Hurry Up And Wait (Owens Protective Services #24)

31. Isla

31

ISLA

I laid on the couch popping Jujyfruits into my mouth as I watched Bridget Jones’s Diary. I felt so much like her right now. Alone and sad on New Year’s Eve. Except, it wasn’t New Year’s and my sister was in the other chair, trying not to cringe at my greasy hair and stained T-shirt. No, I had not showered all week. Or changed my clothes. Or brushed my teeth. I was a walking disaster.

One of my Jujyfruits fell to the floor and I brushed my fingers over the dusty wood, trying to find the missing candy. When I did, I wiped it off and popped it in my mouth.

“Okay, that’s it,” she said, slapping her hands on the arm of the chair. “I can’t take it anymore. This insanity has to stop.”

Curious, I looked over at her, flipping my matted hair out of the way so I could clearly see her. “What?”

“This!” she shouted, pointing at me. “I just watched you eat floor candy! Seriously, how much worse can this get?”

“Five-second rule,” I argued.

“And that would have been fine if you had eaten the candy you dropped.”

“I did! ”

“No,” she said calmly. “You ate the candy you dropped last night that’s been sitting on the floor collecting dust!”

I would have grimaced at that, but…it tasted fine.

“Isles, seriously, girl, you have to stop this. Kavanaugh was a prick. He’s lower than a prick, okay? But you cannot sit around in your disgusting ten-day-old pajamas, watching television all day. You’re better than this.”

I didn’t feel better than this. I was sad and pathetic. And I wanted to be sad and pathetic while watching Bridget Jones.

“Christ,” Bowie muttered as he walked into the room. “Is she still in those pajamas?”

“Hey!” I chastised, feeling very judged.

He looked at Riley, shaking his head. “I can’t do this. I need a break from the smell. I’m calling IKE.”

“What?” I asked, sitting up suddenly.

“We’re getting out of here for the night. Let IKE deal with her.”

“You will do no such thing!” I demanded.

“Ooh, can we see a movie? Isla bailed on me last time.”

“Hey, I didn’t bail on you. I was five minutes late, and you still got popcorn!”

“Any movie you want. Hell, let’s make it a movie marathon. We’ll be gone until the theater closes. I don’t care if I have to sit through a fucking kids’ movie.”

“I am not that bad!” I insisted, lifting my arm to sniff. But I didn’t even have to raise my arm before the smell wafted toward my nose, completely grossing me out.

Riley rushed for the stairs. “I’ll get my stuff. You call IKE.”

“There’s no guarantee he’ll come over!” I stomped my foot. “He doesn’t even like me.”

“He’ll come when I tell him the state of…this,” he said, waving his arm down the length of my body.

I was highly offended by that and crossed my arms over my chest, ready to give him a piece of my mind, but he was already on the phone with IKE.

“Dude, I’m telling you, it’s really bad. I can’t take it anymore.”

I glared at him, but he didn’t seem to care .

“I don’t give a shit if you want to smell it or not. I’m telling you, I’m out of here in fifteen, and if you’re not here, she’s going to be alone.”

I couldn’t believe the nerve of him. He was bartering with another man over who had to watch my stinky ass. I cringed as I thought of IKE seeing me like this. I guess it didn’t bother me with Bowie because he’d been here the whole time, watching me slowly wither into a pathetic, stinky woman. Maybe it was the frog in boiling water effect. But the thought of anyone walking through that door right now and seeing me like this…

I ran for the stairs, slipping in my five-day socks as I rounded the first two stairs. I nearly took out Riley as I crested the top of the stairs, but she just held her nose and let me pass. It must be really bad. I took off my clothes in my bedroom and tossed them in the laundry basket, then hopped in the shower. It was only when I felt my fingers in my greasy hair that I realized just how far I’d slipped. My scalp actually hurt and I spent a good five minutes massaging my skin to make my hair stop aching.

And when I saw the hair on my legs…well, thankfully, Riley and Bowie had snapped me out of my funk. I toweled off, feeling a hundred times better as I stepped out of the shower and the steam billowed out behind me. It was night, so I could have gotten back in some sweats or something, but that would only let me fall back into my depressed state, so I slipped on some jeans and a T-shirt.

By the time I made it back downstairs, Riley and Bowie were gone, and IKE was sitting in the chair Riley had been occupying. IKE glanced at me, his eyes roaming over my body for a second before he turned back to the television.

“I sprayed down your chair so it would stop smelling like ass.”

I rolled my eyes and headed for the kitchen to grab something to eat. My stomach ached from eating only candy and popcorn for the last five days. Thankfully, I had brushed the fuzz from my teeth. It was like I was growing caterpillars in my mouth or something.

“Do you want something to eat?”

“Are you cooking?” he asked.

I didn’t have the energy for that. Yes, I was feeling better, but I was exhausted as hell from lack of sleep. I slumped at the kitchen table. My legs wouldn’t hold me up for too much longer.

“I take that as a no,” IKE muttered, making me jump.

I hadn’t realized he had followed me. He sat across from me in his expensive suit, staring at me intently, scrutinizing every inch of my face. “What?”

“Why did you let him do this to you?”

I glared at him, not appreciating the underlying words to his question. “That’s none of your business.”

“Kick his ass to the curb and move on. He’s not worth it.”

Maybe I felt that way a little bit, but hearing IKE say it only got my back up. All those wonderful memories with Kavanaugh flooded my mind, making me ache for the feel of his body against mine. What I wouldn’t give for another hug from him or to feel his lips brushing kisses against my temple as he laughed while he tickled me.

“Christ,” he muttered. “Don’t fucking cry about it.”

I swiped the tears from my face, refusing to be all sappy about Kavanaugh. I couldn’t help it, though. Lack of sleep was making me do stupid things. “You don’t know him like I do.”

“Thank God for that,” he hissed.

“I asked you if it was real. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t know,” he shrugged.

I wasn’t buying it. IKE knew everything. Always. And he had no problems giving his opinion when asked, so why hadn’t he just told me that Kavanaugh really was engaged?

“You did know.”

“Prove it,” he challenged.

I cocked my head at him. “I don’t need to. You always know everything, and you have no problem telling me what you think. You knew Kavanaugh was engaged, so why didn’t you just say it?”

“Was he really engaged? It’s a publicity stunt.”

“That doesn’t make it any less real to me,” I argued.

“No,” he said after a moment of staring at me. “No, it doesn’t. I told you?—”

I rolled my eyes. “If I have to hear one last time about how you told me he was going to break my heart…just save it. It’s done and over with.”

“But it’s not,” he sighed. “Because you’re sitting here, depressed as hell, unable to eat anything other than crap, and you’re wondering why no one told you. It’s eating at you, and until you figure out a way to either forget him or forgive him, nothing is going to change.”

I knew he was right. I needed to sort through things in my head and figure out my next step. I knew Kavanaugh would come home eventually, and when he did, he’d want to talk. He’d been calling me multiple times a day, leaving me voicemails and pleading with me to hear him out. But I wasn’t ready for that. I shut off my phone two days ago and hadn’t bothered to listen to any more of his messages.

Well, until last night when I broke down and secretly turned on my phone when Riley wasn’t watching. The first one nearly broke me. The pleading for forgiveness and the desperation in his voice made me burst into tears. It was pathetic and sad, but I couldn’t help it. I still remembered the boy I grew up with, and the way I felt when I saw him in the grocery store when we arrived. He lit up my life, and if it weren’t for this job, everything would have been good between us. How did I move on from that?

“So…food?”

He was right. I had to get past this. And the first step was eating something other than candy.

“Tacos.”