Free The Read And Weep Bundle: Anonymous, Perfectly Hopeless, Run by Holly Hood

drinking. Why would you even ask me that?”
    “Why else would you be running around with this guy from rehab?” he asked.
    “What does that mean?” She crossed her arms glaring at him.
    “This is not you. You don’t talk to those people anymore,” He eyed Hart who was still standing behind them taking the whole situation in.
    “Those people, I am those people. Are you forgetting I was in the same place that he was?” She could feel herself coming undone. She turned away from Pauly, twisting out of his attempts to grab a hold of her and she headed outside for some air.
     
    Hart came outside before Pauly. “If you want to go home with him just say so and I’ll leave. But I’m not going to leave you here if you don’t want to be here with him.” He took a seat on the curb.
    “I don’t know what I want. I know I want to get as far away from him as possible,” she admitted, starting to sob.
    That’s all it took to bring Hart to his feet. He wrapped a comforting arm around her. “Don’t let him upset you. He’s not worth it at all, I promise you that,” he said walking through the parking lot with her.
     
    “Where you going, Elle?” Pauly said coming out of the diner as soon as he saw that she was leaving and not staying to deal with him. “You’re not leaving with this guy are you?”
    Hart opened her door for her. “She wants to be left alone right now. I’ll make sure she gets home.”
    “Oh, this is funny. The addict wants to tell me what my girlfriend is going to do,” Pauly said moving toward Hart.
    Hart slammed the car door and moved around to his side ignoring Pauly and his attempts at getting under his skin.
    “You’re not worth the argument my friend. You take it easy now,” Hart told him, shaking his head in amusement.
    “What, are you going to hit me? Are you better with your fist than your words?” Pauly egged him on, doing his best to get Hart to throw the first punch.
    “Maybe a year ago I wouldn’t have hesitated to beat the shit out of you, but not now. You might want to catch me when I’m on a drinking binge, or a drug binge.” Hart watched him closely.
    “She doesn’t need drama in her life,” Pauly said. “She’s been through enough.”
    “That’s why I’m taking her home,” he said, sliding in the front seat.
    Elle lifted her head from her hands as soon as Hart was safely in the car. “Thank you for dealing with him.”

Chapter 18
     
    Dinner was over and she was glad. Elle followed Pauly inside and shut the door behind her. She pulled off her jacket and put it on the hook by the door. The same spot she always hung it when she was at his parent’s house.
    Pauly unlocked the door to the basement. It was his own private apartment and he was just fine with that. Elle lived with her parents she wasn’t one to judge, but she also realized there was a difference. She took up one room of the house, while Pauly inhabited an entire apartment built just for him in their basement.
    She sat down on the sofa taking off her shoes. Wednesday nights were dinner and movie nights for them. And afterwards they came back to his place. She always stayed the night on Wednesday and went from Pauly’s straight to school. It was ritual—a very old ritual that had lasted for years.
    Pauly came back into the living room with a beer in hand, he took the spot next to Elle. “Dinner was good.”
    Elle agreed. He came in for a kiss, the smell of beer on his breath as he kissed her.
    She pulled away going for the remote. Anything to steal a moment of air not filled with the smell of alcohol.
    “I know it’s probably not the best thing to bring up right now,” Pauly said. He settled into the cushions, throwing an arm around Elle. “But what were you thinking?”
    Elle gave him a disturbed look. “Your right this isn’t what I wanted to talk about. I thought we were past what happened a couple days ago.” Her night out with Hart had cost her several hours of arguing back and forth