Gas Station (Scomiche) BOOK 2

3

Mitch's hands were shaking as he told Scott he was meeting up with an old friend from high school.

"Where are you going daddy?" Jack asked as he pulled on Mitch's sleeve.

Mitch knelt to see eye to eye with his son, "I'm just going to see a friend, I'll be home in a couple hours."

"Okay, love you." Jack said before running off to play with his toys.

"I love you too." Mitch whispered as he stood up and grabbed his keys. He hopped in his car and drove to the restaurant where Travis told him to be.

As soon as he pulled up he got nervous. He wiped his sweaty palms off on his pants and took a deep breath before getting out of his car.

He opened up the door and saw Travis sitting at the back table. He made his way over to him and gave a fake smile before sitting down across from him.

"I'm so glad you agreed to have lunch, I was afraid you wouldn't show up." Travis said as he pushed a glass of water towards Mitch, "I got you a water."

Mitch studied the liquid and pressed his lips in a straight line, "I-I'll just order my own, thanks though."

Travis sighed, "I promise I didn't put any drugs in it."

Mitch was still skeptical and pushed it away, he couldn't take any chances.

"Actually that's fair, I don't deserve your trust. I was an asshole when we were younger." Travis admitted.

"Yeah, can you elaborate on that?" Mitch said before asking the waiter for another water.

Travis nodded and shifted in his seat, "When we were younger, I always had to move and never really had too many friends. And the ones I did I always felt left out in the groups because I knew I would never have life long friends. The longest time I spent at one school was when I was dating you."

"Why would you mistreat me so much?" Mitch asked while glaring at him.

"I was stupid, and knew I was going to have to move and you would want to leave me when I did. So I tried to scare you into staying with me, and when you started to talk about seeing other people and I started to hit you and... Sexually abuse you. In my mind, doing those things was my method of scaring you into being with me." Travis said while looking down at his water.

"Why were you mean to me when we had to work together at the coffee shop?" Mitch asked after a moment of silence.

"I was still upset that my life was filled with never having long term friends and always moving. So when I saw you in school and at work, I guess I just felt like I should act that way towards you because I did in the past."

Mitch looked down at the table and saw the waiter set down his new drink and asked to take their orders.

They both ordered and didn't say anything after that for a while.

"How about we talk about something other than the past. How's your life going right now?" Travis asked.

"My life is great, I have two beautiful children and am married." Mitch said, thankful for the change of subject.

"Oh, did you marry someone from high school?" Travis asked.

Mitch smiled, "Yeah, I married Scott. The one you told me not to be with."

Travis frowned, "I-I'm really sorry about that. I was just a jealous freak."

Mitch chuckled and scratched the back of his head, "What about you?"