by Maisey Yates
All of her inner workings were a series of walls and shields, carefully designed to keep the world from hitting the terrible, needy things inside of her. Designed to keep herself from realizing they were there. But she couldn’t do it anymore. She didn’t want to do it anymore. Not with Chase. She didn’t want to look back and wonder what could have been.
She wanted more. She needed more. Pride be damned.
“I do,” she said, nodding. “I love you.”
“You can’t.”
“I’m pretty sure I can. Since I do.”
“No,” he said, the word almost desperate.
“No, Chase, I really do. I mean, I have loved you since I was fifteen years old. And intermittently thought you were hot. But mostly, I just loved you. You’ve been my friend, my best friend. I needed you. You’ve been my emotional support for a long time. We do that for each other. But things changed in the past few days. You’re my...everything.” Her voice broke on that last word. “This isn’t sex and friendship, it isn’t two different things, this is all the things, combined together to make something so big that it fills me completely. And I don’t have room inside my chest for shields and protection anymore. Not when all that I am just loves you.”
“I can’t do this,” he bit out, stepping away from her.
“I didn’t ask if you could do this. This isn’t about you, not right now. Yes, I would like you to love me, too, but right now this is just about me saying that I love you. Telling you. Because I don’t ever want to look back and think that maybe you didn’t know. That maybe if I had said something, it could have been different.” She swallowed hard, battling tears. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Unless it’s a movie, I almost never cry, but you’re making me cry a lot lately.”
“I’m only going to make you cry more,” he said. “Because I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to love somebody.”
“Bull. You’ve loved me perfectly, just the way I needed you to for fifteen years. The way that you take care of this place, the way that you care for Sam... Don’t tell me that you can’t love.”
“Not this kind. Not this... Not this.”
“I’m closing the gap,” she said, pressing on, even though she could see that this was a losing battle. She was charging in anyway, sword held high, chest exposed. She was giving it her all, fighting even though she knew she wasn’t going to walk away unscathed. “I’m not going to wonder what would’ve happened if I’d just been brave enough to do it. I would rather cut myself open and bleed out. I would rather risk my heart than wonder. So I’m just going to say it. Stop being such a coward and love me.”
He took another step back from her and she felt that gap she was so desperate to close widening. Watched as her greatest fear started to play out right before her eyes. “I just... I don’t.”
“You don’t or you won’t?”
“At the end of the day, the distinction doesn’t really matter. The result is the same.”
She felt like she was having an out-of-body experience. Like she was floating up above, watching herself get rejected. There was nothing she could do. She couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t change it. Couldn’t shield herself.
It was...horrible. Gut-wrenching. Destructive. Freeing.
Like watching a tsunami racing to shore and deciding to surrender to the wave rather than fight it. Yeah, it would hurt like hell. But it was a strange, quiet space. Past fear, past hope. All she could hear was the sound of her heart beating.
“I’m going to go,” she said, turning away from him. “You can have the bacon.”
She had been willing to risk herself, but she wouldn’t stand there and fall apart in front of him. She would fall apart, but dammit, it would be on her own time.
“Stay and eat,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. I can’t stay.”
“Are we going to... Are we going to go to the gala together still?”
“No!” She nearly shouted the word. “We are not going to go together. I need to... I need to think. I need to figure this out. But I don’t think things can be the same anymore.”
It was his turn to close the distance between them. He grabbed hold of her arms, drawing her toward him, his expression fierce. “That was not part of the deal. It was friends plus benefits, remember? And then in the end we could just stop with the benefits and go back to the friendship.”
“We can’t,” she said, tears falling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. But we can’t.”
“What the hell?” he ground out.
“We can’t because I’m all in. I’m not going to sit back and pretend that it didn’t really matter. I’m not going to go and hide these feelings. I’m not going to shrug and say it doesn’t really matter if you love me or not. Because it does. It’s everything. I have spent so many years not wanting. Not trying. Hiding how much I wanted to be accepted, hiding how desperately I wanted to try to look beautiful, how badly I wanted to be able to be both a mechanic and a woman. Hiding how afraid I was of ending up alone. Hiding under a blanket and watching old movies. Well, I’m done. I’m not hiding any of it anymore. And you know what? Nothing’s going to hurt after this.” She jerked out of his hold and started to walk toward the front door.
“You’re not leaving in that.”
She’d forgotten she wasn’t exactly dressed. “Sure I am. I’m just going to drive straight home. Anyway, it’s not your concern. Because I’m not your concern anymore.”
The terror that she felt screaming through her chest was reflected on his face. Good. He should be afraid. This was the most terrifying experience of her life. She knew how horrible it was to lose a person you cared for. Knew what kind of void that left. And she knew that after years it didn’t heal. She knew, too, you always felt the absence. She knew that she would always feel his. But she needed more. And she wasn’t afraid to put it all on the line. Not now. Not after everything they had been through. Not after everything she had learned about herself. Chase was the one who had told her she needed more confidence.
Well, she had found it. But there was a cost.
Or maybe this was just the cost of loving. Of caring, deeply and with everything she had, for the first time in so many years.
She strode across the property, not caring that she was wearing nothing more than his T-shirt, rage pouring through her. And when she arrived back at the shop she grabbed her purse and her keys, making her way to the truck. When she got there, Chase was standing against the driver’s-side door. “Don’t leave like this.”
“Do you love me yet?”
He looked stricken. “What do you want me to say?”
“You know what I want you to say.”
“You want me to lie?”
She felt like he had taken a knife and stabbed her directly through the heart. She could barely breathe. Could barely stand straight. This was... This was her worst fear come true. To open herself up so completely, to make herself so entirely vulnerable and to have it all thrown back in her face.
But in that moment, she recognized that she was untouchable from here on out. Because there was nothing that could ever, ever come close to this pain. Nothing that could ever come close to this risk.
How had she missed this before? How had she missed that failure could be such a beautiful, terrible, freeing experience?
It was the worst. Absolutely the worst. But it also broke chains that had been binding her for years. Because if someone had asked her what she was so afraid of, this would have been the answer. And she was in it. Living it. Surviving it.
“I love you,” she repeated. “This is your chance. Listen to me, Chase McCormack, I am giving you a chance. I’m giving you a chance to stop being so afraid. A chance to walk out of the darkness. We’ve walked through it together for a long time. So I’m asking you now to walk out of it wit
h me. Please.”
He backed away from the truck, his jaw tense, a muscle there twitching.
“Coward,” she spat as he turned and walked away from her. Walked away from them. Walked back into the damned darkness.
And she got in her truck and started the engine, driving away from him, driving away from the things she wanted most in the entire world.
She didn’t cry until she got home. But then, once she did, she was afraid she wouldn’t stop.
Fourteen
She was going to lose the bet. That was the safest thought in Anna’s head as she stood in her bedroom the night of the charity event staring at the dress that was laid across her bed.
She was going to have to go there by herself. And thanks to the elaborate community theater production of their relationship everyone would know that they had broken up, since Chase wouldn’t be with her. She almost laughed.
She was facing her fears all over the place, whether she wanted to or not.
Facing fears and making choices.
She wasn’t going to be with Chase at the gala tonight. Wasn’t going to win her money. But she had bought an incredibly slinky dress, and some more makeup. Including red lipstick. She had done all of that for him. Though in many ways it was for her, too. She had wanted that experience. To go, to prove that she was grown-up. To prove that she had transcended her upbringing and all of that.
She frowned. Was she really considering dressing differently just because she wasn’t going to be with Chase?
Screw that. He might have filleted her heart and cooked it like those hideous charred Brussels sprouts cafés tries to pass off as a fancy appetizer, but he wasn’t going to take his lessons from her. She had learned confidence. She had learned that she was stronger than she thought. She had learned that she was beautiful. And how to care. Like everything inside her had been opened up, for better or for worse. But she would never go back. No matter how bad it hurt, she wouldn’t go back.
So she wouldn’t go back now, either.
As she slipped the black dress over her curves, laboring over the makeup on her face and experimenting with the hairstyle she had seen online, she could only think how much harder it was to care about things. All of these things. It had been so much easier to embrace little pieces of herself. To play the part of another son for her father and throw herself into activities that made him proud, ignoring her femininity so that she never made him uncomfortable.
All of these moments of effort came at a cost. Each minute invested revealing more and more of her needs. To be seen. To be approved of.
But there were so many other reasons she had avoided this. Because this—she couldn’t help but think as she looked in the mirror—looked a lot like trying. It looked a lot like caring. That was scary. It was hard.
Being rejected when you had given your best effort was so much worse than being rejected when you hadn’t tried at all.
This whole being-a-woman thing—a whole woman who wanted to be with a man, who loved a man—it was hard. And it hurt.
She looked at her reflection, her eyes widening. Thanks to the smoky eye shadow her green eyes glowed, her lips looking extra pouty with the dark red color on them. She looked like one of the old screen legends she loved so much. Very Elizabeth Taylor, really.
This was her best effort. And yes, it was only a dress, and this was just looks, but it was symbolic.
She was going to lay it all on the line, and maybe people would laugh. Because the tractor mechanic in a ball gown was too ridiculous for words. But she would take the risk. And she would take it alone.
She picked up the little clutch purse that was sitting on her table. The kind of purse she’d always thought was impractical, because who wanted a bag you had to hold in your hand all night? But the salesperson at the department store had told her it went with her dress, and that altogether she looked flawless, and Anna had been in desperate need of flattery. So here she was with a clutch.
It was impractical. But she did look great.
Of course, Chase wouldn’t be there to see it. She felt her eyes starting to fill with tears and she blinked, doing her best to hold it all back. She was not going to smear her makeup. She had already put it all out there for him. She would be damned if she undid all this hard work for him, too.
With that in mind, Anna got into her truck and drove herself to the ball.
* * *
“Hey, jackass,” Sam shouted from across the shop. “Are you going to finish with work anytime today?”
Okay, so maybe Chase had thrown himself into work with a little more vehemence than was strictly necessary since Anna had walked out of his life.
Anna. Anna had walked out of his life. Over something as stupid as love.
If love was so stupid, it wouldn’t make your insides tremble like you were staring down a black bear.
He ignored his snarky internal monologue. He had been doing a lot of that lately. So many arguments with himself as he pounded iron at the forge. That was, when he wasn’t arguing with Sam. Who was getting a little bit tired of him, all things considered.
“Do I look like I’m finished?” he shouted back.
“It’s nine o’clock at night.”
“That’s amazing. When did you learn to tell time?”
“I counted on my fingers,” Sam said, wandering deeper into the room. “So, are we just going to pretend that Anna didn’t run out of your house wearing only a T-shirt the other morning?”
“I’m going to pretend that my older brother doesn’t Peeping Tom everything that happens in my house.”
“We live on the same property. It’s bound to happen. I was on my way here when I saw her leaving. And you chasing after her. So I’m assuming you did the stupid thing.”
“I told her that I couldn’t be in a relationship with her.” That was a lie. He had done so much more than that. He had torn both of their hearts out and stomped them into the ground. Because Sam was right, he was an idiot. But he had made a concerted effort to be a safe idiot.
How’s that working for you?
“Right. Why exactly?”
“Look, the sage hermit thing is a little bit tired. You don’t have a social life, I don’t see you with a wife and children, so maybe you don’t hang out and lecture me.”
“Isn’t tonight that thing?” Sam seemed undeterred by Chase’s rudeness.
“What thing?”
“The charity thing that you were so intent on using to get investors. Because the two of us growing our family business and restoring the former glory of our hallowed ancestors is so important to you. And exploiting my artistic ability for your financial gain.”
“Change of plans.” He grunted, moving a big slab of iron that would eventually be a gate to the side. “I’m just going to keep working. We’ll figure this out without schmoozing.”
“Who are you and what have you done with my brother?”
“Just shut up. If you can’t do anything other than stand there looking vaguely amused at the fact that I’m going through a personal crisis, then you can go straight to hell without passing Go or collecting two hundred dollars.”
“I’m not going to be able to afford Park Place anyway, because you aren’t out there getting new investors.”
“I’m serious, Sam,” Chase shouted, throwing his hammer down on the ground. “It’s all fine for you because you hold everyone at a distance.”
Sam laughed. The bastard. “I hold everyone at a distance. What do you think you do? What do you think your endless string of one-night stands is?”
“You think I don’t know? You think I don’t know that it’s an easy way to get some without ever having to have a conversation? I’m well aware. But I don’t need you standing over there so entertained by the fact that...”
“T
hat you actually got your heart broken?”
Chase didn’t have anything to say to that. Every single word in his head evaporated like water against molten metal. He had nothing to say to that because his heart was broken. But Anna wasn’t responsible. It was his own fault.
And the only reason his heart was broken was because he...
“Do you know what I said to Dad the day that he died?”
Sam froze. “No.”
No, he didn’t. Because they had never talked about it. “The last thing I ever said to him was that I couldn’t wait to get away from here. I told him I wasn’t going to pound iron for the rest of my life. I was going to get away and go to college. Make something real out of myself. Like this wasn’t real.”
“I didn’t realize.”
“No. Because I didn’t tell you. Because I never told anybody. But that’s why I needed to fix this. It’s why I wanted to expand this place.”
“So it isn’t really to harness my incredible talent?”
“I don’t even know what it’s for anymore. To what? To make up for what I said to a dead man. And for promises that I made at his grave... He can’t hear me. That’s the worst thing.”
Sam stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Is that the only reason you’re still here?”
“No. I love it here. I really do. I had to get older. I had to put some of my own sweat into this place. But now...I get it. I do. And I care about it because I care about it, not just because they cared about it. Not just because it’s a legacy, but because it’s worth saving. But...”
“I still remember that day. I mean, I don’t just remember it,” Sam said, “it’s like it just happened yesterday. That feeling... The whole world changing. Everything falling right down around us. That’s as strong in my head now as it was then.”
