“Look, I really didn’t want to bring this up right now, or right here,” Amanda continued. “But I talked to my brother this morning.” She paused to hold his gaze, and the wounded look of doubt in her eyes hurt worse than his hangover. “He told me what he saw when he got there, Matt. Do you want to explain to me what your ex-girlfriend was doing at your bachelor party? Or why you were all alone with her out on the beach?”
A reasonable question, yet it was one that Matt didn’t quite have a good answer for. “She’s staying at Danny and Kevin’s. You know that. It’s right down the beach from there. She came with Lindsay, Bobby’s girlfriend,” he offered lamely, as if that might explain everything. “They just stopped by to say hi.”
Her voice crested sharply with disbelief. “At one o’clock in the morning?”
Matt only lowered his eyes to the ground, wishing for an act of God to just come along and smite him—that he could be smote. Wait, or would that be smitten? No, that didn’t sound right at all. That only sounded like something that would get him into even deeper shit.
“And, while we’re on the subject, why is she even still at your brothers’ house?” Amanda persisted. “Didn’t you say she was going back to New York?”
“Did I say that?” Matt frowned, scratching at his temple, really wishing he could hire someone to take inventory and stock of his brain at this moment and get everything filed away in its appropriate spot. “Because I—”
“Matt, what’s going on?” Amanda suddenly interrupted in a deadly serious tone. She almost sounded scared to hear his answer.
He swallowed nervously, terrified to give it. “Nothing.”
“Why were you out on the beach with her? I want the truth. And I want to hear it from you.”
He realized the futility of any further attempts to talk his way out of this, especially since he was doing such a bang-up good job thus far.
“We were talking,” he said. “I was talking to Rory on the beach. We stepped outside for some air, and we talked.”
“Just you and her? Alone at that hour?” Her eyebrows now formed a thin peak of skepticism. “And you want me to believe that nothing was going on. That it was purely innocent? What were you talking about?”
“I don’t know,” he said, feeling sick again. “Stuff.”
“Stuff?” It was as if she’d managed to divide the word into several different syllables, each one filled equally with the sound of disgust.
“It was nothing.”
“I don’t know if I believe you.” Amanda shook her head as she turned to leave. “I’m not even sure I know who you are anymore.”
“Amanda, wait…”
She left the bar without even glancing back, her cousin pausing just long enough to shoot him a fairly withering look of contempt.
Jerry came up to stand next to him, watching them walk away.
“She seemed pretty pissed off.”
“Ya think?”
“Eh—women, right? What are you gonna do?”
Matt glanced after Jerry as he walked away, asking himself the very same question.
SEVENTEEN
Rory tried to steady her trembling hands as she haphazardly shoved her clothes into the tiny suitcase, futilely trying to squeeze shut the cover before finally realizing that she’d acquired more while here than she originally packed.
She started to tug some things out, but gasped in dismay as she pulled too hard and heard a small ripping sound, her favorite shirt catching on the latch. She regarded the jagged tear with stinging eyes before fisting it into a ball and angrily tossing it into the nearby wastebasket.
“Oh, I liked that shirt! I would’ve taken it if you didn’t want it anymore.”
Rory glanced over to find Jill in the doorway.
“Why not?” She gestured, voice shaking with frustration. “Why don’t I just put all my personal belongings up for grabs? Maybe I could even have a yard sale—since I’m probably going to end up fired from my job, I could use the money. I’ll make up a sign: Good Stuff Cheap, Emotional Costs Notwithstanding.”
“That would probably attract some interesting buyers,” Jill murmured thoughtfully, her eyes falling on the suitcase. “Are you leaving?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.” She felt all out of places to run.
“Kevin and I got together for coffee this morning,” Jill continued. “Want to tell me what happened with you last night?”
“No, not really.”
“Because I was under the mistaken assumption that the situation was stable enough to leave you without supervision.”
Rory’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Well, you know what? Maybe I really don’t need your supervision, Jill. Did you ever think of that? I am an adult.”
“That remains to be seen.”
She only gasped in angry disbelief.
“Why did you show up at Matt’s bachelor party last night?” Jill asked. “Just please tell me that you weren’t planning on saying anything to him.”
Guilty, Rory looked away.
“Oh, no. You didn’t, Rory—did you?”
“I don’t know,” she said, lowering her voice. “What’s the opposite of didn’t?”
Jill grimaced, lifting her hands to push her blond curls off her face. “Okay, you want me to be brutally honest with you? On the outside, you may function perfectly well. You’re financially independent of your parents, have a good job, you vote and pay taxes, do all those adult kind of things. But the thing is—it’s really easy to play a grown up, but it’s a whole different story when you actually have to be one. You could never let yourself just be happy with Matt, so why do you now refuse to let him be happy without you?”
“Oh, and I’m supposed to take advice from you?” Rory shot back, raising her voice as she began to gesture with her hands. “That’s a joke! You walk around acting like this unplanned pregnancy is nothing but an inconvenience, claiming you’re so anti-marriage every chance you get, all to cover up the fact that you’re so head-over-heels, crazy-in-love with Trevor that all you really want to do is have a hundred of his babies and spend the rest of your life with him as his wife! Only you’re too afraid to come out and say it because deep down you’re terrified he won’t want the same things, and that if you’re too honest, you’ll lose him!”
Rory finished her tirade, not quite believing what she just said to maybe her only friend left in the world at this point.
Jill only stared at her and her bottom lip began to tremble, eyes filling with tears.
“I’m sorry!” she cried in instant remorse, and rushed over to wrap her arms around the petite blonde in a hug, taking care of her round baby belly.
Jill immediately hugged her back, apologizing as well. They both pulled back after a minute, wiping at their eyes and sniffling as they tried to compose themselves.
“I tried to sabotage a wedding and now made a pregnant woman cry.” Rory let out a soft, weepy laugh. “I’m really having a banner week.”
Jill laughed as well, wiping at her eye with the sleeve of her shirt and smiling gratefully as Rory grabbed a tissue from the box on the bedroom dresser.
“Thanks.”
She exhaled deeply, realizing, in a strange way, it had actually felt good to cry and get it all out. But there was more she had to get out.
“I can’t just leave it like this. I finally get the courage to be completely honest with him, and it’s like I’ve done even worse damage. I have to talk to him.”
Jill blew her nose loudly on the tissue, waving her hand dismissively in the air.
“Oh, go ahead. What the hell do I know?”
***
Rory paused as she reached the top of the staircase at the Sail Loft Apartments, staring at the door in front of her. Taking a deep breath, she tentatively lifted her hand to knock.
It was only a few seconds before it was thrown open, and she was looking directly into those ocean deep eyes. They only stared at each other for a long moment, the air so
heavy and thick with unspoken words that she almost felt suffocated.
“Hey,” she said. “I went by the bar. They said you stepped out, so I figured I’d check to see if you were here.”
He gripped the doorknob, leaning his weight on it.
“And here I am.”
Rory nodded and glanced at the ground. It didn’t escape her notice that he wasn’t exactly jumping to invite her in.
“Can I talk to you?”
He released the doorknob with a sweeping motion of his hand and wandered away from it with a sigh.
“Come on in.”
She hesitated before actually stepping across the threshold, carefully closing the door behind her.
He rubbed his hand over his short hair as he walked into his living room area. There was no discernable emotion in his expression when he turned back to face her.
“So, what did you want to talk about?”
She shifted nervously, eyes darting around for a moment, but his apartment offered no cover. It was rather unsettling for her to feel this vulnerable. She rarely took off her armor.
“I’d think it was obvious.”
“Nothing is ever obvious with you,” he shot back in a low voice.
Rory pressed her lips together. She wasn’t really used to this kind of attitude from him, but knew she deserved it.
“I just wanted you to know, so there’s no confusion, that I meant the things I told you last night.”
“So there’s no confusion?” he repeated, arching his brow as he almost chuckled, though there was no humor in the sound. “That’s really—that’s priceless.”
She was unable to help herself from going on the defensive. “What do you mean?”
“I just find your timing on this particular admission, or whatever it is, to be kind of amusing, that’s all.”
“Well, if we are talking about timing, Matt,” she quickly replied, “I happen to find it kind of funny that you’re engaged to someone you apparently met on the same night that you and I—”
“The same night we what?” he cut in. “Fucked?”
She cringed inwardly at the harshness of the crude word, the way it was delivered on the sharp, cold edge of his tongue.
“It was more than that.” She still refused to back down. “You know it was more than that.”
“Oh, was it? Please, by all means, fill me in. Enlighten me, Rory. What more was there to it?” He stared her down on a meaningful pause. “For you, I mean.”
A part of her wanted to ask him why he was doing this, but another part of her, better than anyone, knew exactly why.
“Because, as I recall it,” he continued, “I gave you every chance to say it was something more than that, to say you wanted something to happen with us again. We both know that, Rory. I laid every one of my cards out on the table—hell, I never took them off the table! They’ve been right there for most of our lives.”
Her voice rose. “And what ever happened to the part about no expectations?”
“There were no expectations!” He turned back to face her again, his voice also going up a decibel notch. “Because when I was telling you how I felt that day, it wasn’t done with the expectation that you would tell me you wanted it, too! That part came from you, Rory! And, yeah, we had sex, both before we talked and after. A few times after, as a matter of fact—like there was no place else you wanted to be, with no one else except me. So then what am I supposed to think? That these were things you didn’t want to hear from me, that this was something you didn’t want to happen with us? Because, I gotta tell you, that message wasn’t being conveyed when you were naked, in my bed, telling me that you—”
“Okay, all right!” she blurted out, crossing her arms across her chest as she folded into herself. “Enough!”
“As for me?” Matt inclined his head, maintaining a stiff posture. “Yeah, there was more to it. There always was. I think I made myself pretty crystal clear in that regard. So, what can I say? I guess after that, all bets were off.”
Rory struggled for something to say, to interject, but once again couldn’t come up with the words.
“And the next thing I knew, just like always, you were out of here so fast my head was spinning.” The accusatory tone in his voice was washed away by a sad note of resignation. “I would have waited forever for you to be ready, Rory. You know that. And I did wait. Putting myself through school, working all those jobs, starting my business, the bar…all of it was so I would have something to offer you in the future. Didn’t you ever get that? I waited years. But I finally had to deal with the fact that day was just never going to come.”
“But I told you last ni—”
“Don’t,” he cut her off quietly, grimacing almost as if the words caused him actual physical pain.
When he met her eyes again, the turbulence inside his somber blue was like a storm at sea.
“If I was standing here in front of you right now, Rory, and I wasn’t getting married inside a week, would you still be saying these same things to me?” His deep voice cracked slightly, and it broke her heart in the deepest, darkest places. “Because I feel like I’ve been standing right in front of you for a really, really long time.” He turned away. “And this is the first I’m hearing it.”
Rory swiped at the sudden wet sting in her eyes.
“If you really believe that about me, Matt, that I’m only saying this now just because you’re with someone else, does it really mean you need to marry the first other person to come along?” she countered almost desperately. “Why feel the pressing need to do this now, when you’ve only been together for such a short time? How can you even really know her? You claim you had these feelings for me for so long, and if those feelings are gone…well, that’s one thing. But I don’t understand how quickly you would move on to something else so serious. I don’t get the huge rush to marriage!”
“Give me a little bit more credit than that.” He shook his head. “I barely even remembered meeting her that night, if you want to know the truth. Then she started showing up at the bar with her friends, I’d see her around town, and I got to know her. I didn’t rush to anything. I waited until I was sure I was ready for a relationship before I ever let myself get involved. And once I did, as far as waiting any longer goes? The whole concept of it sort of lost its point to me.” He glanced away. “At least she knew what she wanted. So why not?”
Rory tried to steady her broken, trembling voice. “And what do you want, Matt?”
“I—I asked her to marry me,” he choked out in a low, husky sigh, without meeting her eyes. “I made promises, Rory. Do you understand that? ”
She wasn’t sure she could bear to listen anymore.
“I was stuck in this one place for such a long time,” he continued, “and it really sucked to be there. I wanted to move forward with my life, and I couldn’t. I finally realized if I was ever going to…I had to let you go.”
Her eyes filled with another sudden, sharp swell of tears, emotions tossed on bitter waves of regret.
“But, whatever.” He lowered his voice to a dull mumble, shaking his head again. “Amanda won’t even talk to me now.”
There was a long stretch of silence between them as they both only stood there, neither one looking directly at the other. Rory didn’t know what else she could say. She was afraid to say more, only to find out it didn’t matter.
“I’ll go. I’ll leave you alone now, if that’s what you want,” she finally offered, struggling to compose her emotions.
She could tell how much she was hurting him in this moment, how much just her presence here was tearing him apart. And she didn’t want that. Without bothering to wait for a response, she turned for the door. She wouldn’t make this even worse by crying in front of him.
Pausing once before stepping outside, she glanced back, her voice just a raspy whisper, her chest aching. “I’m sorry, Matt. For everything.”
“Yeah,” he replied in the same voice, with no hint of anger or r
ecrimination, just infinite, empty sadness. “Me, too.”
EIGHTEEN
“Are you ready?”
Rory gave him an uncertain glance, one hand gripping tight onto the rail behind her, bare toes curled around the wood plank at her feet. Below them, dark blue water swirled, waves crashing against the ancient wood beams of the bridge pier. Located right off the causeway downtown, it spanned the mouth of the river that flowed from the harbor bay into the briny stretch of salt marsh.
The rushing high tide was almost swollen past capacity due to a full moon the previous night. It looked questionably deep, rough and especially cold. Still, Rory supposed it was a better alternative to being dashed upon the rocks below.
Scott Marino launched his body over the rail to join them on the other side. He paused on the ledge before jumping off into cannonball dive, disappearing below with a triumphant whoop.
“Hey, I’ll wait up here with you as long as you want, but sooner or later you’re gonna start to hold up the line,” Matt teased her gently.
She only nodded her head and, closing her eyes, took a deep gulp of air. Then she let go. Falling, her hand reflexively went up to cover her nose, and she hit the ocean with a smooth splash, sucked down in a cold rush of bubbles before being buoyed right back up on the salty waves. Breaking through with a gasping breath, she took a few strokes towards shore before glancing back to watch him hit the water too.
Her feet finally touched the solid bottom of the sandy embankment, and Rory swiped her wet hair back from her eyes. She gingerly stepped over the jut of sharp pebbles and broken seashell fragments to join the others on a small strip of sand.
“Hey Jill!” Scott called over from the bridge, in his position once again. “Watch this one!”
He had been showing off for her friend all day. According to Jill, it was all precipitated by a moment of weakness on her part, an ill-advised grope-and-kiss session on the beach dunes after a bonfire party, but according to Matt that hadn’t stopped her from going out with him again just last night. Rory would keep that information to herself.
Had To Be You Page 20
