Merrily in Love

by Melissa West

  “Are you eating dinner? I wasn’t trying to interrupt anything.”

  Brady crossed his arms and stared at her. “You’re not. What’s up?”

  What’s up?

  “I…” What the heck happened to the Brady she saw earlier that day? Maybe she should have texted him that she was sorry earlier.

  “I was hoping to talk about the contract.”

  He shut his eyes and sighed heavily. “Of course you want to talk about the contract.”

  “I just—”

  “You’re just thinking of you and your family. What about my family, huh?” he asked, his voice growing louder. “What about the fact that they’re counting on me to do what I agreed to do—which is honoring this contract? How about the fact that we need that building or the fact that Southern Dive sells about three times as much as Merrily even in your best month? But none of that matters, right?”

  “I didn’t say that. Actually, I was coming to say—”

  “Let me guess? That I’m a giant dick, right? That I only care about money and success and that I’d screw over anyone, even someone I care about for the right deal?”

  “No, that’s not—”

  “Because you’re right, in a way. I guess that was the person I was before, and maybe I deserve this shit now. But I was trying here. I was trying to keep what we are separate from all the rest. But you can’t ask me to choose you over my family. You can’t and I won’t.” He crossed his arms and stared at her, and Kylie wondered if she’d stepped into some nightmare or something. Surely, this wasn’t really happening.

  It felt so much like the fight they’d had all those years ago—her trying to talk to him and understand, him shutting her down completely. Well, screw that.

  “You know, I came here to talk to you, but—”

  “No, you came here to convince me to do what you wanted me to do.”

  And that did it. “You know what? Screw this and screw you. You haven’t allowed me to say anything at all, and maybe if you had, you’d see that you’re wrong about me. But you have never given me a chance, have you? It’s always you and your thoughts and they can’t possibly be wrong, right? Well, I’m done with that. I’ve spent my entire life wondering if I screwed this up.” She motioned between them. “But it’s crystal clear to me that it was never me. It’s one hundred percent you and your ego. So you can take your ego and the building and whatever the hell else you want, but I’m out.”

  She started for the door, when he called after her. “Yeah, run away, Ky. Like always.”

  The bitterness in his voice cut through her, and tears pricked her eyes, but she refused to cry in front of him. She straightened and reached for the doorknob. “Good-bye, Brady.”

  Cold air hit her again, but this time she didn’t feel it. Anger and sadness swirled in her chest, each fighting it out for control. How could he say those things? How could he even think those things? He hadn’t given her a chance to explain, to make things right. But then maybe this was all for the best. If Brady cared so little about her that he could turn her away at something like this, how would they ever survive real-world problems? When finances came into it, and kids and whatever?

  They wouldn’t. Because Brady would always view success above everything else.

  Which meant they were never meant to be.

  Kylie slipped into her car and put it in reverse. She made it as far as the end of the driveway before her tears spilled down her cheeks.

  It was over, but then, maybe they’d never been in the first place.

  Chapter 21

  “You look like shit.”

  Brady glanced up from his desk in the back of ETC. He’d brought the desk in the day after Kylie left his house, her taillights shining out in his head long after she’d disappeared into the night. And then, because he couldn’t simply hang out across from her knowing she didn’t want to be with him, he hired a full-time sales person to manage the front.

  But that didn’t prevent his brothers from coming over to talk to him in his quiet space in the back corner of the stockroom, or Ally from standing over him with a disconcerting look on her face.

  “Come again?” he said, even though he knew exactly what she’d said.

  “I said you look like shit.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “That’s what I thought you said, but I wanted to see if you’d go there twice.”

  “Do you want me to say it a third time just to drive home the point?”

  With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair and set down his pen. He’d been poring over December numbers, reconciling everything both Southern Dive & ETC did for the month, because he was too much of a hands-on person to hire a bookkeeper.

  “What can I do for you, Ally?”

  She glanced behind her, then rose onto her toes to look around the stockroom. “You can get your head out of your ass, that’s what you can do.”

  For the second time, his eyebrows rose. “Did I put a box in the wrong place or something?”

  Exasperated, Ally grabbed his arm and tugged until he stood up. “What are you doing—where are we—why are you dragging me away from my desk?”

  “Shhh.” She pulled his arm until they stood by the door to the inside, and then quietly pushed it open, peeked through the crack, then beckoned Brady to do the same. “You see that? You did that, and I need you to fix it.”

  Through the door’s crack, they had a clear view of Kylie behind Merrily’s counter, her shoulders hunched, her hair tied back in a messy bun, not a stitch of makeup on her face. In place of her usual, semi-put together look, she wore an oversized sweatshirt and leggings. His heart clenched at the sight of her, but though he knew Ally was trying to drive home the point that Kylie was a mess, all Brady could see was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen in his life. And how real it was that she was no longer his.

  “I don’t know what you want me to see here.”

  “She’s a disaster, and you’re a disaster. Together you’re one big, giant disaster. And you know she doesn’t have the confidence to fix it. She’s already convinced herself that you’ve moved on and likely never wanted her in the first place.”

  “She what?”

  “I know, right? Girl’s gone crazy.”

  Brady was a stubborn man, but surely he’d made it clear to her how much he cared about her. Surely she realized that he was aching as badly as she was, but then, he wasn’t the one to walk away. She left, not him.

  “You don’t seem to understand. I didn’t end this. She did. It’s not me that can put it back together, because I didn’t quit.”

  Ally leaned back and planted a hand on her hip, her head doing that swivel thing that said he better back up and deliver a different story. “You think I don’t know exactly what went down at your house, Mister? ’Cause I do. She goes there to apologize for even mentioning the contract, to tell you that she was shouldn’t have gone there. And you shut her down, went off on her. Made her feel like she shouldn’t have even been at your house. Is that not the truth?”

  “Well…” Not the whole truth, anyway. “I had a bad day. Have you ever had a bad day? A day when maybe you weren’t the nicest to your husband, to your daughter? A day when you needed to be able to think things out and you couldn’t be left alone enough to do it?”

  “Nah, God made me perfect.”

  Brady stared at her.

  “Fine, maybe. But see, the difference is that I know when to say I’m sorry. Why can’t you say you’re sorry?”

  “You aren’t listening. She left me. She said it was over.”

  “You told her that she was making you choose between her and your family. I mean, seriously? What a stupid, childish thing to say.”

  All right, so maybe that was going too far. “You don’t understand.”

  Ally crossed her arms. “Then enlighten me.”

 
The door closed back, and Brady walked away, needing some space so he could find the right words. “I used to be a big corporate guy. The kind who thought the most important thing in the world was the next sale. Then one day I’m at the biggest convention of the year for my firm, out with all the bigwigs, and I get a call from my mom. Then my brother. Then my sister. Then my other brother. I ignored all of them. Finally, they sent me a text and said it was an emergency, to call them.” Brady shook his head as the memory hit him, followed immediately by his reaction to the text. “I turned off my phone. My dad had a heart attack, was taken into emergency surgery, and I turned off my freaking phone.”

  “You didn’t know,” Ally said. “I’m sure they understood. You were at a convention.”

  “I spent years putting work, myself, anything I could come up with before my family. And the sad thing? They expected it. I finally returned their call and grabbed a red eye home, only to get there and find out that they never expected me to come in the first place. My dad fought like a warrior through the night, and when he woke from surgery the next day and we learned that he could no longer manage the farm, I promised my family that I would be there. I would never let them down again. It took me years to prove to them that I was serious about that promise. I quit my job in New York, moved back home, and worked the farm, until my brothers and I decided to open Southern Dive. It’s been a grind every day, but I do it, because they deserve for me to be there for them.”

  Ally leaned against the wall beside the door. “You can do the right thing by Franny and Kylie and still do the right thing by your family.”

  “Oh, yeah, how? Honestly, I’m all ears. Please, tell me something that would make both sides equally happy.”

  At that, Ally bit her lip. “Okay, so I didn’t really mean that I knew what you should do. I just meant that you’re a smart, capable guy. Surely you can come up with something.”

  “The contract is air tight. Zac and Charlie would have conceded losing half the business, but they won’t go back on our agreement. The only fix is if Merrily can sell the three thousand needed. Do you see that happening in the next couple of days?”

  Just then, Kylie pushed through the door and stopped cold. Her eyes met Brady, and without thinking, he pushed off the table he’d been leaning against and took a step toward her.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice so unlike the cheerful one he knew that it broke his heart.

  “Hey.”

  He tried to draw a breath, but couldn’t quite get his lungs to work properly. How could he stand this close to someone who owned such a giant piece of his heart, his soul, and still feel this distant from her?

  “Kylie, can we—”

  The moment her eyes left his, he knew she was gone. Her attention fell on Ally, and he could swear that her bottom lip was shaking.

  “Al, can you come help me up front, please?”

  Ally’s face fell, and Brady feared what she was seeing on Kylie’s face that Kylie didn’t show to him. Hurt and disappointment and pain and probably more emotions than he could possibly process, all of them by his hand.

  The guilt was too much.

  “Sure, honey. I’m right behind you.”

  Kylie headed back through the door she’d just come through, without whatever she’d come there to get, all so she could get away from Brady. That was where they were.

  “Fix this,” Ally growled and pointed at him. “Now. I will not see that sweet girl that miserable another day. Fix it.”

  If only he knew how to without destroying his family’s trust in the process.

  * * * *

  “I’m in here,” Franny called as Kylie set down her keys on the kitchen counter, each move harder, each breath harder.

  There should be some kind of free pass from seeing your ex after he dumped you. Like a universal rule that God would make him go left when you went right, so your heart could recover. But no. Instead, she’d walked into the stupid stockroom and saw Brady and then she did the stupidest thing of all—she locked up, full stare and all. But he was standing right there, mere feet away, dressed in her favorite look on him—flannel shirt and jeans—with just the right amount of scruff on his face, and she couldn’t seem to make her stupid limbs walk.

  Clearly, she was riddled with stupid these days. That was the only explanation for her getting involved with a man who had destroyed her heart as a teen and thinking there would be any other outcome this time.

  “You look like crap,” Franny said.

  “I don’t.” Reflexively, Kylie reached up to adjust her hair, then dropped her arm back at her side. “Ah, who am I kidding? I do. I can’t help it.”

  “Honey, just go talk to him.”

  The sadness that Kylie fought off like an evil spirit crept back up. “See, that’s the thing, Fran. I did go talk to him. He shut me down, told me that I was making him choose between his family and me. I would never do that. I love his family. It would kill me to hurt them.”

  “But don’t you see? Asking him to rethink the contact was asking him to choose.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “No, buts. It was. You didn’t mean any harm by it. Sweet girl, sometimes I think you love me too much. But I am your past.” Kylie opened her mouth to argue, but Franny threw up her hand to stop her. “I am. He is your future. You have to be willing to stay. You can’t always run when things get bad. Men can be pigheaded and selfish. But, news flash: so can women. Marriage is about compromise and pushing through all the bad stuff, because it’s worth it when you get to the good stuff.”

  Franny stood up to come over to Kylie, but immediately grimaced and gripped her chest.

  “Are you okay?” Kylie asked.

  Franny rubbed the spot on her chest and continued on toward Kylie. “Yeah, just a little heartburn.”

  “Um, no. You had a heart attack not a month ago. We promised your doctor if you had any issues we would call.”

  “I’m fine,” Franny said, waving it off, but Kylie wasn’t willing to take the chance.

  “Sit back down. I’m calling your doctor.” She took out her phone and dialed Franny’s cardiologist, who instructed them to go to the hospital.

  Franny rubbed the spot on her chest again, and Kylie grabbed her keys. “I’m taking her there right now,” she said into the phone, then hung up and eyed her godmother. “All right, Ms. Heartburn. Let’s get you to the car. We’re going to the ER.”

  “Kylie Anne, I am perfectly fine.”

  Tears burned Kylie’s eyes as she walked over to Franny and kneeled down beside her. “Listen, I know you know your own body. I realize this could very well be nothing, but I’m not asking you, I’m begging you. Please, humor me. Please. I can’t take losing you, too.”

  Reaching up to cup her cheek, Franny kissed her forehead and pushed to standing. “All right, but I get to make a call on the way.”

  Kylie helped Franny put on her shoes, grabbed her purse, then helped her into the car. She passed over Franny’s phone, her thoughts inward as she silently prayed that this was nothing. The other possibility was too much to bear.

  Chapter 22

  Brady parked outside his parents’ house, not really sure when he decided to go there, but feeling a bit better already. His mom and dad had a way about them that made the complicated seem easy. Hopefully they could shed some light on his current situation before he lost his mind.

  “Y’all here?” he called as he walked on inside, not bothering to knock. The door was always unlocked.

  “Out back,” a deep voice called, and Brady followed the path of fishing gear from the foyer, through the family room, and out to the back patio. His dad stood beside a dozen or so poles, with another one in his hand.

  “What are you doing? Selling everything you have?”

  His father glanced up, then back to the pole. “Cleaning them to gear up for the sea
son.”

  Brady eyed his father. “You never hit the lake before March.”

  “Can never plan too early. But something tells me you aren’t here to talk about fishing.”

  The temperature was warm outside for January. So warm that even at night the temperature couldn’t be lower than fifty. It seemed like an eternity ago that he and Kylie were standing in the snow outside the movie theater, a wealth of possibilities before them. How had they gotten here?

  “Why are you cleaning them outside at night?”

  “Your mama doesn’t like the smell inside the house, and I was bored, so here I am.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Visiting Kate, but she should be back soon. Now, your turn.”

  Brady released a slow breath and sat down at the patio table, a mess of fishing rods all around him. Strewn across the table was reel after reel and tackle box after tackle box. “You ever feel like any way you turn is the wrong way?”

  Dad’s brows pulled together. “Like when you’re driving?”

  “No, like…” Brady shook his head and decided to try again. “Have you ever felt like you were making a decision that could impact the rest of your life?”

  He set down the pole in his hand and pulled out the chair across from Brady. “Why don’t you say what’s on your mind, son? Then we can get to the part where I tell you it’s all going to be okay. Because it will be okay. No matter what it is, in the end, it will all be okay.”

  “Not this.”

  His father threaded his fingers together and rested his hands against the table. “Let me be the decider of that. What happened?”

  Brady thought of his father in the hospital after the heart attack, how small he’d looked. Maybe that was why he felt such a pull to help Franny. He saw how it weakened his dad and knew firsthand how hard it was to help a person through the realization that he could no longer be the person he was before.