Changed

by Alicia Renee Kline

  “So you would sacrifice a huge pay increase and an almost brand new house to keep him in your life?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “The fact that you’re even considering doing that speaks a lot for how much you care about him.”

  I bit my lip. “I’m just in a bad position. He’s told me that there’s no chance in hell of us having a real relationship. And if I’d just get that through my thick head, the choice would be simple. I’d call Blake and Lauren right now and tell them to get ready for me.”

  “Are you so sure that Will’s being honest with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Couldn’t the part about his ex be his fear talking? I can see he’s contradicted himself already, and I’ve just gotten the recap of things. Don’t you think there’s a possibility that he’s scared himself by feeling something for you?”

  “I suppose.”

  I ignored the way my pulse quickened at the thought.

  “Have you told him about you?”

  Doug looked at me pointedly. My lack of a response was the only thing he needed for an answer.

  “I think you know what you have to do. You just came here for a second opinion.”

  I hated when Doug was right.

  Chapter Eight

  Just because I knew what the right thing to do was didn’t mean it made it any easier to carry out. But I swallowed my pride and did it just the same. Granted, I took my cue from the coward’s playbook and texted Will first to test the waters. I wasn’t courageous enough to just pick up my cell and call him out of the blue.

  The thirty or so seconds it took for him to respond back equated to about thirty years in Gracie time. It was a weekday night, so he knew I wasn’t at Lauren’s or Blake’s. He knew I wasn’t looking for sex; I wanted something else entirely. Even though I was staring at my phone waiting for something to happen, when it actually rang I jumped a mile off of my couch and answered breathily.

  There was no way I was going to have this conversation over the phone or via text message. This was a face to face kind of thing. I owed it to him, to myself, to sit across from him and look him straight in the eye. So much could be hidden by bouncing big news across cell phone towers; I needed context clues to gauge how he really felt about my reveal.

  He agreed to come down to Indianapolis that Friday night after he got off work. Emma would be at her mom’s house. We could go out or stay in - it didn’t matter. He didn’t ask me what I wanted, but just the same the tone in his voice told me that he knew his trip wouldn’t be entirely for a piece of ass.

  It was debatable if he’d even want that once I got through telling him what I needed to.

  So I spent the rest of the week with my stomach tied in knots, barely able to close my eyes at night and fall asleep. On Friday morning I got up extra early - not such a big deal since I’d tossed and turned the night before anyway - and did my hair long and loose, just the way he liked it. Since it was a departure from my normal work appearance the look had garnered quite a bit of attention. The girls in the branch had complimented me and I’d received two phone numbers stuffed in the drive up tube from new admirers. For the record, I threw them away.

  Will told me he wouldn’t be to Indy until at least eight or nine at night, so it was no big deal that I’d drawn the late shift that week. I tried not to think about him driving down to see me as I manned the teller window. That was a futile effort. When I wasn’t thinking about him, I was thinking about the gigantic secret that I was keeping from my boss and my coworkers. I’d felt guilty ever since Blake had made her job offer - the bank was the first real job I’d ever had and here I was contemplating leaving them high and dry. By the time I balanced out my drawer, it was almost impossible to breathe.

  It was even worse when I went home to my empty apartment. Instead of flinging off my shoes as I hit the door, I kept them on and sat quietly on my couch. I didn’t trust myself to move, much less change my clothing, so I simply sank down on the sofa and waited.

  At precisely eight thirty, he knocked at my door. I pushed down the reflex to run and hide and forced myself to answer.

  We stood in front of each other for an awkward moment before I stepped aside and allowed him to enter. I pressed myself flat against the door so he wouldn’t touch me as he brushed past. He was empty-handed. No dinner, no backpack with a change of clothes for the morning. I wondered if he’d left them in the Jeep again, or if he’d already decided that this wouldn’t be an overnighter.

  “You look nice,” he said finally.

  “Thanks.”

  I looked down at what I was wearing, my mind drawing a blank. I had on black dress pants, a white blouse that had a huge ruffle down the front layered underneath a charcoal gray sweater and a killer pair of heels. Not my most creative look ever, but likely the fanciest he’d seen me dressed other than at Lauren’s wedding.

  “You want a beer or something?” I stalled.

  “Sure.”

  I took my time walking to the kitchen to grab one for both of us. If he had declined, I likely would have drunk one myself, appearances be damned. He followed behind, unbeknownst to me until I bent down into the open fridge to reach for our drinks and felt him at my back. Even then, I jumped as I turned around, his presence startling me.

  Will grinned as I handed him a bottle. While he was being pleased with himself for scaring me, I took the opportunity to drink him in. He’d obviously gone home after his shift and showered; I could smell the cleanliness wafting off of him. His curly hair looked like he’d simply combed through it while it was wet and then headed out the door. It had dried on the way down here, more tamed than usual.

  Stuck in my own indecision on whether or not I should reach out and touch him, I did nothing. I continued my plan of action until he chose to move things along.

  “So,” he began, leaning against my counter and twisting the cap off his beer, “what’s up?”

  I fumbled with my own bottle, pretending to be transfixed on opening it. Before I made a complete idiot out of myself, he took it from me, then handed it back seconds later uncapped.

  “Thanks. Let’s go sit down.”

  We moved the few steps over to my couch and did just that, him sinking into the cushion beside me, our legs brushing against each other.

  “Blake offered me a job.” The words came quietly. I followed them up with a swig of beer. Still not looking at him, I continued. “Lauren offered me her house.”

  Will took his own drink. “Yeah?”

  He didn’t exactly sound surprised. This made me turn to him.

  “Did you talk to Chris about this or something?”

  He shook his head. It made sense. If he spent time with Chris, why in the world would they talk about me? If Will had begun questioning him about my latest goings on, he’d be violating his own rule of keeping things quiet. Chris would latch on to that like nobody’s business.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  I sighed, taking another big gulp of liquid courage. “I don’t know.”

  “Why not?”

  I set the bottle down on the table in front of me a bit more forcefully than necessary. Realization dawned on his face, reflecting in his green eyes.

  “No,” he said, “you can’t make this about me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’ve already made my position clear.”

  I laughed, though the situation was anything but funny.

  “Yeah, clear as mud. If you had stated your case as eloquently as you thought, I’d know exactly what you were thinking right now. Instead, I feel like I’m screwed no matter what I decide. If I stay here, you’ll be mad at me for turning down the opportunity. If I move, then I’m invading your space. Maybe we’ll still hook up. Maybe not. But there sure won’t be any fantasies played out in Indianapolis.”

  “Shit,” he breathed.

  I didn’t know what that meant. Shit, I was reading way too much into this? Or shit,
I had a valid point?

  He set his beer down and ran his hands through his hair, messing it up so that it looked more like it normally did. It was difficult to ignore the feeling the gesture provoked in my core, but I tried my best to push down the flutter that invaded my stomach. Whatever was going through his head wasn’t communicating with his lips and the waiting drove me crazy.

  My hand reached out to grab his arm. He flinched and the buzzing in my stomach became a full-fledged sinking sensation. Though I expected him to shake me off, he recovered and left my fingers where they’d landed.

  “Will, talk to me.”

  “I knew this was a bad idea. I just knew it.”

  He spoke to the floor, as if he was alone and talking to himself. I tightened my grip on him, holding on for reasons I didn’t know. What I did know was that the situation was unraveling quickly and I could feel myself spiraling out of control. I bit my tongue to keep from lashing out at him, figuring that I’d just let him talk. I’d asked for that, after all.

  “I can’t be a factor in your decisions. We’re not in a relationship. I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t have the right to be mad at you one way or the other.”

  “But regardless of whether or not you think you have the right to, you’d still be mad?”

  Okay, the silence on my part could only last for so long.

  His eyes raised to mine and we stared at one another for a long moment. I could see him thinking, contemplating what it was that he was about to say. As his brain worked, I solved the riddle for him.

  “You’d be mad,” I whispered to his blank expression. “But with what outcome?”

  “I’d be mad if you made your decision based on what you thought I wanted.”

  “So you want something?”

  “Gracie, I’ve wanted many things and I’ve lost them all.”

  My hand slid down his arm, past his wrist, and to his fingers. I intertwined mine with his, squeezing tightly. The impression I got from this statement was that we clearly weren’t talking about us any more. An inconvenient time for me to break through his heavy armor, but I wasn’t about to miss out on the chance. I’d told Doug I wanted to get to know Will better, and if this was what it took to do so, then I was willing.

  “You didn’t want the divorce, did you?”

  He shook his head. Even though his revelation felt like a knife through my heart, I swallowed that down. I wasn’t certain that the pain that radiated through my body was from the knowledge that he really did still love his ex-wife, or if it came merely out of empathy.

  “Who was I kidding?” he asked rhetorically. I remained silent. “It would have happened anyway. Stephanie had had one foot out the door the last few years. We got married so young, had a kid when we were barely adults, that she thought she was missing out on something. She was hell bent on proving her theory right. She was never going to listen to me. I tried to convince her to go to counseling, to just stick through it until Emma was older, but she wouldn’t listen. Eventually she wore me down and I gave her what she wanted.”

  “Will, it’s probably for the best then. I know where you’re coming from with the whole keeping it together for the kid thing, but Emma knew. Kids can tell when their parents aren’t getting along. If this went on for as long as you say it did, she noticed, even if you didn’t think so.”

  “What do you know about divorce?” he fired back.

  I’d struck a nerve. Clearly, my insight was not appreciated. I’d seen several sides of Will since we’d begun doing whatever together: depressed, lonely, amused, content, sexy, but never flat out angry. I didn’t need a guidebook to tell me I’d stumbled upon it.

  “What do I know about divorce?” I repeated.

  “You heard me.”

  “What do I fucking know about divorce?”

  “Yes. Please do share your advice, Miss-I’ve-Never-Been-In-a-Committed-Relationship.”

  His tone had me riled up. I jerked my hand from his and pushed myself as far away from him on the couch as possible. So many ideas rushed through my head at once; I decided it would be best to take a moment to compose myself.

  “Let’s see,” I snapped, “before you go off thinking you know everything about my life, maybe you should shut up and listen for once. Did it ever occur to you that I was in Emma’s shoes not that long ago? That I watched my parents’ marriage dissolve right before my eyes? That I knew they were both dating other people all throughout my high school years, but staying together because they didn’t want to fuck with custody arrangements?”

  Something sparked in those green eyes that looked an awful lot like an apology, but I held my hand up and shut that down before it started.

  “Did you ever think that maybe my own parents treated me like an idiot, like they were keeping the wool over my eyes, when I knew all along that they hated each other? Did you consider the fact that I sometimes felt bad that I kept them together? Not by begging them to love each other again, but by simply not being of legal age?

  “I don’t know who was happier when I turned eighteen. Me, so I could get the fuck away from that, or them because they could go on their merry little separate ways. And that’s exactly what happened, Will. The moment I signed the lease for my first apartment, they put my childhood home up for sale. They took the first offer they got, split the proceeds and moved the hell away from each other. Like stupid assed children, that’s how they behaved. Dad moved to California. Mom moved to New York. How’s that for putting distance between themselves?

  “Obviously, I stayed here. And they’re so busy making up for lost time that they don’t bother to check in. I haven’t spoken to either one of them for more than an hour in the past year. And I really can’t say it bothers me.”

  I folded my arms across my chest and glared, done with my monologue. I could feel my body trembling with repressed anger. I wasn’t quite sure who it was directed towards: my current guest or the people responsible for giving me life. Likely a bit of both.

  Because neither one of us knew what else to do at that point, we both leaned over and reached for our respective beers. I finished the remainder of mine without taking another breath; he did the same. Then we slammed our bottles down on the table, glared at each other again and burst out laughing.

  “I’m sorry,” he said between giggles, “there’s nothing funny about anything you just said.”

  I was laughing so hard I snorted. “Just remember this the next time you question my authority.”

  “You really think that Emma knew all along?”

  “I’m positive.”

  He bit his lip and considered that. “I must be a complete asshole for putting her through that.”

  “You’re correct about the complete asshole part, but your heart was in the right place.”

  “Gracie,” he said suddenly, wisely choosing to ignore the insult I’d just thrown out, “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

  I shrugged. “I’m over it. It’s okay. And if we’re playing true confessions, I’m not sorry that you left your wife.”

  “She left me.”

  “Whatever. I’m sorry that she hurt you, but I’m not sorry for the fact that by doing so, she opened up the door for you being here tonight.”

  “Don’t say things you don’t mean.” His words were barely audible, but I heard them loud and clear.

  “Do you really think I’d feed you a line to get you to sleep with me?”

  His turn to shrug.

  “Will, I can go out to a bar, find some guy and get laid tonight if that’s what I wanted.”

  I inched closer to him. The temperature in my apartment seemed to rise by several degrees. I shrugged out of my sweater and draped it across the back of the couch. Then I scooted even closer, until I could feel the warmth of his body radiating outward, so near, yet not touching me.

  “Don’t,” he whispered, even as he raised his hand to run through my hair.

  I closed my eyes and breathed him in, committing him to
memory if need be. His hand settled on my jaw. When I exhaled, I did so through my mouth, lips parted in anticipation.

  “You don’t have to lose this,” I told him right before he kissed me.

  As the meaning of what I said registered, his lips turned from pliable to rigid and he pulled away. My eyes jerked open to meet with his. He was shaking his head even before he spoke.

  “No, Gracie.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t pretend that this could work.”

  “Who says I’m pretending?”

  My hands traced over his cheeks, my fingers brushing the coarse hair of his goatee as they reached his jaw. I grabbed the back of his neck with one hand, the other continuing its path down his throat, into the collar of his shirt. I pulled him towards me then kissed him until we both came up gasping for air.

  “You deserve so much better,” he continued, even as he allowed me to unbutton his shirt.

  I ignored him, focusing my attention instead on the skin I was methodically exposing. When I was done, I ran my finger down the sliver of bare chest I had revealed. I felt his breath hitch in his lungs. An answering twinge shot between my legs.

  I placed my hands on his shoulders, forcing him back against the arm of my sofa.

  “I’m old enough to decide what I deserve.”

  I hovered slightly over him, my legs parted so that I straddled him. My loose hair fell over the both of us. He took a lock of it between his thumb and finger and ran it back and forth. Instead of looking at me, he fixed his attention on what his hand was doing, watching it like it was acting independently of his own body.

  “You’ll change your mind,” he muttered, his eyebrows knitting together.