This isn’t the place for an argument.
Turning to Abby, I avoid the temptation of wringing my hands, or Derek’s neck. “Are you able to tell us how many people have viewed this house? If we don’t submit an application today, could we lose it?”
Abby holds my gaze. “There’s no need to rush in. Why don’t you two take the evening to think it over and let me know tomorrow. And, if you need more time than that it’s fine.”
Problem is I know I don’t need more time. “Could you give Derek and me a couple of minutes?”
She nods. “Of course.”
As soon as she leaves the room, I turn to face him fully. “What do you think?”
He frowns. “I don’t see what’s so bad about staying where we are for the time being.”
My brows furrow. “We can’t stay with him forever and I’d like to get settled somewhere I can set my studio up in.”
He looks down. “Getting a place makes this move more permanent.”
Wait, what?
“What?”
He turns and moves to the door. “Never mind.”
I grab onto the back of his jacket, stopping him. “Never mind? Are you kidding? You can’t just drop a bomb like that and expect me to forget it.”
He keeps his attention forward. “We can get the house. There’s no point in arguing about it because you’re just going to do what you want in the end.”
My fingers loosen their grip, letting the material slip away. I stand rooted in a space that called to me and watch the distance between us grow as he walks away.
Abby is waiting for me on the front porch. Derek is already halfway to her SUV. I watch as she beeps her key fob to unlock the doors for him.
The car ride back to her office is awkwardly silent. I’m fuming to myself and since Derek never took the time to try and have a conversation with Abby, there isn’t even polite chit chat to cover up how awkward it is.
It’s not until we’re in our car on our way back to my grandpa’s house that I unload. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
My fingers go into a stranglehold on the steering wheel. “You’re joking, right? That house was perfect. Why don’t you want to rent it?”
“This move isn’t working for me.”
Reflexively, I hit the brake and we both jerk forward with the car.
A couple seconds after my vehicular freak-out, I’m driving normally again and able to speak. “What?”
My gaze shifts from the road to him long enough to take in his slouched shoulders and sullen expression. “I want to move back to Colorado.”
“You what?”
I’m on the verge of hyperventilating. There’s no way I heard him right. We spent months planning this move. It wasn’t like a whim we decided to take on the spur of the moment.
“I hate my job here and miss our friends.”
My eyeballs don’t fit right in my head anymore. They somehow grew and are dry as a desert. Each blink of my lids drags across their surface.
“Find a new job. Make new friends,” I argue.
He kicks out his feet restlessly. “It’s not as simple as that.”
My lower lip trembles. “Are you breaking up with me?”
He doesn’t reply.
Wetness hits my parched eyes too quickly, blurring my vision. I blink and blink and blink but a couple tears still escape.
“Come back with me Lu.”
I want to scream. I want to rip this steering wheel off and bash him over the head with it. Has he completely forgotten all of the reasons we decided to make this move in the first place?
“My grandpa—”
“He’s doing just fine. Hell, he’s up before either of us are.”
“Derek.”
I say his name with incredulity.
“What?” He responds acidly.
Oh, he’s screwing up all of our plans and has the nerve to sound pissed. “I’m not going back to Colorado.”
“Your loss.”
Swerving off the road I park in front of a sporting goods store and spin to face him. “My loss?”
His hand grips the door handle. I guess my swerving startled him. Funny.
When he doesn’t reply, I repeat, “My loss?”
He sighs but still doesn’t say anything.
“This is how you want to end our relationship?”
He lets go of the handle and rests his hands on his thighs. “I asked you to come back with me. You’re the one who doesn’t want to.”
My mouth falls open.
“Look, we gave it a shot. Some things don’t work out.”
I’m getting dumped in a parking lot.
“Nothing is going to change your mind?”
He shakes his head.
There isn’t enough air inside the car. Pushing open my door I scramble out of my seat and away from him. Closing the door behind me, I turn to lean against it and gulp air in big giant bursts.
Slowly, I slide down until my ass hits the pavement. In the past thirty minutes, I’ve gone from the happiness that comes from finding the perfect place to the shock of being basically abandoned.
How long has he been feeling this way? I knew he was struggling at work but he never let on that it was extreme enough for him to want to move.
Where did this gulf between us come from?
We used to be able to share our feelings with no problems. Now he hasn’t even gotten out of the car to check on me, and he was so callous when he said it would be my loss if I let him go.
I’m not leaving. There’s a reason why I moved here.
Dusting my hands off, I stand.
I’m not going to beg him to stay. If this is how he deals with issues in life, we never would have lasted anyway.
He’s doing me a favor, or at least, that’s what I tell myself as I get back into the car. It’s harder not to fall apart the moment I’m in a confined space with him. He’s close enough for me to smell his cologne. It’s one I picked out for him myself.
Ten minutes ago, it was one of my favorite scents in the world. Now it will forever remind me of him and that our forever wasn’t meant to be.
This can’t be real. We can’t give up so easily.
“Are you sure you won’t stay and give it another go?”
“I’m not staying here.”
His tone offers no hope for argument.
“What if we tried a long distance relationship?”
He scoffs. “Those never work.”
It’s a surprise when fresh tears cloud my vision. I had wrongly assumed I had cried them all out earlier.
“Do you not love me anymore?”
He shifts in his seat. “It’s complicated.”
I sniffle and wipe at my face. “I’m listening.”
“Ultimately, I need to do what’s right for me. Yes, I’ll miss you but I need to go home.”
“You’ll miss me?”
It’s not a question, it’s an accusation and he hears the difference.
“Lu—”
“You’ll miss me?” This time I shout it. “It’s great to know I mean that much to you. I guess I never knew how you truly felt about me if it’s this easy to let me go.”
“If that’s what you want to believe.”
I turn the car onto my grandpa’s street and am relieved when I don’t see his car in the drive. “You’re a real piece of work.”
By some miracle, I park straight but I’m too emotional to celebrate. I climb out and slam my door shut before stalking to the house.
Having this bomb dropped and then having to drive was physically draining. At this point I don’t even want to look at him, let alone talk to him, but that unfortunately isn’t an option right now.
Whirling on him once we’re both in the house, I plant my hands on my hips. “So, what’s your plan?”
I was the planner of our relationship so it’ll be illuminating to hear what he’ll say.
“I’ll pack and have a taxi take me to th
e airport.”
“What about your job or where you’re going to live?”
He shrugs. “My old manager will take me back and Trent said I could rent his spare room.”
Oh my God.
If he’s already talked to his old boss and Trent. This is really happening.
“Did you even think about me at all? From what it sounds like, everything is done, you’re going back no matter what – it doesn’t matter if I’m with you or not. Why even go through the motions of looking at houses with me if you already knew you wouldn’t be staying?”
“Don’t be like this.”
Don’t be like this? That’s it? That’s all he has to say. I stare at him, unable to form words. How can I? What can I possibly say that would sum up the shock, betrayal, and pain of what he’s doing. Other than asking me to come back with him, what might hurt the most is how little of all this seems to be bothering him.
His reaction to leaving me could be the same as him getting the wrong order at a restaurant. Am I the equivalent of an order of onion rings when you wanted fries?
“Do you care at all?”
He frowns. “Yes, I care but I can’t ignore my own happiness for you.”
I worry my fingers. “We haven’t been here long.”
“I’m not going to change my mind.”
He turns and walks away, probably to pack. I’m left standing alone, trying to retrace my memories to uncover some clue, some specific moment in time that was a warning of what was coming.
How could I miss something so big?
“Can you move what we made off selling my car, and half of what we made off the rest of the stuff we sold into my account?”
I was so lost in my head I hadn’t heard his approach. “Of course.”
His hand comes up and his fingertips skim my cheek. “I am going to miss you.”
He’s the one leaving, he doesn’t get to say that.
I jerk away, livid. “Don’t touch me.”
He smirks like he couldn’t care less and leaves.
I fish my phone out and open my bank app. A few touches later and his money is back on the way to him. Our accounts are linked to send each other money, but neither of us can pull money from the other.
That doesn’t stop me from changing my password. Whatever trust I had in him disappeared like a puff of smoke. I wait in one of the front rooms while he finishes packing.
Thirty minutes is all it takes for him to gather his things. An unexpected bonus to selling almost everything we had.
“You could drive me to the airport.”
“Check your account. You can afford the cab.”
He stares at me and I can’t for the life of me read his expression. “Go.”
He pulls his keys from his pocket and starts to remove one of them from its ring. Not long into this task, he pauses, all of his attention focused on his palm as he turns the keys over. He does this twice, turning the keys before his thumb brushes over them not unlike a lover’s caress.
The mood is broken when he jerks his hand out and offers them to me. I take them, the metal still warm from his touch. My fingers curl around them to keep the heat from escaping.
“My leaving doesn’t mean I stopped loving you.”
The front door closes behind him.
My hand opens, exposing the keys. There are two on the ring, one to this house and the other to our new used car. He must have stopped taking off one key because he realized how pointless that action would be.
I move to the door and pull it open. He’s standing at the end of the drive, his bags on either side of him.
His back is to me. If he heard the door open he doesn’t show it. The fight has left me.
If he wants to go, it would be pointless to try and make him stay. It’d be as effective as him trying to make me go.
With his keys in my hand, I watch as the cab parks in front of the house. It’s not until his bags are loaded in the trunk and he stands in the open door of the cab that he looks my way.
Neither of us waves, or calls out to each other.
Silent tears stream down my face as the cab pulls away.
Then he’s gone.
It all happened so fast.
It wasn’t more than two hours ago that we were touring a house together.
I reach for my cell and call Rissa, my oldest friend.
“Hey babe,” she answers in a sing song-y voice.
I sniffle, and then dash to what was our room.
Changing locations was a mistake.
Here, where the bed is still unmade from last night, and his scent is a physical presence, I fully break down.
“He’s gone,” I sob.
Her gasp is audible. “Your grandpa?”
Her assumption isn’t a shock even though she jumped to the wrong one.
“No, Derek.”
“Holy shit. Did something happen to him?”
I sink to the floor and wrap my free arm around my knees, hugging them to my chest. “H-he broke up with me.”
“That mother fucker.”
“H-he’s moving back to Colorado. H-he’s on his way to the airport right now.”
From where I sit, I see one lone white sock under the bed. Its absence of pattern or color tells me it’s his.
“Honey, I am so sorry. Do you want me to come out there? I can be on the next flight.”
“He left a sock,” I wail.
“I can run him over with my car. Say the word and I’ll make it happen.”
I wipe my nose on my knee. “Please don’t go to prison.”
“I have skills, I’d never get caught.”
She has a point.
I suck in a breath. “What am I going to do?”
“First thing, tell me exactly what happened.”
I wipe at my eyes. “We’ve been looking at rentals. I think me finding one I wanted set him off.”
“Set him off?”
Even though I know it’s a bad idea and will only hurt, I crawl toward, and then onto the bed. “He didn’t want to rent it and when I pressed him, he told me he was leaving.”
“Did he at least ask you to go with him?”
My mouth is dry. “Yes.”
I have so many reasons to stay here, important ones that I care about. But, am I wrong for saying no?
“For that I guess I’ll let him live. Why break up, why not try a long distance thing first?”
Falling back against the pillows, like a masochist I inhale. “He said something like those never work out.”
“Geez, nice effort Derek. Welp, I’m back to killing him.”
For the first time in two hours, I crack a smile. “No, you’re not.”
“Fine, but only because I love you.”
I sniffle. “Thank you.”
“This probably isn’t the best time to point this out, but it extra sucks to be living in different states.”
I’ll bite. “Extra sucks?”
“It’s been forever since we were single at the same time.”
That’s right, I’m single now. Closing my eyes, I inhale.
Alone could be another way to say it. It’s how I’ll now be when I fall asleep at night, or go see a movie. All alone.
“Let’s talk about something else, something happy. Please tell me anything about today or this week that didn’t suck.”
My eyes open. “I found a house.”
“Really? Come on, I need more details.”
“I saw it today and knew from the second I saw it that it was where I was supposed to live.”
The rent would have been easier with Derek, but I make good money so I can afford it on my own.
“There’s this one giant room with all of these skylights. It’ll be the perfect spot to unwind after I’ve been in the studio for hours.”
“Does this awesome house have a guest bedroom?”
Calling her had been the right thing to do. Now I’m not focused on him, I’m focused on what’s next… telling Abby I’ll
take the house.
As soon as we hang up, I’ll probably start crying and missing him again. The more I focus on what’s ahead of me, the less time I’ll have to be sad.
I’m not chasing him.
There’s the slam of a car door outside. Crap. My face must look like a disaster. There’s no way I want my grandpa to see me like this. He’ll worry and causing him stress is the opposite point of my being here.
“My grandpa’s back. I have to go. I’ll call you back later.”
7
Gideon
I park behind Abby’s car. After work, I swung by my place for a quick shower. Now I’m here to sign some paperwork before I confirm whether or not the female population of Woodlake has forgotten about me in my absence from the bar scene.
Either hearing my truck, or waiting by the door, Abby greets me on the porch. “You going out?”
I look down. How can she tell from the faded jeans I’m wearing?
“It’s the cologne,” she replies in her uncanny way of answering a question I never asked.
“I might be.”
She ushers me in. “Then I’ll make this fast.”
I follow her to her dining room, not surprised to see paperwork already neatly arranged.
“Want a drink?”
“What have you got?”
She gestures for me to sit. “Let me check.”
While I do as she says, she walks to their kitchen and starts naming off beers.
I stop her after the second name. “That one works.”
A couple minutes later she returns with my beer and a glass of wine for herself.
“I wish I could have wine at all my signings.”
“Nothing’s stopping you.”
She makes a face. “I’m pretty sure our underwriter wouldn’t approve.”
“Where’s the spirit?”
She squints at me. “You’re especially chipper tonight. Are you meeting up with one of your eager fans?”
I shift in my seat, not liking her expression. “I’m not chipper, and I’m not meeting anyone.”
She lifts a page from the table and passes it to me with a pen. “Whatever you say.”
I ignore her jab and focus on reading the agreement. It’s not until I get to the signatures that something about it surprises me.
“Why didn’t the boyfriend sign the rental agreement?”
My Perfect Fix (The Fix Book 4) Page 6
