“I can’t stay,” he said, taking a step backward. “But good luck.”
He ignored Liv’s accusatory stare and Sydney’s presence altogether before pushing out the front door into the cold, crisp morning air. The sunshine caused the ice to crackle around him, and he squinted as he crunched across ice-crisped grass. His head felt filled with cement, the tension pressing at his temples with the force of a two-ton truck. He beelined for the hardware store, the space he knew better than his childhood home.
“Hey, Sam,” the cashier called out.
“Yo, Earl. What’s up.”
“Nothing much, my friend.” The octogenarian placed a paper cup of coffee on the counter for Sam.
“How did you know?” Sam sipped the hot liquid and breathed a sigh of relief as the warm, familiar taste cascaded across his tongue.
“That tire gauge you were waitin’ on came back in stock.” Earl thumbed over his shoulder, and Sam nodded a thanks before carrying his coffee back into the shop.
Earl’s place was the only destination he ever remembered his dad taking him to when he was a kid, and the smell alone took him back. Everything here had a purpose. Sam ran his hand over the rows of dangling electrical cords the way a woman might touch a row of jeweled necklaces.
His father never had time for ice cream or trips to the water park. But whenever he needed a new garden hose or a replacement part for the toilet, he strapped Sam into the passenger seat of his old Buick and took him along for the errand.
Well beyond the Tootsie Pop that Earl used to hand him when he walked in, Sam loved the order and purpose of the place. The scent of new plastic and sharpened metal, the dust underfoot, the whirring fans overhead. Despite the chaos of his homelife and the anxiety stretched tight between his parents, when he walked into the hardware store with his dad and watched the weathered old man carefully select something he needed to make their lives work, everything made sense.
An ache stretched through his chest. More often than not since his mother had passed away, a sense of loneliness echoed through his bones. It was a loneliness with no origin, aside from the obviousness of absent parents. This town and the familiar faces were his only relief. And now, Sydney.
Because his mom got sick, and then because of his arrangement with Liv, women had taken an official last place on his priority list. He had no desire to attach himself to someone who could ruin his life the way Liv had almost done, and there was no one to meet in this town anyway. Until Sydney.
“Sam?”
He spun around to face Liv, gnawing away at her lower lip, her arms tucked tightly around the waist of her thick down coat.
“What’s wrong?”
She snorted a frustrated laugh. “Every time I want to talk to you lately, you think something’s wrong.”
She didn’t belong here. The hardware store was his safe space, the space where he could get lost in his own thoughts and linger and tinker with tools until Earl kicked him out so he could lock up for the night. Having Liv here forced everything to tilt a little.
“All right,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “What’s up, Liv?”
“Maybe this isn’t my place.” She wrinkled her nose and avoided his eyes, her gaze landing somewhere near his chin. “Honestly, I don’t know what my place is with you anymore. We’re friends; we’re exes; we’re strangers.”
“We’re not strangers.”
She shrugged, finally meeting his stare. “I have no right to ask you for any more than you’re already giving. I know that. But I want to know what’s going on with you and Sydney.”
He stepped backward as if she’d punched him in the chest. “What?”
Her eyebrows lifted into her forehead. “I’m not blind. You walked into that store and the whole mood changed.”
He breathed deep, weighing his options. No way could he admit to his relationship with Sydney. Liv wasn’t in any place to have her boat rocked.
Suddenly her nostrils flared, and a blush bloomed in her cheeks. She chewed on her lip as tears formed and then there was blood, a tiny spot of crimson on her lower lip.
“Liv,” he said, “you’re bleeding. You chewed your lip so hard it’s bleeding.”
She touched her fingers to her lips and squeezed her eyes shut before looking up at him, her desperate face crushing his heart.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to make things even more tense between us. I’m not allowed to ask you for this, I know that. I just . . .” She blinked, glittering tears clinging to her spidery eyelashes. “Sam, if you fall in love with someone else right now, I won’t make it. I can’t. I can’t keep fighting for my kid, for my life, for my sobriety, if I know that your heart is somewhere else.”
It was unfair. They both knew it. But for as long as he could remember, he’d taken care of her. He couldn’t stop now. He didn’t know how.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “It’s messed up. You’re allowed to have everything a normal guy should have. I just can’t do this by myself.”
“Liv.” He chose his words carefully. “Nothing has changed with you and me. I made a commitment to you, and I’m not backing out of it. No matter what else happens. Trust me. All right?”
Her face collapsed and she burrowed into his chest, her sobs reverberating through his rib cage as if they were his own. All he had to do was get through the social worker’s visits and the hearing, and then he’d launch her like a rehabilitated bird back into the world. She’d fly, God damn it. She had to.
chapter nineteen
These are probably better with whiskey.” Liv’s eyes took up half her face, and now they darted between Jorie and Sydney as if asking for permission.
“Liv,” Jorie scolded. “You know you can’t have alcohol.”
“Oh God, of course. I’m sure you’re on strict orders to babysit.” Liv rolled her eyes and leaned back into the crook of the couch. “Gosh, sometimes Sam feels like a parent more than a friend.”
Jorie sucked her lower lip between her teeth and eyed Sydney. Liv had run out of the store after Sam left, and they both noticed she’d come back a little looser and red-faced. Was she drunk? Sydney didn’t know her well enough to tell.
“He just wants to help you make the right choices,” Jorie said.
Liv hugged her arms across her chest as she looked up at Sydney. “I’m sure you’ve heard all about what a mess I am.”
Only that you’ve derailed Sam’s life and put your little boy’s life in danger. “We all have baggage.”
A tinny, twinkly tune played from Liv’s purse, and she nearly spilled her eggnog lunging for it. Her formerly blotchy face lit up as she looked at the phone and answered the call.
“Baby,” she cooed. “Hello, my heart. How are you?”
As Jorie’s lips pressed into a sympathetic grin, a wash of shame forced Sydney to move away from the couch. Liv’s kid. This was what it was all about. Reuniting Liv with her son. A sizzle reel of dirty memories flashed through her brain, and she took a sip of her whiskey-laced drink to steady her nerves.
“I know, babe.” Liv’s voice dropped to a whisper, and she pressed her fingers into her eyes, the pain clear across her delicate features. “You’re being such a huge help to Mommy, though. Do you know what? Every day that you do what Nana and Papa tell you is another day that I can rest easy knowing everything in Ohio is going super well. And the better things go for all of us, the sooner I can get you back.”
Jorie joined Sydney at the counter and leaned in close.
“Wow,” Sydney said, weighing her words carefully. “She must be totally heartbroken.”
Jorie’s forehead wrinkled. The girl could tell a story with her eyebrows alone. “I don’t know.”
Liv stood up from the couch and held up a pointer finger, indicating she needed a minute, and disappeared out the front door. Once she was out of earshot, Jorie turne
d back.
“She’s not heartbroken?” Sydney asked.
“She loves that kid,” Jorie said. “And I’m a firm believer in a kid growing up with their mother. How could I not want Liv to have her son back?”
Sydney held her comments in as Jorie spouted the party line.
“But,” Jorie continued. “I’ve seen this before. She gets sober, she holds on for a while, she thinks she has it all under control, and then she starts drinking again. Three weeks into ‘I’m only having one beer’ and she’s calling me from the Pine Ridge PD drunk tank.”
Jorie’s nostrils flared, and she picked at invisible lint on her shirtsleeve.
“Is there anything different about her this time around?” Sydney asked.
Jorie shrugged. “She seems like she’s really trying. She’s going to all her meetings, even though she sometimes complains about them. She seems sober. I hope it’s for real this time.”
Sydney’s stomach contracted. Jorie’s speech sounded too much like Sam’s. Cautiously optimistic.
“I want her to get better,” Jorie said. “I do. It’s just that she’s been down this road before, you know? No matter how many people try to help her, she has to do it on her own.”
Sydney swallowed down the honesty threatening at the gates of her mouth. What if Liv proved herself stronger than ever, got her son back, and Sam decided she’d made great enough strides to be with him again? What if the Liv who had cared for his mother showed her face again and won Sam over once and for all?
Jorie looked up at Sydney with a sad smile tugging at her lips. “Thank you for listening. It’s nice having you around.”
“Oh, I’m just using you to help get my mom’s shop running again. Did you think we were, like, friends or something?”
Jorie’s smile stretched, and she tossed a tiny balsam pillow at Sydney’s head. “Just wait until your stupid book club comes around. I’m gonna hide fish in all the air ducts in here and then you’ll be sorry.”
“A romance book club that stinks like fish? Might hit a bit too close to home for some ladies.”
“Oh God, that’s foul,” Jorie said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “Terrible segue, but I’m spending the night at Matt’s tonight. So, enjoy your alone time.”
“I won’t ask why fishy sex reminded you of your boyfriend.”
Jorie laughed again and shook her head. “Thankfully, that’s one issue we don’t have.”
After Liv and Jorie departed, Sydney settled behind the cash register to post on social media about the upcoming event at the shop. When she’d arrived that morning, three new voice mails greeted her. Instead of banks and credit card companies calling, Karen’s debts had been turned over to professional debt collectors. The menace in their voices renewed the fear in Sydney’s heart.
Her savings was gone. The car money was gone. If they didn’t raise $9,000 by the end of January, Karen would lose the store and have to officially declare bankruptcy. The store’s accounting ledger glared at Sydney from the cash wrap as if the book itself blamed her for its sad state of red.
She tapped on her teeth with a pen, trying to focus on a sparkly name for the Love Letters and Eggnog reading, but Sam’s face kept breaking into her thoughts. Despite everything else weighing heavy on her mind, she couldn’t forget him.
The night before had been a relationship unicorn; a terrifyingly bare-naked moment where she laid a deep insecurity at his feet and he, in turn, looked at her with even more warmth and dedication.
She’d always viewed sex as a tool. When it was purely for her own pleasure, it typically happened with a stranger or a casual date. When she needed something from a man, whether it was Connor’s stress levels to subside or simply a body next to her in bed, she’d go through the motions and usually manage to achieve orgasm through various methods of manipulation. Sex was perfunctory. A performance much like an actor hamming it up in the seventh of eight shows a week. Until Sam.
When they’d had sex in the lean-to, it was born of pure heat. She’d always been physically attracted to him, but in the months since they’d met, he’d crawled under her skin, wormed his way into the recesses of her brain, and burrowed into her chest. She wanted him with a desire deeper than her body.
It scared her. If sex wasn’t just an act, and it wasn’t a method of getting what she wanted, then what was it? Covered in layers of clothing and in front of a fire outdoors, being with Sam was animalistic. Splayed open on his couch while his eyes burned with emotions she’d never seen before, it was a different game entirely. A game that put her heart on the line.
* * *
• • •
You’re a stupid bitch, Debbie. If you can’t see that your husband is BLEEPing someone else, then you’re BLEEPing BLEEP.”
Sydney shoveled another buttery cracker topped with peanut butter into her mouth, eyes and brain transfixed on the debauchery in front of her. As the trashy TV show went to commercial, she changed the channel to the Thursday Night Football game. Neither team was of much interest to her, but the football season was so short, she watched whenever she could.
A time-out on the field prompted a commercial break, and she hurried to refill her snack plate before the game started up again. Between the cold weather, the reduced drinking, and the alone time, snacking had become her favorite hobby. As she reached for the last sleeve of Ritz, she promised herself she’d start working out again soon.
The knock was so timid and soft she almost didn’t hear it. She froze, her hand resting on the faucet, waiting to hear it again. Rap rap rap. This time louder. More certain.
The mountain town isolation still unnerved her a bit, and she peered past the curtain on the front door before she reached for the knob. As Sam’s ruddy-cheeked face came into view, her shoulders slid down her back.
“Well, hello,” she said, unable to contain her grin as she opened the door. He matched it tooth for tooth.
“Hello.”
“Can I help you?”
He tilted his head as if to say, Really?
“Jehovah’s Witness?”
“No,” he said flatly.
“Girl Scouts? You seem a little old.”
“Sydney.”
“Magazine subscriptions? I already get Teen People and Sports Illustrated.”
“Can you let me in, please? It’s six degrees out here.”
“Mm, I don’t know. I’m still new around here, and I’m not entirely comfortable allowing you into my home when I’m here all by myself.”
He lifted a single eyebrow, his intentions painted clear across his face.
“Oh,” she said, her skin prickling with anticipation. “That’s why you’re here, huh?”
“Maybe I had a beer with Matt, and he told me he had to get home because Jorie was waiting for him at his house. Then he said some gross shit I won’t repeat, but I’ll say it led me to believe she’d be there all night.”
She pressed her lips together, excitement turning her vision spotty. The blood had already rushed south, and pressure built between her legs. So this was how it was going to go. No illicit texts, no plans to meet up in seedy motels. Just pure, unadulterated desire whenever they were allowed. He wanted her in the same desperate way she wanted him, and he’d come here tonight on a whim to pursue that need. Hey. Heard you’d be alone.
“So,” he said, lowering his voice and his chin. “Can I come in?”
Before she said, Yes, please, God, come in and then come in and come in again, she drank him all in. His eyes shimmered, glassy and bright in the cold, and his hands were shoved deep into his coat pockets. He swayed a little back and forth, and the subtle movement belied the bravado in his voice.
She didn’t trust her voice to hide her desire, so she pulled the door open further and waved him in. His skin smelled of icy air and motor oil. The spicy scent of balsam wafted in after him,
combining to create the world’s most perfect fragrance.
Her eyes lingered on his beautifully bearded face as he peeled off his coat. When he turned, she breathlessly awaited his lips on hers, but instead, his eyes drifted over her shoulder to the TV in the living room. “Are you watching the game?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Why?”
He hurried past her into the living room. “I hadn’t really planned to come over here and watch TV, but since you’ve got this on . . .”
She huffed and followed him to the couch, settling in and leaving a respectable space between them. Being alone with him was like touching her finger to an electrical wire.
“Did I just cock-block myself?” she said.
He leaned into the couch, resting his elbow on the back and his head in his hand. He watched her. The intense scrutiny left her feeling exposed, despite the heavy sweats covering her body.
“I feel like a teenager,” she said suddenly.
His lips turned up at the corners. Dear God, how did he get so attractive? His hair was mussed, his T-shirt rumpled, and his old jeans had a grease stain at the knee. But with all his attention focused on her and the power in his stare melting her rational mind, she wanted to lick him head to toe.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” A laugh tickled her words. “You make me feel inexperienced somehow. Like I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He ran his hand over his mouth, oozing confidence. Why were they still sitting there fully clothed? She wanted everything of his touching everything of hers.
“The Sydney I met back in October knew exactly what she was doing,” he said.
She remembered acting like a drunken idiot in front of him at Taylor’s, sure her cleavage and pouty lips would melt him like butter. Amazing how much could change in two months.
“That Sydney doesn’t live here anymore,” she said.
“I think you need to trust yourself a little bit more. Finding out who you are doesn’t come from forcing one thing after another. Don’t fight the current, Sydney Walsh.”
Wild Love Page 21
