by Whitley Cox
“I can see it on your face,” Will went on. “If you love her, then fix this.”
Mark leaned into the door to open it, shaking free of his friend’s grasp. “How can she forgive me when I can’t even forgive myself?”
“Retail therapy!” Isobel grinned from across the clothes rack. “Nothing quite like it.”
Tori gave her sister a sardonic look. “Not like I can exactly afford to be spending my sorrows away. I’m jobless, remember?”
Isobel shrugged. “Then just try shit on. Or we can go halfers on something and share it.” She winked at her sister. “It helps we’re the same size.”
“You still owe me my favorite cashmere sweater and black skinny jeans. I saw them in your latest Instagram post. I want them back.”
“Just ’cause we’re the same size doesn’t mean you can pull off everything I can pull off. I really think that sweater looks better on me.” Her smile was devious.
Tori grabbed a pair of gloves and playfully tossed them at her baby sister. “I want that sweater back.”
“Yeah, but lilac is really more my color. You’re more of a winter, and I’m an autumn.” She pulled out a beautiful royal blue V-neck sweater. “This is more you. You should try it on.”
Tori grabbed it from her and, before even looking at it, she turned over the price tag. She nearly had a stroke. “Not for eighty fucking dollars. I’d never wear the thing for fear of wrecking it.”
Isobel rolled her eyes. “You’re not going to be poor forever. Your luck is around the corner. I just know it.”
Oh, how Tori wished she could be the eternal optimist like her baby sister. Iz really did see the best in everyone and every situation. Sometimes it got annoying … like now.
“Can I have my dog walking business back?” she asked, putting the expensive sweater back on the rack.
Isobel made a face. “But I really like the puppies. Can’t you just find new dogs? We could take them walking together. Have a puppy party.” Her eyes lit up.
Tori slid her sister the side-eye. “I want my dogs back.”
“Tori!”
She’d recognize that voice anywhere. She’d only heard it a few times, and when he’d used it, he’d been in a panic, but it still melted her heart that he loved her so much he said her name.
“Tori!”
She spun around to find Gabe running down the aisle toward her, an enormous smile on his face, arms flailing and running shoes making a loud slapping sound on the bright white tile.
He heaved himself into her arms. “Tori!”
Tori wrapped her arms around the little boy, burying her nose into his hair and squeezing him tight. She didn’t think she’d ever see him again, let alone hug him.
“Aw, buddy. I’ve missed you. How’ve you been?”
He nuzzled into her neck, murmuring her name over and over again. She let herself close her eyes for just a moment. He wasn’t hers. He never would be. Wouldn’t even be a client again, but for just this moment, she allowed herself to find some joy. Because Gabe was pure joy. Footsteps behind them forced her to open her eyes.
“I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. He actually does say your name.”
Her heart ached inside her chest, and she fought to temper her breathing.
“Hello.” His deep voice shook her down to her very core.
Tori lifted her head, reluctantly letting Gabe go. “Hello.”
Mark looked just as handsome as ever. Though maybe it was wishful thinking or projection or something, but the skin beneath his eyes seemed just a touch dark. Was he as distraught as she was? Had he been losing sleep too?
She shook that thought from her head before it had a chance to put down any roots. Of course he wasn’t losing sleep over firing her. He’d probably already found a replacement for her, an intervention therapist a million times better.
Ken. Mark. They always found someone better than Tori.
“How have you been?” His words were forced and his gorgeous green eyes sad.
At least she thought they looked sad.
“I’m okay.”
“Have you found a job?”
She nibbled on her bottom lip. Should she lie?
“No, not yet.” She’d always been a crappy liar.
“But she has many interviews coming up. Lots of prospects,” Isobel chimed in, sidling up next to her sister and looping a protective arm around Tori’s shoulders. “Right, Tor?”
Tori simply swallowed.
Mark’s gaze burned into her. “That’s good. I’m happy for you.”
The riot of emotions inside her was unsettling. She was angry with him for how he’d spoken to her, the things he’d said, the things he’d accused her of. But she was also so heartbroken, it pained her to look at him. Pained her to look at Gabe. She’d lost so much in the blink of an eye, it was worse than when Ken had kicked her out. A million times worse.
Her head tipped down and she stared at her feet, but that didn’t last for long. Isobel elbowed her. “Don’t you dare cower,” she murmured. “He fucked up too. At least you owned your screwup.”
God, she loved her sister.
Tori lifted her head and narrowed her gaze at Mark, mustering up all the strength and courage she could find, right down to the tip of her pinky toe. She grabbed all of that confidence and bundled it up tight until it made her stand up as tall, straight and confident as she could.
Mark shifted uncomfortably on his feet.
Good, she was unnerving him.
He deserved to feel like shit.
He cleared his throat. “Well, uh, we should probably get a move on.” He took Gabe’s hand. “Come on, pal.”
Gabe went to rip his hand away and at the same time lunged for Tori. “TORI!”
Mark’s face fell. He didn’t want to make a scene. “Come on, Gabe. Let’s go.”
“TORI!”
Emotion burned at the back of Tori’s throat.
Mark grabbed Gabe around the waist. “I know, buddy. I know. But we have to go.”
“TOOOOOOORI!” He kicked and punched, bowed his body and tried to wriggle away. Back to her. “Toooooori!”
People all over the department store stopped and stared at the histrionics. Mark’s face was beet red, and tears streamed down Gabe’s face as his father practically dragged him, kicking and screaming, across the floor toward the front door.
Hot tears pricked Tori’s eyes as she watched it all unfold.
Just as they got to the door, Mark still battling it out with a determined and angry Gabe, Mark lifted his head up and his eyes met hers. Pain, regret, sadness. They were all there. Staring straight at her.
She felt all those things in her heart too. She’d fallen in love with him. In love with both of them. The empty hole inside her chest where Gabe and Mark had once been was now a wound so big, she wasn’t sure it’d ever completely heal. She never should have let her personal life interfere with her work life. She should have told Ken to go away, rather than engage with him. Because look what it cost her. She’d regret that decision for the rest of her life. She’d regret Ken for the rest of her life.
“Let’s go,” Isobel said softly, urging Tori to turn around. “They’re not yours anymore.”
Nodding reluctantly, Tori turned around, only to hear one last long, low moan of her name as Mark pulled his sobbing son out into the parking lot and out of her life for good. “Tooooooooooooooorrrrriiiiiiiii!”
Her heart shattered.
15
Tori sat down on her couch, tucking her legs beneath her. Mercedes, always a reliable friend when a relationship hit the fan, handed her a glass of wine and a plate with two slices of barbecue chicken pizza with pineapple and banana peppers.
Tori sipped her wine. “Thanks.”
Mercedes sat down on the opposite end of the couch and bit into her vegetarian pizza. She groaned in delight, allowing her eyes to close and a smile to coast across her mouth as she continued to chew. Her long bl
onde hair was in a simple French braid down her back, and she was dressed down in worn jeans and a gray waffle-knit long-sleeve T-shirt. Mercedes worked in fashion, so she was usually dressed to impress, with impeccable makeup and chic clothing. It was nice to see her without any makeup and dressed casually like the rest of the world.
Tori was in her pajamas. She’d put them on as soon as she and Iz arrived home from shopping, her soul in a million pieces after running into Mark and Gabe and seeing Gabe react the way he did.
Mercedes opened her blue-gray eyes and pinned them on Tori. “Men are dumb. Particularly the hot, overly educated, super-fuckable ones.”
Tori snorted.
Isobel raised her own wineglass in the air. “Cheers to that.” She shook her head. “I hope Gabe sacked his dad in the nuts as he tried to get him into his car seat. Would serve him right.”
Mercedes made a mhmm noise.
Tori frowned.
“I can’t believe him.” Mercedes tucked her feet beneath her like Tori. “You were obviously the best thing that happened to that little boy. Fucking Ken had to go and screw it all up.”
Tori studied the pinot noir in her glass, swishing it around until it created “legs” or streams meandering down toward the bottom. A good wine had great legs. “Do you guys think I overthink relationships to the point of sabotaging them?”
“Yes,” both women said in unison.
Tori’s head snapped up, and she gaped at them. “Really?”
“I’m always telling you to stop overthinking things,” Isobel said blandly. “Ken was the first guy that ever dumped you. And now Mark. Everyone was surprised, most of all me, when you agreed to marry Ken.” She bit into her Greek pizza. Each woman had ordered her own medium-size pizza. They were in a gorging, not-sharing mood.
“Yeah, like, weren’t you planning to break up with Ken, and then he popped the question?” Mercedes set her empty plate down on the coffee table, then grabbed a chenille throw off the back of the couch and draped it over her legs.
“She was,” Isobel replied. “I thought she was calling me to tell me that she’d finally skidded Ken, only to be asked if I’d be her maid of honor.”
“Because you said I overthink things and break up with guys all the time. So I went against my norm and looked for all the good in Ken. All the happiness he brought into my life. And when he asked me to marry him,” she trailed off.
“I’m sorry,” Isobel said. “I was wrong.” She picked at a stray thread on her big chambray blanket scarf. “You were listening to your gut, and here I thought you were just being nitpicky. That you were just bored with the guys you were dating and breaking up with them because of something silly, like long nose hair or that they snored. Sometimes I can be too much of an optimist, and it can get in the way of seeing who people clearly are. Had I just let you dump Ken when you wanted to, none of this would have happened.”
Tori leaned forward and put her hand on her sister’s denim-clad thigh. “Don’t change who you are, Iz. I love how positive and upbeat you are. You always see the good in people.”
Isobel’s pout morphed into a lip twist. Her eyes held so much sadness and remorse. “Even when there is no good to be seen.”
“Like with Ken,” Mercedes added.
Isobel nodded.
Tori held no animosity toward her sister for convincing her to stay with Ken. At the end of the day, it had been Tori’s choice and no one else’s. She had decided to stay with Ken. To marry him. To halt her own aspirations for a higher education and career in exchange for Ken putting her through school later. What a joke that’d been. But none of it was Isobel’s fault. None of it.
Tori’s sister’s empathy was not only her greatest attribute, but it was also one of her biggest weaknesses. Since the girls were small, Isobel had always been a bleeding heart. Most often this trait was harmless and sweet, like when she gave away her lunch every day at school for a year to the homeless woman and her dog that lived in the park beside the school. But then sometimes it was dangerous, such as the time she nearly got abducted when she agreed to go help a strange man find his lost puppy. It’d taken Tori grabbing her little sister’s hand and telling the man to fuck off or she would call the police for the guy to leave them alone.
Tears welled up in Isobel’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Tor. I know you loved Mark. Loved them both.”
Emotion clawed at the back of Tori’s head and deep in her throat. She’d shed enough tears over the last few days to last a lifetime. She thought she was cried out, yet here her body had more stores and was threatening to do it again.
Tori grabbed her sister’s hand and hauled her over to the couch so she was between her and Mercedes. “I don’t need a man in my life,” she choked, wiping at her eyes. “Not when I have the best sister in the world.” She placed a hand on Mercedes’s shoulder. “And incredible friends who show up when I need them the most.”
Mercedes’s hand landed on top of Tori’s, her smile wide. She raised her wineglass in the air. “To women. To sisters. To girlfriends. The only real people you can trust and depend on.”
Tori and Isobel clinked their glasses with hers.
“To women.”
“Dude,” Scott scoffed, collecting all the cards and making them all face the same way so he could start shuffling. “That was low.”
“Agreed,” Adam grunted.
“Yep.” Zak nodded.
“Way to punish the best thing that’s happened to you in a long time.” Everyone stopped chewing, drinking, shuffling and checking their phones to stare at Liam. He shrugged. “What? Just ’cause I’m a cynic and don’t believe in love, doesn’t mean I don’t think ol’ Marky Mark screwed the pooch on this one. That chick was the best thing to happen to him and Gabe in a long time, and he fucked it up.”
Adam elbowed Mark. “Well, now that The Grinch has confirmed you’re a royal fuckup, it’s official. What are you going to do about it?”
Mark groaned and hung his head. He’d felt like shit all day. It had taken nearly an hour to get Gabe into the back of his SUV and buckle him in, then the kid had screamed and wailed in the backseat for the entire drive home. He’d even started chewing on his hand and hitting himself in the head, inflicting pain. It had broken Mark’s heart.
Wait, no. The look on Tori’s face as she turned around and walked away from them had broken his heart. The sound of his son losing his mind after losing yet another person he’d grown close to had taken his broken heart and pulverized it into a million pieces.
Once home, Gabe had continued to throw a fit. It wasn’t until Mark held him in his lap, squeezing him tight and applying deep pressure, humming Gabe’s favorite song, that the little guy finally began to calm down. Mark hated putting Gabe in a hold. Hated every goddamn minute of it. He managed to turn it into a hug, but he knew what it truly was. He’d taken nonviolent crisis intervention training at the recommendation of Gabe’s behavioral consultant. It taught Mark how to put Gabe in a safe hold if need be. How to get out of a hair pull or a bite, how to deflect a hit or a kick without harming his child. So far, Gabe had never shown any real aggression or tried to attack Mark. But the hold did stop Gabe from trying to hurt himself, and it seemed to calm him down and bring him out of his fit faster than just letting it take its course.
When he’d finally calmed down, Gabe sat in his father’s lap and cried himself to sleep. Only once he knew Gabe was asleep did Mark let his own tears fall. Tori really had been the best thing to happen to them. She understood Gabe. Loved him. He’d come leaps and bounds in his development in their short time together, and most of all—he was happy again. It’d been a long time since Mark had seen such happiness in his son. But every day he spent with Tori made his son shine brighter, smile bigger and love harder.
Mark was happy again too. When Tori was in their home, in his bed, in his arms, he felt whole again. He felt like he could take on the world because he had a good woman by his side, as his partner. They would tackle the shit life threw a
t them together and come out of the other side of the storm unscathed and stronger than ever.
And he’d gone and fucked it all up.
Fucked it up royally.
He’d fired her. Kicked her out of his home. Shamed her. Blamed her.
He wouldn’t hold it against her if she never wanted to see his face again.
And yet, she’d been cordial to him this afternoon. After everything he said, the way he behaved, she was still the classiest woman he’d ever met. Held her head high, embraced his son and not made a scene. No, that scene had been made by Mark and Gabe.
He didn’t blame Gabe. That was how his son showed his frustration. He didn’t have words, didn’t understand why Tori was no longer in his life, and so when he saw her again, he found hope. And Mark had snatched that hope right out of his son’s hands.
“I feel like we’re beating a dead horse here.” Emmett’s voice snapped Mark out of his thoughts. All the guys were staring at him around the table. “Will and I already told him to go to her and fix this.”
Mark didn’t say anything.
“You going to go to her?” Scott asked.
Mark shook his head. “She’ll probably slam the door in my face.”
Emmett tipped his beer up. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“No, she will. And I deserve it. I was horrible to her.”
“Well, that’s true. But you said she’s mature and classy. She might just hear you out,” Adam offered.
Tori was incredibly mature. And she was classy as fuck. But that didn’t mean that the woman didn’t have a limit. It didn’t mean that all the class in the world would stop her from dismissing him, not hearing him out, not giving him another chance. He had the chance to apologize to her this afternoon at the store and he didn’t. He should have begged for her forgiveness right then and there. Instead he tore his kid away from her, gutting them all in the process.
