Almost as soon as I got to the garage, Merry cornered me. The look in her eyes told me she wasn’t just coming to have a friendly chat.
“Is Maya okay?” she asked.
“What do you mean, is she okay? Why wouldn’t she be?” I asked.
“Just wanted to know,” she said. “With everything that’s been going on, I know she’s been going through a lot.”
“That’s true,” I said.
This was a weird conversation, and I wasn’t sure where she was going with it.
“So, I noticed the two of you missing from the family barbeque. Were you giving her a skewer of your own at home?” she asked.
And there it was. It was actually pretty impressive. As soon as she got that question out, a smirk came across her face.
I shook my head at her. “Are you trying to mess with my love life, Merry?”
She shrugged and gave a dramatic toss of her hair. “Maybe. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, you know.”
“What wouldn’t?” I asked.
I knew what she was getting at, but I wanted to hear it straight from her. She needed to clarify it and lay everything right out. Mostly because I liked seeing her get squirmy when she wasn’t expecting something like that.
“Being with Maya,” she said. “Being with anybody. It would be nice to just see you in a relationship. If it so happened to be with the gorgeous women that you keep insisting to everybody is just your best friend, then who’s to argue?”
I shook my head and refused to further feed into it. I got to the garage and poured myself into work. If I put all my focus and attention on unloading the equipment and doing the post-race cleaning and fixing to my bike, I wouldn’t think about Maya.
And that was exactly what I needed to be doing right then. I needed to not think about Maya or what it could mean. That day and a half together was absolutely incredible, but there were still so many lingering doubts and questions. I didn’t want to dig into what happened between us or how I felt about her.
It was too much. Letting myself think about it right now felt like it could make everything explode, and I desperately didn’t want that to happen. I prepared myself to field more questions. The vast majority of the time, if one of my extended honorary family was talking about something, it meant the rest of them knew about it.
Merry was asking about Maya because at the very least, all the women wanted to know. It looked like they had gotten close quickly, and they wanted to know everything they could about her, and our relationship.
But she could have also been sent by any of the Freeman boys. They didn’t like to admit how curious they were about things, but they definitely were. They didn’t consider it gossip if they heard it from their wives or girlfriends. It was a neat little mental trick they managed to make work for them.
For the rest of the day, I poured myself fully into my work, so I didn’t think about how much I wanted to go home and get Maya back in my bed.
19
Maya
Opening my eyes again Monday morning, I vaguely remembered waking up earlier. I remembered looking over and seeing Greg getting out of bed so he could get ready for work. I smiled at him, but I didn’t think I said anything. Not that there were really any words to say at that point.
The only ones he could think of were to tell me to go back to sleep because I didn’t have to get up for work yet. It didn’t bother me. It was actually sweet of him to want to make sure I was getting enough rest, but when I woke up for the second time and realized it was late in the morning, the whole situation felt weird.
Shouldn’t he have said something else? Or shouldn’t I have said something else?
Should he have kissed me goodbye? Should I have walked him to the door?
There were so many questions bouncing around in my head, and I didn’t know how to answer any of them. This was completely uncharted territory. I mean, it was Greg and that wasn’t the kind of relationship we had ever ventured into.
I didn’t know how to navigate what was feeling like essentially an extended one-night stand. Especially when it happened with my best friend and in our own home. All those overlapping sets of rules and etiquette made for some serious confusion.
I went into the kitchen and peeked into the refrigerator. There was no packed lunch for me, but he had put a plate of leftovers from the day before when we ordered Indian food at the front of a shelf with a blank sticky note on it. That wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for. I needed some kind of sign, something to tell me how he was feeling and what he was thinking.
I had no texts from him, no missed calls. I didn’t know if he regretted what happened between us or not. I made him dinner anyway and tucked it into the refrigerator with his usual pink sticky note. I hesitated for a few seconds before I drew the heart on it. I didn’t know if he would see that heart differently now. Or if it meant something different at all.
Eventually, I drew it anyway. This was our tradition. It was what I did, and I didn’t want to do anything different and have him think it might mean something. More than anything, I hoped I hadn’t messed up our friendship completely.
I got ready for work and headed into the bar a little bit early, not wanting to be at the apartment by myself. As soon as I went inside, I saw Lindsey giving me a look. That was the last thing I needed right then. I felt heat and color rush up to my cheeks, and I turned away hoping she didn’t notice.
For the rest of the shift, I did my best to dodge her and all the questions and leading comments she had piled up and prepared. She seemed to love to gossip. I picked that up about her during the last couple of times we hung out, but especially during and after the race. It was never malicious. She didn’t want to say bad things about people or be nasty.
Instead, she just wanted to chat and giggle, but I didn’t need her chatting or giggling about Greg and me right then. She kept looking at me, searching my face like I was going to suddenly crack and spill everything. I kept quiet. I didn’t feel like I needed to confirm whatever it was Lindsey thought she knew.
Especially considering that I still didn’t even know what Greg was thinking. I didn’t want to talk about anything until he and I had smoothed things out.
I didn’t bring the Indian food with me to the bar. So later when I was on my break, I asked the cook to make me a burger. Sitting at the corner of the bar, chomping down on the delicious food, I got a text. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I saw it was from Greg. It was just a picture of his empty plate and “thank you,” but it was a relief. It felt like a good thing that he was reaching out at all.
And this was when I decided we could still be friends if that was all he wanted. What happened between us could be put behind us, and we would just carry on the way we always had. He was still so precious to me, and even if there could be nothing else between us, I didn’t want to lose him completely.
I tried to put it all out of my mind so I could focus on work, but it stayed with me all night. I kept finding myself looking up for the door, waiting for him to come in. He never did, and I did my best to stop thinking about it. Finally, the night ended, and I was able to get out from under the inquisitive eyes of Lindsey and head home.
Just like he always was, Greg was asleep when I got back to the apartment. I briefly considered going into his room and sliding into bed with him. I wanted to be close to him and feel his arms around me again. But I stopped myself. I wouldn’t do that without his invitation. While it might seem like a fun surprise if I knew he wanted me there, if he didn’t, it could end badly.
If I had any hope of us being able to maintain the friendship we had, I had to steady myself and let him give me the cues. We were in a strange position. I showed up without any notice and threw myself on his mercy. I completely depended on the hope that even with the distance and strain in our relationship over the last five years, that he would still have the loyalty and heart for me that he always did.
Greg had scooped me up, swept up the broken piec
es, and brought me into his home. Without question or hesitation, he gave me a chance at a new life. And now we were in this odd place. We had crossed a line that had never been crossed before, and we had to figure out where that put us.
It was possible that once reality kicked in it was time for me to get up on my own two feet. If that was the case, I would accept it and wouldn’t want to make him feel strange about it. After all, he had no obligation to me. We didn’t make any agreements, and the landlord still hadn’t gotten around to giving him a new lease.
I felt like if I kept pushing, it would make Greg more uncomfortable. If he wasn’t feeling anything toward me, or worse, feeling regret about what happened between us, me continuing to try to maintain that connection would only create awkwardness. I knew Greg well enough to know he wouldn’t want to hurt me worse than I already was. After what Marshall just put me through, he wouldn’t want to suddenly tell me I needed to leave.
I went into my room and dropped down onto my bed. Lying there reminded me that I needed to add up my tips and make sure I had the money for the next payment for my bedroom set. Eventually, I would pay Greg back for putting the down payments down for me and helping me cover the other expenses of getting my room set up.
He said he wanted to do it, and he kept insisting it was important to him that I felt at home and comfortable there, but it was still my bed and should be my responsibility. It would take me some time to catch all the way back up and be able to get to a point where I could make those payments, help him with rent, buy my own food, and do all those things I was already so used to doing.
It made me feel bad to even think about, but the disparity in my income between working at the Cabinet Factory and at the bar was becoming more obvious. I would have to be extremely careful about budgeting and sticking to that budget if I wanted to stay ahead.
There might come a time when Greg and I no longer lived together, and I wanted to be ready to strike out on my own. It reminded me I still needed to go to the bank and get my account set up. It was something I still hadn’t done. It kept slipping my mind, but my sock full of tips was getting thicker, and soon I would get my first paycheck. I wanted to make sure I had an account to keep it in.
20
Greg
I lay awake, waiting for Maya to get home from the bar. It was hours after I was usually awake, but I couldn’t force myself to go to sleep. I needed to know she was home safe. I also wanted to see how she was going to react to me when she did.
I positioned myself on the side of the bed, leaving space open beside me and a pillow empty for her. On Sunday we just naturally tumbled into bed together, and I wondered if that was going to be the way it was going to be between us now. If she would just ease into that position in my life so we would never have to really talk it through.
Maybe that didn’t sound realistic. Maybe I should have just expected that we would have to actually confront what happened and figure it out. Yet, I could still hope. And when I heard her come in late that night, I waited. She walked down the hallway, and for a few seconds, her footsteps paused. She was standing still outside my door, and I wondered if she was considering whether to come in.
Part of me wanted to call out to her. I wanted to invite her to come in and climb in bed with me, but at the same time, that might just make things more uncomfortable. I didn’t know what was going through her mind. She’d left me dinner just like she always did, but I didn’t get a response from the text message I sent her after eating when I came home from work.
Again, I found myself wanting to go to the bar but couldn’t bring myself to do it. So instead, I lay awake and just waited for her to get home, hoping things would unfold on their own. But they didn’t. She started walking again, and I heard the door to her bedroom close. It took me a while longer to fall asleep, but I finally did.
I woke up groggy and definitely feeling the effects of the missing hours of sleep while I’d waited for Maya to come home. I stood in the shower for longer than I usually did, hoping the water would cut through the fog and wake me up. I was in a rush to get out of the apartment and to the compound, but I took the time to make her lunch. I felt bad for just leaving the leftovers the day before and didn’t want to do that again.
Just before leaving, I carefully opened the door to her room so it didn’t make too much noise and peered inside. She was stretched out across her bed, sleeping deeply. I watched her for a few seconds, and right then I knew I couldn’t just wait for the world to happen for me. This wasn’t just going to unravel itself. This was something she and I had to talk about.
The last time we let something go unspoken, it ended up with us losing touch for five years. And that was what brought us here to this moment, but I wasn’t willing to risk another five years without her. Or even worse, that if she walked away, I would never see her again. I needed to be up-front and honest with her, no matter how it was going to fall into place.
I went back into the kitchen and grabbed my sticky notes. I wrote her a note telling her I would stop by Lindsey’s bar for dinner, so she didn’t need to make me anything. I thought about that for a second, then added that I wouldn’t object to some dessert, or something I could heat up for breakfast in the morning. I didn’t want her to feel like I didn’t appreciate what she did for me every day.
After I writing her note with great care, I went outside and headed for my bike rather than my truck.
It was definitely a day when I needed to be on the back of a motorcycle. I needed the feeling of freedom and openness. It woke up my brain and helped me think. At least I had taken a step. I was unsure where we stood or how any of this was going to work out, but I knew we needed to talk face-to-face.
Going to see her at work was definitely a risk. It was going to be busy, which meant there would be plenty of other people around. We weren’t going to be alone, so it wasn’t a setting for the most personal and private details of the conversation we needed to have. It would definitely break the ice. Going in to see her would let us get close to each other and start talking on a neutral level.
From there, we could figure out what to do next.
I was grateful to not have anybody swoop down on me when I got to the racing complex. I got a few questioning looks from Kelly and Gus, but neither one of them said anything. That was a relief. I wasn’t going to get into any of this with them before I had a chance to talk to Maya. They seemed to understand that, and we didn’t talk about anything but work for the entire day.
I expected the day to drag by slowly as time tended to do when there was something at the end you were looking ahead to.
But surprisingly work moved way faster than I thought it would, and soon I was pulling into the bar parking lot. For the most part, I didn’t usually drink often. And when I did, it was almost never more than one or two beers at a time. Having an alcoholic father had a lasting effect on me, and as a result his addiction destroyed my life. It made me very aware of the effects of alcohol and also my inborn proclivity toward abusing it.
It felt strange to walk in without everybody else around me. Lindsey looked up from behind the bar and waved, then pointed to a free stool. I sat down, and she smiled at me.
“Hey, there,” she said. “What brings you by here tonight?”
It was definitely a leading question. She wanted as much information as I could give her. But unfortunately for her, that was nothing.
“I just thought I would stop by,” I said. “Maybe grab something to eat.”
“Sure thing,” she said. “I’ll get you a menu.”
She went into the kitchen, and a few seconds later, the door opened and Maya came out. She was in her uniform of jeans and a tight black V-neck T-shirt. It was simple but devastating. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, and I didn’t even try.
She handed me the menu; her eyes locked on mine.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
“Can you take a break?” I asked.
She glanced bac
k toward the kitchen, then nodded. “Sure.”
We went over to one of the booths in the back of the bar, and Lindsey came by. She took our orders and walked away slower than I had seen another human walk in a long time.
“She is trying desperately to figure out what is going on between us,” I said, trying to laugh and sound casual.
Maya nodded. “So am I.”
One of the barbacks came up at that moment and handed each of us a drink. A beer for me and a glass of iced tea with lemon for Maya since she was still technically on the clock. She took that moment as a break in the conversation to detour on to another topic.
“How was your day?” she asked.
“It was good,” I said, realizing now wasn’t the time to get into anything personal. For right now, we needed to just be in the same space. We needed to be able to talk about anything and everything else before we could hope to talk about us.
We fell into a conversation that started tense but then became more comfortable and natural. As we ate, things felt normal again. I lingered as long as I felt like I could before getting up.
“I should probably go and stop distracting you,” I said. “I’m sure Lindsey would like to have her employee back.”
“Probably,” Maya said. “Thanks for coming by. This was fun.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Maybe we’ll pick a day once a week for me to do that.”
“I’d like that,” she said.
I started to leave, then turned around. “Come into my room when you get home?”
A bright shock of color went across her cheeks, and she glanced away, then nodded. She came over and gave me a quick kiss before rushing away toward the kitchen. As I walked toward the door, I glanced back at the bar and saw Lindsey. She had a huge grin across her face and gave me a salute. I laughed and went out to my bike. I headed home feeling a bit better about everything.
The Freeman Brothers: A Secret Baby Romance Collection Page 95
