Chapter Thirty-Three
Cade
Early January
“Fuck yeah!” I loudly yelled as I slammed my shot glass down on the table. “That was amazing. Let’s get another one.”
The blonde next to me giggled as she clinked her glass against mine. I didn’t know who she was, I could barely see her face, but she was laughing at me, which was much better than yelling at me. I didn’t want another woman to scream at me. I’d had enough of that to last me a lifetime.
Joy and happiness were better than bitter anger that I deserved.
“Are you sure, buddy?” Matt asked while resting his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t you think that maybe you’re going a little bit too wild?”
I rolled my eyes and shook my head, feeling incredibly pissed off. All Matt wanted to do was hang out and party, and now that I actually wanted to join in, he was trying to calm me down? What the hell was his problem, and who the hell was he to judge? He was way worse than me!
Matt spent his whole life partying; it was all that he cared about. Part of the reason that I was out was that I wanted some of that blissful ignorance for myself. He always seemed happy, and I needed that right now.
I turned back to the blonde, but she had already gone. She’d been tempted away by some other man’s offer of a drink. I didn’t even care; she meant nothing to me. I just wanted the distraction, that was all.
“Don’t be such a wuss, Matt. I’m having fun. You’re all about fun, so let’s have a good time like we used to in the good old days. Let’s get hammered and really enjoy ourselves. Oh! We should head to a strip club after this, then go to a dive bar to pick up some chicks.”
The suggestion left me hollow, but I needed to find a way to feel something. Without Alissa in my life, everything else seemed pointless. I needed some woman to bury myself into, whoever it was. I thought it would be the blonde, but she was wrapped around someone else now.
“Buddy, I like that idea.” Matt held up his hands in a surrendering gesture. “I like it more than I like anything, but don’t you think you need to calm down? This isn’t you, not anymore, and I don’t want you to do anything stupid because of a reaction to Alissa.”
I had told Matt everything because I needed someone to talk to, someone who wouldn’t judge me. He’d been shocked about it all to start with, but he soon told me that everything would be okay in the end. Then he suggested that we have a drink, which was what we’d been doing ever since.
“I don’t want to think about Alissa,” I snapped back honestly. “I just want to have fun. Maybe finding some other chick to get under is the best way to get over her... That’s what they say, isn’t it? Something like that.”
“Dude, honestly, I have never seen you like this before, and it’s worrying me.”
Matt uncharacteristically wanted to talk about something serious, just when I really didn’t want to discuss anything at all. I just wanted to turn my brain off and have some fun for a while, so I turned away from him and got hold of the bartender. That’s the person I wanted to talk to – he could bring me drinks.
“More shots,” I demanded in a loud, obnoxious tone of voice “Thanks.”
“How many?” He held out a choice of about four glasses, and I just nodded. Four should do it; it should swig down the burning, bitter taste in my mouth.
Matt sat beside me as I slugged all the drinks back one by one, eyeing me critically the whole time. For someone who spent the entire festive period shagging and drinking, drinking and shagging, he sure acted like a judgemental asshole. Maybe I should’ve come out alone, maybe that would’ve been the smart thing to do. Then I could enjoy myself without anyone giving me the stink eye.
I twisted my body around again, trying to find someone else to talk to, but there wasn’t anyone in the vicinity. It was as if I had a neon sign above my head telling people I was to be ignored. As the other people on this bar laughed and partied like they didn’t have the weight of the world on their shoulders, I was stuck with the life of the party...who just wanted to talk.
Why couldn’t I catch a break?
“What do you want, Matt?” I finally caved and asked him. I knew that as soon as I asked, I would land myself in the middle of a conversation that I didn’t want to be having, but I had to get it out the way at some point. Might as well be now so I could start having some fun again. “Just get it over with, whatever you have to say.”
“I don’t think you see the bigger picture here,” he shocked me by saying. “I think you’re focusing on the wrong part of this. You're too negative.”
I laughed a nasty sound. “What the fuck are you talking about, Matt? What positive should I be thinking about here?” Had he heard the story, right? Did he know what I’d done?
“The fact that you have a billion dollars. The fact that you have enough money to live off for the rest of your life. You never have to work; you never have to do anything but have fun forever more. You could travel the world; you could spend all your life going to parties, you could have any beautiful woman that you want...”
“Oh yeah, a gold digger; sounds wonderful to me,” I replied wryly. “Do you honestly think that’s what I want? Do you think this is all about the money for me?”
“I don’t know,” he smiled and shrugged. “But I’ll sure as hell be letting you pay for the drinks in future.” When his joke fell flat, his face twisted up again. “Look, man, I just don’t want you to be all pissed off and unhappy. That’s all. Maybe a string of fun nights out and one-night stands is the way to do it. All no strings attached, then no one can get hurt.”
“Alissa believes I was just toying with her,” I burst out as if I hadn’t even heard him. “She thinks that I’m just another asshole in her life. She thinks that it was all a part of a game.”
“So?” I wasn’t sure if Matt got it, at all. His blank stare suggested he had no clue what I was going through.
“So? What do you mean, so?”
“So, what? Move onto the next.” I felt like we were in a weird standoff that neither of us wanted to back down from.
“There is no next for me. I want to speak to her; I want to make things right.”
“Okay, so there it is.” He shrugged as if he had me all figured out. “You love her. That’s why all of this is making you so crazy. You’re in love with this woman who now believes you were only with her because of some money.”
I paused. I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I hadn’t quite worked out how I was supposed to share my feelings with the world yet, so I couldn’t quite counteract Matt’s accusation. He stared at me, daring me to disagree with him, but I didn’t. I stayed in the same position just staring him down.
“If that’s the case, then you need to man up.”
“Man up?” That seemed like such shitty advice to such a deep problem. I didn’t think he was the one to go to for advice, but that was terrible. “What the hell are you going on about now?”
“I mean get her back, dude. If you love this chick, if she’s the one, then do everything that you can to win her back. You have a billion dollars behind you; you should be alright.”
“You’ve certainly changed your tune,” I smiled at him. “I thought you didn’t think I was capable of commitment.”
He patted me on the shoulder and laughed. “I know, but seeing you like that is so much better than this. This is just fucked up and scary. I don’t ever want to see you in this way again.”
“How am I supposed to do it?” I pleaded. Maybe he did have all the answers after all. “If Alissa won’t even talk to me, how can I get her to see me again?”
“We’ll figure it out,” he promised me. “One way or another. Now let’s finish up these drinks and get home. If we’re planning on sorting your life out, then we don’t need a stinking hangover to get us started, do we?”
Even glancing around the bar after that deep conversation made me sick. I needed to get out; I needed to get home. I needed rest; then I had to figure out what I wanted to do to make Alissa listen to me again. Of course, I still had the rest of my life to worry about, too, but that could come later.
“Hold on, let me just call her...” I’d been leaving Alissa voicemails every so often when the mood struck me, and now seemed like another good time for that, but Matt gently and delicately slipped the phone away from me.
“No more messages. You need to make this right in person.”
In person... That made sense. My messages weren’t doing anything good; she needed to see my face to understand how serious I was. I wanted her back in my life, I felt lost without her, and I didn’t want to go another day without talking to her in one way or another. I needed Alissa to see I wasn’t everything she thought I was. I wanted her to know that I didn’t care about the money, that I never wanted to use her, that actually I was a good guy. Honestly. It might not have sounded like it, but I was real.
As Matt and I walked back to my home, I felt much lighter and happier. He was a good friend, despite all the shitty things I thought about him from time to time, and I was glad to have him here with me. I hoped he would help me to see what I needed to do next because right now, I couldn’t see through the trees in front of me.
I needed him.
“I’m going to sleep on your couch tonight,” he insisted as soon as we crashed through my front door. “Then tomorrow, we can start planning.”
“Thank you, buddy.” Was I slurring? I couldn’t quite tell. “I really appreciate it. You don’t know how much this means to me.”
“I think I do. That’s why I’m here. Now you get some rest, and we’ll talk again in the morning.”
“Yeah, okay.” Matt’s wisdom was impressive. “Goodnight.”
“Night.”
I staggered up to bed, excited for the morning. I wanted to get started on my plan. I couldn’t wait to work out what I was going to do, and I was also excited to get rid of this drunk out of control feeling. It made me feel like shit; I didn’t much like it. It wasn’t me anymore. And if I wanted to be with Alissa, then I needed to be the best version possible of me. She deserved that.