by Jena Wade
Six seconds. That’s about how quickly it had all happened. If I had been going just a little faster, I could’ve been caught in the crosshairs. Lots of “what ifs” ran through my mind.
What’s the point of planning everything down to the most minute detail if my whole life could change in an instant?
Oh fuck.
Was that what people were always trying to tell me? Is this what everyone meant when they said I needed to just enjoy life and live in the moment?
My stomach turned.
Sometime later, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I had no idea how long I’d been standing next to my car. The road crew worked around me, as did the police officers and first responders. I couldn’t get the image out of my head of the car rolling and rolling and rolling.
Or of the woman when she’d finally moved, blood dripping off her face, glass shards all around her. Six seconds. That was all it had taken. My life changed forever, witnessing that accident—I couldn’t describe it. This entire internship I’d been telling myself “just a year,” “just a year,” “just a year.”
Five hundred twenty-five thousand minutes. Five hundred twenty-five thousand opportunities for my life to change forever. In the scope of life, how important was my career if it meant putting my family—putting Maddox—on hold.
My phone continued to buzz. It almost seemed more urgent now, and I realized I hadn’t even answered it. I picked it up and looked at it. Maddox. Why was he calling me now? This wasn’t our usual call time. And he knew that I would be headed home today. What time was it? I answered.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?” Maddox asked. His voice sounded intense like something was wrong. Oh God. I hoped nothing was wrong. I didn’t know how much more I could handle today.
“Seth? Seth, talk to me. What are you doing? Are you okay?”
“What? Of course, I’m okay. Why?”
“I saw you on the news! They just did a segment like two minutes ago and your car was there!”
The news had been here? Sure enough, I looked around and there was the local news van loading up their equipment. I hadn’t even noticed they’d arrived. How long had I been standing here?
”I’m fine. I wasn’t involved. There was a woman—she—”
I let out a long sigh.
“Are you okay?” His voice was less urgent now, and I knew he was asking more about my mental state than my physical.
“Yeah I will be. I just want to get home.”
“Well,” he said, “your parents should be back any time.”
“No, Maddox. Your home. I want to be with you. Home is with you.”
Hopefully he got the message. I wasn’t exactly being overly articulate at the moment. But I think he got the idea.
“Sure. I can close up a little early and meet you at the apartment.”
“No.” I said, “I’ll just let myself in and take a hot shower and relax. Finish your day and we can talk after.”
“Okay,” he said.
He seemed hesitant, so I reassured him. “I’m fine. I promise. It was just a shock.”
“Okay.” He said, “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
“Sounds good. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
After I hung up, I immediately pulled up my email app, opened to the drafts folder and hit send on an email that had been sitting there for over a month. No way was I going back to a job I didn’t enjoy, working for a boss who was an asshole and a bigot. Asshole I could handle. It was the prejudice that I couldn’t take any longer. Life was too short. Too fragile. And I had other options.
I finally got back into my car and headed home. Turned out I was only five minutes away when I’d witnessed the accident. I let myself into the apartment and plopped down on to the sofa. What a clusterfuck of a day. Oddly enough I was very calm. I wasn’t obsessively checking my email worrying about whether or not my boss was going to respond.
Former boss.
I wasn’t scrambling to think about the ways I could retract my resignation. I was totally at peace with my decision. I felt better than I had in months. I worried, of course, about what the future might hold, but it wasn’t an all-consuming worry that had been plaguing me the last couple of months.
There was no reason I couldn’t work at the store for Maddox. Or pick up some of the old odd jobs he used to do. I checked in with my dad to see how he was doing, but didn’t let him know about my job. I had to talk with Maddox first. He deserved to know before anyone else.
Dad was doing well. The chemo was doing its job. I didn’t have any grandeur illusions that the cancer would suddenly be cured, but I was hopeful that we were at least buying some time.
Maddox came home a few hours later. I was still on the couch, but I had at least pulled up Netflix and started catching up on some shows. I should have made him dinner or something. Some house husband I would make.
He came over to me. He didn’t say a word, he just crawled onto the couch next to me and wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his head in my chest. I wrapped my arms around him and just held him for a moment. It had been a while since I’d been in his apartment and we had been together like this. We hadn’t really talked much since my dad had been diagnosed and Maddox and I had gotten into that fight about me keeping my job.
“Long day?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Scared the shit out of me when I saw you on that highway.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t involved in the accident. I just saw it happen and called nine-one-one. I stayed to answer questions with the police. I wasn’t hurt.”
“I know,” he said. “Still scared me, though.”
“Me too.” I held him a little while longer until finally I blurted out, “I quit my job today.”
He bolted upright pushing hard against my ribs as he sat up.
“Ow.”
“You did what?” He ignored my pain.
“I quit. I couldn’t take it anymore. You were right. Write that one down for the record books. I admitted it. You were right.”
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t care about who was right or who was wrong. You only have a month left!”
“I have five weeks left, and I didn’t want to do it anymore. I couldn’t wake up every day and go to that place knowing that I hated it. Knowing that my boss was a bigot. Knowing that I could be at home with you, spending time with my dad, or spending time with my family doing something, anything that was more useful or more memorable.”
He must have believed that I meant it because he didn’t argue. He just looked at me and wrapped his arms around me again, hugging me close. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Well,” he said, “I can’t say that I’m not happy about it, because I am, but I feel selfish knowing that you quit for me.”
“It wasn’t just for you.” I said. “It’s for me, it’s for my family. But most of all it is for us.”
“Are you worried about what you’ll do next?” He asked tentatively.
“Yes and no. I’m not going to let it consume my thoughts right now. I have too many other things to worry about. I haven’t even updated my resume and started searching for jobs yet.”
He lifted his head and looked me in the eyes, his brow raised. “No kidding? “Mr. I-have-a-plan-for-everything hasn’t planned this out yet?”
“Nope. I’m flying by the seat of my pants.” I grinned.
He laughed. “Feels pretty good doesn’t it?”
“With you, Maddox anything feels pretty good.”
We were quiet for another moment, and I realized that we still had a little bit of discussion to do. It was now or never. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what? he asked.
“That I didn’t realize it sooner. That I didn’t confide in you when I should have, and that I haven’t been here for the last few months.”
He sighed and hugged me again. “You had a little bit on your mind.
Your dad—" He couldn’t say anymore, but I knew what he meant. My dad was dying. But neither one of us wanted to say that out loud.
“It’s going to be okay, right?” he asked.
“Yeah, it really is going to be all right.” I felt that what I said was right. I wasn’t just saying it to make him happy. Youthful optimism was all good and well, and we might as well use it while we had it. We had the rest of our lives to be jaded.
“So, boss,” I said, “When should I report for work?”
“There’s a pretty strict interview process. Do you have any experience working in a hardware store?”
I shrugged. “A little here and there. Mostly I’ve just done a few odd jobs.”
He pretended to think for moment. “I might be able to give you a chance.”
He kissed me. Long and slow, then pulled back. “As long as you don’t mind sleeping with the boss.”
“I think that can be arranged.”
For once I wasn’t thinking about the future, at least not too far in advance. Everything would work out or it wouldn’t and there wasn’t much I could do about it. Planning was all good and well, but sometimes things just happened, and we had just had to go with the flow. Now was as good of a time as any to learn that.
Chapter Twelve
April
“What is that god-awful noise?” I groaned in my sleep addled brain.
It wasn’t a tone I recognized from either of our phones or the emergency alarm clock I kept on the nightstand just in case the cell phone alarms failed.
“I don’t know, but you should get up and make it stop.”
I picked up my head just enough to see the nightstand where my phone lay quietly, unlit.
“It’s your phone, you get it.”
If my phone was quiet, then it couldn’t be later than six a.m. when I usually woke up to get ready to go to the store
Maddox sat upright. “I know what that is. I set that alarm months ago.” He smiled at me. “Happy last day of your internship.”
It took me a minute to realize what he was talking about, then I laughed. It had been five weeks since I’d moved home. And honestly, I couldn’t be happier. My job had accepted my resignation. They’d even waived the normal two-week notice considering the circumstances of my father’s illness. Which is what they’d assumed was the reason I’d left.
In my exit interview with Human Resources I made a point to clarify the real reason behind my departure and they assured me that my manager’s behavior wasn’t something they tolerated. I’d heard from Nicole that the manager had disappeared for two weeks, on administrative leave while an investigation was conducted. But ultimately, he did return to work with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
A few hours later, Maddox and I were both behind the counter at the hardware. Maddox sat at his computer planning his next event. It was going to be some sort of tutorial on Do-It-Yourself painting techniques. His last event had had a wonderful turnout. And he couldn’t wait for the next one. It was nice that I was here to help with the other things so that he could focus on these new avenues. We made a good team.
It was a rather slow morning, so when my phone rang I answered it and stepped into the back, so I could take the call. I came back fifteen minutes later. Maddox was ringing up a customer. Which was good because I still needed a few moments to gather my thoughts. I wish I had a notepad and pen, so I could write a bulleted list of what I needed to say instead of simply operating off the cuff.
Once Maddox was done and the customer was out the door he looked at me. He cocked his head to the side. “What’s up?”
“That was Tim Ballard from Artemis Marketing. Remember that other company that I had received an internship with?”
“The one you’d decided not to go with, even though they were 10 times closer?”
“Yeah, that one. I saw an entry level position available last week, so I sent my resume and they want me to come in for an interview. Like today.”
Maddox eyes went wide. “That’s awesome. What time?”
“Three.”
“Well, go. Go get ready,” he said.
“But what about the store? I’ve been helping here.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but we both knew that was just temporary.”
I bit my lip. “I know.”
“You got this. It’ll be fine.”
“What am I supposed to tell them about my last job and why I left a month before I was supposed to be done?”
“You can say it was due to your dad’s illness. And that you didn’t want to be that far away, which is partially true, so you wouldn’t be lying. Or you could be completely honest.”
I groaned. Why did honestly have to be the best policy?
“How about you worry about that when they ask a question.”
I rolled my eyes. “Maddox, you know I can’t do that.”
“Give it a shot,” he said.
I took a deep breath. “Sure, I will.” We both knew I wouldn’t. In fact, we both knew that I would be spending my entire afternoon and the drive to the interview rehearsing different responses for that very question and every other interview question I could think of.
“No matter how this goes, we’re solid,” he said. “And if you get this job, great. That’s awesome. If not, there will be others.”
I smiled “I know. As long as I’m with you and here at home we can do anything.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said. Then he cocked his head to the side in that adorable way he always did when he had a question for me. “When did you become such an optimist?”
I shrugged. “I think you brought it out in me.”
“Damn straight.,” he said. “There’s a reason I’m referred to as the better half.
I stayed quiet for a moment because that phrase alone had me thinking about things that were in the back of my mind all the time anyway. My better half. Marriage. We were a little young for that weren’t we? I wasn’t sure. Life didn’t come with a manual. Although I was tempted to write one.
Even without one, I knew that I could imagine myself spending a lifetime with Maddox.
The End
Other Titles by Jena Wade
Just A Series:
Just A Week
& Series:
Shoes & Ties
Lumber & Law
Forever & Always
RHI Series
Reining Him In
Roping Him In
Mechanically Inclined
Technically Dating
Jena Wade
Jena lives in Michigan with her husband, two dogs, and three children. By day she works as a web developer and at night she writes. She was born and raised on a farm and spends most of her free time outdoors, playing in the garden or tending to her landscaping.
Find out more about the author at http://www.thejenawade.com/.
