Wasted Time (The Steel City #1)

13. Penny

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

penny

A Long Island iced tea is set on the table in front of my empty chair.

Feeling foolish now that I had time to decompress in the washroom, using a rough paper towel and hand soap to rub the mascara from my cheeks, I smile timidly at Declan in hopes that he’ll ignore every single thing that I have said to him since he opened that door.

He’s glowering at his bottle of beer when I pull out the chair and take a seat across from him.

Yeah, it’s not going to be that easy.

His eyes flicker up to me the second my ass hits the seat.

“What happened?”

A long sigh leaves my body. I hurriedly take a sip of the Long Island, treasuring the immediate smack of tequila hitting the back of my throat. The burn is incredible. This is why people drink when they’re going through things. Feeling numb is preferable to feeling anything at all.

Declan and I have a lot of unfinished business. I know we have to talk about it. But right now, he’s being kind and pretending that nothing has changed, so I’ll do the same. I am not sure that I deserve him, but I’m grateful that I have him.

“I don’t know,” I admit, my voice strangely quiet. I run my finger around the condensation at the bottom of my glass. “I thought things were fine.”

Because they were. He acted like they were.

“You just moved to London for him. For his job. You got a new house. I don’t understand.”

Yeah, that makes two of us.

It doesn’t surprise me that despite all my efforts, Declan knows everything that has been happening in my life.

I offer all I can: a shrug of my shoulders.

We have been having the best time over the last few months. It’s almost some sick, cosmic punishment for something I’ve done. I was truly happy for the first time in a long time. We were having fun. He told me all the things I’ve been waiting to hear.

He is going to marry me one day.

He is so proud of the life we built together.

He took me for granted and realized that now.

I moved for him. I gave up my house that I’d decorated to perfection over the last few years. The home I adored. I gave up my job and fought for an equivalent in a city that he wanted to live in for the benefit of his own career.

I gave up everything to keep him happy, to keep us happy.

“What did he say?”

“That we were kidding ourselves, essentially,” I murmur. “He said that we’d be wasting even more time if we stayed together.”

Declan runs his hand over his bottom jaw, letting out a long breath. He tears the ball cap from his head and runs his hands through his dark, wavy hair. It’s a bit longer now, ending just below his ears, where it curls upward.

He shoves the hat back on his head.

“He thinks our relationship was a waste of time,” I repeat quietly, tasting those words for what they are. Harsh. Cruel. A bitter laugh leaves my throat.

“Yeah, well. He’s a fucking dumbass,” Declan grumbles, taking a swig of his beer.

“He told me we’d get married one day, Dec. I am not making that up.”

I don’t know why I feel desperate for him to know that Gavin had been telling me these things, that I hadn’t conjured up this version of him that nobody else had ever witnessed. I feel pathetic. Like I put blinders on, even when I had already seen all the bad signs and the red flags.

I swore I’d never be this girl, but here I am.

I just need Declan to know that the reasons I stayed weren’t baseless.

I know he hates him, but there were reasons that I loved him. I need him to know that, too.

Declan’s eyes burn into mine. “I know. That guy told you what you wanted to hear for so long that you started to believe him. He’s a piece of shit.”

“I’m almost thirty.”

Declan’s brow furrows, but that fact weighs heavy on my heart. I wasted almost the entirety of my twenties on a man who thought our relationship was a waste of time. I bought every pretty lie he told me. I ate it up, planning and looking forward to a future with a man who didn’t exist.

Now I am twenty-nine years old. My friends and loved ones are getting engaged or married, some even having children, and I am starting over.

“So?”

“I’m single and almost thirty,” I mutter, bringing my glass to my lips. “How pathetic. ”

“Pathetic would be staying with a guy who doesn’t love you because you’re almost thirty.” Declan’s voice is calm, even, but there’s a hint of simmering anger lingering there.

I don’t like hearing that Gavin doesn’t love me from Declan’s mouth. That somehow feels worse than hearing it from Gavin himself.

“I really don’t want to start over.”

Translation: I’m terrified.

“Well, tough shit.” Declan leans forward, outstretching his hand. I stare at it for a moment, my throat thick with emotion. Reluctantly, I reach forward and place my hand in his. His thumb immediately sweeps over my knuckles. “You’re twenty-nine, and you’re starting over. Isn’t that exciting? You get to start over.”

My gaze flickers from our hands to his face. Tears are brimming in my eyes again, my chest sporting a hollow ache that doesn’t seem to ever really fade completely.

Declan swipes his thumb over my knuckles again, nodding with reassurance.

I owe him a big, huge apology.

“Dec,” I whisper, my voice catching.

He watches me carefully, eyes narrowing as if he’s read my mind. He shakes his head.

“Don’t.”

A waitress appears then. I recognize her from high school, but I can’t bring myself to meet her eyes. She’ll see everything in my face, and the last thing I want is to be the talk around town, especially since I’ll be here for a while.

I yank my hand from Declan’s and grab my drink again, taking a long sip.

A tray of tequila shots with lemons is placed in between us, poured right to the rim. Declan smiles up at her, winking with an arrogant smoothness. She beams down at him, trying but failing to hide the blush that hits her cheeks.

When she turns away, I cock a brow. “Expecting a party?”

The bar is dead around us. It’s a Thursday. The number of shots on the plate outnumber the amount of people in the room.

“Nah, just us.” He smirks, pulling a shot from the tray. He picks the lemon off another and tosses it aside, handing the shot to me. He holds his own in between us, meeting my eyes. “It’s time to free the real Penny. The one who's been trapped inside of you for ten years. Tequila, no lemon. C’mon, P.”

I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips. This is a bad idea. A real bad idea. But I don’t want to keep thinking about Gavin. I don’t want to keep thinking about my parents’ faces when I showed up sobbing on their doorstep. I don’t want to think anymore. Not at all. Not about him.

“She’s a little rusty.”

“I know her,” he reminds me, clicking his tongue. He clinks his shot glass against mine. “It won’t take her long to find her footing.”

With that, we both down our shots. Declan bites into his lemon, cringing as the tequila glides down his throat. I take mine in one gulp, no lemon or salt, and only slightly wince at the taste. The Swan doesn’t have the best tequila, but it does the job.

“Does he know you’re here?”

I wipe the corners of my mouth with my fingers. “Yeah.”

Declan nods slowly. “You should have made him leave the house.”

I don’t give a fuck about the house.

“I was suffocating,” I admit, reaching for another shot. Declan looks reluctant, but he grabs one, too. “I needed to get out of the house and that city. ”

“You needed to come home.”

I meet his eyes. A silent moment of understanding passes between us. I forgive him. What happened last summer is forgotten. I needed to be here, in this bar tonight, shockingly with Declan.

It couldn’t have been Avery. It had to have been him.

I need tough, honest love. He gives that to me.

I nod.

We both take our shot. Aerosmith starts blasting over the speakers and Declan nearly jumps out of his seat toward me.

I smile and shake my head, already knowing where he’s headed with this, but he has that boyish smile of excitement on his face—as if this was a gesture of fate.

We both know that he told the waitress exactly what songs to punch into the jukebox while I calmed down in the restroom.

My eyes drop to the dimples that are poking through his stubble. He holds out his hand, downing the rest of his beer.

“No.”

He grins wider, shaking his palm in my face.

“Declan.” I laugh, leaning away from his hand. I take a sip of my drink instead, holding his patient stare. “No.”

“One more shot, then get your ass up.”

“No.”

“I’ll dance alone and embarrass the hell out of you. I’ll put on a real good show, too. You’ll have to sit there and watch every second of it or shut your eyes for the next hour.”

Oh god, there is only one thing worse than embarrassment, and its second-hand embarrassment.

Screw it.

Sighing, I reach for the shot and take it. I don’t pick on him for not having one with me, I know with a few more, he’ll likely be puking all over the floor. He isn’t a master at the tequila game like I am, in the same way that I couldn’t finish a second beer.

With a glare that doesn’t match my smile, I smack my palm into his and allow him to hoist me to my feet, right to the center of the glaringly empty dance floor.

The bartenders watch us curiously. I ensure my back is to them as Declan tugs me to his chest, one of his arms sliding around my waist. He holds our hands between us, guiding our bodies in a small circle as the ballad pours from the speakers.

I try not to focus on the lyrics. When I was younger, I imagined this song as my wedding song. Now, I doubt I’ll ever even have a wedding at all. I don’t even think I want one. I have to let that dream die. I can’t deal with this crushing pain again; I can’t risk winding up in another dead-end relationship so late in life. I’d rather be alone.

I swallow, forcing a long breath from my lungs. I will not cry again. Not tonight.

“He’s an idiot,” Declan murmurs, forcing my gaze upward. He holds my stare, hazel eyes swimming with understanding. “He’ll regret it. Maybe not right away, but he will.”

“He seemed pretty certain.”

“Because he’s right,” Declan says, and I tense at those words. I move to step back, like he slapped me, but he tugs me back to him. “That relationship was not going anywhere, but that wasn’t because of you. He knows he can’t give you what you want. That doesn’t mean there won’t come a day where he’ll realize how desperately he wished he’d tried.”

Tears blur my vision. I pull my eyes away, looking over Declan’s shoulder as I slide my arm under his to hold him closer. I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to.

“I’m scared.”

“I know,” he mumbles, and I feel his cheek resting against my head. “But it will all sort itself out and that fear will fade, and then you’ll be free.”

My eyes flutter shut as a few tears slip out. Free. It sounds like a cage that I’m walking into, convincing myself that this freedom will bring me all the good things I’ve always wanted, when I know what will really come from it. I’ll be alone, and I’ll be alone for a while. I am walking out of my old cage and straight into a new one.

I’m not in my early twenties anymore—my friends have been my friends for a decade or longer. I don’t meet new people often, and guys are never just walking up to me with interest. They never have. It was always just Gavin. It’s hard to date in a world with social media. Nothing is organic anymore.

“You’re going to be okay, Lucky.”

Am I? It doesn’t even feel like I’m going to make it out of this alive.

“I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know who I am beyond him and what we’ve built together,” I admit quietly. It must be the tequila forcing these confessions, because I’ve never said that aloud. Not even to Avery.

“Now is the time to find out,” he says. “And you’re going to fall in love with every piece of her because I remember her. She’s pretty great. I’m excited to see how she is now that she’s grown over the years. I wonder if she’s stopped deleting people off Instagram. Remember when she used to do that?”

A shocked laugh rips through me. He doesn’t let me ponder over the jab. He doesn’t let the regret seep in. It was a joke. He’s telling me in not as many words that he forgives me, too.

“She’s strong and she’s tough and she knows who she is, even when she thinks she doesn’t.”

“And she has a hard time listening to friends who are telling her the tough truths that she needs to hear,” I mutter.

He pulls back a bit to look at me. Not for the first time tonight, I brace myself to hear the ‘I told you so’ that he must be dying to say.

He’d been right, and I’d cut him out of my life for a year.

His frown deepens, and I hold my breath—ready to take the blow that I deserve. Instead, he grips my hand tighter.

“Isn’t this one of your favourite songs?” he asks, catching me off guard. I nod, distracted by the change in subject. “Why aren’t we screaming it at the top of our lungs?”

I blink, glancing around. There is a couple on a date, sharing a plate of fries, tucked at the back of the bar. A group of guys are sitting at the long table behind us, beers littering their space. With the bartenders, the grand total of people in this bar is eight, plus us.

“Because you could hear crickets in this room,” I point out.

He shrugs a shoulder, a flash of mischief sparking in his eyes. Declan tilts his head back, screws his eyes shut, and begins to belt the lyrics to the high-pitch chorus of the Aerosmith song.

Incredibly loud. Incredibly off-pitch.

I duck my head. This is a Penny move, but this is a drunk Penny, in the middle of a very loud bar move. I am mortified as I tuck my head between my shoulders and flush so quickly, I suddenly feel like I’m wearing twenty-five layers of clothing with how warm I am.

Declan spins me around faster. He doesn’t stop singing. Even when the words are wrong, he’s screaming them with just as much confidence as if they were tattooed on his body. His grip is so iron-tight that I couldn’t pull away if I wanted to.

I cannot look anywhere but his face, my eyes wide. I want to punch him.

I can feel the laughter bubbling in my chest.

I want to hug him.

His eyes flicker to mine, and his smile lights up the whole damn bar. He nods, reassuringly, as if it’s time for the old Penny to remind the new one that she’s still in there and that the world deserves to meet her again. That I deserve to meet her again.

I can feel the eyes of the men at the table. I can hear the bartenders laughing and cheering as if this is a free show. It helps that Dec is a legend around here. Everything inside of me wants me to tuck my tail between my legs and run from the attention. Everything but him.

Instead, I tilt my head back, screw my eyes shut like Declan did, and I sing.