Watching her dress, I zip my pants and study the silhouette of her body in the dark space we share, only now it serves to remind me she’s no longer mine, that too much time has passed and too many things have changed.
We’ll never get back what we once had—because she destroyed it.
“Nev—”
“You should go.”
Her eyes catch mine in the dim foyer as she zips her hoodie. “What?”
“You should go.”
Chapter Forty-Six
A Million Different Thoughts
Yardley
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry on the drive home, so I did a little of both. When I was finished, I sat in my car outside my townhome, waiting for Bryony’s bedroom window to darken, but after a half hour, I lose my patience and head inside.
“You’ve been crying,” is the first thing she says to me, flicking on the lamp beside the living room sofa. Next, she reaches for a remote and pauses her Netflix Black Mirror binge session. “What happened?”
I shake my head. “Can we talk about it tomorrow?”
Bry stands, arms crossed. “Um, no.”
Heading to the kitchen, I grab a bottled water. She follows.
“So I texted him earlier,” I say.
“You texted Nevada.”
“Right,” I say. “I texted him and he asked me to meet him at his house at nine. I went. We talked. One thing led to another. Now I’m here.”
“No, no, no, no, no.” My sister wags her finger, stepping closer. “You skipped over the part where he did something that made you cry.”
“He’s confused.” I can’t believe I’m defending him. Though maybe I’m not so much defending him as I’m trying to make sense of what happened. “He’s … so confused.”
Bryony examines me, her gaze scrutinizing every part of me as if she expects to find something amiss.
“He didn’t hurt me,” I say. Not in any physical kind of way.
“So why the tears?”
“We had sex. And then he told me to leave.” I draw in a deep breath and let it go before taking a drink of water so frigid it stings my teeth. At least I can still feel something under this blanket of numbness. “That’s really all I know, Bry. I don’t know why any of that happened or why he said what he said when it was over. I just want to go to bed, all right?”
Sighing, she unfolds her arms. “Fine. I’m here if you need me.”
Ambling past her, I head to my room and close the door, peeling off my clothes and tossing them in the hamper. Standing before the full-length mirror on the back of my door, I trace my fingertips along my collarbone then between my breasts.
An hour ago his hands and mouth were all over my body, making me feel the kind of things I hadn’t felt since … him.
In fact, I haven’t been with anyone since him. My marriage to Griffin was never consummated. I never dated anyone else long enough to make it to any kind of physical stage past kissing.
Drawing myself a hot bath, I light a candle and flick the lights off.
I should be mad at him, but instead I’m sitting here feeling sorry for him. One minute he was reminiscing about better times, the next minute he was all over me, and when it was done? He was kicking me out.
He must be feeling a million different things, thinking a million others.
I can force myself to move on, but I can’t force myself to stop loving him, and I can’t have it both ways.
What the hell do I do now?
Chapter Forty-Seven
A Mistake
Nevada
Seated at the bottom of the foyer steps the next day, I uncap a bottle of water and wipe the sweat from my brow. I’m refinishing the mantel in the master bedroom, sanding and re-staining. I’ve been doing that lately—nitpicking every last feature of this massive house, loving something one minute and deciding to completely change it the next.
Maybe I’m just looking for something to fixate on and obsess over that isn’t attached to a bleeding heart.
Three knocks at the door later, I answer the door fully expecting to find the pool contractor—the one I left the gate open for—only it’s her.
“Yardley, what are you doing here?” I ask.
She lifts a white paper bag. “I brought you lunch.”
Abel’s Tacos. She remembers.
I stayed up most of last night convincing myself that fucking her was a mistake. I’ve been feeling so empty lately that I needed something to fill that void.
And I needed a release.
“Thought we could talk about last night?” She lifts her brows and smiles. Clearly Yardley has no idea how wrong last night was and how it meant something different to the both of us.
“There’s nothing to say.” I rest my hands on my hips, squaring my hips with hers. “It was a mistake. And it won’t happen again. Hell, Yardley, maybe we were even a mistake.”
The hand holding the tacos drops to her side and she glances away. “Wow. Um. Okay.”
Gathering a breath, she lingers for a fraction of a second before placing the food on one of the steps. “You know … I actually felt sorry for you. I had compassion after last night, after what you did and the way you made me feel. You want to take about mistakes, Nevada? That. That was a mistake.”
She turns to leave, hands in the air as she practically runs toward the door, like she can’t get away from me fast enough.
“Yardley,” I say, though I don’t fully understand why I’m calling after her. All I know is I hurt her, and now I feel like a giant ass. “Come back.”
But it’s too late.
She’s halfway down the front walk, keys in hand, and a second later she’s climbing into her front seat and disappearing down my driveway.
The next thing I know a white van is pulling up. My contractor is here.
If I know Yardley, she’ll be back and I can at least apologize.
But there’s a damn good chance I don’t know her at all.
Not anymore.
Chapter Forty-Eight
We Did What We Had To Do
Yardley
He said I was a mistake. But he was my everything.
He spent ten years forgetting me. I spent ten years missing him.
The only thing we agree on is the fact that I probably don’t deserve his forgiveness, but I don’t understand why he won’t so much as give me a chance. If not for me, then for his own sake. Clearly he’s still bitter and raw, hurting so bad he wants me to feel his pain as well.
Joke’s on him. I’ve been feeling it my entire adult life.
Rolling down the windows, I attempt to dry the soggy tears dripping down my cheeks while simultaneously ridding my car of that greasy taco stench.
Screw him.
He doesn’t deserve my sympathy or my compassion. He’s cruel and heartless, a stranger. It was the old Nev I felt sorry for.
Not this asshole.
Lingering at a nearby stop sign, I grab my phone and text Bry that I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off. She replies with a shit ton of question marks, but I turn my phone off.
I need silence.
And a familiar face.
“Hello, sweetheart.” Greta’s right hand grips her cane as she makes her way across her warm apartment to greet me. “It’s so nice to see you.”
“Let’s go somewhere,” I say, forcing a smile. If I’m lucky, she won’t see through my foul mood and we can pretend like everything’s fine, like it’s just another uneventful day in small town Lambs Grove.
“Of course. Anywhere. You’ve got the wheels. Where should we go?” Her face lights and she heads to the kitchen to grab her purse. “You know, I’ve been thinking, I haven’t visited Griffin in quite some time. Would you mind if we stopped by to see him?”
My heart hammers for a second, the wind nearly knocked out of me.
I hate going to see him. I always leave feeling drained and melancholic. But I’ll go for Greta. So she can visit her beloved, favorite grandso
n.
Greta steadies herself, one hand on the black granite, the other hand pressed against his name.
Griffin Robert Gaines: Beloved husband, brother, best friend, and son.
We stopped at the grocery store on the way here so she could grab some daffodils. Griff never had a favorite flower, so she got him hers.
“Good timing,” she says, placing the small bouquet in the metal vase connected to his headstone. “These things are seasonal.”
I stand back a short distance, grappling with my irrational guilt, the guilt that’s eaten away at me all these years because an irrational part of me blames Griffin for everything, even though none of this was his fault. Not in any direct sort of way.
We did what we had to do.
But in the end, the choice was mine.
I could’ve said no, and I didn’t, and it wasn’t his fault.
“He really loved you, Yardley,” Greta says, turning to face me. Her brows meet and she studies me. “You did a very good thing. You should know that. You’re a special person with a big heart, and no one can fault you for that.”
But it isn’t true.
One person did.
And I’ve been paying the price for ten years.
Chapter Forty-Nine
There’s Something Wrong
Nevada
“Upstairs. Second room on the right,” I tell one of the movers as he lugs in a cardboard box from the semi-truck out front.
It’s move-in day, and while the house isn’t one hundred percent where I wanted it to be at this point, it’s still livable. Over the coming months, I’ll be holed up in the lower level, putting in a home gym, theater room, and a playroom fit for two princesses, and in the meantime, Mom will be coming over here to watch the girls so I can get my work done.
“Kitchen?” A second mover asks.
“Back that way.” I point.
“Daddy, Daddy!” Lennon stands at the top of the stairs, jumping and yelling.
“No yelling in the house, Len,” I remind her.
“No, Daddy! There’s something wrong with Grandma. She’s talking funny,” Lennon says.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I sprint into Essie’s room where Mom had just headed to change her diaper, only to find my mom seated in Essie’s rocker, the left side of her face drooping and a confused look on her face.
She’s trying to talk, but I can’t understand her.
“Oh, God,” I kneel at her side, phone in hand, calling 9-1-1 as fast as I can. “I need an ambulance at 822 Conrad Terrace. I think my mom is having a stroke.”
Chapter Fifty
I Think You’ve Done Enough
Yardley
I’m pretty sure I’m the only twenty-something grocery shopping on a Friday night, but that’s okay. I like having the store all to myself. There are no moms blocking entire aisles with their overflowing carts and overtired, screaming children. There are no grumpy old men with no qualms about line cutting. And the odds of running into someone I know are incredibly slim, which is a good thing since I’m basically shopping in pajamas at this point.
Rounding the produce department, I stop at a display of flowers and think about buying myself a little bouquet to place on my desk at work tomorrow. It’s been a rainy spring, and I could use some pretties to remind me that not everything is bleak, and that nothing grows without a little rain.
“Oh.” I stop in my tracks when I nearly bump into someone, only that someone happens to be Nevada Kane, whom I haven’t seen in almost a week. “Hi.”
I can be civil.
I can be an adult.
But the question is … can he?
Enough time has passed that I’m hopeful we’ve both cooled down that we can have a friendly conversation without causing hurt feelings this time around, so when I spot him grabbing a dozen red roses, I decide to razz him the way a friend might.
“Hot date tonight?” I ask.
His honey-colored eyes squint, as if I’ve just insulted him, as if he’s two seconds away from telling me it’s none of my damn business.
I take a step back. “I was kidding.”
“The flowers are for my mom,” he says. “She had a stroke a few days ago.”
“Oh, God. I’m so sorry.” My hand lifts to my chest. “Nev … is there anything I can do? Do you need anything?”
“No.” He glances past my shoulder, eyeing the checkout lanes. “I think you’ve done enough.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Nothing More Dangerous
Nev
I come home to a house of screaming kids and one very disheveled older sister. The house is a mess, the kitchen especially, and Lennon’s room is strewn with toys. It’s safe to say my sister’s parenting style and mine are night and day.
She’s more of a go-with-the-flow kind of mom whereas I like structure and expectations.
“How’s Mom?” she asks, tugging at her bottom lip. Her almond eyes water as she bounces Essie on her hip. “I’m going to go visit her again when Ken gets home from work. I don’t want to take the kids. They don’t need to see her like this.”
“About the same,” I say. “Doctors say there’s a ten percent chance she’ll make a full recovery, but odds are if she recovers, she’ll have a few impairments.”
Eden exhales, eyes watering. “I just hate seeing her like that, you know? So weak. It isn’t her.”
“She’ll be fine,” I say, taking my daughter and cradling her in my arms. She reaches up, grabbing at my shirt collar.
“Yeah, but we don’t know that—”
“Mom, can we go? I’m starving,” my oldest nephew whines.
“Yeah, Tucker, we’re leaving.” Eden ruffles his hair before turning back to me. “Sorry about the house. I meant to pick up, but Essie was fussing and—”
“It’s fine.”
Stepping closer, Eden rises on her toes and hooks an arm around me, giving me a squeeze.
“I love you,” she says.
“Love you too.”
Growing up, we only ever said those words when someone had died and we were stunned into the realization that we were nothing but mortals after all
“Thanks for watching the girls,” I say as she shuffles her crew out the front door.
Hitting the button for the gate, I close the front door and carry Essie to her high chair and fasten a bib around her neck.
A minute later, someone knocks, and I glance around the kitchen to check and see if Eden left her phone lying around for the millionth time, but no dice.
Jogging across the house, I grab the door.
“Just can’t help yourself, can you?” I ask Yardley as she stands before me with a covered casserole in her arms.
“Let me be here for you,” she says, eyes wide and forgiving. She offers me sympathy, but I want no part in it. “This isn’t about us, Nev. We can put our stuff aside for the girls, can’t we?”
“Don’t bring them into this.”
“No, I mean, your mom took care of them before, right? Who’s going to take care of them now?” she asks.
I have no fucking clue.
I’ve been taking the last few days one by one, with Eden taking on most of the obligations, but she’s got four of her own. I can’t keep calling in favors. It’s too much for her to deal with that and worry about Mom at the same time.
“Here.” She shoves the dish toward me. “Don’t want my help? Fine. But you still need to eat.”
The warmth of little hands wrapping around my leg a moment later followed by Lennon’s little squeal squelches the tension, albeit only by an ounce.
“Daddy! It’s the pretty lady from the dress shop,” she says, glancing up at me. “I broke her mannequin’s hand.”
“You have a very good memory, Lennon,” I say, smiling. “I’m impressed.”
She beams, her emerald gaze passing between the two of us.
“Daddy, can I show her my room?” she asks, tugging on my hand.
Glancing at Yardley, I
drag in a ragged breath.
“Maybe another time, Lennon?” she asks.
Lennon’s expression fades and dad-guilt kicks in. All I want is for my baby girl to be happy and if it means giving Yardley Devereaux a tour of her brand-new room, then so be it.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Go ahead.”
“Are … you sure?” Yardley asks, chin tucked.
I step out of the way. “Yep.”
Lennon takes her hand, leading her upstairs, and I watch from the foyer as Lennon prattles on about the kinds of things that would only matter to a five-year-old. Favorite colors. Favorite animals. Favorite cartoons. That sort of thing.
She’s resilient and chipper, and she sure as hell didn’t get it from me.
Heading back to the kitchen, I put the casserole on the counter before grabbing a baby spoon and a container of peas and carrots and taking a seat across from Essie. Within minutes, she’s wearing more than she’s eating, and I’m realizing I should’ve gone with the squash tonight.
“Yeah, well, I never liked peas either,” I tell her, sticking out my tongue.
“Daddy, can Yardley stay for dinner?” Lennon appears in the doorway of the kitchen a few minutes later, as I’m in the midst of cleaning up her sister.
Yardley stands behind her, waving her hands and mouthing the words, “It’s okay.”
“Please, can she?” Lennon asks again, clasping her little hands. “She’s my new best friend.”
Yardley chuckles, covering her mouth and glancing away. That’s Lennon though, making friends wherever she goes.
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