by Paige North
I nod and whip my notebook open, happy to have something to focus on and get me through this hell. I scrawl down notes, my hand only trembling a slight bit. “I’ll make the reservations.” Albany is three hours or so from us, so I imagine it’s easier for him to stay overnight in New York and return the next morning.
“And you’re coming with me.” The words are said in a firm tone to brook no argument.
I blink. “What?” He’s never asked me to accompany him offsite before. I don’t know what to think. Why now? What does this mean?
Dane continues on like I didn’t speak. “We’ll take my car and leave here on Saturday morning. Be in the parking lot no later than nine.”
“I…don’t think this is a good idea,” I hedge. An overnight trip with Dane? It just might push me over the edge of sanity.
He hasn’t shown an ounce of interest in me since I said those three magic words. Maybe this will be his way of showing me just how little he wants me. To bring me to a hotel and still act like I don’t exist would shake me to my core, it would hurt me so much worse than even these last few days have hurt me.
His jaw ticks. “Your job at this company is to assist me as I see fit, correct?”
The vein on the side of my forehead pounds. I give a stiff nod, not trusting myself to speak. The only thing I dislike more than Distant Dane is Heavy-handed Boss Dane. I’m not an idiot.
“Then please make the necessary arrangements to come. That’s all.”
I rise from my chair and turn without looking back. I close the door quietly behind me. At least I’m not hurt and sad anymore. No, I’m rather pissed about his pushiness. What is his end game here? To torture me as best as he can?
Oh, I’m definitely going to have to leave here. If this is how things will be between us, it’s not going to work.
I ride the high of righteous anger through the rest of my workday. Thankfully there aren’t any meetings scheduled, so I’m able to sit at my desk, keep my head down, and clack away at my computer. Dane exits his door at four sharp, wearing his heavy winter coat and carrying his leather bag.
He walks over to my desk and stops, looks down at me with those damn inscrutable brown eyes.
I suck in a breath through my nostrils and peer up, keeping my tone even as I say, “Did you need something, Mr. Rossi?” Okay, I’m being immature, I know, but I can’t help the jibe at him. It’s dumb, but it makes me feel a bit better.
“I’m done for the day.” He shoulders the bag higher; his tone is quiet. “You’re free to go home, Emme. And take a paid day off tomorrow so you can make your arrangements at home and do any schoolwork you might miss while we’re gone. I insist.”
My throat tightens, and I give a short nod.
“I’ll see you Saturday morning.” Dane leaves, and it’s so damn hard to not watch him walk away from me. How does he always catch me off-guard like that? Makes me furious, then does something thoughtful? Is it any wonder I’m going a bit crazy from what I’m feeling?
“Can you toss the chicken in the sauce?” I ask Robert as I cut thick slices of fresh bread.
He nods and dumps the bowl of cooked chicken into the pasta sauce I have simmering on the stove. Then he grabs the wooden spoon and stirs. If it weren’t for the music playing in the background, the apartment would be silent. He and I still have barely spoken more than a sentence or two to each other.
I hate this.
And now I’m gonna piss him off more, because I have to tell him about my trip Saturday night. I clear my throat and turn to him. “Look, Robert, before we eat, I need to tell you something.”
His brow furrows. “What?”
I glance at the time on my phone. I have a half hour before I need to head to my evening class. No more dawdling; I’m out of time. As I serve the pasta and scoop chicken and sauce onto the noodles, then a slice of bread, I say, “I have to go to Albany on Saturday and stay overnight for work. I’ll be back Sunday, probably by noon.”
He takes the plate from me and settles at the kitchen table. His back is stiff, and he picks up his fork, poking at the chicken. “I see.”
I make my own small plate and sit down, take a bite. My appetite has been shot lately, but I need to eat. “So it’ll be, like, just over twenty-four hours. I’ll make you dinner you can heat up. Maybe you can even call one of your old buddies over to hang out.”
“You mean my old drinking buddies?” His voice is sour. “The ones I’m not supposed to be around anymore because they trigger bad behavior?”
My jaw is so tight it hurts. I drop my fork on the plate and stare at him. “Robert, I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired of walking on eggshells every day, afraid to come home because you’ll explode at me.” I draw in a ragged breath, fighting back the tears threatening to fall. “It’s not my fault that your life got so messed up. I’m just trying to get by too, the only way I know how, and not give up my dreams. And I’m also trying to be here for you, but you’re making it so hard when you’re so nasty to me.”
“I don’t even have dreams anymore,” he says in a raised voice, holding up his partial arm. He points at it. “My dreams ended the day I got in the car accident.”
“No, your dreams ended the day you gave up on living,” I spit out. “Do you know how many people out there have partial limbs but still keep on doing what they love the most? There are prosthetics that can help you achieve your goals and get back to work and life.”
“Ah, yeah, have you seen the cost of those? Thousands of dollars.” He scoffs and scrubs at his face with his hand. “I can’t afford that. We’re barely making it as it is.”
“Why do you think I’m working so hard?” I drop my gaze to my plate, my anger fleeing, leaving sadness in its place. How did he get to be in this spot with no hope? It’s awful. “I’m saving every extra penny I have. I rarely go out with anyone and I have virtually no social life. My life is work and school, and that’s so I can make a better place for us. But you’re so miserable all the time, and I can’t do anything to help.”
“I fucking don’t know why I can’t shake this off,” he declares, his voice breaking at the end. “I keep trying to pull myself out of this funk, but it drags me back in, and I end up resenting everything.” He pauses, and when he speaks next, his tone is quieter. “My therapist said I needed to get out of the house and start living, and all I could think was, this is all my fault. I got myself here, and I deserve the punishment, the isolation. I could have killed someone by drinking and driving. It was so stupid.”
My heart lurches at the fresh pain in his voice. I reach a hand over and touch his forearm. “You have to let that go, Robert. You can’t keep beating yourself up over it. What’s done is done. But you’re never going to heal if you don’t stop feeling guilty. This would hurt Mom, you know. She wanted you to be happy.”
His eyes mist with tears, and the sight makes my own tears slide out. “I’m sorry I’m being such a jerk to you,” he says, real anguish pouring from his voice. “I have so much…pent-up anger in me, and I don’t know how to get it out. It’s not fair to you though.”
I nod. “I know. I can’t even imagine how you feel. But like I keep telling you, there are groups for people who have experienced trauma like yours. I think you should try it. They get it in a way no one else can.”
Back when he first got home from the hospital, I did a lot of online reading on supporting a loved one who’s become an amputee. When I found out there are in-person support groups for this type of injury, I started gently encouraging him to go. I even printed out information to make it easy for him to contact a local group. He’s resisted every time I’ve brought it up though. It’s been hard to not push him, but I’ve been trying to let him heal at his own pace.
But the isolation he’s putting himself through, sitting at home alone and not talking to anyone but me and his therapists, it’s just not healthy. He needs to see how others in this situation cope. He needs to see how to move on and to live again—live and thrive. My brother wasn’
t dark and sad before the accident; he was social and fun-loving, with a wide circle of friends. It breaks my heart to see him struggle with finding happiness now, especially since I’m so powerless to do anything.
Uncertainty flickers in his gaze. “I don’t know.”
I squeeze his arm. “Just…try it.”
“I’ll think about it,” he relents.
Not a firm yes, but not a no, either. More than he’s given in a long, long time. I’ll take it. I wipe my eyes and sniffle. “That’s all I ask.”
“I’ll be fine. When you’re at your work thing on Saturday, I mean. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m always going to worry about you.” I shoot him a watery grin. “That’s my job as your sister and resident pain-in-your-ass.”
That makes him chuckle in response. “We do get under each other’s skin sometimes, don’t we?”
“Siblings do that from time to time.”
His gaze turns serious. “I know I’m hard to live with, and I haven’t made this easy for you. I’m sorry. And…I love you, Emme. Mom would be proud of the woman you’ve become.”
That does it. More tears flood my eyes, and all the emotions I’ve been bottling up inside come sobbing out. I drop my face to my hands.
“Hey, hey.” Robert gets up and stands behind me, awkwardly putting his hand on my back. “What’s wrong? I was just trying to be nice.”
I look up at him through a veil of tears. “No, it’s not you. Sorry, I’ve had a stressful week. I…I just want her to look down on us from heaven and take pride in what we’re doing with our lives. She gave us everything.”
“Yes, she did.” He pats my back one last time and then takes the seat beside me. “Okay, fine. I’ll try it. One meeting. I’m not saying I’m going to keep going, but I’ll give it a shot.”
I bite my lower lip for a moment, too overcome to speak. “Really?”
He nods. “Just stop crying, okay? And eat, for God’s sakes. You’re killing me with this bird appetite you’ve had lately.” He scrubs my head with his hand, the way he used to when we were younger, then goes to his chair. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
My heart feels a bit lighter than it has in ages. Everything isn’t fixed, not by a long shot. But Robert’s taking forward steps, and I can support him in that. Even if it means I need to stop drowning in this sorrow over Dane. I scoop another bite of food. “I am too, actually.”
Dane
I flick the radio to a classical station in hope that the music will ease some of the awkwardness between me and Emme. Doesn’t help that I’m hyperaware of her being just a couple of feet from me, tucked into the passenger seat of my car. I can smell a soft vanilla scent on her skin, hear the gentle ins and outs of her breathing. See her fingers fidget with the hem of her burnt orange dress shirt. Her legs, clad in slim-fit black pants, cross and uncross, then cross again.
She’s nervous. And I made her that way.
Of course, I’m feeling the tension too, as much as I hate to admit it. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what she said while I was inside her.
I love you.
Those three words have echoed through my head nonstop, taunted and teased me, paralyzed and even frustrated me at times. But most of all, they started a pilot light in my chest that I thought was permanently blown out.
And I fucked up big time in how I handled the situation; Emme caught me off guard. But before I could find something coherent to say that might reflect the magnitude of emotions her confession brought out of me, she was already out the conference room door.
I haven’t found a way to bridge that distance again, not with the tension between us thick enough to practically see. Hell, I don’t even know what to think or feel or do about it. But I do know I can’t let this stretch on.
The invitation for her to come along with me on this trip was an impulsive one that I made on the spur of the moment, hoping we could talk at some point.
It doesn’t help anything that I’ve missed her presence, her smile. And that I feel like a shit-heel for making her close up in this manner. My Emme, the one who wears her heart on her sleeve, has been emotionally vacant for so many days now, and I hate it.
Emme clears her throat and rubs her hands together in her lap. “Is Sanderson going to hire us for sure?” She sounds so awkward and pained just talking to me, like she’s forcing herself to make conversation, that it sets me on edge.
“Yes.”
“Who’s going to be spearheading the project?”
“I am.”
“Even though it’s so far away?”
I shrug. “It’ll be fine.” I’ve done projects in other states before. It requires more travel, but technology goes a long way toward making it easier to manage.
She sighs and turns to face the window, and guilt twists my stomach. I keep pushing her away from me—partly to ease my discomfort over her romantic feelings, and partly to spare her from me hurting her more. I’m not sure what to think or do now; the dynamic has changed, and the rules we laid out are gone. I should have known better than to let us both get into this. I’ve seen enough women get hurt by my father’s proclivities.
I’m not any better than he is, and I feel like a complete scumbag for it.
“This is ridiculous,” I finally say.
She looks at me, green eyes wider than normal. “Oh. Uh, okay.”
“It’s not you, Emme. I’m just on edge. Because of this project being so last-minute,” I rush to say, lest she think I mean that she’s ridiculous. Because the truth is that I’m the one being ridiculous and I’m all too aware of that fact.
As much as I’m uncomfortable being around Emme, a bigger part of me is far more miserable being apart. But I’m not in a place where I can give her anything. I’m not even sure I know how to feel like that anymore.
Marianne and Eric sure did a number on me. I want to let that situation go, let what my brother did just be in the past, but I don’t fucking know how.
“I understand.” Her tone is soft. “I…” After a lengthy pause, I glance over to see her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m sure the stuff that happened with us added to your stress, and I just want to apologize for that. I shouldn’t have said it.”
“Don’t,” I tell her curtly. “You should never have to apologize for how you feel.” Even if it makes me uncomfortable as fuck. But that’s my problem to deal with, not hers.
I wish I knew how to handle this. Part of me, the chicken-shit coward part, thinks if I just keep focusing on work the way I always do, if we pretend that didn’t happen, her feelings will go back to what they were before, and the tension will ease.
But I already know that’s not realistic. Love doesn’t work that way. And I don’t think Emme would have told me she loved me if it wasn’t genuine. The thought makes that light in my chest flare up for a brief, painful moment.
She sighs. “I made things awkward, and I hate that. I…” She stops, plays with a lock of her hair. “Sorry, never mind.” The sadness in her tone resonates through me.
“What were you going to say?” I need to know.
“I’m… Look, I think it’s best I just keep my feelings to myself from now on.” Her embarrassed laugh is like daggers in my heart. I did this to her. I made her stifle herself, the woman whose very openness drew me to her in the first place.
“I fucked up, Emme,” I find myself stating baldly.
“Let’s just drop it, okay? We don’t need to discuss it.”
Her tone sounds a bit defensive, raw, and she turns once more toward the window.
Shit, I’m still doing this wrong. I need to fix this, now.
“No, wait, let me finish. I just need to tell you where I’m coming from.” I shift into the middle lane on the highway, cars zooming by, and turn on cruise control. In straightforward words, I tell her about my childhood, catching my dad having sex in the bathroom with our barely eighteen-year-old babysitter—yeah, Mom doesn’t know about
that one, and I sure as hell am not going to tell her. Then watching him work his secretaries over at his company for years after I graduated college and began my career.
As I explain this to her, she’s quiet, no longer facing the window but steadily looking at my profile. I, however, stare forward, hands gripping the steering wheel. It’s easier to get this out if I don’t think about how much I’m dropping my guard doing so. But I have this compulsion for her to understand me, unlike anything I’ve ever felt for a woman before. Even Marianne. And if I let myself think about that fact for too long, I’ll talk myself out of this.
I stop speaking and drive for a few minutes in silence. Try to calm my raging emotions, regain control over myself.
“I think I get it,” she finally says, facing forward herself. “What happened with your brother and your ex-wife made it even more difficult for you to trust in love. Another incident in a lifelong series of betrayals by people you loved and believed in.”
Huh. Somehow, she managed to put into succinct words the thoughts I’ve been struggling to express—to myself and to her. I let her quiet-spoken insight sink in.
Then her fingertips brush my forearm, and my skin breaks out in goose bumps. “I didn’t mean to push you, Dane. I feel terrible about that.”
God, I wish I wasn’t fucking driving right now. I fight the urge to pull over and shake her until she accepts my words. I don’t want her to feel sorry. “No more feeling bad,” I say, not just to her but to myself. “Seriously.”
I see her nod out of the corners of my eyes.
This is for the best, I tell myself. We addressed the situation, and now we can move forward.
“Thank you for trusting me,” she says, and the words are so shy it makes me ache once more. I want to kiss her so badly I can almost taste her mouth. But that would just confuse things more.
God knows I’m already confused enough.
“To a kick-ass day,” Emme declares, holding up her wine glass filled with merlot. Her smile is wide, her cheeks flushed with triumph.
