Broken: Flirt New Adult Romance

by Lauren Layne

  “Sure, it’s right between the three-star Michelin-rated restaurant and the high-end couture mall. You haven’t seen it?”

  I make a face. “So that’s a no.”

  He peels a banana and hands me half. “Actually, I think there is a small theater in town. At least there used to be.”

  “Ooh, yay! So you want to go?”

  He nips the banana between perfect white teeth. “Nope.”

  I frown, even though I’ve been expecting it. He never wants to go anywhere except Frenchy’s, and as much as I tell myself that it’s no big deal, that it’s just because Bar Harbor doesn’t exactly have a lot going on, somewhere in the back of my mind I’m terrified that it’s so much bigger than that.

  “What’s the deal, Langdon? I can maybe understand why you weren’t all gung-ho about going to Portland, but you refuse to try any other restaurant, you won’t go over to Kali’s when her new boyfriend is there, you won’t go home with me for Thanksgiving, you won’t go for a run in the middle of the day because there are too many people, and now you won’t even humor me by going to a movie?”

  He ignores me.

  I knew he would, but I’m starting to get a constant knot in my stomach about the direction we’re headed. The sex is great. The conversation is wonderful.

  But there’s just the two of us. All the time. With no plan of leaving ever. I get why he doesn’t want to go to New York with me for Thanksgiving—it was a stretch to even ask. But this is getting ridiculous.

  “How about a bookstore?” I challenge.

  “You can buy books online. Free two-day shipping.”

  “I need more running shorts,” I shoot back.

  “Online.”

  “I need my hair cut,” I say, a little desperately. “Can’t do that online.”

  He shrugs. “So go get your haircut.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  “Why would I come with you? My hair is like a centimeter long, and I can keep it that way myself with a buzzer.”

  “But—”

  “Drop it, Olivia.” His voice is sharp.

  My mouth snaps shut and I look down quickly at the counter. And then, because there’s also anger simmering beneath the pain, I toss the bags of frozen peas none too gently on the counter and stand. “I’m going to go shower.”

  “’Kay.” He’s fiddling with his cell phone and not even looking at me.

  I bite back a sharp retort and mentally count to three, giving him a chance to pick up on the fact that he’s being an ass.

  One, two, three . . .

  “Hey,” he says, still not looking at me. “I ordered the DVD set of The Bourne Identity series and it came yesterday. Want to have a marathon after we’ve showered?”

  I wait. He still doesn’t look up.

  Okay. That’s it.

  I snatch the cell phone out of his hand so that he’s forced to look at me. Instead of looking apologetic, he looks puzzled, and that is so much worse.

  “No, I don’t want to have yet another endless movie marathon, Paul. Nor do I want to spend all freaking day reading, or take another long walk that’s just the two of us. I don’t want to continue my chess-playing lesson, I don’t want to try out the new audiobook subscription you got, I don’t want to try my hand at video games, and I don’t want to go to the gym again.”

  “You said you liked chess,” he mutters.

  “This isn’t about chess! Or spy movies! It’s not about whether or not I enjoy reading by the fire with you, which I do. It’s that this isn’t healthy! We can’t just stay locked up in here forever.”

  His eyes darken, and the wary confusion is replaced by defensive anger and stubbornness.

  I start to panic a little, although there’s definitely still mad in there too. With narrowed eyes I say, “Do you ever plan to take me to dinner, Paul? Are we ever going to go on a vacation, even a simple weekend getaway?”

  His jaw tightens. “Olivia—”

  “No, wait,” I say, holding up a hand. “Let me ask the question in a different way. Are we ever going to leave this house?”

  He says nothing, but his blue eyes stay locked on mine, steady and completely unrepentant.

  “Oh my God,” I say, taking a step back, feeling a little stunned despite the fact that the writing’s been on the wall since day one. “You have no intention of leaving this house.”

  He looks away.

  “Ever?” My voice cracks.

  “Look, why don’t we go to the Cape? My dad has a house there, and—”

  “Let me guess,” I interrupt. “It’s completely secluded.”

  “It’s private,” he amends.

  “I can’t live like this!” I explode. “I can’t spend my twenties holed up on the middle of nowhere.”

  Paul stands, glowering down at me. “Since when? You knew exactly what you were getting into when you came here. Hell, it’s why you came here, isn’t it? To escape the world? To escape your guilt? And now that you’ve forgiven yourself and seen that your ex-boyfriend is just fine without you, you’re changing the rules?”

  “Yes! That’s how it works, Paul. You deal with shit however you need to, and then you get over it. You move on.”

  “I have moved on.” His arms fold over his chest.

  “Bullshit.” I jab a finger at him. “I thought you’d healed, but really you’ve just added one more item to your recluse’s collection. Me.”

  He doesn’t answer, and I let out a crazed little laugh. “You know, I was actually naive enough to think that I’d helped you. I let myself think that I’d successfully pulled you out of your little pit of despair. But it’s the other way around, isn’t it? You’ve merely pulled me into your vortex of fear and isolation.”

  He reaches for my arms, but I pull back, and he rubs a hand across his eyes. “You have helped me, Olivia. Immensely. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to go face the world and deal with the pointing and the staring and the pity.”

  “The only one doing any pitying is you. News flash, Paul: the rest of the world won’t care what you look like if you don’t care.”

  “That’s naive.”

  “Okay, so some people will look twice. Some might whisper. But none of that matters.”

  “Says the girl with the perfect, gorgeous face.”

  “Fine,” I say, throwing up my hands. “Go ahead and hold that against me. That’s a good one to hold in your back pocket to fuel your hate fire. Whenever you get close to living a normal life, you can just remind yourself that you have scars and nobody else understands. Is that the plan?”

  “You don’t get it!” he shouts. “Don’t pretend like you understand!”

  “I’m never going to understand what you’ve been through, Paul, or how you feel, but I do understand that the only person in control of it is you. And you’re choosing the wrong path.”

  He sneers a little. “So what was your big plan, that we’d move to New York together and walk hand in hand down Fifth Avenue, looking at the Christmas lights?”

  I suck in a little breath, because actually that is a daydream of mine. It doesn’t have to be Fifth Avenue, but yeah. Sue me. I picture walking hand in hand with the guy I love around my hometown. Showing him where I grew up, where I had my first kiss, taking him to my favorite cupcake shop.

  But I’m an idiot. He won’t even go to the movie theater.

  He takes a long breath, clearly trying to get hold of his temper. “I’d never hold you back, Olivia. You want to go into Portland with Kali? Go for it. You want to go to New York every other weekend? Do that. Go get your hair done, browse the bookstore, and see whatever movie you want.”

  “Alone,” I clarify.

  He shrugs. “Or with friends. Whatever.”

  “But not with you.”

  His jaw tenses and he looks at his shoes. “Not with me.”

  “Ever?”

  He meets my eyes then, and what I see breaks my heart.

  “Got it,” I say, swallowing around th
e despair. “So those are my options. I can live in the light without you, or stay here in the dark with you.”

  Paul opens his mouth as though to protest, but then realizes the truth of what I’m saying. He slowly nods.

  I close my eyes, trying to block out the pain, trying not to hear the desperate way he whispers my name.

  He reaches out again, but I step back, and I see the flash of hurt on his face before he carefully lets indifference settle over his features.

  Yeah, do that, I mentally sneer. Go ahead and retreat. It’s like all of the progress we made never happened.

  “How long have I been here?” I ask, as much to myself as to him.

  He shrugs. “A little over three months.”

  I nod, mentally counting how much time’s passed.

  Long enough for fall to head toward winter.

  Long enough for Paul to abandon his cane and his limp, and long enough for him to sit facing me in full daylight without trying to hide his scars from my view.

  Long enough for me to realize that what happened with Michael and Ethan doesn’t make me a horrible person.

  Long enough for me to fall hopelessly, irrevocably in love with Paul, even though it’s becoming painfully clear that the feeling isn’t mutual.

  But most important to him . . .

  “You’ve fulfilled your father’s requirements,” I say with a sad little smile. “I’ve stuck around three months.”

  His face contorts in anger. “Don’t.”

  “Congratulations. You get your inheritance, or your blank check, or whatever it is you were out for.”

  “Stop. That’s not why—”

  “Then why, Paul? Why have you kept me around all this time? Why have you pretended like you’re fully human, when clearly you’re still operating as half a man?”

  He blinks, his head jerking back a little at my cruel words, but I don’t take them back. I want him to hurt the way that I’m hurting. I want to hold up the mirror and force him to face the coward that he is.

  “I don’t want you to go,” he says roughly, moving quickly and pulling me to him before I can put distance between us. “Is that what you want to hear? You want to hear that I want you? That I need you? Because I do, Olivia. I need you.”

  I place my hands on his chest, pushing slightly even as my eyes fill with tears. “I know.” My voice cracks. “That’s why I need to go. This isn’t right, Paul. Not for either of us. I thought you’d gotten rid of your crutch when you got rid of that damn cane, and when you lost some of the anger, but really you just replaced the old crutch with a new one. Now I’m the crutch.”

  He shakes his head, not understanding.

  I go up on my toes, pressing my lips to his, needing to touch him one last time.

  Then I step back.

  “I love you, Paul, but I won’t live for you.”

  “Olivia!” His voice is desperate now, his face anguished, but I keep moving backward, even as the tears flow in earnest now down my cheeks.

  “Goodbye, Paul.”

  I walk away then. I’ve done everything I can for Paul Langdon.

  The rest is up to him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Paul

  “You’ll be okay, Mr. Paul.”

  I’m pretty sure that Lindy is reassuring herself more than me. I cling to her words just a little bit anyway.

  “Yes I’ll be fine, Lindy,” I say, forcing a smile. That’s something I’ve been doing a lot of lately. Forcing smiles. That’s when I even bother to try.

  She puts her hand on top of a fat pile of papers. “I’ve pulled out all of my easiest recipes. Stuff you can make on Sunday to have leftovers all week, dinners you can make with pantry ingredients, and of course, don’t rule out breakfast for dinner—you make good eggs.”

  I put my hand over hers and press, and her eyes jerk to mine in surprise. In all the years she’s been working for my family, I don’t know that I’ve ever once touched her, but at the moment it feels right.

  “Thank you,” I say quietly. “For everything.”

  Oh God. The woman’s going to cry, I can see it in the wobbly chin and the way she keeps staring up to first one corner of the kitchen ceiling and then the other.

  “Maybe this isn’t the right decision,” she says, her voice a little watery. “Maybe . . .”

  “Nope,” I say, leaning back and making my voice friendly even though my words are resolute. “You’ve earned your retirement, Lindy. You and Mick both have.”

  And it’s true, but I don’t miss the timing of it. Almost two weeks to the day after Olivia left me, a disgruntled Lindy and Mick handed in their resignation letters. They said that telling me personally was just a courtesy, since it was actually my father who paid their salaries, and it was my father whom they’d truly resigned to.

  But I know the real reason they cornered me in my office that day. It wasn’t a formality. It was to make a point.

  It was their way of telling me that if I let Olivia go, I let them go too.

  In other words, if I want to live alone, I do it all alone.

  The kicker is, I can’t even see them as traitors. Sure, they stood by my side long before Olivia was even in the picture. And when I ran off all the other caretakers my father threw my way, they stuck by me through that too. On the surface, nothing about this scenario should be different. In theory, we should be able to go back to being the three of us, them staying out of my way and me treating with them with more civility than I show the rest of the world.

  That’s no longer good enough for them, and I’m glad of it. They’ve always deserved more than sticking by a surly beast who on my worst days could barely muster up the word thanks.

  “We won’t be far,” Lindy says, recovering her composure. “And you come for Christmas if you want. It’s only forty-five minutes, and you’ll always be welcome.”

  “I’ll be fine, Lindy. I’m good.”

  I’m not good. I’m so far from good, there’s not even a word for it. But I haven’t celebrated Christmas for two years, and I’m not about to start now. I could practically hear my dad’s disappointment over the phone when I told him not to come up for the holidays, and Lindy looks equally crushed.

  When will they learn not to expect anything from me?

  “Mr. Paul—Paul,” she corrects herself, realizing she no longer works for my family, and that I’m no longer twelve.

  Don’t, I silently beg Lindy. But she doesn’t pick up on my silent cue. Nobody ever does.

  Well, Olivia did. But she’s gone. Gone for about a month now, without so much as a text or email. I don’t even know where she is.

  “Paul,” Lindy continues, coming around to where I sit at the counter and standing close, looking like she wants to touch me but refraining, “I know things are . . . bleak right now. It seems like everyone’s leaving you. But you understand, don’t you?”

  Actually, no. I don’t understand. I mean, I get why people don’t want to be around me. I’ve always wondered why Lindy and Mick stuck it out, especially when I was at my worst in those early days.

  It’s like Olivia somehow set an example for the others with her tough-love voodoo.

  Kali won’t talk to me either.

  Not that I think Olivia told the others what happened. She was gone within an hour of telling me goodbye.

  But her desertion sent a clear message: If the beast wants to be alone, then let him.

  Whatever. I’ll be fine. Lindy’s right, I do make good eggs. I can brown beef for tacos, or whatever. I can boil water for pasta.

  There’s always takeout. If my leg’s good enough to run, it’s certainly good enough to drive.

  Not that I’ve been doing much running. I don’t like it anymore. She took even that from me.

  Once I loved it for its solitude. And now? Now it just feels fucking lonely.

  “You take care of yourself, Lindy,” I say, ignoring her questioning gaze.

  Then I do what once was unthinkable: I hug he
r. And I let her hug me back.

  She clings a little too long, and maybe I do too. She’s the closest I’ve had to a mother since my own passed away forever ago.

  But I can’t let myself think like that. An employee retiring is one thing. A pseudo-parent walking out on you? It’s crushing. So I don’t even go there.

  “You need help loading the car?” I ask as I pull back, desperate to change the subject.

  “Nah, Mick took care of it all this morning,” she says, adjusting her scarf and doing the blinky thing again.

  “Where is Mick?”

  Lindy fiddles even more deliberately with her scarf, not meeting my gaze.

  My eyes narrow. “Lindy.”

  “Well . . .”

  I sigh in understanding. “My father’s coming into town, isn’t he? Mick went to pick him up from the airport.”

  “Yes,” Lindy says with a sheepish smile. “I think Mick wants to feel needed just one last time.”

  “Shit,” I mutter under my breath.

  I haven’t seen my father since the last time he came up to give me shit about daring to show my face in Frenchy’s. And actually, it’s because of that fact that I’m not dreading his arrival as much as I would have just a few months ago.

  If anyone will understand why I couldn’t meet Olivia’s outrageous demand of shopping trips and movie theaters and vacations, it would be him. He didn’t even want me to show myself to a bunch of small-town locals in Nowhere, Maine. He’d probably have a heart attack at the thought of me following Olivia to New York, or, worse, attempting to rejoin my old life in Boston.

  In the weeks that Olivia’s been gone, not a day has gone by where I haven’t second-guessed my decision. My nightmares are no longer about the war, but neither are they a clichéd montage of me fumbling around in the public eye while everyone points and laughs at my face.

  No, my dreams are about her.

  The bad ones are bleak, endless winters of trying to reach her and failing.

  But the worst dreams—the ones that kill me—are the good ones. The ones where she’s laughing, or running along beside me with her little trot-trot gait, or sprawled out in my bed, taking up every inch of space.