Page 51 of The Sweet Talker

“Goodbye, Brody.” I force myself to stay calm, not to cry in front of him. He doesn’t deserve my tears. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

15

Brody

I stand there, the world crashing in on me as Josie pushes past me, her dripping wet phone still in my hand. She clearly hates me now, and you know what. I hate me too. All this time I was holding onto the one thing that was precious to her, the one last chance to hear her late husband’s voice and yes, it’s wrong that I even considered peeking into her personal life because Declan threw up a stupid challenge. I don’t deserve her. I don’t deserve happiness at all. But she does. No one in the world deserves it more than Josie.

Looking at the world through blurry eyes, and it has nothing to do with the rain, I get back in my car. Not knowing where to go, or who to turn to, I drive back to Declan’s. I glance at the phone in the seat beside me and once again mentally berate myself. I fuck everything up. It’s what I do. I never, ever should have started anything with Josie. This is all on me.

I sit in the driveway and soon Declan’s front door opens, and he walks out with Nikki. He takes one look at my car, me sitting alone in the driver’s seat and turns to say something to Nikki. She nods, gives me a little wave and goes back inside the house. The next thing I know, the passenger door opens and I snatch up Josie’s phone as Declan slides in.

He takes one look at my face and shakes his head. “What happened?”

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nbsp; “We’re done.” I punch the ceiling. “Josie walked.”

“Why?”

“Don’t all women walk from my life, Declan?”

“Come on, Brody, there’s more to it than that.”

“Shit, what am I saying? This isn’t on Josie, this is on me. She’s nothing like my mother and stepmothers. She’s way better than any of them.” I exhale, pinching my nose. “This is on me, Declan. I fucked up.”

“We need to fix it then.”

“There’s no fixing it.” I hold up Josie’s phone and Declan frowns. I quickly give him a rundown on what I did, and didn’t do—which was invade her privacy. But none of that matters. Not really.

“Shit, this is bad. I know you never opened her phone, I know you’d never do that, but she thinks you did, and just the fact that you kept it, had it all this time…” He gives a low slow whistle. “There might not be any coming back from that, bud. But you have to at least try, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore.” I shake my head, because there is no making this right. “Her phone… She needs to hear her late husband’s message. She might not want to move forward with me, but I at least hope the message is what she needs to hear, what it’s going to take to heal her wholly and help her find happiness, even if it’s not with me.”

I punch the ceiling again, the thoughts of her being with another man eating me alive. But I’ll just have to deal with that. This is about Josie, not me, and I’ll do anything to make this right.

“Come on, I know a guy.”

“What?”

“If we want to save the phone, we have to work fast. Start the car and drive east.” I do as Declan orders. “Go faster.”

I drive east, and step on the gas pedal, going past the speed limit, but if he knows a way to fix the phone, I’ll deal with a speeding ticket.

We pull into a small subdivision, and the houses are all lit up. “Right there, pull into the driveway.”

“It looks like there’s a house party.” Unease tightens my gut. “We can’t barge in on someone’s party, it’s Christmas Eve.”

Declan laughs. “Are you kidding me? We bring the party wherever we go. How many people get to say two Seattle Shooters showed up at their door on Christmas Eve?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I reach for the door. “If you think it’s okay.”

“Come on.”

Phone in hand, we hurry up to the door, and Declan knocks. The door swings open and there’s a middle-aged man standing there. “Declan, son, what are you doing here?” the man asks, arms wide to hug Declan. After they separate, the man’s eyes go bigger when he turns to me. “Brody Tucker, what a surprise. This is the best Christmas present ever.” He calls over his shoulder, “You guys are not going to believe this.” He waves his hand. “Come in, come in.”

Declan clears his throat. “We kind of need a favor, Mr. Ferguson.”

“What can I do for you?”