Page 8 of Home for Christmas
“You didn’t have to leave your friends or rush away from Amberly. You could have stayed.”
“Amberly? Is that the name of the girl who talked to me?”
“You…you don’t remember her name?” Just when we were getting along so well, he has to do something like this. I’m…stunned. Shocked a little. And just plain disgusted.
“Not really. I haven’t talked to anyone from that part of my life for…well, it’s got to be almost three years now.”
“But…,” he has to…I don’t know, be joking or something. I realize he’s not the hero I thought he was but this is…douchebag behavior that I didn’t think he would ever do. “You…you don’t…remember the names of the women you slept with?”
He takes his eyes off the road for a second to look at me like I’ve grown two heads and am speaking a language he doesn’t understand.
“Slept with? What? I never slept with her.”
“But…she said…she implied you two slept together.”
“Peach, the last time I was home I only stayed a handful of hours and those were all spent with my mom. And that was twoyears ago. And the time before that I couldn’t even tell you who I saw other than you and the Moms.”
Oh! Some of the anger I was feeling about him not remembering one of his past lovers’ names slips from me. It kind of seemed like there might have been too many to keep up with and that was alarming.
“And I never slept with her before that either. Not ever.”
Why would he lie about sleeping with Amberly? He wouldn’t really have a reason to lie. I guess I just imagined the connection between the two of them. Silence fills the car while I’m so wrapped up in my thoughts.
“You ever think maybe, just maybe, I’m not as much of a manwhore as you seem to think I am?”
“Maybe.” Even I don’t think I sound convinced. “But I still think you made a ‘touchdown’ with a lot of the cheerleaders back in high school.”
“Nope.” Unbelievable. “Never.”
I can’t buy that this hot as fuck man sitting next to me never plucked the fruit that was so willingly being thrown at him.
“Never wanted to plant my flag where everyone else seemed to already have an embassy if you know what I mean.”
I actually laugh at that analogy.
“That’s a nice sound I haven’t heard in a few years.”
We pull into my driveway before laying any more truth on me.
“Things haven’t exactly been…comfortable between us.”
It’s the only excuse I can give him for my surliness over the years. I guess I have been a little bit of a bitch to him for no good fucking reason. Guess the crush affected me more than I realized. The whole time I’ve been thinking Tannen was the bad guy and it’s been me all along. Damn it!
Chapter Eight
Tannen
I sit back and look at the woman beside me with new eyes. No wonder she didn’t want anything to do with me. She thought I fucked half the girls in the school. And now she’s telling me things have been strained between us, that she felt uncomfortable around me. It’s like a knife being driven into my heart.
“Maybe…we could do something about that this year.”
“Like what?” I think I spot a glimmer of hope in her eyes, but that might just be me imagining what I want to see there instead of reality.
“Well, we could…” stop pretending we can keep our hands off one another and start fucking in the car right here and now, “try to let all the old stuff go.”
I say that instead of the fucking thing, feeling that it will go over better.
“Maybe try to start over, try to be nice to one another.”