by Lauren Layne
I have regrets, yes. But as I find a parking spot on the street near Yvonne’s condo, I also feel relief.
For the first time since I called it off, I feel something other than trepidation and guilt. I did the right thing. For both of us.
The doorman greets me with a friendly wave. “Mr. Walcott! Haven’t seen you in a while. Ms. Damascus said you’ve been traveling for work?”
I give a noncommittal smile. Fucking Yvonne. Traveling for work, my ass.
Still, I’m not surprised. The woman was ballsy enough to send out wedding invitations. She’d think nothing of lying to her doorman.
I didn’t call first to see if she’d be here. She already has home-court advantage; I don’t want to give her a chance to start scheming.
If she’s not, I still have a key, but I’m guessing she’ll be here. Yvonne graduated from LSU the same year I did—it’s where we met—but she’s never even tried to put her sociology degree to use, instead preferring the socialite lifestyle. Her idea of a busy day is having back-to-back hair and nail appointments, so unless I’ve caught her on spa day, I’m fully expecting her to open the door when I knock.
I’m right.
Her lips part in surprise. “Preston.”
She, like most people on this side of my life, has always called me Preston. I asked her once if she could call me Noah, at least when it was just the two of us, and the only answer I received was a snort.
“Yvonne.”
She looks…the same. She’s dressed in a knee-length white skirt and light yellow blouse, both of which are just formfitting enough to show off her steady diet of salads but not clingy enough to be outright sexy. Her light brown hair might be shorter; I’m not really sure, don’t really care. But her face is the same. Eyes are cool and blue, lips are glossy and pinched, nose thin and just a bit longer than is fashionable, but she’s never gone through with her threats to get a nose job, I suspect because its current shape is better for looking down at people who are beneath her.
Which, by her estimation, is everyone.
“Darling,” she gushes, immediately stepping forward to wrap her arms around me.
I stand perfectly still as she rubs on me, waiting for it to be over. She steps back and frowns, although I’m not sure if it’s because of my lack of response or because of my attire. Judging from the once-over she gives my jeans, boots, and Henley, I can tell she’s displeased.
One of her favorite words, by the way. I’m displeased, Preston.
She steps aside, gesturing for me to come in.
I do, but I don’t go farther than the foyer. What I have to say to her won’t require me to stick around.
“What are you doing?” I ask quietly, turning to face her, hands shoved in my pockets.
She looks at me steadily. “You’ve been gone for over a month, haven’t returned a single message or phone call, and that’s the first thing you say to me?”
“What did you expect?”
“Oh, I don’t know. How about an apology?”
I smile at that. It’s so…Yvonne.
“I understand congratulations are in order,” I say wryly. “You’re getting married.”
She smirks a little, and I know full well that this was her intention all along. She sent out those wedding invitations to get my attention. To trap me, secure in the knowledge that I’m my father’s son and won’t stoop to such scandal.
She’s wrong.
I’m my mother’s son, first and foremost.
I can’t erase my past growing up in a trailer park with hand-me-down clothes and good honest work, and I’m done pretending that I want to.
“Apparently I wasn’t clear last time,” I say, my voice impressively calm. “I’m not marrying you.”
She presses her lips together before gesturing toward her living room. “Let’s sit down and talk about this. I’ll make you a drink.”
I resist the urge to rub my temples. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t want a drink. I want you to let everyone know that there’s not going to be a wedding.”
“How am I supposed to do that? The invitations were fifty dollars apiece and have already gone out.”
“Fifty fucking bucks for a piece of paper? What are they, lined in gold?”
She stares at me, and I swear softly. They really were lined in gold.
“I don’t know, Yvonne. Figure it out.”
I reach for the doorknob, and for the first time her eyes widen in panic, as though just now realizing that she might not get her way.
“Preston, what is going on with you? I said I was sorry about the affair.”
“I’m not,” I say quietly. “If it wasn’t now, it’d be later that we ended things. We’re not good for each other.”
“That’s ridiculous. We’re the same. Or at least we will be once you get over this weird rebellious stage of yours.”
I can’t help laughing. Unbelievable.
She sweeps a hand toward me. “Sure it is. You’ve lost both parents in the past few years, and you’re on the verge of a big life change by getting married. You’re acting out.”
“Rebellious stage? Acting out?” I repeat. “I’m not sixteen, and you’re not my mother.”
She sneers. “Thank God for that.”
I go very still. “What did you just say?”
Yvonne goes slightly pale, as though realizing she’s gone too far. It’s no secret that she couldn’t stand my mother, but at least since Mom’s death she’s had the decency to hold her tongue.
“She was never anything but kind to you,” I say, my voice vibrating with anger.
She steps closer, reaching out a hand, and I reel back. “Preston…”
“Noah,” I snap.
She swallows. “Noah.” The word sounds like she’s choking on it, but she must be more panicked than I realize, because she once told me she’d have nothing to do with “that part of my life.” Another signal that I fucked up by ever thinking Yvonne was marriage material.
“Please calm down. I want to talk.”
I shake my head, and this time when I reach for the doorknob, I follow through, turning it and opening the door. “I don’t want to talk, Yvonne. Not now, not ever again. You want an apology? I’ll apologize for not ending this sooner, for not seeing that we were all wrong for each other a long time ago.”
Her eyes narrow, the contrition from a moment before vanishing as she studies me. “Something’s happened.”
I start to step out into the hallway, but she reaches out and touches my arm, stopping me. “You’re different.”
“From a month ago? Yeah. I was engaged, now I’m not.”
“No, it’s more than that,” she says. “You seem…happy.”
She practically spits out the last word as though it’s a curse, and for her perhaps it is. Because it means I’m happy without her.
“Cancel the wedding, Yvonne. Or don’t. Either way, I won’t be there at the end of the aisle.”
I walk out her front door.
“Preston,” she snaps. “Preston, please…Noah.”
I don’t turn around.
Like I said, I’m not proud that it took me so long to get my shit together and see the truth about Yvonne and me not working out, but sitting and talking about it isn’t going to change a damn thing.
Once I’m back in my truck—well, Finn’s truck, but it’s feeling like mine—I text Vaughn and Finn, ask if they’re up to grab a beer.
Twenty minutes later, I’m sitting at one of our favorite craft beer bars. I like it mainly because it’s as good a compromise I can find for my two best friends. Vaughn’s more of a fancy-wine-and-cocktail snob, while Finn rarely drinks anything but Bud.
I’m a quarter of the way through a hoppy IPA when Finn and Vaughn walk in. They’ve apparently arrived at the same time. Unfortunate, since it gives them a chance to start bickering before I can play peacekeeper.
Not that it matters. I’m not really in the mood today, and they apparently sense it, beca
use by the time they make it to me, they’ve already argued and finished up with the default “Fuck you” and “Fuck you too.”
“What are we drinking?” Finn asks, picking up my glass and helping himself to a sip. I don’t bother to protest. He’s been helping himself to my beverages since my mom used to make us grape Kool-Aid on sticky summer afternoons.
The bar’s mostly deserted given that it’s early on a Tuesday, and the bartender quickly has a pilsner in front of Finn and another IPA for Vaughn.
“Please tell me we’re here to plan Yvonne’s funeral,” Finn says.
I spin my coaster. “Yvonne and I are done.”
“That’s what you said last time,” Vaughn says.
“Yeah, well, it’s really not his fault that the bitch didn’t listen, is it?” Finn snaps at Vaughn.
“No, but it is his fault he decided to hang out in the boonies instead of dealing with it,” Vaughn shoots back.
This earns a snort from Finn. “Right. The boonies being anything that doesn’t have a Brooks Brothers?”
“Like I’d be caught dead wearing something right off the rack,“Vaughn says crisply.
“Guys.” My voice is sharper than usual, and they break off.
“What happened?” Vaughn asked. “For real?”
I continue to spin the coaster. “I told her to cancel the wedding, or to prepare herself for the fact that I’d be a no-show. She responded by insulting me, Mom…the usual.”
“She is such a bitch,” Finn mutters into his beer.
Vaughn gives a nod in agreement. “Basically, yeah.”
“I’m the one that proposed, though,” I say quietly.
“Well, in your defense—”
“No,” I interrupt Vaughn. “There’s no excuse. For years I pretended to be someone I wasn’t. Pretended that a life with someone like her was what I wanted. That’s on me, not Yvonne.”
“What is it you do want?” Finn asks in a rare moment of seriousness.
I stare straight ahead, trying not to think of a sexy blonde who’s too young for me and also too famous for me….
“I want a simple life.”
I wince as soon as the words are out of my mouth, feeling slightly douchebag-ish.
“Explain,” Vaughn says, taking a sip of his beer.
Finn opens his mouth, and I know he’s got a comeback at the ready that’s eating him alive, but he holds it back and stays silent. I’m impressed.
“No thanks,” I mutter.
“No, seriously,” Vaughn says. “I know what I want. Finn knows what he wants—”
“Double D’s and Daisy Dukes,” Finn says unabashedly.
“What do you want?” I ask Vaughn, a little surprised by the sureness in his voice, realizing that I haven’t really talked to the guys about serious shit like this in too long, and anytime we have gone there, it’s been after too much whisky, so most of it has been forgotten (or pretended to be forgotten) by the next morning.
“I want to take over my family’s company. I want to be CEO, but not just in title, I want to fucking own it. Be the best damned CEO they’ve had, the one that takes the business to the next level. I want to get married. Someone whip-smart and low-maintenance.”
“Might I suggest a Labradoodle?” Finn says. “I hear they don’t shed.”
Vaughn ignores him. “I want two kids. Last-minute weekends in New Orleans and planned trips to Europe.”
Finn makes a dramatic snoring noise, and Vaughn finally breaks off, seeming a little embarrassed by his oversharing.
Feeling his pain, I shift my focus to Finn. “How the hell do you know what a Labradoodle is? Or Brooks Brothers, for that matter?”
He opens his mouth, then shuts it.
“Like I thought. Not half as much of a hick as you’d like us to think,” I say. Turning back to Vaughn, I tell him, “You’ll get there, man.”
“Really?” he says with a little laugh. “I haven’t been on so much as a decent date since college.”
“I could hook you up with one of my castoffs,” Finn says.
“Great,” Vaughn says with fake enthusiasm. “I’ll take you up on that when I get a hankering for herpes.”
I hold up a hand between their faces before Finn can respond with a retort. Or a fist.
“So that’s me,” Vaughn says, ignoring the finger Finn shoots him. “But this is about you. What do you mean, you want the simple life?”
I run a hand over the back of my neck. “Forget it.”
“Hell no,” Finn says, finishing his beer and signaling for another. “I hate to have anything in common with Country Club, but I’m curious too. All shitting aside, you’ve had a hard time of it, split between the two worlds. It blows, man.”
Vaughn nods once in agreement.
“Fine,” I mutter, taking a gulp of beer for courage. If Vaughn could spill his guts, I could too. “I want a place of my own, off the beaten path. No neighbors for miles. A place where I can get another dog for Ranger that he can hump all day long, giving my pillows a break. I want lazy nights grilling steaks with a decent glass of wine. I want—”
“A woman?” Finn says.
Shit.
“Yeah,” I say. “Which is bullshit, considering I was just this close to getting fucking married, but—”
“You want a different sort of woman,” Vaughn says.
I lift my shoulders. “Yeah. I want a woman who wants what I want. A woman who’s content to sit on the porch and watch dusk settle over the bayou—”
Finn cracks up and I punch him on the shoulder, hard, although I don’t mind the ribbing.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that your perfect relationship does not involve occasional strolls down the red carpet at the Grammys wearing a tux?” Vaughn asks, pretending to be preoccupied with his beer.
I glare at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He and Finn exchange a look, and it’s Finn who speaks up. “It means that you’ve fallen for Miss Grand Ole Opry.”
“I haven’t fallen for anyone,” I mutter, finishing off my beer. “I barely even know her.”
“But you like her.”
I want to deny it, but the hell of the thing is, I do like Jenny. I mean, I don’t get her. I don’t get how someone can talk about her grandparents’ quiet nights on the porch one minute and be talking to her agent about presenting at the CMA Awards the next. But I like the way she smiles. And listens. And stands up for herself, but also doesn’t hold a grudge. I like the way she makes little moaning noises after she takes a bite of steak, and pretends she wants the vegetables but only eats them after dragging them through a puddle of butter on her plate left from the baked potato.
I like the way she laughs, and the way she sneaks Ranger table scraps just like she does Dolly, and the way it takes her an hour to wash dishes because she has to keep taking breaks to jot down the music that she’s humming.
I like the way she fucks. God, do I like that.
“Jenny’s a…nothing. Rebound.”
“So you are sleeping with her,” Finn says.
I don’t respond, torn between protecting Jenny’s privacy and not lying to my best friends.
“Did you decide what I’m supposed to tell her about buying the house?” Vaughn asks.
“Wait. What?” Finn asks.
Vaughn fills him in on Jenny wanting to make an offer on the house, and I feel them both watching me out of the corner of my eye, gauging my reaction.
They can look all they want. Hell, if they come to a conclusion, I’d love a clue myself.
I don’t know what to do.
I want the house. It feels like mine, and not just because my name’s on the deed. I’m the one who’s slowly transitioning it from shithole to home, even if I do have a long-ass way to go. Fixer-upper doesn’t even begin to describe that place.
But Jenny buying the house…
It would mean Jenny stays.
Except she wouldn’t be here for good. What does
she want it for? So she can flit in and out when she feels like it? How would I fit into that?
I have no clue.
Don’t even know if I want to fit into it.
Liar.
“Well, better figure it out quick,” Finn says.
“Why?”
“Before she goes to the premiere in a few weeks. For Road and Roses.”
“What and what?” I ask.
“Honestly,” Finn says, “my stalker game is so much stronger than yours. Your girl has a part in some big-time movie. Rumor says it’s a bit part, but she’s a total scene stealer.”
I stare at him.
He shrugs. “What? I read.”
“Labradoodles. Reading. So many surprises today,” Vaughn mutters.
I look at him. “Did you know about this?”
Vaughn looks guilty. “I may have done a little research of my own. To make sure she was on the up-and-up.”
“We all know she was on the down-and-down, at least with Shawn Bates,” Finn says.
“Shut the fuck up, man,” I say before I can think better of it.
They’re both silent. “Oh, hell,” Finn mutters. “It’s not just that you like her. You really like her.”
Maybe. But I didn’t even know she was in a movie, much less that she’d be attending a premiere.
“I need to get going,” I mumble, pulling out my wallet.
“To get back to your girl?” Finn asks.
“Shut up,” Vaughn mutters, sensing that I’m not in the mood.
Finn’s smile drops. “You okay, man? For real?”
“Yeah, I just…” I pull out a couple of bills. “I dunno. I’ll talk to you guys later.”
“Let me know what to do about the offer,” Vaughn says as I throw down enough money to cover my beer and theirs. They’ll probably kill each other after I leave, but that’s their problem.
“Hold her off,” I say. “I need to think.”
“Preston.” Vaughn stops me. “I know this thing with Yvonne is bullshit, but it’ll blow over. You’re not seriously thinking of dropping off the face of the earth and actually living all the way out there, right?”
Even Finn looks worried.
“I don’t know,” I say, pulling out my keys. “It’s starting to feel a lot less like running from something and a lot more like…home.”
