Where I Need To Be

by Jamie Hollins

  “It’s Megan,” she interrupted.

  He stilled and looked at her with narrowed eyes before continuing. “We did a complete inspection of the car, and there were a number of things wrong.” The man took a deep breath and raised his eyebrows. “The engine for the most part was decent. There were some electrical problems involving your automatic door locks and your dashboard lights. The radio doesn’t work, and the driver’s-side window doesn’t go down all the way. The brake rotors are warped, and the internal computer indicated that at one point there was an ABS system failure, although it seems to be working okay right now.”

  Oh, Jesus. So many problems, and he still had another page left on his repair report. Megan reached out and held on to the edge of the desk.

  “Your fluid levels were low. The O2 sensor went out, and your resonator pipe has a crack in it. The back bumper was being held on with duct tape and bungee cords, and both rear turn signals were burnt out. And when your car is idling it sounds as if someone is rattling a box of rocks. That’s your catalytic converter failing.”

  Megan felt as if she wanted to vomit. She took a deep breath in through her nose before quietly asking, “How much?”

  “What, the catalytic converter?”

  “For what I owe you today.”

  “Well, of all the things I just mentioned, the only necessary fixes were the turn signals, your fluid levels, the O2 sensor, and the resonator pipe. You’re just going to have to keep an eye on all the other repairs. You’ll need four new tires before winter, and if you start to smell any sort of exhaust inside the car, you should bring it back in. I wouldn’t be surprised if your exhaust pipe falls apart before the end of winter. Otherwise, I’d say it’s safe to drive now. For today, you just owe two hundred seventy-five dollars.”

  She actually sighed aloud. That wasn’t anywhere near what she thought she was going to owe, but it still had to go on her credit card. He processed her payment and handed her the paperwork. She signed her name and slid it across the desk to him. He paused for a moment when he saw her signature but didn’t say anything.

  “Thank you for all your help. I appreciate it.”

  He glanced up at her and nodded, seeming to study her as if her behavior was odd. He cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t take your car on any cross-country trips. Not sure she can make it.”

  Megan smiled. “How do you know it’s a she?”

  “I think all cars are female.”

  She chuckled while he ripped the back copy of the work form off and handed it to her. He’d just raised his eyes to hers when the bell over the door chimed. Mr. Foley glanced behind where she stood, and his lips slowly parted.

  “Megan?” said a familiar stern voice.

  The air left her lungs as she froze. The garage owner’s eyes moved to hers, narrowing ever so slightly. She knew what he saw when he looked at her. It was running sprints up and down her body.

  Absolute dread.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” the voice came again.

  With one hand clutching the desk in front of her for support, she slowly turned and looked at the door.

  Niall stood there…with his mistress.

  ###

  James knew Megan was in trouble the moment he saw Dempsey come through the door. The look of horror on her face as she stared back at the cocksucker was painful for him to watch. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a Boeing 747.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” the man asked again.

  Megan turned back toward James and picked up her credit card from the counter. He didn’t miss the fact that her hands trembled as if it were ten below zero.

  “I’ll be with you in one second,” he said evenly to Dempsey.

  The pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall into place. When Megan had signed her credit card receipt, the name she scribbled on the page was not Dempsey. And judging from the woman who was currently clutching Niall’s arm, James would venture a guess that Megan and the prick were no longer married.

  After what seemed like five attempts, Megan finally slid her Visa into her wallet. She fumbled to gather the paperwork he’d put in front of her.

  “Oh, Niall, honey,” the woman next to Dempsey said, “if we have to leave the SUV, don’t forget to move the new baby seat out of the back.”

  A strangled whimper slipped past Megan’s lips as she leaned against the counter. Her next breath hitched as she inhaled. James met her eyes, and he couldn’t help but feel for the woman. She looked like she was in physical pain. His instincts made him want to reach out to her as the bottoms of her eyelids grew wet.

  “Megan.” She was looking right at him, but she wasn’t seeing him. “Megan, here’s your key.”

  James slid her key across the counter to her. If nothing else, he could help her get out of his shop and away from her ex as quickly as possible.

  When his hand touched hers, she blinked rapidly. She took a deep breath and straightened. He had to admire the way she was able to pull herself together from complete devastation to seemingly normal in less than five seconds.

  “Is that a Honda key? Don’t tell me that’s your piece-of-shit car out front?” Niall laughed.

  James glared over Megan’s shoulder at the man. He’d never wanted to mess up anyone’s face more than he did at that moment. What a fucking asshole.

  “The higher you are, the farther you fall. Isn’t that right, Meg?” Niall continued his assault.

  “Thank you,” Megan whispered to James before she turned and walked out of the small office.

  Niall was still laughing to himself as he stepped to the counter.

  “Niall, don’t be so cruel,” the woman next to Dempsey huffed. “It’s bad enough she has to drive that car.”

  “Trust me, babe, you weren’t married to her for seven years,” Niall replied. “Driving around that tin can on wheels is more than she deserves.”

  James stared at the real estate prince, finding it hard to keep the contempt off his face. After the way Dempsey had just treated his ex-wife or estranged wife or whatever the hell she was, the asshole needed a good lesson in manners.

  James didn’t know Megan Dempsey, and sure, he himself had called her an ice princess and assumed the worst of her. But seeing the abject pain in her eyes when she heard her ex was having a baby with another woman turned all his judgmental thoughts into pity.

  “Foley, the air conditioner in my Mercedes is making a strange noise,” Dempsey told James “I need you to look at it for me.”

  James moved over to his desk calendar and saw a half-hour opening this afternoon due to a last-minute cancellation. “Sorry, but we’re all booked up for the next two weeks. You might want to call over to Maxwell Auto Repair and see if they have any openings.”

  He shut the calendar, just in case Dempsey got the idea to look. James would’ve liked to tell the fucker to leave and never come back. But the man was influential, and pissing off one of the biggest real estate development execs in Chicago wasn’t a good business decision.

  “Come on, you can’t just take a quick look?”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ll pay you double if you can help me out.”

  James just shook his head. “All I have is an appointment a week from Tuesday.”

  Visibly angry, Niall pulled his lady out of the front office. Feeling satisfied that Dempsey was upset just like he’d upset Megan, James watched the cocksucker storm to his SUV. He didn’t mind turning the other man away. That half-hour spot would be filled by the end of the day, and neither James nor the garage was hurting for money. He might have a blue-collar job, but he still made a decent living.

  As Niall Dempsey peeled out of the parking lot right in front of oncoming traffic, James wondered for the millionth time why people with money thought they ruled the world.

  Chapter 4

  The knocks on Megan’s bedroom door grew increasingly louder. So did her roommate’s voice. “Megan? Are you all right?”
/>   Closing her eyes, Megan hugged her pillow tighter to her chest. She stayed quiet, hoping Calli would think she was still asleep and go away.

  “Megan, are you okay in there?”

  Calli was persistent, Megan would give her that. She swallowed to wet her throat, which was raw from crying. “Yes, thank you.”

  “Are you sure? You haven’t come out of your room all weekend. Even to eat.”

  Megan opened her eyes and looked around her depressingly minimal bedroom. Calli was actually wrong. Megan had been out of her bedroom once. She’d let the mattress delivery guys into the apartment on Saturday morning while Calli was still asleep from being called into work the night before.

  Megan had missed the delivery guys’ first two calls because she didn’t recognize the number and wasn’t in any mood to talk. But by the third call, she’d remembered that her mattress was coming, and since she planned to camp inside her room forever, she figured she might as well be comfortable.

  She’d managed to pull the plastic off, but that’s as far as she got before she’d crumpled on the cold, bare mattress. And with the exception of using her bathroom, that was where she’d stayed for the rest of that day, that night, and all day Sunday.

  She felt sorry for herself, plain and simple. She hated feeling so weak and pathetic, but she couldn’t stop it either. Her ex-husband was having a baby with his mistress.

  A baby.

  A baby that Megan had prayed to God for every day for so many years of their marriage.

  A baby, which had become her obsession.

  At their divorce proceedings, Niall’s attorney had painted an ugly picture of a marriage rotting from the inside, all thanks to Megan’s growing fixation with wanting children. How Niall had tried to calm her fears, gone to repeated doctor’s visits, and pleaded with Megan to seek counseling.

  Lie, lie, lie.

  Niall had never, ever said anything to Megan about their inability to conceive. She’d asked him if he would be willing to be tested for infertility, and he’d refused. He never once suggested counseling of any sort.

  But it turned out to be her fault that Niall claimed he had to seek solace in the bed of another woman.

  Big, fat goddamn lie.

  Now here he was—having a child. And here Megan was—alone.

  She felt like the definition of failure. She’d failed to keep a husband, failed to be a good wife, and failed to conceive children.

  She’d been happy once, yet somewhere along the way, things had gotten messed up. Megan wasn’t excusing Niall’s behavior, and he certainly hadn’t turned out to be the man she’d thought him to be. But she’d made more than a few mistakes in their marriage herself.

  “Megan?” Calli called again.

  “Yes, I—I’m fine. Thank you.”

  There was silence and then Calli asked, “May I come in?”

  Frustration kindled inside Megan at the intrusion, but she quickly tamped it down. Even though she wanted to ignore Calli, she knew doing so would be rude. She slowly rolled off the bed, wincing at the way her muscles ached at the movement, and opened the door.

  “Jesus Christ, what happened to you?” Calli asked, looking her over.

  Megan knew she must look bad. She was dressed in sweat pants and a cami, her hair was sticking to the dried tear tracks on her face, and her eyes were swollen and sore.

  Megan cleared her throat. “I had the flu.”

  Calli nodded and Megan knew she didn’t believe a word she said. “Feel like grabbing a bite to eat?”

  “Not really,” Megan replied.

  “Come on, my treat.”

  Megan’s stomach rumbled at the mention of food. Calli’s dark blue eyes smiled as she said, “I’ll wait in the living room for you.”

  Megan shut the door and shuffled around to get ready to head out into the world. She changed into jeans and a T-shirt, swept her knotted hair into a ponytail, washed her face, and brushed her teeth.

  Calli was waiting in the living room, flipping through a magazine when Megan joined her. Her roommate was dressed in black skinny jeans with tears in the knees, a bright red T-shirt that hung off one shoulder, and black platform heels. When she saw Megan, she stood and said, “Let’s get some food, chica.”

  They walked down the street to a small Greek eatery and sat in a corner booth. Megan ordered a small salad while Calli ordered a gyro platter. After the waitress left their table, she stared blindly toward the front of the restaurant while Calli drummed her fingers on the table.

  “So this flu you had, does it have a name?”

  Megan took a deep breath and nodded, not offering any more information.

  “I had a really bad flu once,” Calli said.

  “Sorry to hear that,” Megan replied, taking a sip of water.

  “My flu’s name was Brock. I met him at work. He came in to get a tattoo. He was all types of gorgeous, but I didn’t think much of it because good-looking dudes come in a lot. But before he left, he came back to my station and asked if I wanted to grab some coffee with him after my shift. So we got coffee. One coffee led to another and before too long we hooked up.” Looking up at the ceiling, she gushed, “He was a fucking god in bed.”

  Calli’s praise was loud enough for the surrounding booths to hear. Megan smiled at the dreamy look on her roommate’s pretty face.

  Calli’s grin lingered for a moment longer before she shrugged. “Turned out Brock was in Chicago for a temp job. And he left.”

  “You didn’t want to go with him?”

  “I actually thought about it.” Calli laughed. “That’s how good the sex was.”

  Megan watched the other woman swirl her straw in her water glass with a wistful expression.

  “But, no, I let him go. I had a good thing going here in Chicago, and I wasn’t going to follow Brock around the country just because he had an amazing tongue and could make me forget I had arms and legs. Don’t get me wrong, I had a hard time after he left. A hard time. That’s why I call him the worst flu I ever had.”

  If Calli had felt anything like how Megan was feeling, she felt sorry for her.

  “I don’t see how any other flu could be worse than that,” Calli said. Megan looked up and she saw the challenging smile on her roommate’s face.

  “Niall.” His name tasted bitter and rotten on her tongue. “He’s my ex-husband.”

  Calli whistled softly before she pressed on. “Wow. Ex-husband?”

  Megan nodded. “I met him when I was in undergrad at Northwestern. God, back then he was…” She looked out the window toward the cars lined up at a red light, not really seeing any of them. “He was charming and handsome and smart.” She shook her head. “And he wanted me. Out of all the girls he could have dated, he pursued me.”

  “Probably because you’re gorgeous? Because you have the hottest legs since Naomi Campbell? And on top of that, you don’t seem like a shit human being?”

  Megan couldn’t help but chuckle. She’d heard compliments like those all her life, but being pretty didn’t get you everything. Neither did having a lot of money.

  “Well, whatever his reasons, we started dating, and we eventually got married. Things were great. Until they weren’t.”

  Niall was her first love, not to mention the first and only man she’d slept with. He’d been perfect in her eyes. Early on in their relationship, he was so attentive and never missed an opportunity to shower her with attention or gifts. She hadn’t known what being spoiled truly was until she met him. And then when his career started to take off, he’d made her feel like they were a team. It was Niall and Megan taking over Chicago one deal at a time.

  Her mind skimmed the past couple years. Although she hadn’t seen it then, she now noticed tiny hints of what was to come. Between pressures at home and their jobs, things between her and Niall hadn’t been the same. He’d been working more and more, which meant he’d spent most nights at their condo downtown. Megan had just thought he was working hard toward a new promotion or s
omething. It had been lonely in their suburban home. She’d thrown herself into her work with her students at Gillson Prep.

  Then there had come a point when Megan could actually see things slowly starting to change in their marriage. He’d become temperamental and aloof. She didn’t know what had gone wrong and had tried harder to please him. Whether it was hosting social functions, acting unfazed by his constant “golf trips,” or even having rushed sex that would abruptly end after his climax, leaving her without getting off.

  Her new goal had been to get him back to the happy man that she’d fallen in love with. And that’s when she’d gotten the bright idea that having children would solve all their problems.

  “How long were you married?” Calli asked.

  “About seven years. We’d been trying to have a baby, and things just weren’t going according to plan.”

  “Do you think that’s what caused your divorce?”

  Megan shook her head. “Partly, I suppose. But there were other things…”

  She trailed off again, thinking back to that fateful day. She’d never told anyone about it. Whether it was shame or just an unpleasant memory she’d much rather forget, she wasn’t sure. But there was something honest about Calli that put Megan at ease. And the story was pulling at her tongue, begging to come out of its deep, dark hiding spot.

  “I was supposed to visit my family outside of Boston. This was back in February. Instead, I went and bought a whole bunch of lingerie and planned to surprise Niall with a romantic weekend. I dragged all my shopping bags out of my car and into the bedroom and found him in bed with another woman.”

  “Oh, shit,” Calli whispered.

  Megan involuntarily shivered as the memories flooded her head. The sight of her husband lying on his back in their bed, his hands wrapped around the hips of a woman as she rode him. The woman’s head falling back, her brown, wavy hair almost covering her entire bare back. Megan could hear her husband’s panting breaths. Could hear the other woman’s whimpering moans.

  “We divorced. He got everything. I didn’t contest it because I just wanted it to be over. I was let go from my job because of his connections to the school. All the women I thought were my friends shunned me as soon as Niall and I separated because they were married to his friends, business colleagues, or clients.”