by C. A. Harms
***
Later that night while my mother and I shared our last meal together on the deck outside our suite, I listened to the waves of the water and the sounds of the island around us and felt at peace.
“What are you thinking about?”
I turned my attention to my mother, who sat across the table from me with a concerned look on her face. “You haven’t said much about what happened.”
“Because there’s not much to say. Beau isn’t the man I thought he was and I think I can safely say he isn’t who you thought he was either.” When she nodded in agreement, I continued. “I wasted almost a year on a guy I thought could one day be my forever. I honestly think I was so blinded by the idea of him that I ignored all the signs along the way. Those times he’d openly flirt with other women, or he’d cancel on me at the last minute as if I was something that could wait.”
“I feel partially to blame.”
“What, because you and Collette are friends? Because the two of you wanted to see us together?” She shrugged as she picked at the food still remaining on her plate. “You didn’t make me stay with him, Mom, in fact you didn’t force me to even go out on the first date with him. None of this is on you.”
I could tell she wanted to argue but it wasn’t her fault.
“I’m humiliated, I won’t lie,” I continued, not allowing her to further lay blame on herself. “But I didn’t do this either, he did. He chose to sleep with that girl. I guess I could consider myself lucky that it happened now, instead of five years down the road after we were married with a child.”
I tried to make light of it all but I could tell there was still guilt weighing heavily on her.
“I want to get my own place.” Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have sprung it on her like that, but the idea had been rolling around in my mind for weeks, months even. At that point I think I needed a distraction from the current conversation.
“What?”
I laughed at her shocked expression. Her eyes were wide, her mouth gaping open as she stared at me.
“You act like I just told you I want to change my name and get a full body tattoo.”
She lets out a hmmph. “Well, you may as well have said that. Where did this come from anyway?”
Was she serious? “I’m twenty-two, Mom, I think it’s well past the time for me to move out on my own.”
“Why, when you pretty much have the house to yourself already?” It was true, our house was huge. “You have the entire left side and the only thing you share is the kitchen. You even have your own entrance if you want to use it.”
“Again, not the point.” My mother was difficult. She was demanding and rarely did she not get her way. My father had spoiled her for far too long, and she could put up one hell of a fight if need be. Apparently she felt this was one of those times.
“I just don’t like the idea.” She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms almost defiantly. I shook my head and laughed, only to have her arch her brow in question.
“It’s time.” It was way beyond.
Silence passed between us as she continued to watch me, as if that alone would change my mind.
“What about the guest house?” I should have known she’d grasp at straws. “Can’t you just move in there?”
“No.” Straight forward and to the point.
“Why not?”
“Because, Mom, that’s still you and Dad paying my way and it’s time for me to grow up.” She didn’t see it that way, but I had for some time now.
“What if we allow you to pay rent?”
Okay fine, she wanted to keep this going. “Would you?”
I could see the uncertainty in her eyes, and I already knew my answer, but again she continued to insist on making this more difficult than it needed to be. “We could talk to your father.”
I arched my brow at her and she smiled. She knew as well as I did that my father wouldn’t allow me to pay rent for our guest house. He was even more difficult than she was.
“I just like knowing that when I’m gone you’re there to take care of everything. Your father likes having you there too.”
“I rarely see Dad.” I rarely saw either of them but that wasn’t the point. I wanted my own space to do with as I saw fit. It was just the simple fact that I was a young adult still living in my parents’ home and I wanted more.
“You see him all the time, you work for him.” Like that made a difference.
“Which is another point I’d like to mention.” Her expression morphed almost instantly. I knew an argument was brewing. Sara Prescott was tiny, but full of fire.
“What, you’re now too grown up to work for your father?”
So maybe I shouldn’t have sprung this while trapped with her on an island that I couldn’t escape.
“I just think maybe I should find something else.” I looked away from her when I continued because those narrowed, displeased eyes were hard to stare into. “People around his office already look at me as the princess who gets everything she wants. The spoiled little rich girl who—”
She cut me off before I could say anything further. “They do not.”
“They do and they’re right.” She didn’t hear the things I heard daily throughout the halls, the hushed whispers from those around me. “If I was any other twenty-two-year-old, recently graduated college student, I wouldn’t have the position I have. I get paid more than some of those who have been there for years. Even I see the unfairness in that.”
“Don’t take that from your father,” she practically begged, which surprised me.
Another moment of silence settled over us. She looked from the tabletop before us to me once more and I could see a look of sadness in her eyes. That pulled at something inside me.
“We know that we haven’t been the best of parents.”
“Mom.” I slid forward in my chair and reached out my hand for hers.
“Let me finish.” I nodded my head, giving her the opportunity to carry on with whatever it was that seemed to bother her. “We’ve been gone most of your life, working long hours and going out of town often to secure what we have. We missed out on a lot of your life, a lot of your milestones. Times that we can never get back, memories that we can never recreate.”
I could practically see the heartache her words brought to her.
“You may not believe it but having you at the office with him, working side by side with him, it makes him feel like he’s making up for all those times he’s missed. That may not be right, it may not be the way to go about building a relationship with you, one he feels he missed out on. But I’ve seen the look in his eyes when he talks about a file the two of you closed together. Or when you go with him on showings, and when you visit possible clients side by side, he glows with pride, Ashlynn. You wanna move out, fine, you wanna pay rent at the guest house, fine, you want your independence, I get that, I get it all. But please don’t take this one thing from him.”
Her eyes glistened with unshed tears which only managed to trigger my own.
She was right; we’d never truly been that close while I grew up. That faded once their businesses took off and the demands on them both grew. But if the betrayal of Beau had accomplished one thing good, it was that I felt closer to both of them than I ever had before.
“Okay.” She wiped at a tear that rolled along her left cheek as she continued to watch me. “I’ll stay working for Dad. But I won’t budge on the moving out.”
“To the guest house?” The hopefulness in her voice made me laugh.
“As a renter.”
She nodded her head happily and my smile grew wider. I knew convincing my father would be even harder than my mother. But for the moment I’d happily accept the small sliver of my new found independence. Later I’d do this all over again with Mr. Prescott, proud and true and more bullheaded than my mother and I combined.
Chapter Six
“I can’t believe he actually agreed to this.”
Hayley
stepped up to my side and looked up the hill that led to the back of my parents’ house. An in-ground pool and a large expanse of land separated my new place from theirs. It wasn’t exactly what I had planned when I said I wanted to move out, but it was close enough.
“When my mother and I both ganged up on him, he gave in pretty easily.”
A two-bedroom guest house, one and a half bath, large open floor plan with my own garage. It was more than I’d planned for; I was thinking a small apartment with maybe a little balcony or something close.
“What are you gonna do with all this space?”
I turned around and looked at the empty house, no furniture, no decorations anywhere, and smiled at the possibilities. “I’m gonna make it mine.”
“What did you have in mind?” There was a gleam in her eyes.
“Paint, bright colorful paint.” I could see it now; I loved color. My parents were more black, white, and stainless steel. “I’ve saved practically every dime I’ve made since I started working for my father and this is my chance to spend it. They want to hire an interior decorator and I drew the line. This is all me and mine. I want to do it on my own.”
“I say we recruit a couple of guys to paint.” Hayley was already grabbing for her phone.
Reaching out, I placed my hand over hers to stop her. “No, we can do this.”
“We can what?”
The look of terror on her face was just too much.
“Seriously, we can for sure do this.”
“I can’t paint.” She shook her head, her eyes still wide and disbelieving. “Me and manual labor do not mix. Honestly, we could find two guys that would wipe this out in a day, two tops. We could sit back, sip mojitos and admire the view. Maybe shout things out like, ‘a little to the left,’ or ‘you missed a spot.’”
I turned away from her for only a second as I looked around the large space. She was right, there were a lot of white walls and tall vaulted ceilings that would be hard for us to reach. My guess was in the end one of us would end up falling from a ladder or dumping a gallon of paint on the floor.
“There.” I turned back toward her just in time to see her tuck her phone back into her pocket.
“There?” I repeated her word. “What did you do?” I knew I wouldn’t like her answer.
“Recruited?” Shrugging as if it was no big deal, she moved across my living room toward the large kitchen. Opening the refrigerator, she pulled out a bottle of water and unscrewed the lid.
When she noticed I was staring at her she arched a brow at me. “What?”
My heart was racing and I hoped more than anything that she didn’t ask—
“Kyler and Quinton will be over tonight to paint and all we have to do is provide beer and pizza.”
And there it was. She did exactly what I’d hoped she didn’t do.
I hung my head and covered my face.
“Kyler is Beau’s best friend, but he’s your friend too. You can’t avoid everyone with a direct link to that asshole or you’d never see any of your friends again.” She took a drink and then screwed the cap back on the water bottle. “Besides, Beau’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Yep.” She lifted her phone from her pocket after it chimed from an incoming message and I waited for her to continue. She tapped, she waited, she tapped again on her screen and I grew slightly irritated.
“Hayley?”
“He’s in Charleston,” she said without looking up from her phone. “Apparently after everything fell apart with the two of you and he wasn’t pulling his shit together, his dad sent him to their Charleston office to clear his head.”
I don’t know why the idea of his father shipping him off meant anything to me, but it saddened me, really, because I knew the relationship they had was a difficult one.
“You’ll never guess who left here a few days ago to go visit him, either.”
She lifted her head when she sneered the words sarcastically and her eyes connected with mine.
“Noelle.” I already knew I was correct, but when Hayley nodded I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. “Good for them.” I refused to admit that him moving on so quickly still hurt me a bit. But it shouldn’t have surprised me, not really. Not even two weeks ago he was texting me over and over about how much he loved me and how sorry he was for hurting me. Now there he was, halfway across the world with the slut he slept with while we were still together.
It all made me sick. No, I wasn’t sitting around pining after him in hopes that things could be different, but I guess I just thought maybe he’d take some time to settle before leaping into another meaningless fling.
“He’s not worth it.” It was almost as if she could read my thoughts. It’s one of the reasons why I loved Hayley so much. She might be an over-dramatic, prissy rich girl with a fear of getting dirty or even breaking a sweat, but she had always been on my side. Even if she didn’t agree with the decisions I’d made or who I chose to love, she never veered from being my number one. I could always rely on her, and in turn I did the same for her. She was the mac to my cheese.
“I know,” I agreed, “which is why tonight we are having a painting party.” I still wasn’t sure I agreed one hundred percent with the event but I’d do my best to let go of the uneasy feeling inside.
I walked toward the front door, fully intending to drive to the nearest hardware store and pick out paint when I heard her feet slapping against the marble floor beneath her bare feet.
“By painting party you mean we party and they paint, right?” When I didn’t answer the panic in her voice only grew more intense. “Ashlynn.” I reached the door and pulled it open. “Hey Ash, that’s what you meant. Right?”
Again I didn’t respond. It was entirely too fun to end it this soon.
“The guys are painting, and we’re observing. We’re agreeing on that.” She still followed close behind me. “Like right now you should say ‘yes, Hayley, that is exactly what I meant by that.’”
Just as I reached my car I looked back and saw her standing only a few feet away, looking completely defeated and terrified. She was pleading with me, a look of desperation on her face.
“You’re awful.” Her shoulders sagged. “That was not funny.”
“I don’t know about that, I felt the humor in it.”
Climbing inside my car, I waited for her to jog back inside and grab her shoes before hurrying back outside. Once she was safely buckled I started laughing. Of course she gave me an annoyed look, which in turn only made me laugh harder. It was honestly her fault; she shouldn’t have made it so easy.
***
I’ll admit I was nervous. Even before the guys showed up, my stomach was in knots. These were Beau’s friends, and yes, we were cordial and talked, but the truth was we wouldn’t had it not been for our connection through Beau.
I worried things would be awkward and we would end up in a dead silence as the guys painted while Hayley and I sat across the room. But that wasn’t even close to what happened. There was so much laughter and lightheartedness that my stomach ached.
Quinton and Kyler teased and taunted each other so much that Hayley and I spent most of our evening fully entertained and amused. It felt nice to laugh.
“Did you pick out this color?” Quinton’s question gained my attention. “Because I got to admit I’m surprised.”
“Why?”
“I would have imagined red, or even some shitty ass shade of tan, or maybe even a yellow.” I wrinkled my nose at each of his suggestions and it made him chuckle. “I know, my thoughts exactly. When I heard we were coming over to paint I figured we’d be drowning in girly ass pinks and purples.”
“I’m not twelve.”
He scanned over my body before meeting my eyes once more. “Oh believe me, I know you aren’t twelve.” My cheeks heated at his hidden innuendo.
“Watch it,” Kyler said in warning and I laughed at his need to feel he had to guard me. That was Kyler though, always coming to my
rescue even when I didn’t need him to. It was like some hero, big brother syndrome.
“What? She is a woman.” The way he said “woman” made me laugh, and Hayley snickered at my side. Kyler gave Quinton yet another warning look, who held his hands out in surrender. “Fine, damn, I was just saying that this shade of blue isn’t what I expected to be painting on the walls is all.”
I looked around my living room, feeling good about my decision. A dusty shade of blue, not too bright, subtle even.
“Who knows? Maybe I’ll throw in a pop of yellow here and there.” When I heard Quinton groan in protest I smiled. Tonight was a good idea, and I found myself glad that my best friend was so pushy.
Once the living room accent walls were complete, they also wiped out the dining area and well into the kitchen. The only reason they stopped was because we ran out of paint.
When the mess was all cleaned up they joined us in the center of my living room and devoured almost two pizzas themselves. The beer was flowing, the laughter continued, and for the first time since Beau cheated I felt like a weight wasn’t pressing down on my chest.
“You do know if you ever need anything, all you have to do is call me.” Kyler sat to my left, leaning back against the same wall. Quinton and Hayley sat across from us in a heated conversation about showers in public gyms. They had lost my attention long ago when their debate started veering off into perverted territory.
Kyler’s words lay heavy on me, and I turned toward him to offer a smile. “Thanks, but that would be a little awkward, don’t you think?”
Silence settled over us for a moment before he began picking at the label on his beer. “I don’t think it’s awkward. Are you saying we can’t be friends?”
“No, it’s just—”
“Beau.” I flinched when Kyler said his name.
Quickly I attempted to recover and hide my reaction. “It just makes things slightly difficult. He’s your best friend.”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t be friends too.”
That was true, I just wasn’t sure how something like that would work. Kyler and Beau were both older, by four years. They’d grown up with one another, and when they weren’t bickering about something stupid they were as close as brothers. I just wasn’t sure how a friendship with me would fit in the middle of all that.
