by Cherrie Lynn
Aren’t you going to do anything?
Like what?
I don’t know! Go see him or something. He’s so sad.
How could she? She didn’t know where he lived. Even if she got the information from Brian, if she showed up now after making herself scarce all this time...it wouldn’t be right. I’m sorry she isn’t doing well, she told Candace, but I can’t go see him. She sent that one and then quickly typed, Gotta go. ttyl, and tossed her phone down.
She couldn’t deal with this crap anymore.
It was for the best, right? Macy didn’t know how many more times she was going to have to tell herself that, but this should be the clincher. Really, he had his grandmother to worry about. She could go on now, unburdened with this...guilt. Or whatever it was. Though she really didn’t know what she had to feel guilty about. Neither of them had promised the other anything. Nothing was lost here. It wasn’t.
The inventory on the computer screen blurred in front of her face and she swiped at her eyes with frustration. Anger welled up in her chest and erupted in a growl as she snatched several tissues from the holder on her desk. “God!”
The chatter right outside her open office door stalled and Bruce called, “You okay, Mace?” Great. That’s just what she needed, their oldest and most trusted employee calling her dad and telling him she was having a breakdown on the job.
“Fine!” she called back as cheerily as she could. “Got a papercut.” On my heart.
Bruce chuckled. “Those things are deadly.”
Weren’t they just.
Her eyes drifted to the pictures on her desk. The one of her parents, the one of Macy accepting her undergraduate diploma, and the one of her and Candace and Sam all crowding in with tans and glowing smiles a couple summers ago when they’d driven down to a Galveston beach house for a week. Candace had to assure her parents repeatedly she was only going with Macy. They loathed Sam. That trip was one of Macy’s fondest memories, just the three of them, no man drama. They’d lain on the beach and shopped and drank a little and dodged come-ons right and left. A blast.
Sylvia Andrews had come back to Macy’s office to visit once and Macy had been on the edge of her seat hoping the woman didn’t spy that picture. She chuckled at the memory now and finished drying her ridiculous tears. Enough of that. She was at work.
And Ghost...well, it just wasn’t meant to be. But she didn’t have to be a rude bitch, either. So she picked up her phone and pulled up the messages again, typing one out to “1969”. I’m sorry. I hope everything works out. Be safe.
He could take that apology however he wanted. She was sorry for his grandmother, sorry for ignoring him, sorry for everything.
For a while, she didn’t think she would get a reply. She couldn’t blame him, but she hoped he’d gotten the message at least. Hoped even more that he believed it. Because she so meant it.
It came two hours later as she was getting in her car to go home.
It’s okay, killjoy. See you down the road.
Smiling, she cranked the engine, then just sat for a moment enjoying the relief in knowing he didn’t hate her. “See you down the road,” she repeated aloud.
Maybe he would.
Find out what happens when Ghost comes home and turns Macy’s world upside down in
Cherrie Lynn’s New York Times bestseller, Leave Me Breathless,
available now from Samhain Publishing.
