Crushed (Crystal Brook Billionaires)

by Jessica Blake

  “She’s not doing that great,” I announced. “Between the shop, the wedding, and the house…”

  Jason exhaled sharply through his nose. “It was the wrong year to add a sunroom. I knew it.”

  “I know,” I said. “But she really wanted to do it. And you’re good to her so you let her.”

  Jason smiled wryly. “I’m going to surprise her this weekend with a trip to Colorado.”

  “Really? That’s great. Um, but how? You know what it’s like for her to get away from the shop.”

  His eyes twinkled. “I’ve already arranged it with her employees. I called Freddy’s when she wasn’t there and found people to cover for her. Her employees all seem to be in agreement with you and me. She needs some time away.”

  I let out a relieved sigh. “That’s great Jason. That’s really great.”

  Can I go with you guys?

  I almost freaking asked to be the third wheel on their romantic weekend. God, I needed to get away almost as badly as Gwen did.

  “I’ve been thinking…” He ran his thumb over his lips, apparently still giving some thought to whatever was on his mind. “After we get back from Colorado, what do you think of going and staying in Crystal Brook for a couple of months? Just until the wedding.”

  I opened my mouth but couldn’t get anything out. “I…”

  He gazed at me.

  I tried again. “Are you firing me?”

  His eyes went wide. “What? No! Claire… why would you think that?”

  “Because… I can’t take two months away from work.”

  “Yes, you can. You don’t need to be in New York to do your job. We can figure it out.”

  My lips tightened. “I don’t know…”

  He ran his hand through his hair. “After the honeymoon, I’m selling the company.”

  I stared at him. His words replayed over and over again in my mind. No way had I actually heard right.

  Jason nodded. “It won’t happen right away. There will be a good transition period.”

  “Jason, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Your job will be secure. As well as nearly everyone else’s in the company. I’ve been talking with Loftin Realty. Nothing’s final yet, but I think I’ll be able to reach an agreement with them.”

  “Wow,” I breathed.

  “Don’t say anything to anyone yet.”

  “I won’t,” I promised.

  His face grew tight. “I’m not spending enough time with Gwen. I’ve missed half of the planning for my own wedding. I had to help pick out flowers on FaceTime.” He shook his head. “It’s not fair to her. She deserves better.”

  “Well, I can’t argue with that,” I admitted, hoping my statement didn’t come across too harshly.

  “Yeah, I bet you can’t.” There was a sharpness in his voice. After a second, he sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it that way.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “It’s not. It’s been a… tough year.” He avoided my eyes. “Even though it should have been one of the best.”

  My heart burned. I was still working on letting go of the word “should” and expectations in general.

  “I’ll go,” I said through a thick throat. “She needs support. And, Jason… I understand. You know, that you would be there if you could.”

  He nodded. “Thank you. Selling the company… I’m doing it for her.”

  “I know.”

  “For our family. For you, Danny, Mom and Dad…”

  My eyes grew wet. Jason had only recently begun to refer to my parents as Mom and Dad, and hearing him do so nearly melted my dang heart.

  “Jason, you’re a great guy. Gwen is lucky to have you.”

  He grinned slightly. “You didn’t think I was so great when we started working together.”

  I tried not to laugh. “No, I didn’t, did I?”

  “I was an ass.”

  I didn’t say anything. At work, he was still my boss, which meant there were some things I wouldn’t say in the office. If he had made the same comment at a bar or in Crystal Brook, then I probably would have let him know I thought he was right.

  “This is great,” I told him instead. “I think it’s a good plan.”

  He looked genuinely pleased. “I’m glad you think so.”

  I took a deep breath. “Wow. So Crystal Brook full time.”

  “It’s been the plan all along. I just don’t see any reason to wait anymore.”

  I nodded. “No,” I said with conviction. “You’re right. Don’t wait.”

  He flinched slightly, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing: Peter. Like Gwen, Jason had never met him. But also like Gwen, he knew about most of what I’d gone through.

  And the biggest takeaway of the last five months was probably also the most obvious: there’s no time to wait. Do what you want to do today. Be with the people you want to be with. Tell everyone you can you love them while you still have the chance to.

  Owen’s face floated in front of me. Every part of me burned. Was he one of those people I needed to do those things with?

  Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t. Either way, I’d probably blown it with him.

  “So you’re retiring,” I said, more to get my mind off of Owen than to make any real conversation.

  Jason looked slightly pained. “It seems odd to retire before I’ve even hit forty.”

  I laughed. “If you want to talk about odd, by that same measure you became insanely successful way before forty was even a blip on the horizon.”

  “We’ll see what happens,” he announced. “All I know is where my home is, and if there’s anything that keeps me from that place, then that thing isn’t worth it.”

  My eyelashes fluttered, a natural attempt to stop myself from shedding a couple tears.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear that… and I’ll go to Crystal Brook.”

  “And what about afterwards?”

  I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”

  “When I sell the company. Will you stay?”

  I opened my mouth then shut it. Despite the one big reason staying in New York had been painful that spring and summer, I’d never actually considered quitting my job and moving.

  “I’m not trying to convince you either way,” Jason said. “I just want to encourage you to take some time to figure out what’s best for you.”

  I nodded. “Thank you. And I will. Anything else?”

  He sat up straighter. “That’s all for now. Although I was hoping…”

  “Yes?”

  He looked bashful. “That you could help me pick the spa to take Gwen to.”

  I smiled. “I think I’m the perfect person for that job.”

  Jason grinned. “Great. I’ll send you the email with the list of options now.”

  I turned and strode from the room, my heels clicking on the hard floor as I went. The door thudded shut behind me, the sound replaced with people talking and keyboards typing.

  The conversation I’d just had with Jason was easily one of the most intense heart to hearts ever. And it hadn’t been the words so much as it had been the way the whole thing got me thinking.

  Crystal Brook… Jason said it was where he belonged.

  Once he sold the company and moved there full time, where would that leave me? I’d never realized before just how much I counted on his presence. I had Radha in the city, sure, as well as a few other friends. But Jason was family.

  And Crystal Brook was home.

  And Owen was there.

  Abruptly, I stopped walking. My eyes snapped shut, and I placed my hand against the wall for support. What I’d done to him was horrendous.

  I hadn’t fared well from it either… but despite what I knew about seizing the time I had left in life, there was still a big blockade when it came to Owen. If we had met a year ago, I could have fallen in love with the man in no time at all. At that point, I knew it beyond a doubt. But the timing was all off. It wasn’t a year ago. It wa
s five months after the biggest loss of my life so far. Every time I even thought of Owen, I invariably thought of Peter.

  It was almost like they were one and the same.

  No, that wasn’t quite right. I didn’t think of Peter because I didn’t think of having him. I thought of losing him.

  Having Owen meant losing Peter. Perhaps for the rest of my life having any man would mean losing Peter over and over again. Because I couldn’t be in the presence of a man I was interested in for long before the painful memories started.

  So was that the life I was looking at? Just years of never ending pain, over and over again?

  No. It wasn’t right. Peter wouldn’t want me to live that way.

  I had a lot of thinking to do.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Owen

  It was the same every morning. September proved to be not much different from August in North Carolina. The same stifling humidity remained, only decreasing by the smallest amount.

  The foliage remained lush and thick. The birds still woke me at sunrise. The deer still crept into the backyard soon after that, thinking they were sneaking the ivy that I hadn’t uprooted simply because they liked it so much.

  I watched them from the back patio, nibbling at the leaves growing thick along the oak tree. One of them paused and glanced at me, noticing me in the lawn chair.

  After a few seconds, her tail waggled, and she went back to her breakfast. They were always does, typically three to six of them. They’d never brought a buck with them, and if any of them were fawns they’d grown big enough that they looked like full sized deer.

  I entertained the fantasy of them growing used to me, of maybe even thinking of me as a friend. More than likely, I was nothing more than an inanimate garden ornament. A giant ceramic gnome that sat against the house and stared at them each morning.

  My feelings, on the other hand, were stronger in comparison. I’d come to count on the does. Their entry into the yard meant the beginning of my day. If I woke up early enough, I would make a pot of coffee and then slither outside to wait for them. It was our ritual.

  After that there would be work on the house, then errands. With a dozen projects going on at once, I visited the little family run hardware store downtown at least once a day. The old timers who hung around there were great for shooting the shit with.

  On the weekends, or sometimes in the weekday evenings, I walked two doors down to Amy and Joel’s house. Just a few years older than me, they’d recently moved to Crystal Brook with their two toddlers. We’d bonded over not only a shared awkwardness at being newbies in the neighborhood but over our love for movies and fiction.

  Other than them, it was just me and the deer. Going to bars to meet people sucked. The scene at Pit Stop never seemed to change. Meet-ups felt forced.

  A part of me wanted to meet a girl, but a bigger part of me knew I shouldn’t even try.

  I’d already met the girl for me.

  It was still there, that deep sense I had about Claire. Something giant in me reacted to her, felt connected to her. The only thing that had been wrong was the timing.

  I’d tried anyway though. I’d tried to get through to her, and it blew up in my face.

  A lot of days I woke up angry at her. After a little introspection, I always remembered that she had done nothing wrong. It wasn’t her fault I had been hurt so badly. She was going through much worse than I was. The best thing for me to do, for both of us, was to have compassion and let her be.

  The thing that sucked was that it left me alone. I hated it, but it felt like I was willingly biding my time, just waiting for the day when Claire and I would be together.

  I needed to admit to myself that that day could quite possibly never arrive. I needed to move forward.

  So I was fixing up my new house. I was making friends. But when it came to women, I was stagnant, and that’s just the way it would be for the time being.

  On the folding table next to me my phone buzzed, the reminder for that morning going off. It was nine-thirty. My parents were set to arrive sometime in the next half hour.

  They’d flown during the night from their new vineyard, taking the break from their new business specifically to visit me for a couple days. It had been months since I’d seen them and weeks since I’d even left Crystal Brook.

  When my mom called to announce the visit, she’d sounded slightly worried. “We just want to make sure you’re doing well,” she said. The statement had made me suspicious, but I didn’t question her. She had a slight tendency towards nervousness and anxiety. She always felt like something was about to go wrong. In addition, she was always sure everyone was watching her. Perhaps it came from years in the spotlight or perhaps it was some unresolved childhood issue. Either way, a good bit of her concern got directed at me, despite the fact that I really didn’t need any of it.

  Sure, life wasn’t perfect in Crystal Brook, but it was getting better. I was getting better. I was starting to think that perhaps no one big thing could give my life meaning. Maybe meaning was a collection of lots of little things. A house you fixed up and made your own. The birdseed you threw into the backyard for the cardinals. A laugh shared with friends over a beer.

  A whole minute gone by without thinking about Claire.

  I sighed and stood up. One of the deer spooked and ran a few yards, but then stopped and looked back at me. The others nonchalantly gazed at her then went back to the ivy. So they had grown used to me.

  It warmed my heart way more than it should have. There I was, turning into the crazy deer man. It was only half a step above the woman who keeps sixty cats in her house.

  A woman’s voice floated around the side of the house, faint and high. I turned and held my breath to listen.

  “Hello!” she sang out.

  Yes. That was definitely my mother.

  I hurried through the back door and towards the main part of the house. There my parents were, my father in his tie and rolled up sleeves, closing the front door behind him, and my mother in her giant sun hat and sparkling smile. She was looking all around herself like she’d just fallen down the rabbit hole and couldn’t be more thrilled about it.

  “Owen, it’s lovely,” she cooed, not even looking at me. She stepped forward to inspect the long windows but then, as if thinking twice, spun on her heel and came over to me. Her long arms wrapped around me and she gave me a deep hug. I squeezed her back, happy to see her.

  She drew back to inspect me then ran a hand through the side of my hair. “Your hair is so long.”

  “I need to get it cut.” I peeked over her shoulder. “Hi, Dad.”

  My dad nodded at me, his hands deep in his pants pockets. He was already walking around slowly inspecting the room, though no doubt with more of a critical eye than my mother. He reached up and touched the light knobs near the front door.

  “These have got to be from the twenties, at least,” he commented.

  “Exactly. I’m getting the electricity rewired. The system in the house is slightly dangerous.”

  Mom rubbed her hands together in excitement. “Show us the rest of the place! We haven’t even dropped our bags off at the house yet. We took a taxi right here.”

  “All right,” I agreed. “Right this way.”

  After the full tour, they requested to be shown downtown. Despite the fact that they’d just flown through the night, they were both raring to go.

  Their enthusiasm was typical. My parents both not only looked younger than they were, they had more energy than a lot of people my age. Somewhat embarrassingly, when I was a kid they’d kind of been the “cool” parents — the ones who were always up to taking me and my friends on some new and exciting excursion.

  “You haven’t seen downtown?” I asked as I helped Dad carry their bags in from the front porch.

  “Well, no,” Mom admitted. “You know, we only really bought the house here because of all the ratings the town has been getting. We thought it might be a nice place to get away t
o every once in a while.”

  “Huh?”

  “Crystal Brook has been in all these magazines,” Dad explained.

  “Ah.”

  “We might sell the house. We never come here.”

  “But now that you’re living here,” Mom quickly added. “Maybe we won’t.” She looked at my father. “Maybe we shouldn’t, honey.”

  “We’re still thinking about it,” Dad said.

  My mom looped her arm through mine, and I led her down the wooden porch steps and across the grass.

  “Tell me all about what you’ve been doing,” she giddily exclaimed as we hit the sidewalk.

  I could feel my father behind us, walking close and listening.

  “Well, uh, not much. I’d rather hear about the vineyard.”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “We’ll get to that soon. I want to hear about what you do day to day here. I’m sorry I haven’t called sooner. I’ve just been so busy and sometimes I plan to, but then it slips my mind…”

  “It’s all right, Mom. Really. And I haven’t been doing much else other than working on the house. Sometimes I hang out with my neighbors. Other than that it’s pretty quiet around here.”

  “Oh.” She sounded slightly disappointed. “You’ve been here for months.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “You don’t get lonely?”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. Mothers rarely ever ask a question without some kind of agenda hidden behind the inquiry.

  “It’s nice to get away,” Dad said from behind us. “The city is too crazy.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “That’s true.”

  Mom clutched my arm a little tighter. “Have you met any nice girls here?”

  I chose my words carefully. “There are some nice girls, yes…”

  “Are they pretty?”

  “Ah…”

  Dad interrupted. “Are you seeing anyone?”

  “No,” I sharply said, leaving it at that.

  Mom clucked. “You’ll find someone, Owen. Don’t give up hope.”

  I wanted to be like everyone else and just brush off my mother’s words. I wanted to say that I didn’t care about finding someone, that I wasn’t even thirty yet, and that meant settling down wasn’t a priority. But really, the idea of having someone permanently in my life haunted me, because I’d already found someone. Keeping her was a different issue.