Too Bad So Sad

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  Kayla snickered. “I’m so glad that you left that weirdo.”

  I was, too.

  Though, at the time I hadn’t realized he was a weirdo.

  When I met my now ex-boyfriend, I was thinking, holy shit! Someone likes me! Someone who knows what it’s like to not want to talk to anyone while still wanting someone around, you know, in case you needed them, or they needed you. But, as it turned out, I didn’t actually know Dusty as well as I thought I did.

  When I tried to pursue my dreams, instead of supporting me in chasing them, he ruined my chance of ever going for them because I didn’t choose him.

  Although, he claimed the accident was just that—an accident.

  I knew better.

  I’d seen his eyes right before the crash. I saw the way he’d narrowed them and tightened his hands on the steering wheel before he’d supposedly lost control.

  I wasn’t stupid.

  But it was kind of up for deliberation.

  If I’d been smarter, I would’ve told everyone my suspicions.

  Instead, everyone just thought we grew apart.

  We hadn’t.

  I didn’t want to be anywhere near him, so I broke up with him hours after our accident.

  He’d been determined and hung around for a lot longer than I wanted him to, but eventually he got the message.

  Kind of.

  He might’ve gone away, but it was never for long.

  He’d become slightly obsessed with me and turned into a stalker.

  Luckily, I was now an hour away from him in a town that was just a tad too country for him to survive in—at least happily.

  Dusty, despite his country name, was a city boy. He hated the rural towns and couldn’t stand there not being a Starbucks a few blocks away at all times.

  He may be scholarly, so smart it wasn’t even funny, but he was also a stuck-up snob who refused to lower his standards by going to a town like Hostel.

  I tried to get him to visit the antique stores in the smaller towns around Kilgore and the moment we parked, his expression took on the permanent lip curl that was a sure sign of his disgust until we left.

  “God, I saw him the other day when I went home. He looked almost good. He’s grown out a beard and he looks so much less nerdy than what he used to,” Janie said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “You can grow a beard, but that doesn’t magically grow you a set of balls,” I pointed out. “I’m sure he still wears perfectly starched blue jeans and wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair of work boots.”

  Nope, not Dusty. He was allergic to work—at least the physical variety that required him getting his hands dirty.

  He was perfectly fine with going to the gym—one that barely anyone could afford because they charged its members an arm and a leg—but going outside and getting those hands involved in a little manual labor? Yeah, that was a big fat no.

  Just another reason I’d started hating him toward the end of our relationship.

  Though softball was a big part of my life, so were plants. I’ve had a love for them since I was old enough to help my Dad pick the garden plantings and landscaping foliage. From there, that love had turned into an inquisitiveness that had led me down the path of choosing botany as my career.

  The fastest way to get Dusty upset was to show up for a date with dirt under my fingernails—which happened a lot. I loved to plant, garden, and grow all things. It wasn’t unheard of for me to lose myself for hours outside just working in the garden or my flower beds.

  Therefore, showing up late for a date with dirt under my fingernails…yeah, that was a big no-no for him.

  Apparently, it’d been a huge deal to Dusty…and one of the biggest fights we had was over my inability to clean myself properly for dates.

  “Such a douche,” Janie confirmed. “I’m so glad that you got rid of him.”

  I shrugged, unwilling to talk about that man any longer. “Anyway, I have a date already. We’re going to see the new Avengers movie.”

  Janie rolled her eyes. “You and those Avengers. You do know that Thor isn’t real, right?”

  I gave her a crestfallen look. “You’re lying.”

  Janie rolled her eyes and snorted out a laugh, causing the baby on her chest to momentarily lift her head. Luckily, she just twisted and repositioned her face on the other side and went back to sleep.

  “Shew,” Janie said. “I need her to take another solid hour nap, otherwise she’ll be cranky tonight.”

  I picked up my keys at that comment and started walking toward the door.

  “You’re not even going to say goodbye?” Kayla asked.

  Janie hummed in agreement.

  “Bye.”

  ***

  The next night, I was at my movie with a massive bowl of popcorn and a Dr. Pepper the size of a two liter. I’d just found my spot, leaned down in my chair while putting my feet up onto the bars in front of me and started munching away while watching the previews when I felt the seat beside mine pull down.

  Now, the theater was fairly crowded, but I’d purposefully chosen a seat that was in the middle of the theater, in the middle of two chairs, with people on either side of those chairs. That way, no one would sit beside me.

  Apparently, I was wrong.

  Someone did sit beside me.

  Someone that I really, really didn’t want sitting there.

  Tyler.

  Police Chief Tyler Cree, according to Janie and Kayla.

  I narrowed my eyes at the man while giving him a sideways glance and then decided to ignore him.

  I’d have done a damn fine job of it, too, had he not tried to take over the freakin’ armrest. I gritted my teeth and leaned toward the other armrest while also shoving a handful of popcorn into my mouth.

  Normally the armrest that your drink rests in is ‘yours.’ That’s just common movie theater etiquette. It was more than apparent that this man had none.

  Otherwise, he wouldn’t have sat there in the first place.

  The theater lights dimmed and I shifted in my seat, trying to find a more comfortable spot so that my ass didn’t hurt.

  Apparently, during my fall yesterday in the mud, I’d royally bruised my ass and I was now paying the consequences for my clumsiness.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, seemingly worried about me.

  That had to be some sort of a trick question. The man couldn’t actually be concerned about little old me, could he?

  Was it really even concern I heard in the asshole’s deep, sexy voice?

  I shouldn’t have fallen for it.

  I really shouldn’t have.

  “When I fell yesterday, I must’ve done it on a rock or something in the mud. My asscheek is tender,” I told him.

  I got up to use the restroom before anything good happened, intent on ignoring any more of his questions.

  The only problem was that he followed me outside and caught me before I could so much as make it two steps out of the theater.

  “Wait,” he ordered.

  I sighed and waited, not surprised in the least when he made his move.

  He circled around my body and I instantly regretted wearing the shorts.

  “Hmm,” he said. “Looks just fine to me.”

  I stiffened at his words.

  “If you didn’t trespass on people’s land, then you wouldn’t get hurt,” he suggested.

  I felt my hands clench in anger and when I turned around to confront his rude self, he was already walking away.

  ***

  The next couple of hours were torture.

  He sat beside me, eating my popcorn whenever he could sneak a handful during the action scenes while I wasn’t paying attention and succeeded in making me feel incredibly annoyed.

  It was when we were walking out, him at my side, that I’d had enough.

  “You’re a jerk,” I told him.

  Tyler shrugged. “I’m honest. If that m
akes me a jerk? Oh fuckin’ well.”

  He’d made it to his car at this point and I decided that we weren’t done.

  Stomping toward him, I stopped about a foot from his car and said, “A police chief shouldn’t talk like that in public.”

  He snorted and got into his truck—which was, of course, my dream truck and that made it even worse to be standing next to him and his vehicle.

  Why did he have to have what I wanted? I couldn’t even admire the truck because that would give him an even bigger head than he had already.

  And if he knew that I liked it, I had no doubt in my mind that he would taunt me with it.

  He’d drive it past me, windows down, making me want to smack him. Or throw a rock at it, which would just get me in trouble with the law—as well as him.

  I looked away from the beautiful truck—the 1969 GMC ¾ ton single cab lifted with thirty-two-inch tires.

  I’d first seen the truck in my favorite movie, Sweet Home Alabama. From then on, I promised everyone who would listen that it would one day be mine.

  Not the actual truck from the movie, but one similar to it.

  “If you’re done, I gotta go. I have to go meet my sisters, nieces, and nephew for lunch.” He broke me out of my contemplation of his truck.

  I smiled at him, which came out more like a grimace and turned and walked away without another word.

  All the while, I wondered what it would take to get that cocky smile off his face.

  I could probably punch it off…

  ***

  Tyler

  She was going to punch me.

  I saw the contemplation and her desire to do it.

  Not that she would ever be able to or anything.

  Alana, my sister, and Autumn, my sister’s daughter, met me at the door. Autumn was now two and a half years old, but she looked like Alana’s mini-me and nothing like her father at all.

  “Where’s the rest of the crew?” I asked.

  Alana pointed at the parking lot where my other sister, Henley, was rolling in with her children.

  She looked comical, to say the least.

  She had three infants, all at different ages—kind of. It was a complicated story.

  Henley and her husband Rhys Rivera, the 3rd baseman for the professional baseball team, the Longview Lumberjacks, had gotten married. Shortly after the ceremony, they’d decided that they wanted children and they didn’t do it the normal way—which was naturally—at least not at first. They decided to get a surrogate and get in-vitro fertilization done.

  Fast forward seven months and the twins were born early. Then, amidst all of the worrying about the twin’s health, Henley found out that she was expecting—as in she was already six months pregnant herself. Which meant that she had two four-month-olds and an infant who was less than three weeks old.

  She looked tired, but she looked happy.

  I left Alana and Autumn and headed to Henley, meeting her in the parking lot at her car.

  “Thank you,” she groaned. “She may not look heavy, but she is.”

  The youngest one that was barely three weeks old and looked just like her daddy and nothing like Henley. All dark eyes, dark hair, and tanned complexion, there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind that this baby belonged to Rhys Rivera—baseball’s sexiest player of the year.

  The other two seemed to be a mix between Rhys and Henley, but Rhys’ traits still seemed to dominate where it was most obvious—in the twins’ eyes and their hair.

  Though all three had dark curly hair in common, making their parentage undeniable.

  “She’s like a cloud of squishy,” I teased, looking down at the baby girl. “Why didn’t you just bring the stroller in?”

  She shrugged and looked as if she was sorry she hadn’t done that now. “I would have, but there’s no room in any restaurant for a stroller that big. Plus, I knew y’all would be here, so I saw no reason not to just bring them this way.

  ‘This way’ being one in a carrier, another in a car seat, and the other in her arm.

  I rolled my eyes. “And where is your husband? I thought he was supposed to join us for dinner.”

  Henley smiled. “He was, but then he got a call from the Make a Wish Foundation. A little boy’s final wish was to meet Rhys. This was supposed to be set up for next week, but then they found out that the little boy didn’t have a good prognosis. They didn’t expect him to be coherent enough next week to even realize who Rhys was, so he flew out to Indiana this morning around nine.”

  I felt my gut clench.

  “That’s nice of him,” I murmured. “And really sad.”

  Henley smiled sweetly. “I think if you gave Rhys a chance, you might realize that he’s actually a really good guy.”

  There were still some things that I wasn’t quite sure about when it came to my sister and her husband.

  I wasn’t a dumb person.

  Nobody, not even one with money, got married and started having kids—even the normal way—without taking at least a little bit of time for themselves. Henley and Rhys hadn’t. Not even a little bit of time to breathe.

  Then there were all the rumors that I’d heard when it’d come to my sister’s husband and what I’d heard wasn’t good.

  But, I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. I was going to be the good big brother and watch out for her, but I was also going to let her live her own life.

  If she ever needed me, I’d be there.

  And she knew that.

  “We’ll see,” I teased. “You ready to eat?”

  Henley narrowed her eyes on me for a few short seconds and then shrugged. “Ravenous. This breastfeeding thing for three babies is a never-ending revolving door. I consume like three thousand calories a day and I’m still losing weight.”

  “You’re losing weight because you weren’t fat to begin with and your hubby makes you go on walks every day because he can’t stand to sit still for more than an hour at a time,” Alana said. “Did you know that he was up at four this morning making the rounds around the ranch? Swear to God, I think he never sleeps.”

  Henley snorted. “He was up making the rounds, as you say, because he knew he couldn’t do it at the normal time and the animals need to be fed. He remembered that you were off and he didn’t want me to have to do it again since it should have been your turn today.”

  I walked up to the hostess stand and smiled at her. “We need a table for like fifteen.”

  “Tyler,” Alana smacked me. “We need a table big enough for the three of us and these babies. I need three high chairs, one of which needs to be capable of holding a car seat.”

  Henley handed me the diaper bag that she’d had crossed over her chest and I hefted that up, too, shifting the baby in my arms to the side to balance out the weight.

  Henley was right. The more I held the little girl, the heavier she got.

  Though…she still felt tiny, just a little awkward since she was so small that she had to be cradled to my chest.

  I’ve gotten a lot of baby experience since Autumn, my eldest niece, was born.

  But I’ve gotten a lot more since Henley’s three were born.

  I’ve become a part of their life again and I was regretting ever leaving it.

  I was also pissed that I’d allowed two people to dictate how I’d lived it. Allowed the hurt I’d felt to keep me from my hometown and my sisters.

  Because if I’d been here, I would’ve known a whole lot more about what was going on with Rhys and Henley’s relationship and I wouldn’t be totally in the dark about their marriage when my gut was telling me something was off about their interactions concerning the children.

  The baby in my arms started to whimper and I turned my attention to her as we weaved through the tables and chairs, not paying any attention to the occupants of those chairs.

  If I had been paying attention, I would’ve seen the two people that I did not want to see—de
spite my promise to myself and others that I was over what had happened.

  “Is this good?” the hostess asked as she pointed at a table.

  I looked at it and laughed. It was a table for ten.

  “Yeah,” I murmured between laughs. “This will be perfect.”

  “Okay, great,” she said as she set our menus down. “Have y’all been here before?”

  All of us looked at her like she was crazy.

  Texas Roadhouse was one of the oldest restaurants in Longview—everyone who lived in the area had been here at some point.

  “Uh, yes,” Henley answered. “We have.”

  Alana and I were too busy rolling our eyes.

  “Okay, good. I like to hear that y’all have been here before, because then you know what to expect,” she said.

  “Well, usually y’all bring rolls out when you seat us…” Alana pointed out.

  The hostess flushed. “Oh, yeah. I forgot to get those.”

  She looked at me once and then both of my sisters looked at me accusingly.

  “What?” I asked.

  The hostess set our silverware down and gestured with her finger that she’d just be a minute before hurrying away.

  “She forgot our rolls because she was too busy looking at you. Honestly, I’m surprised that she was able to weave her way through those tables without falling flat on her face with the way she kept her eye on you,” Alana pointed out the moment that the hostess was gone.

  I shrugged and gestured toward the seat. “Sit your ass down.”

  “She forgot the highchairs, too,” Alana groaned.

  I took a quick glance around and spied them in the corner two tables over.

  Moving in that direction, I had my hand on one of them when a woman came barreling out of the bathroom at the same time that I bent over, running straight into me.

  I didn’t move.

  But the woman did.

  “Oh, I’m so so…” Reagan’s eyes met mine. “You.”

  I stood up to my full height and raised my brows at the woman. “Are you following me or something? Because I’m forty-five minutes away from the town we live in and this is mighty convenient.”

  I had a huge smile on my face, despite the weirdness of seeing her there.

  I liked this woman—even if she did have an attitude.