, isn’t it?”
I saw the confusion run across his face, and I felt my hands wrap around my iced tea.
“It’s true what my coworker said. That the reason you’re called Maximum is because you have a maximum number of women for your notched bedpost. I-I bet your bedpost isn’t even a bedpost, it’s just some sprawling toothpick that holds up the shavings you sleep on every single fucking night to remind you of all the pussy you manipulated into bed,” I said, hissing.
“I’m sorry, Lucy. But you knew the rumors. I’m not too sure why the hell you’re even so upset about it. I mean, if your coworker warned you, why didn’t you just take the hint?” he asked.
“Because of our first date, Jason. There was something there, and you knew it. Y-you manipulated me into telling you things I would never have, in my wildest dreams, ever told anyone.”
I knew people were staring, and I could tell Jason was taken aback, but that smug-ass look on his face and the apparent disgust for my anger made me sick. This bullshit, pathetic excuse for a man had taken my heart, twisted it so I would do whatever he wanted, coaxed me into confiding in him about anything and everything, and then dumped me when he was done with my body.
“You promised me I could come to you with anything,” I said, whispering. “You just told me you’d come hunting with me.”
My mind was swirling at a thousand miles a second. The waiter was trying to talk to me, but I had no idea what he was saying. I could feel my tears pouring down my neck while I watched Jason slowly stand from his seat, but the moment he tried to reach out for me, I snapped.
I threw my full glass of iced tea all over his face, and then threw the glass at his feet and watched it shatter.
I grabbed my purse and stormed out of the restaurant right as thunder began to clap in the sky. Lightning pierced the heavens, opening up the dark clouds so they could pour their water onto my head. My tears slid in perfectly with the rain pattering against my body, and I wrapped my arms around my chest to keep from shivering violently.
I didn’t know where the fuck I was going to go, but I sure as hell couldn’t stay here.
I took one last look up at the restaurant before I started for the main road.