by Hadley Quinn
Always Be the ONE
By Hadley Quinn
Copyright © 2015 Hadley Quinn
All rights reserved.
Without limiting rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, introduced into a retrieval system, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including without limitation photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. The scanning, uploading, and/or distribution of this document via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and is punishable by law.
Please purchase only authorized editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials.
The events and characters in this work are entirely fictitious and of the author’s imagination.
Content Warning:
This book contains adult material, including sex and language. It is not suitable for readers under the age of 18.
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” ~Gandhi
Prologue
“I’m pretty sure if you do one more thing to this house, your dick is gonna turn into a vagina, bro.”
My younger brother Trent, ladies and gentleman. Always straight to the point. He was right, though. I’d kind of turned into a pussy this weekend while Aubrey was out of town with her friends. I missed her, but it wasn’t just that. I felt like I had a lot to prove for some reason.
See, usually I was the one that was out of town a lot. You could call me a starving artist or a struggling musician, but it really wasn’t that bad. I actually had a lot of gigs offered to me, and since it wasn’t my only source of income, I got by just fine. I loved my other job as a contractor; just like music, putting together something from start to finish was enriching and served a purpose.
“It’s the whole prove-I’m-not-an-incompetent-idiot sort of thing,” I answered. “You’ll understand when you find a girl that can stand you for more than an hour.”
“Ahh, so funny with the insults, Matt. It’s not about them putting up with me; it’s about finding a chick that doesn’t annoy the shit out of me.”
“Hmm, we’ll see.”
I finished tying another set of balloons to the end table in the corner. Looking around the front room and kitchen, I was pretty damn proud of myself. Everything was in teal and black, her favorite color combination. The food on the dining table was a massive spread of salads, pastas, breads and desserts. And hell no, I didn’t make it all. It’s called catering, and I was pretty good at picking up a phone and demanding food.
I saw Aubrey’s mom’s car turn into the driveway and I knew it was show time. Instructing my brother to herd everyone in from the backyard, my excitement grew just to see my girl after five days away. I didn’t plan for everyone to be quiet and hide or anything dumb like that, but when I opened the door for her and Maryann, her eyes went wide at the scene in front of her.
“Happy Birthday, Aubrey!” several of her friends and family shouted as she stepped into the house.
I gave her astonished face a kiss and she gave me a peculiar look. “You’re very sneaky.”
“The trick was not inviting anyone until the day of. That way Megan couldn’t open her big mouth, and if she did, you were on the plane all day.” I glanced over my shoulder at Aubrey’s sister, who scoffed loudly and glared at me.
“That is true,” Aubrey whispered to me with a smile. “And wow, look at this,” she laughed, entering the room further to greet everyone.
“This looks beautiful, Matt,” Maryann told me, giving me a hug of approval. “Thank you for being so thoughtful.”
Shutting the door, I considered that for a minute as my future mother-in-law joined her husband in the kitchen. I tried to be thoughtful. I’d been told by a lot of people that I was one of the nicest guys they knew. Not gonna lie, I’m not the type to say oh schucks and question them on it. I knew I was. I tried to go out of my way to help people, and I would give the shirt off my damn back if I needed to. But pleasing Aubrey’s parents was kind of on my to-do list. Mr. and Mrs. Harris were sort of a tough sale at the beginning. They had four kids—all daughters—and Aubrey was the youngest.
So far I’d only disappointed them a few times, but mainly because I didn’t hold a prestigious career like a doctor or lawyer. That would never be in the cards, so hopefully they would eventually get over it and accept the fact that I loved writing and performing music and earned my living from building houses.
I believed I was good enough, and that’s what mattered most.
Trent was already digging into the food, so many of the guests followed suit. A part of me wanted to kick my own ass for planning such a gathering for the day my girl got home from her vacation. I wanted to drag her into the bedroom and have my way with her. Repeatedly. But it was good to see her smile so much, and she usually did when she was around her friends and family. She was kind of a social butterfly with a very cheerful, outgoing personality. Blonde hair, blue eyes, dimples, bright white teeth, and legs that went on and on. She’d been my girlfriend since she was a sophomore in college, and a year later, she moved in with me.
Somehow the rough-around-the-edges musician landed Ms. Popularity.
My house was a standard three-bedroom home that I rented, but I was surprised it managed to fit everyone that came that evening. Aubrey had a lot of friends and a big family. The only family member that wasn’t present was Danica, the sister she just got back from visiting in Florida. I was sort of glad she wasn’t there tonight because those two could gab for hours, and all I wanted was to have Aubrey to myself. When the final guest left just after ten, it was all I could do to rein in my eagerness to get her into the bedroom.
Her smile immediately faded as soon as the front door closed, and she must have read my intentions loud and clear because she sighed and said, “I’m so exhausted, Matt. Not tonight.”
Kick to the balls. Thanks.
“Really, this was nice of you,” she continued, motioning to the remnants of a birthday party. “But it was just…I was caught off guard.”
A bit stunned, I shrugged with disbelief. “Well yeah, that was the point.”
“You just…didn’t have to go through so much trouble,” she said as she reached for the suitcase that was still by the front door.
“Here, let me get that for—”
“No, I got it.”
She tugged on the handle and pulled it behind her, all the way down the hall, and I heard the bedroom door shut behind her.
Well fuck me sideways. That was unexpected. What happened to my sweet, happy girl that was excited to see me? At least that’s what her text said this morning, complete with a bunch of exclamation points and smiley faces.
I walked down the hall and went to open the door, but it was locked. She locked me out of the bedroom? I pounded on the door two times. “Aubrey, open the damn door.”
After a few seconds her voice answered, “I had a shitty flight and a shitty day, can you just give me some time to myself, Matt? Please?”
Her ‘please’ request was more like why the hell are you bothering me right now, get a clue.
I’d kissed her when she first came home, but nothing more than a hello kiss because everyone was there in the room. Thinking back, she might have been avoiding me altogether after that. She was sure cheerful and pleasant around everyone else, but any time I tried to put an arm around her or be a part of her somehow, she was a bit stand-offish.
“Aubrey, open the door, please. Don’t make me break it down.”
“Matt,” she groaned. “I just want some time to myself, okay?”
“You don’t even have to talk to me. Take a bath, relax, and I’ll give you a massage. You can go right to sleep.”
No response.
“Aubrey? Babe, open the door.”
“Matt, please!”
Every now and then she’d get cranky, but she always contributed it to PMS. It wasn’t my place to question hormonal shit, I usually just tried to be sympathetic and keep my distance, but I was trying to do some quick calculating in my head. When I wasn’t completely sure, I asked, “Are you about to start your period?”
Silence ensued for a few seconds, and then the door to the bathroom slammed shut.
Okay, then.
I retreated, assuming I’d be sleeping on the couch tonight, grabbed myself a beer from the refrigerator and sat my ass in the front room. I flipped through channels on the TV, but when I found nothing interesting on, I pulled my guitar from the end of the couch and set it on my knee.
I must’ve played for almost two hours because it was midnight when I looked at the clock. Taking my chances, I traveled down the hall again to check on Aubrey. Maybe I shouldn’t have planned the party, maybe I should have picked her up from the airport myself, or maybe I really was an insensitive prick and did something I shouldn’t have. Bottom line, though, she needed to tell me what the hell was wrong.
The door was still locked when I tried it.
“God help me right now,” I shook my head to myself.
Returning to the front room, I shut everything off and crashed on the couch for the night.
***
Clank. Incoherent mumbling. Clank. Clank-clank.
My eyes popped open and I had to shield them when the pillow fell off my face.
Clank-clank, rattle, clank, the creak of the dishwasher door…
Someone was cleaning the kitchen, which caused me to groan to myself. I hoped it was some fucking stranger in my house and not Aubrey cleaning up after her own birthday party.
I glanced at the clock on the DVD player. It was only six-fifteen in the morning.
Jumping up from the couch, I found my fiancée in the kitchen, and sure enough, she was loading the dishwasher. She was wearing a pair of running shorts, tank top, and sneakers. From behind, I wasn’t sure if she’d come from a run or was about to go for one. There was rarely a misplaced hair on her head either way.
“No, don’t do that,” I told her, waving my hands. “I got this.”
I wrapped my arms around her from behind and nuzzled the side of her face with kisses. She smelled fresh and clean, still in pre-workout condition.
“I refuse to let you clean the kitchen,” I said. “That’s my job.”
“Are you sure?” She turned around and leaned her butt against the counter.
“Yeah, I’m positive. I meant to do it last night but… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to leave it messy.”
“Don’t worry about it. And I’m the one that’s sorry. I didn’t mean to be such a bitch, I just…” She sighed. “My flight home was terrible, I was stuck in a middle seat for the second four-hour leg home, I puked on myself…”
My mouth dropped open. I knew she got motion sickness now and then, but I’d never known her to throw up. “You puked on yourself?”
“It’s not funny.” She crossed her arms over her chest and attempted to look pissed, but she was trying not to laugh. “Just the whole day my allergies had been bugging me, and then I felt nauseated on the plane. The woman next to me had this horrible perfume that made it worse, the big guy on my other side kept breathing like Darth Vader…”
Smiling, I shook my head at her luck. “I’m sorry, Brey. And I thought you had an aisle seat?”
She sighed again. “I did, until the guy in the middle had a hard time fitting in his seat between us so I traded with him, and then he had to squish over toward me anytime the drink cart went by… Ugh, I don’t want to think about it anymore. I couldn’t find the puke bag fast enough and then everyone had to suffer.”
I reached forward to pull her to my chest, the most contact I’d had with her in five days. But she almost seemed reluctant, and then she patted me on the back, gave me a smile, and said she was going for a run.
She was avoiding eye contact, would barely give me any affection let alone allow me to give her any, and she didn’t want to talk much.
The last time she acted like this she’d done something she felt extremely horrible about. As I cleaned up the kitchen, my thoughts recalled that day almost a year ago. I’d come back from a gig two cities over, tired and frustrated after I got a flat tire halfway home. I just wanted to shower and go to bed, but whenever I see Aubrey after being in a mood like that, her smile can change my entire day. I found her in the kitchen painting on an oil canvas. It was a new hobby she’d taken up, and even though she in no way had found her talent at it quite yet, she seemed to like it. I really don’t remember all the details of that night, but I know she was very distant, would hardly make eye contact, and practically squirmed away from me whenever I’d try to hug her.
Finally she started crying, blubbering about a guitar and moving the couch… I had no idea what she was talking about. After I got her to calm down, I found out she’d been moving the furniture around to vacuum and clean, had set my guitar on the kitchen counter to get it out of the way, and somehow bumped it later on and it fell on the ceramic tile floor.
“I’m so sorry, Matt, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know it can’t be replaced…”
I’ll admit I was pretty torn up about it. My grandfather had given me that guitar before he died, and there was nothing I could do about the big crack in the body. After holding her for a few minutes, telling her it was okay, I spent some time checking it over. It didn’t affect the way it sounded, but it surely was badly splintered. But Aubrey was so upset about it, I couldn’t be mad. It was just a guitar, and I decided the split in it would just give it character. It took her weeks to stop crying about that guitar, and God was I treated like a king because of her guilty conscience, but I was never mad at her for it. I don’t think I could ever be mad at that woman.
When she returned from her run, I decided to watch her for a bit, just to see if I was noticing something different in her behavior all over again. I was for sure right because she would still barely hang out in the same room with me for more than a couple of minutes. I even checked all my instruments, just to see if something was wrong with one of them, but she hadn’t even been around them because she’d been out of town.
My chest felt a little tight for some reason, just as Aubrey came down the hall dressed for work. She was an intern at her father’s law office downtown, so she was dressed in a nice skirt and a button-up blouse.
“Can we talk a minute?” I asked.
She was stuffing an apple and a bottle of water into her bag and sighed. “I’m going to be late.”
“I’m sure your dad will understand.”
“Just because I work for my dad doesn’t mean I can take him for granted.”
“Aubrey,” I stated firmly. “I want to know what’s going on. Something’s wrong and I want you to tell me what it is so I can fix it.”
She stared at me with those big blue eyes; eyes I could get lost in because they were usually lively and full of life. Right now they were not. They looked dull and unhappy, and if I noticed correctly, she almost looked angry with me.
“What the fuck did I do?” I blurted out. “Tell me what I did wrong. Is it the party? I’m sorry I threw you a birthday party and you didn’t feel like celebrating anymore. Maybe you had too much fun already with your sister and her friends the day before and I’m too stupid to understand.”
“Why does everything have to be about you?” she bit back at me. “You always turn things around like it’s something you did. Can’t I just have some time to myself?”
With a sigh I replied, “Yes, of course you can. I love you Aubrey. I just want you to be h
appy and right now you don’t seem happy. You’ve been gone for five days and—”
“I met someone,” she mumbled, cutting me off.
No, fuck that. She cut off my air supply. I stopped breathing. I didn’t hear her correctly, right? I really didn’t fucking hear her right…
“I just… I think we need to take a break, Matt,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes until they flooded over onto her cheeks. She started to walk away, and even though I felt completely dumbstruck, I somehow had the ability to move my legs.
“No, Aubrey, you don’t just- you don’t just drop a load like that on someone and walk away. Met who? What the hell are you talking about?”
She wiped at her eyes carefully, trying not to smear her makeup. “In Florida. I met someone. I’ve known him for a while now but…this last trip there…”
My ears were closing in on me. Was her voice fading or was my hearing diminishing?
“I’m sorry, Matt,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry but…I feel like…things between us…”
“Things between us what?!” I think I shouted. “What is- what is wrong with us, Aubrey? I don’t even- I don’t understand. There haven’t been any problems between us. What the hell am I missing?!”
She pursed her lips as another set of tears ran down her face. A shaky hand carefully wiped them away. “That’s the problem. You think everything is just wonderful and I… I just…”
I waited. I’m not sure how long I waited. What the hell was I hearing? I couldn’t even believe this was happening. All I could see was Aubrey smiling, Aubrey laughing, Aubrey holding my hand when we’d go out together… Was she seriously not happy with me?
“I’ve tried going along with your plans and your life, Matt, but it’s just not working for me. I feel like I’m not even free to make my own choices. I feel tied down. I feel like you just keep putting off meetings with A&R reps, potential managers, the possibility to actually go somewhere with your life… Why are you so content with doing nothing?”
