“Fuck texts. That’s insensitive, and you know it.”
“Don’t push me, Marty. I’m doing the best I can right now.” She pulled off her helmet. “I’ve been at a hotel, okay? Figured I could use some of my savings on a nice place to stay since I won’t be starting that business anytime soon.”
“This is bullshit.”
“You’re right, it’s all bullshit. The way Alex turned on me. The way Jack accused me. The way Gypsy ambushed me—with a baby, for Christ’s sake. So, yeah, I agree, it’s fucking bullshit. Excuse me for needing a safe space where no one was going to attack me again.”
“You’re burying your head.”
“I’m entitled to a few days of fucking peace.”
“Avoiding it isn’t going to make anything go away.”
“I know that.” Screaming at the top of her lungs felt cathartic, even if she was shooting the messenger. “Don’t you think I know that? Maybe I just want to get my head on straight before I face it all again. Sue me.”
Marty pushed his hands into the front pockets of his cargo shorts, but his determined expression remained.
She laid her torch down and took a seat at the open container door. “Can’t do anything else here now anyway. May as well go home and work on those consignment gates people have been after me to finish up.”
That would be her life for a while—piecework. Financially, she’d be fine. Her living expenses were minimal. She didn’t want or need much. Maybe the whole grand plan of having her own business wasn’t that great an idea at all.
Marty sat beside her. “It was the right thing, calling Roman.”
“I know. That’s why I did it. Can we not talk about this?” It h
urt. It all hurt to think about, let alone talk about.
He sighed, the sound heavy and resigned. “Gotta talk about it sometime, Miranda. Ain’t gonna be no good time.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. It happened. It’s over. I’ll move on like I always do.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Miranda didn’t take the bait.
“Have you even stopped to consider your part in all this?” Marty asked.
Somehow, she’d known this was coming. “You mean the part about how I listened to you and let my guard down? Let Jack in? Let Gypsy in? Yeah, as a matter of fact, I have. Shitty advice, Marty.”
“I’m talking about how little you told Jack about yourself,” Marty said. “How secretive you are. You hide, you evade, you tell half-truths, then, when you need someone to know you, to judge you by your character, all they have to work with is a paper-thin façade. Condemning Jack for not believing in you is wrong, Miranda. You didn’t give the boy any other choice.”
That shut her up. She tried and failed to come up with a retort—three times.
“You had him out of your life before he ever stepped in. Now you’ve got, what? Your cold metal containers and all your secrets. Sure, you’re safe. No one to attack you. But no one to love you either.”
A knife twisted in her gut.
Marty made a careless gesture toward her. “And that shit you pulled with Gypsy is just petty. This isn’t the woman I raised. The woman I know. Get your head out of your ass, Miranda. Self-pity doesn’t suit you. Doesn’t suit you at all.”
She was still sulking from the verbal whipping as he walked to his truck parked on the street.
“Great pep talk,” she yelled after him. “Let’s do it again soon.”
“You are the hardest-headed female I’ve ever met.”
“That’s sayin’ something, huh?”
At the driver’s door, he paused and looked at her over the roof with a bewildered shake of his head. “You’re a pain in my ass lately, girl. Get your head on right and come home. Can’t take another night of Honey Badger’s nerves.” He dropped behind the wheel with “She’s like a goddamned mosquito, buzzin’ in my ear.”