Love Me Last

by Parker, Weston

  I stared at her as though she had grown two heads. There was a part of me wondering how I could have judged her so wrong. Hell, I had just said that she was great with Booker. But now, it seemed like she didn’t understand us at all. She thought that Booker wasn’t going to grow up to be like me because he might not be my flesh and blood.

  And what’s more, she probably was like all the rest of them who thought that I was crazy for even considering raising Booker as though he might be my son, when I didn’t have any proof. She would never understand the bond that I had with him, but worse than that, she would always think of him as less than my true son, until I provided proof that he really was mine.

  I didn’t need that proof. I never had. And I resented that she seemed to think I might need that, in order to know how to treat a kid well.

  There was another part of me that was worried about how the future would go with her. Say that we stayed together. What if we had kids, kids that we knew were hers and mine? Would she treat them differently? Would she think they were better than Booker, or more entitled to her time, or more entitled to our resources?

  I thought of that day out at the winery, when she had let Booker drive all over in the golf cart. What if that continued until she and I had other kids, kids that were really hers? What if eventually, when it was time for someone to take over the winery, she passed over Booker, regardless of what he wanted or how well he might run the place because Booker wasn’t her own flesh and blood and thus couldn’t possibly run the winery the way that she would?

  I knew from the get-go that she was strong-willed and that she liked things to be done her way, on her time. But I’d thought that she had been relaxing a little, that she was willing to work with others. Maybe that had just been wishful thinking.

  I was getting ahead of myself, I knew. Mallory and I hadn’t talked at all about the future, about our feelings for one another, about the possibility of eventually having children. But at the same time, I felt as though I had been doused with cold water. Here I had been trying to comfort her. But at the end of the day, I was reminded of the fact that we were fundamentally different people.

  It was something that I had known since that first date. When she had walked out. It was something that I had known since that first day of work at the winery. When she had asked me to leave. She had shown me time and again that she wasn’t going to commit to this, that we were too different to compromise or to be at all compatible.

  What had I been thinking? How had I managed to overlook things so long and think that I might be falling for her? We could never build a future together, and there was too much at risk in my life, with Booker, to set aside all of these conflicts in our worldview and just ‘try’ to get along with one another.

  Things were only going to end up in a bad place in the end. And I didn’t want Booker to get attached to her if that was the case.

  So I took a deep breath. I had wanted to comfort her. To help her calm down. But the longer she sat here pretending like she and her mom had some bond that I could never possibly have with Booker, it was only going to make me more frustrated and upset.

  “I think you should leave,” I heard myself say quietly.

  Mallory stared at me for a moment. I don’t know what I expected. That she would argue with me? Try to prove her point about Booker not really being mine? Or start crying? But finally, she just gave me a curt nod. “Fine,” she said briskly, getting up and walking towards the door. A minute later, I heard her car start up and back out of the driveway. Then, she was gone.

  I sighed, rubbing at my eyes. If I had needed any clearer sign that she wasn’t invested in this, there it was. She couldn’t even stick around to argue her side when I asked her to leave.

  But the house seemed especially empty with her gone, and I found myself wishing that instead of telling her to go, I had tried to explain my side a little better.

  It was too late for that now, though.

  I went to bed alone, feeling unsatisfied. But it was hard to sleep, with her words still ringing in my head. What if Booker wasn’t mine? I knew it wouldn’t change anything; I would still care about him as though he was my son, until the day I died. But at the same time, was there a reason I had waited all these years to get a paternity test?

  What if there was a reason? I had used Booker as an excuse to clean up my life, but the truth was, I had been losing interest in clubbing and everything else even before he came along. Maybe he was just a convenient excuse. That didn’t mean that I cared about him any less. But maybe there was a part of me that was afraid it would turn out that he wasn’t mine and I would have to give him over to his real father.

  Booker deserved to be with his real family. And I hated to think that I might not be it. He was the best thing that I had going in my life, after all.

  I swallowed hard and rolled over, trying not to think about that. I wished that I could curse Mallory for bringing up the fact that he might not be my son, for making me second-guess it all over again. I knew that she hadn’t done it on purpose, though. And more than anything, I wished that I could curl my body around hers now, to help me forget about the guilty feeling in my gut that had always wondered if Booker really was mine.

  But she wasn’t here. I had told her to leave. At the end of the day, that might have been for the best. But that didn’t make me feel any better about things.

  Chapter 36

  Mallory

  I looked up when Charlie tapped on my office door. I tried not to grimace. It was nothing against Charlie himself, I just didn’t really want to talk to anyone that morning. I had tried to sequester myself in my office, claiming that I was really busy. But of course, Charlie came to find me. Trouble was, he knew me better than nearly anyone else, and he knew that I normally didn’t hide away in my office. If anyone was going to find out what was wrong, he was the one.

  So as much as I didn’t really want to see him, I knew that I at least had to pretend like everything was all right. I was just busy. That was all. Maybe if I pretended long enough, it would be true.

  The real truth was that I’d had a mostly sleepless night. I had gone over to Hayden’s to calm myself down, not to make myself feel worse about things. The real truth was that I did think he was sort of crazy for never getting a paternity test done to determine if Booker really was his. But that was up to him, and I knew that it didn’t make any difference in the way that he treated his son.

  I didn’t know why I had brought that up at all. It just seemed like half the trouble that Mom and I had in our relationship was that we were so damned similar. I wondered if maybe it was somehow easier for Hayden if Booker wasn’t really his biological son. But of course, I knew, when I really thought about it, that all the differences in the world couldn’t change how things really were between two people.

  I mean, hell, Hayden and I were different, and we were somehow close. But Leslie and I were pretty similar in a lot of ways, and we were also close. That had nothing to do with it.

  Gosh, things were so mixed up in my mind. I wished that I could talk to Hayden about it. Explain that I hadn’t meant to offend him and that I’d just been trying to rationalize why things were so difficult with Mom. I shouldn’t have just walked out of there like that. When he told me to leave, I should have tried to explain to him what I really meant. Or at least, what I thought I meant. Or at least, the reasoning behind what I had said. Or something.

  I didn’t even know anymore. All I knew was that I had said something unforgivable to Hayden and that in that moment, I had seen his expression totally close off, like he wanted nothing more to do with me. And he might as well not. Booker was his whole world, and I had as much as said that Hayden had no right to act like a father to him because Booker might not actually even be his, regardless of how many hours he had put into parenting.

  Basically, I had said that I didn’t believe Hayden when he said he knew that Booker was his son. I had basically said that I didn’t trust him or his gut in
stinct.

  And in doing so, I had lost him. There was no coming back from that. He wouldn’t want anything to do with me now.

  There was a part of me that was just glad I hadn’t fucked things up with him before he had managed to solve the problem with the books. But there was a larger part of me—one that took up nearly all of my concentration—that just kept reminding me that either way, I had fucked things up for good.

  I was having a difficult time working that morning, and I didn’t want to talk to anyone about anything.

  Still, I invited Charlie into my office like there was nothing wrong. “What’s up?” I asked him, really hoping that we didn’t have another situation on our hands. Especially not one that would involve asking Hayden to come back.

  But Charlie smiled at me. “I just wanted to say how glad I am that we finally found out what was wrong with the books,” he said. “I was just going over the work that Hayden did, and everything figures fine. It’s a relief to know that everything’s going to be all right when the IRS turns up for the audit.”

  I hummed in response, trying to think of some way to respond. But my thoughts were all tangled up around Hayden, and it was difficult to come up with the words.

  Charlie grinned. “You seem a little distracted,” he said, and I remembered that he had been there at the party on Friday night. He knew that there was something going on between Hayden and me. There would have been no hiding it. And at the time, I hadn’t thought that it was anything worth hiding.

  Now, I kind of wished that I hadn’t been so obvious about things. I had opened myself up for questions that I didn’t want to answer.

  Hayden and I probably weren’t together anymore. Whatever sort of run we’d been on, it was over now. And probably for the best. We just didn’t communicate the way that we needed to. I was too wrapped up in other things, and Hayden knew that he didn’t have to put up with me.

  Sure enough, Charlie raised an eyebrow at me. “So you and Hayden seem to have hit it off in the end, huh?” he asked.

  I sighed. Time for the truth. “We did,” I admitted. “I didn’t think I was going to like him, I was mostly just trying to be nice to him and treat him like I would any other employee. But I liked him.”

  “Past tense?” Charlie asked in surprise. “Just ‘liked’?”

  “I like him,” I amended grudgingly. “But it doesn’t matter. I think I ruined things with him. I said something I shouldn’t have.”

  Charlie frowned. “Have you tried talking to him about it?” he asked. Before I could answer, he held up a hand. “I know you know this, but relationships are all about work. You know, my wife and I have said a number of stupid things to one another, things that we shouldn’t have, over the years, but at the end of the day, we have always managed to work through things and come out stronger on the other side.”

  I shook my head despondently. “I don’t think he wants to hear from me,” I said. “It was about Booker. And the fact that Hayden has never had a paternity test done.” I paused. “Honestly, I basically implied that Booker wasn’t his and that I didn’t trust Hayden. That’s not the kind of thing you can build a relationship on.”

  Charlie frowned, and I could tell that he was thinking that through, putting himself in Hayden’s shoes. Finally, he shrugged. “Do you like him?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted, glancing away towards the window. Outside, the vineyard looked chilly and cold. It fit my emotions almost too well.

  Charlie shrugged. “Then you owe it to yourself to talk to him,” he said. He paused. “To put it honestly, I was surprised to see Hayden come back to work here after you were so dismissive of him that first day. I know the way that he works. He’s a good guy, but he tends to do work on his own terms. The fact that he was willing to come back says a lot.”

  “I still don’t know if there’s any way to fix things,” I sighed.

  “Maybe there isn’t,” Charlie said. “I’m not saying that there is. But I didn’t know if there was any way to fix the books either, and Hayden made pretty quick work of that. Maybe it’s your turn to fix things now.”

  I finally smiled at him, just a little bit. “Maybe you’re right,” I said. “I’ll try calling him, at least.”

  “That’s good,” Charlie said, nodding at me. “Because I think he’d be just the kind of guy that you would want to replace me with.”

  I stared at him for a moment, barely able to process his words. “Replace you?” I finally managed. “Charlie, I’m not going to replace you! What happened with the books, what Tim did—none of that was your fault. I’m just glad that you realized there was something going on so that we could fix things before he took any more and before the IRS found it.” I shook my head. “Replace you. I could never do that.”

  Charlie looked vaguely amused. “I know you would never fire me,” he said. “And I appreciate that. But that’s not what I’m saying.” He paused. “I’ve decided that it’s time for me to retire. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but I haven’t been able to find anyone that I could suggest for you to replace me with. And I would never leave the winery in a lurch. But, I’m getting towards the end of my days, and I guess seeing your mother in the hospital only brought home to me, more than anything, the fact that there are certain things that I’d like to do with the time I have left. Things that I can’t do if I’m here.”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded. Of course, I knew Charlie was getting up there in his years. He had been with this business since Gramps had been running the show. But it was crazy to think of the winery without him. Still, what could I say? I wanted him to go out and do the things that he wanted to do.

  Could I replace him with Hayden, though?

  Hayden would be the perfect fit, I knew. He knew what he was doing when it came to the numbers. He had made amazingly quick work of figuring out just what was going wrong with the books. And I trusted him. He would keep things running just as smoothly as Charlie ever had, and I wouldn’t have to worry about him ever skimming money off the top or anything like that.

  But it was doubtful that he would take the position even if I offered it to him. He liked spending his time with Booker. And he and I just didn’t work the same way. I didn’t think that things would work out very well between us, even if we hadn’t had that disagreement the night before.

  Slowly, I shook my head. “He would never agree to it,” I told Charlie. “You know he didn’t even want to be here in the first place.”

  “I know that you somehow got him to come back,” Charlie said. “And I know that from the very first day when I showed him around this place, he was eager to learn as much as he could about the business. He cares about this place, Mallory. More than Tim ever did. More than you can expect most people to. And you know that’s what this place needs.”

  I thought about that for a moment, and I knew that he was right. But that didn’t mean that I could get Hayden to come back. I didn’t know if I could even get him to listen to my apologies.

  Unless I did exactly what I had done the first time I had driven him out. I nodded at Charlie. “I’ll see what I can do. Don’t hold your breath, though.”

  Charlie smiled as he walked out. I immediately called Ace.

  “I need a favor,” I told him. “I may have screwed up things with Hayden. I’d like to apologize. And to offer him a position here at the winery. A permanent, non-freelance one. Can you help me?”

  I heard Ace chuckle on the other end of the line. “What do you need me to do?” he asked.

  Chapter 37

  Hayden

  With Booker off to school on Monday, there was nothing that I could do but sit around thinking about Mallory. Sure, I tried to distract myself with various projects. But there wasn’t that much that I really needed to do around the house at the moment, and all I could think about was the way we had left things the night before.

  The way that I had left things since I was the one who told her to leave. And sure, I had expected that she woul
d argue. That she would somehow reply and we’d end up talking things over. I don’t really know what I’d been expecting. She had already explained herself, I just hadn’t been listening. And she had been upset already, that was why she had come over in the first place. Even though I’d known that, I still hadn’t been listening. Not the way I should have been, anyway.

  I felt terrible. Like I had screwed up the best thing I had going right now. I mean, Booker would always win out 100% in terms of my heart. He was my son, whether Mallory believed it or not.

  But the more I thought about it, the more sure I was that Mallory hadn’t been questioning that. She just was feeling lost, herself. She was upset, and she was scared, and I hadn’t helped with any of that. She didn’t think of Booker as less than her potential future kids, or our potential future kids. She wasn’t really thinking at all, and the thinking that she was doing was just that Booker was different. Not entirely like her. And that meant safety to her, not something wrong. That meant that Booker might never be the same stubborn and anal person that she could be. Whatever quirks he might have of his own.

  That was the reason Mallory and I hit it off so well, after all. I was sure of it. The reason that she and I had been drawn together again and again was that we were so different. Part of why we got along was that she was so focused and I was so relaxed, and we complemented each other.