The Best Friend Incident (Driven to Love)

by Melia Alexander

  “So tell me,” Julian said, grasping her hand. “What happened?”

  She swallowed back the pain. She’d cried her eyes out at Carly’s that night, and she was pretty sure there were no tears left to be shed. “He canceled our standing date at The Chinese Stop so he could take another woman out instead.”

  The pain intensified, catching her off guard. Maybe there were still tears holed up in there, not that she’d let them fall. Sharing what had happened was one thing—falling apart was another. “I’m sorry, Julian.” She attempted a smile and tried to pull herself together. “It seems silly to care so much about stuff like that.”

  He nodded sympathetically. “I’d hardly call it silly.” He shifted. “Is it possible you were mistaken about the other woman?”

  “No.” She clasped her hands together. “He made it pretty clear, and he’s well within his rights to go on a date. I mean, we’re best friends and all, have been since we were kids, but he doesn’t owe me anything.” Nothing like loyalty or…love.

  The old man chuckled.

  “What?”

  “When you’re my age, my dear, it amuses me to hear you say that you’re anything but a kid now.” He coughed. “But, please go on.”

  She shouldn’t share so much, but something in his kind tone and smile tugged the words out of her. “Well it’s just that I was beginning to think he was someone I could have more with. But it turns out he’s just like the others.”

  And, really, it served her right for indulging in thoughts of a possible happily-ever-after with him. Despite her feelings, reality told her something completely different. Reality told her she needed to take Grant Phillips at face value. He didn’t want a relationship—he’d even told her to keep an eye out for her Mr. Right—and she’d been dumb enough to think he’d change his mind. She should know better. Not even burning an offering at Chinaman Hat would overcome Grant’s resolve.

  “The others?”

  Julian’s question pulled her back to the moment, something Grant would’ve teased her about. Grant again? Ugh. She needed to get him off her mind. “The other guys I’ve dated. There’s always something wrong with them. I mean, they start out great and stuff, and then one day I realize that something’s not quite right with the guy.”

  She frowned. “Take the last guy, for instance. Turned out he was a cheating jerk.” And she was more than happy to be rid of Leo.

  “Good reason to walk away from him, then, but I’m sure you’ve dated others.”

  Clearly Julian wasn’t going to drop it. She rested a hip against the hospital bed. “One guy had a thing about gluten. Wouldn’t touch a piece of bread or get within three feet of one.”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t eat a piece of bread.” Julian nodded sagely, the corners of his mouth inching up. “I can see why you broke up with him.”

  “Are you making fun of me?” Julian’s smile was so contagious, she couldn’t help but mirror it.

  “Of course not. Now, go on.”

  “Well, another guy insisted he do all the driving whenever we went anywhere. Like he didn’t trust my driving at all.”

  “Which meant that he’d have to cart you everywhere. Tsk, tsk… What was he thinking?”

  “You are making fun of me.”

  “Maybe a little.” He smiled. “I hope you’re listening to what you’re saying, my dear. Aside from the cheater, were those true reasons to reject a potential suitor? Or maybe someone else was the reason?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head. “It’s like none of them were right. Like they weren’t good enough.”

  “Yet Grant is good enough?”

  She shrugged. “Sort of. Except he’s not interested in anything serious with me.” Which was the suckiest part of the whole thing. The dull ache started again, drawing her in so that she had to fight hard to keep from tromping down that path.

  The old man sighed with a smile and shifted on the bed.

  “Do you want some help?” She straightened. “Should I get someone for you?”

  “No.” He waved her off. “I’m fine. Just trying to get comfortable. But back to you and Grant.”

  “There is no me and Grant. Falling for him would be extremely stupid. All I wanted was for the two of us to be willing to explore where this relationship might go.”

  God. She sounded whiny and pathetic. How the hell had she been reduced to this?

  “Is it possible,” he began, ignoring her comment, “that you were involving yourself with men you subconsciously knew you’d never commit to because it was always about Grant?”

  Stacey blinked and tried to get the words to make sense to her.

  “Well, no…” Stacey felt the heat sear her face. Aside from Leo, was it possible that’s why every man she’d ever dated was lacking somehow? Because she didn’t really want a serious relationship with any of them? She glanced at Julian, saw the wisdom and the kindness in his eyes. “Maybe?”

  “You are the only one who can answer that, my dear. But know this: love is the greatest gift that can ever be given and received. It is worth having, it is worth finding, it is worth waiting for.”

  “Julian’s right, you know.”

  Stacey turned at the sound of Martha’s voice behind her.

  “You make it sound perfect.”

  She carefully walked into the room, each stride assisted by her leopard-print colored cane. “Oh, goodness, no relationship is perfect. Look at us. We’ve had our rough spots, but what relationship doesn’t? When you find love, and if you’re brave enough to reach out and embrace it, that love will transform you, making you better than who you were. But finding that kind of love means finding a heart that hears yours.”

  The words were so beautiful, so romantic, they strummed a chord deep inside Stacey. This was what love was about: a gift that inspires a person to be the best version of themselves possible. She wanted that so badly she felt the intensity down to her core.

  “What if he doesn’t?” She hesitated, not sure how much to say. “What if he doesn’t recognize my heart? Then what?”

  “I promise, if he’s the one, he will.” Martha’s smile radiated from her even as her gaze locked onto her husband. “And, like Julian said, I also promise it’s worth finding.”

  She huffed out a breath and frowned. Grant had tried to text her that night, wanting to see her, but she’d replied that she needed space, needed a break. Thankfully, in true Grant fashion, he’d respected her wishes and hadn’t made any attempts to reach her since.

  That was two days ago. Two long, miserable days.

  Martha stepped around to the opposite side of the bed, and Julian’s gaze followed her. “How are you feeling?” she asked, taking the hand her husband offered her and squeezing it gently.

  “Like we should break out of this joint and go salsa dancing,” he said softly.

  Martha grinned. “I bet I can distract that hunky nurse while Stacey busts you out of here. We’ll meet up in the parking lot.”

  Based on what she’d witnessed, they were right. Love was a truly powerful force, bringing out the best in a couple even through life’s crappy times. Love was definitely worth fighting for, but it was up to both people in the relationship to make it happen. Clearly, Grant wasn’t fighting for the relationship. She stifled the sudden burst of pain in her chest and forced herself to face facts once and for all. Grant wasn’t “the one.”

  Now she just had to figure out a way to move on with her life.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Grant maneuvered his truck off the highway and toward the two-lane road to the boat ramp. It was a perfect day to take the kayaks out. He just wished Stacey were with him.

  But no. He’d tried to do the right thing and still managed to fuck everything up.

  The whole thing was a mess, but what the hell was he supposed to do about it? She’d asked for space. How was he supposed to make things right when he couldn’t even talk to her?

  Damn it. He knew this would happen.

&nbs
p; He backed the truck onto the boat ramp, cut the engine, got out, and slammed the door. A glance at the truck bed showed that the kayaks had made it in one piece, even if his brain hadn’t.

  The passenger door slammed. “Are you finally going to tell me what’s wrong?” Aidan asked when he reached his side. “Or are we playing twenty questions like we did back when we were kids?”

  Grant hauled himself over the tailgate and onto the truck bed. “Nothing’s wrong,” he told his brother. He quickly undid a strap and stepped over one end of a kayak, then made his way toward the back of the cab.

  “Like hell it isn’t.” Aidan climbed onto the back with him. “I’m barely off the plane last night when you text me, insisting we go kayaking today. You even played the birthday card. When have you ever done that? I mean, I know I was out of the country on your birthday and everything, but you sure as hell didn’t expect me to cut my honeymoon short for it, did you?”

  “Don’t be an ass. Of course I didn’t.” He straightened and propped his hands on his hips. “If you’re gonna be back here, at least grab the paddles and put them together or something.”

  “You’re changing the subject,” his brother said, reaching for the paddle sections. “And for someone who insisted we hit the lake today, you’re not being very sociable.”

  Grant jumped off the bed of his truck, then pulled one of the kayaks over the closed tailgate and onto the ground. “Sorry. You’re right. How’s married life?”

  “Honestly,” Aidan said, snapping a paddle together, “I have to admit, it’s pretty great.” He had a shit-eating grin on his face.

  “Yeah, well, you’re lucky you found her.”

  “No argument there.”

  His brother might’ve found someone to share the rest of his life with, but Grant had been shown time and time again, in no uncertain terms, that finding someone special—being special to someone—wasn’t in the cards for him, despite how badly he wanted it to be.

  There. He’d admitted it.

  Not that wanting what he’d never have changed anything.

  Grant made a beeline for the cab of his truck to grab the life vests he’d thrown in the back seat. He pulled the vests out and stopped. Shit. He’d brought the vest normally reserved for Stacey.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Aidan asked after he returned.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re too quiet.”

  “So? Can’t I just want to lay eyes on my big brother?”

  “Sure.” Aidan raised an eyebrow. “Only, you’ve never done that before.”

  “Fine. How was Puerto Vallarta?”

  Aidan set the paddle down and stared at him. “You don’t give a fuck about my honeymoon, so why don’t you tell me why we’re really here?”

  Grant hesitated. Did he really want to go through the whole Stacey thing with his brother? He reached out a hand and gripped the top of the tailgate. “I don’t understand women,” he finally blurted out.

  “Join the club.”

  “I mean, one minute she’s your best friend and then the next she throws you away like a lifetime of friendship doesn’t matter anymore, just because you screwed up. It’s flipping complicated, and I—”

  “Whoa. Wait. Are we talking about Stacey?” His brother eyed him. “Because the last time we talked it was Lucy or something like that.”

  “That was a long time ago.” He blew out a breath and scanned the lake behind them. Had it been that long since he’d talked with Aidan? Damn it.

  Aidan let out a low whistle. “So we are talking about Stacey.”

  “Yeah. Only, she’s not talking to me now, and I’m pretty sure we’re not going to be friends anymore after this all pans out.”

  The ache he’d managed to keep at bay since he’d gotten her text message asking to be left alone swept forward in full force. He sucked in a deep breath to assuage it, but to no avail. This was fucking worse than screwing up a batch of bourbon worth several thousand dollars, no matter what Patrick said.

  “Well, it’s about damned time.” His brother slapped him across the back. “I wondered if you’d ever come to your senses.”

  He glared. “What do you mean?”

  “You two are good together, right? You’ve been pretty much inseparable forever.”

  “Haven’t you been listening? It’s not like that anymore.”

  “Okay, tell me what happened.”

  “We got together. It didn’t work out. Now she wants me to leave her alone.” And there was that sense of dejection again, like a heavy blanket glued onto his shoulders that he couldn’t shake off no matter how hard he tried.

  “Is that the CliffNotes version?”

  Grant folded his arms.

  “You’re going to have to fill in the details sometime.”

  “What more is there to say? I tried to avoid making things worse. She walked away.”

  “That’s still not telling me much. What do you mean you tried to ‘avoid making things worse’?”

  Grant blew out a long breath. He might as well come clean. “I canceled Therapy Tuesday so I could take another woman out to dinner. I was afraid we were getting too close and needed to make sure we weren’t about to ruin our friendship.”

  He slumped against the side of his truck. “It was a dick move—I get that now—but really, I just wanted her to tell me not to do it. Like maybe knowing she was in just as deep would make everything okay. Instead, she told me to go. Like me taking another woman out was perfectly fine. And then when I texted her later to tell her how I felt, she asked me to leave her alone because she needed space.”

  Aidan crossed his arms. “I’m waiting for the part where she was somehow at fault here.”

  Grant threw his hands in the air. “She walked away, Aidan. I may have the world’s shittiest luck when it comes to this, but I really thought we were strong enough to get through anything.”

  “I suspect there’s more to this than you’re saying, but let’s stick to the salient points. Basically, you believed her when she told you to go ahead.”

  “Yes.”

  Aidan rolled his eyes. “What the fuck was she supposed to do? Stop you when it sounded like you wanted to go? What self-respecting woman would do that? She’d have taken it to mean you didn’t want her. And rightfully so.”

  “But I didn’t go through with it,” Grant said. “It took less than five minutes in the lobby of the restaurant to realize I didn’t want to be there. I left before our table was ready, but when I got to The Chinese Stop, Stacey wasn’t there. Mei-Ling said she never showed up.”

  “Go on.”

  “I headed to her apartment, fully intending to get us back on track, but her car wasn’t in her parking spot. That’s when I texted her and she told me to leave her alone.”

  He’d read that text at least a hundred times. When he first saw her words, fear worse than any pain he’d experienced before tore through him, stronger even than when he realized his mother wasn’t coming back.

  That same fear raked over him now.

  Aidan leaned a hip against the tailgate. “Considering all the effort you went through to keep your standing date with Stacey, I can’t believe she’d tell you to leave her alone. I mean, what a way to make a woman feel special.”

  “Very funny, wiseass.” His shoulders slumped. “She made this incredible dinner for me a few nights ago.”

  “She made you dinner. Care to elaborate?”

  “It was more than dinner.”

  “I don’t need to hear the details.”

  Grant frowned at him. “I was going to say, she’d found some things I remembered from my childhood, things I’d lost along the way. The toy car…the map of Alaska…even the funky kayak candleholder… She found them on eBay and a bunch of thrift stores and then she created this dinner for me.”

  “That is her business, you know.”

  “And she’s damn good at it. She made the evening really special, Aidan. Like it was the most important thing i
n the world for her. Like I was important.” And that’s how she’d always treated him, wasn’t it? Like he mattered, like who he was and wanted to be mattered.

  Then he had to go and fuck it up.

  Grant scrubbed a hand over his face. “Shit.”

  “So are you just going to give up?”

  “It’s no good. She doesn’t want anything to do with me, with us.” And that was the hardest part to accept. To not be able to see her, call her, touch base with her regularly… It didn’t matter if it was for serious stuff or stupid stuff, either. She’d always been a short distance away, literally and figuratively, and he’d loved that. He’d have done anything for her, and God knew she was always there for him.

  Was now being the operative word.

  Aidan shook his head. “You give up too easily.”

  “No—”

  His brother waved off Grant’s protest. “Look, do you want her in your life as a friend or as someone more? Someone you can come home to at the end of a long day, someone you can laugh with, dream with, someone you can share life with?”

  Grant stared at his feet. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

  “Like hell it doesn’t.” Aidan shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “You have to decide if this is a relationship worth having, and if it is, you have to figure out what you need to do to get her back.”

  That was all well and good, but… “I’m scared.” He squeezed his hands by his sides as the words shuddered out of him. “What if it doesn’t work out? What if she leaves, too?”

  “I know,” his brother said quietly. “But in your mind, she already has left. I don’t agree with you, by the way—asking for time to think isn’t walking away. Either way, what’s the worst that can happen? The way I figure it, you still have to try. Assuming, of course, that you want a real relationship. Relationships aren’t perfect all the time, you know.”

  Grant cast his brother a sideways glance. “You think you’re revealing some huge secret?”

  He shook his head. “Let me finish. They’re a give-and-take kind of thing. There’s negotiating that takes place, even if that isn’t a particularly sexy way of putting it, but it’s true. And most importantly, there aren’t any guarantees. You and I both know that.”