Come Home to Me (A Brookside Romance Book 5)

by Abby Brooks

  Frank scowls and for the first time since I met him, I feel like I don’t know him. “You know what, Sarah? I need you to go. Now. Please, just leave me alone.”

  Frank

  I’m so hungover, I might still be drunk. Though, chances are good that I’m just falling to pieces. When I saw Bree’s shoe in Sarah’s hand, my heart cracked in two. There’s no way she’s going to believe that Bree showed up on my doorstep the day she got me fired, pushed her way into my apartment, only for me to kick her right back out again. That’s a special kind of crazy even I can’t wrap my head around yet.

  If I can’t believe it, and I was here, then why in the world would Sarah believe me? It’s so much easier to think I got drunk and fucked a woman I can’t stand on the day my life came tumbling down.

  “Please tell me what happened.” The hurt in Sarah’s eyes sets fire to the rage inside me. She hasn’t even heard the story and has already cast her judgement on me.

  “I had no reason to be nice to you, you know that?” I spit the words in her face and turn away, so I don’t have to watch the effect they have on her. On some level, I know I’m self-destructing. I know I’m ruining whatever this is that’s growing between us. She’ll never look at me the same again.

  And maybe that’s for the best.

  Maybe I’m not the man I thought I was.

  Maybe she’s better off without my kind of chaos in her life, especially when she’s just now climbing out of her own chaos. If she goes back to Brookside now, she can continue rebuilding a life with her family. She can heal all the wounds on her heart and finally put down the baggage she’s been carrying around. There’s nothing but instability for her if she stays with me.

  “What do you mean?” Sarah’s voice is small. Tight. It cracks on the tension in her throat.

  I whirl, acting without thinking. “I mean, you were a mess. Who sets off across the country without enough money to make sure they can get back home? Who quits their job and abandons their family? Believe me, those questions were going through my head from the get go, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I thought, hey, this woman might have some very good reasons for her ridiculous choices.”

  Sarah steps back, anger eating her sadness. Good. I can deal with anger. It’s her sorrow that’ll break me.

  “And then, right after you con me into paying for your car repairs, I find out you’re a drug addict.”

  “Con you…? A drug addict? Is that what you think of me?”

  “It’s the truth, isn’t it? Hiding your pain behind medication? Drinking even though you know you shouldn’t? Tell me the truth, you were fucked up when you ran that red light, weren’t you?”

  Sarah turns away. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “I want the truth!”

  “Fine!” Her body trembles with emotion. “I was medicated. Is that what you want to hear?”

  Her anger spurs me on. I’m destroying something beautiful, but what can I say? Drunk Frank is a miserable asshole and she will be so much better off if she leaves. “And I fell for it hook, line, and sinker, didn’t I? The pretty woman? The damsel in distress?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I got you a job. I took you in. I paid for your fucking plane tickets back to Ohio!”

  “And I told you that you didn’t have to! My God, Frank! What’s going on with you?”

  “I don’t know, Sarah. Why don’t you tell me? You know Bree is crazy. You know I’ve never wanted anything to do with her. But now that I’m broke and have nothing to offer you, you just need that—” I wave a hand at the shoe on the floor “—as an excuse to walk out on me.”

  “Really.” Sarah purses her lips. “Except you know very well that I don’t need an excuse to leave. I just leave. The fact that I’m still here speaks volumes, as does the fact that you won’t tell me how that stupid shoe ended up on the floor of your apartment.”

  “You know what? I don’t have space in my life for more chaos. I need you to leave.” I point at the door. “Actually, I need you to do more than just leave right now. I need you to leave permanently.” I stomp into the bedroom and pull all of her stuff out of my closet and shove it into her bag.

  She follows me, tears wavering in her eyes. “Don’t do this.”

  I don’t answer her. I can’t think over the roaring in my head. The poison in my system.

  “Frank…”

  “Jesus Christ woman! Stop saying my name! Just get this shit and go. I don’t have time for you.” I slide the bag across the floor and stare her down.

  She doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, just stands there looking at me with so much hurt and worry and confusion, that my rage overflows.

  “Fine,” I say, speaking before I even know what I’m going to say. “I slept with her. Is that what you want to hear?”

  Sarah recoils. She wipes at her tears, then closes her eyes and sucks in her lips. Her chin trembles briefly and then she swallows hard. “I hope you’re proud of yourself,” she says as she bends to grab the bag. Without another word, Sarah turns on her heel and walks out of my life.

  Sarah

  I find my keys on the counter under the pizza box, grab both my bags, and make it out of Frank’s apartment without shedding a single tear. It’s not until I get into my car and realize I have no place to go that I break down. I slam a hand on the steering wheel and scream, a wordless sound.

  What do I do?

  Where do I go?

  I checked out of my room at the extended stay before I left for Ohio and just walked out of the only place I really want to be. Frank’s words echo in my head. I slept with her. Is that what you want to hear?

  How could he do that? Is that the kind of man he really is? The kind who hits a bump in the road and self-destructs?

  My heart wants to think it knows the answer to those questions.

  No, it screams.

  That man in there is not the real Frank Wilde. That is desperation and days of drunkenness. He told me drinking turned him into a man he didn’t even recognize and now I get to see that in action.

  But does any of that matter? If he slept with Bree, drunk or not, what does that say about who he is? About how he feels about me?

  I wipe at my tears and stare blearily at the traffic winding down the street in front of Frank’s building. While my life is shattered and ruined, it keeps right on going for everyone else and for whatever reason, that spurs me into action. I shove my keys into the ignition and start the engine. Pull out of the parking lot, strain to look past a giant concrete truck, and turn onto the street.

  My thoughts churn.

  My heart bleeds.

  The angry voice in my head tells me I was dumb to think my life could be anything more than running from one disaster to the next.

  On auto-pilot, I navigate out of the city and find myself in front of the now-familiar extended stay hotel. I rent a room and wheel my bags inside. Collapse on the bed and throw a hand over my eyes.

  I should be good at this kind of stuff by now. After a lifetime of finding myself in shitty situations, I should be the queen of collecting the broken pieces and moving on. I used to be amazing at it. If this had happened even a few months ago, I would have torn Frank out of my heart by the roots, tossed him aside, and found someplace, someone, something better.

  Except I had the audacity to think I was finally moving past that. With Frank’s help, I’ve made peace with my family, or at least started to. I have a job that I actually like in a city that feels like home. I thought I was moving forward, that the part of my life where I pick myself up and put myself back together was over.

  I really am a fool.

  This is what I get for thinking I’m the kind of woman who should dare to hope.

  I dig my phone out of my purse, suddenly desperate to talk to someone, anyone. I can’t go through this alone. I check for a message from Frank. An apology. An explanation. But there’s nothing.

  I consider calling
Tessa, but I’m not ready to speak the words that will make this situation real. I don’t want her pity. Or her sympathy. I just want to be not alone. I’m not ready to believe what Frank said is true, even though I can’t for the life of me explain why he’d say it if it didn’t happen.

  When I toss my phone back into my purse, my gaze lands on my prescription bottle. Maybe this is just the way life is for me. Full of disappointment and shattered hopes. Maybe every good thing I ever set my sights on will crumble in my grasp. Maybe this is my clue to stop trying to be something I’m not. Stop reaching for things I’m not supposed to have.

  Some people are born to be the hero.

  Some people are born to fail.

  Every story needs a villain.

  Maybe that’s me.

  I pull the bottle out of my purse and spin it in my hand. It would be so nice to take a pill. Stretch out on the bed and forget this ever happened. In the morning, I’ll put my stuff in my trunk and head back to Ohio. Finish out my life as Sarah who does nothing and means nothing to anyone.

  That thought does me in. A sob wrenches its way out of my throat, growing into a wail that dredges up all the years of disappointment that I’ve done my best to ignore. I hurl the bottle at the wall because damn it! I don’t want to go backwards! I don’t want to be that girl anymore!

  I want to grow and change. I want to be a better person. I want to be the woman I thought I could be with Frank by my side. I don’t want to go home to Ohio and beg for my old job back. I want to keep working at McDougan & Kent. I want to be Frank’s girl…

  Except Frank doesn’t work for McDougan & Kent anymore and if what he said about the security cameras in the elevators is true, then I probably won’t work there much longer, either. And if Frank is willing to throw what we had away on someone like Bree, then I’m really not his girl, now am I?

  I drop to my hands and knees and pick up the little blue pills scattered across the worn carpet. One by one, I slide them back into the bottle until there’s only one remaining in the palm of my hand. I stare at the thing, my heart in my throat, totally aware my future hangs in this moment.

  It’d be so easy to toss the pill into my mouth, swallow it down, and slide back into a life that feels familiar, dull, empty, devoid of feeling.

  So easy.

  But sometimes what’s easy isn’t what’s best. Sometimes we have to fight for what we want. And damn it, I want to be the woman I got a glimpse of in these last few weeks. I don’t want her to be a memory. I want her to be me.

  I stand and walk into the bathroom. Drop the pills into the toilet and flush them away before tossing the empty bottle in the trash.

  Frank might be done with me. He might be willing to throw me away for no good reason, but I’m not. It’s time I realized I’m worth fighting for. And if I won’t fight for myself, how can I expect anyone else to fight for me?

  I spend the rest of the night doodling and planning. The world is open to me right now. I can go wherever I want and do whatever I want. There’s a beach in California with my name on it. Maybe there’s a job there, too. Or, my family is missing me in Ohio and my brothers’ friends run a business. Maybe they’re hiring.

  I owe Frank a lot of money for the repairs to my car and for the airfare. Regardless as to what happened between us, I need to figure out a way to pay him back. I can’t have that debt hanging over my head.

  As thoughts come to me, I jot them down. The more I define my plans, the more answers I find to the questions in my mind, the better I feel, though I’m a long way from feeling good. Most importantly, I’m proud of myself for flushing those pills down the toilet. While they may really help someone who uses them properly, I don’t use them properly.

  I use them to hide.

  I use them to run.

  I use them to ignore how much I’m hurting, how disappointed I am in my life.

  In myself.

  I use them to quiet the voice in the back of my head. The one that continually wonders if this is all there is to life. The one that constantly tells me there has to be more than the tedium of day to day obligations.

  It’s been there forever. When I was little, I told my momma about it, and she said it was the voice of greatness. She tried to tell me that greatness has a cost. That I couldn’t just sit around and wait for it to come to me, but that I would need to chase it down. To listen to the whispers of my heart and run, run, run after the things I want.

  I only ever heard the first part of what she told me. And so, I sat around, waiting for greatness as that whispering voice kept reminding me that I was worth so much more than a boring job, too many bills, and a small apartment. That voice got louder, angrier, more insistent. Instead of taking my mom’s advice and chasing down the things I needed to feel happy, I settled on medicating that voice right out of existence.

  That stops now.

  When that voice speaks, I’ll listen. When it commands me to follow my passion, to take a chance, to push past the hard parts, damn it, I’m gonna.

  But first, I have to decide what I’m going to do about Frank.

  If he cheated on me…

  …and that’s a very big if, because I can’t wrap my head around that being the truth of the situation…

  …sure, he said he did, but things just don’t add up and doubt spins through my memories of our conversation…

  But if he cheated on me, then things between us have to end. As much as I care about him, as much as I think we could be amazing together, I’m worth more than betrayal.

  But if he didn’t cheat on me, I’m still not ready to give up on him. He said some terrible things, hurt me in a way I swore no one would ever hurt me again. Once upon a time, when my father said terrible things, I walked away, never once looking back, and have worn those scars on my heart ever since. I owe it to myself to try a little harder this time. I owe it to myself to stand up and fight.

  Frank

  After Sarah leaves, I stare at the door like the idiot I am. What in the hell was I thinking? Why in God’s name did I tell her I slept with Bree?

  I’ll never forgive myself for the hurt I saw in her eyes. And so, I do penance by standing in a dark apartment, staring at the door. As if she’ll come back. As if she’s right on the other side, just waiting for me to tell her I was lying.

  After who knows how long, I pace back into the living room, stepping over the bits and pieces of my life scattered across the floor. The way I see it, I have a few choices. I can call her and explain that I didn’t sleep with Bree, I just told her I did because…

  Because why, asshole?

  Why in the hell did I say that?

  Because I wanted her to leave. Because I didn’t want her to see me like this. Because I don’t have anything to offer her now that I don’t have a job and I thought it’d be better for her if she hated me. Because I didn’t want her to see me fall.

  I told her I’d teach her what it means to fly, but I can’t. Not now.

  Night falls and still, I do nothing. The poison leeches out of my system and I develop a raging headache. Thunder and lightning pounding against my skull. At some point, I wander into the kitchen and crack open my last bottle of Jameson. With Sarah gone, I’ve officially ruined everything, so I might as well fall all the way down the hole. Maybe in a day or two, I’ll head home to Logan County. My mom or my brothers are sure to need some help. Maybe I can put the pieces of my life back together on the ranch.

  But for now, I’ll let myself bleed on the broken bits while I mourn the life I almost had.

  I wake to someone pounding on the front door and my first thought is Sarah. She came back. She didn’t give up on me even after I gave up on myself. And thank God she’s willing to fight for us because I was a fool to try and throw it all away.

  The living room swirls around me as I make my drunken way to the door. “I’m coming!” I yell, appalled at how slurred my words are. The smile I didn’t know I was wearing falls from my face when I sees who’s waiting for
me outside.

  “Holy shit. What in the hell have you done to yourself?” Jason steps over the threshold without waiting to be invited. He takes one look at the mess and shakes his head. “Having a little pity party, are we?”

  I shut the door, the happiness fading as the shadows devour the light. “Kinda feel like I earned one.”

  Jason shoves his hands in his back pockets. “Sure. Because you were a jerk and sabotaged your career. That definitely earned some self-pity.” He shakes his head and turns away from me.

  I’ve had just about all the judgement I can take. “Sabotaged? Man, I’m in no mood for a lecture.”

  Jason turns back to me, frowning. “Well, then, you’re shit out of luck because you’re going to get one. Are you really telling me you’re surprised they fired you? After Vi? After Bree? After they told you not to get involved with Sarah and then you flaunted your relationship all over the office like some kind of dickhead?” Jason shakes his head. “You really didn’t see this coming?”

  “I really didn’t.” I glare at my friend, doing my best to scare him out of my apartment.

  “You’re not invincible.” The words are an accusation. The look in his eyes pointed as all hell.

  “I never said I was.”

  “Man, don’t bullshit me.” Jason lets out a long breath and stares at his feet. “I guarantee that you thought if anything happened, Sarah would be the one to get fired. Not you. Because you’re Frank Wilde, the great and wonderful platinum certified engineer. Am I right?”

  I consider putting up a fight. Telling him I thought Sarah and I were being secretive enough, but that’s a total line of bullshit. I knew I was flaunting our relationship all over the office and I chose not to care because I absolutely did not believe I’d be the one to get fired. “All right. Fine. You’re right.”

  Jason stares me down. “That was a dick move, man.”

  I hold out my hands. “She wasn’t even going to stay long-term anyway,” I say, still fighting even though Jason’s right. It was a dick move.