"Let me ask you something." I say and stand, pacing back and forth at the truck stop while my driver stretches his legs and I know that when he starts the engine again Bright will be awake and I will have to face her.
"Ok.." She says and sounds kind of scared.
"I want to go see Cody."
She is silent. So silent I look at the shattered face of my phone to see if I lost the call.
"What?" She chokes. "Why?"
"It's just a thought, but sometimes I think that in all those years I always fought him, always pissed him off, but I never fought back. Not the way I should have."
"Noah, I don't know how seeing him and knowing your hate, how you could think it would help."
I nod, knowing she can't see me. "Maybe you're right."
"Well, I mean what do you hope to gain?"
I answer easily, to the thought that has plagued me for three years. "Closure."
"Do you really believe that you can gain closure?"
I laugh stupidly. "No, but I want to face him just once. On my terms and tell him goodbye, go die for all I care. I need him to know that he didn't break me."
"And you think you can do this sober?" She asks the one question that I wonder too.
"I think so. I haven't faced him without a fall back. This time… I don't know, some real Man to man shit."
"Mono e mono, right?"
I laugh thinking of Billy Madison. "It doesn’t mean man to man, it means hand to hand."
We laugh and bullshit a little more and I can hear Bright in the bathroom. "I gotta go, she's up and I need to face this." I whisper.
"Okay, call me later… and …on the other thing. I support you, through anything. Just, please Noah, keep me in the loop so I don't worry."
One of the many reasons I trust her folks.
"I will. Love you."
"Love you foolish boy." She says and hangs up right as what I see in my future walking down the hall, and my past beats the hell out of my head.
"Good morning." I say and make absolutely no move to hide her iPod on the dock. She looks at me with sleep still in her eyes and I refuse, refuse to look at her nipples peaked and hard under the pale pink, tight tank top she slept in.
"Oh it's a great morning." She says and pulls her iPod off the dock and rolls the cord around it. She looks over her shoulder at me with a pissy expression that just makes me hard. "Do you have any boundaries? At all?"
I laugh once and sip from my coffee. "Nope. Shame ain't my thing either in case you were wondering. I am a bit of a depraved mother fucker girl."
"Oh, I know." She says and pours her own coffee, getting the creamer from the fridge and I cringe as she puts five teaspoons of sugar in her mug and half a cup of fuckin creamer. Candy cane creamer, ugh gross.
"Jesus girl, can you even drink that?" I ask kind of grossed out knowing there is nothing good in tha cup.
"Yep."
I just smile at her clipped tone, but hey at least we are talking.
"Mind telling me why you stole my iPod?" She asks and sits on the other side of me at the table. I know she will drink that shit she calls coffee down and then she will make toast and drink a glass of cranberry juice. She is so predictable, yet completely confusing.
"I didn't steal your iPod." I say in the same stuck up tone she asked me with and she rolls her eyes. "Do you know every time I see you roll your eyes I want to spank you?"