by Staci Hart
It was ruined. There would be no salvaging it.
“I can fix this.” Luke made another promise he couldn’t keep, a frantic, thoughtless promise. He grabbed one of the ladders from behind the counter and popped it open.
“Stop, Luke,” I said. “Just … don’t touch it.”
“I can fix this, Tess,” he said, determined.
“No. It can’t be fixed. You’re just going to break it worse. We need another ladder. We need to move the wheat. We need to—”
“No,” he insisted, rope in hand as he climbed the ladder. “Look, there’s a leak. Marcus, call the plumber.”
Marcus’s phone was already in hand.
“If I just screw it in here instead—”
“Just leave it alone,” I snapped. “You’re not helping, Luke! It’s just going to—”
“For fuck’s sake, Tess, I’ve got it,” he snapped back, glaring at me.
Another groan, a snap. The lot of us yelped and jumped back, narrowly avoiding the other side of the installation falling in a poof of dust and wheat.
We stared silently at the wreckage for a long, breathless moment. Everything we’d worked for, all we’d done…gone.
The installation. My relationship. My heart.
Gone.
In its place rose a wave of frustrated fury, and I leaned into it as I looked up at him.
“I told you not to touch it.” The words trembled, quiet and contained. “But you just did whatever you wanted. You didn’t listen to anyone but yourself. Just like always.”
“I was trying to help. I was trying to make it right. I didn’t do this, Tess. I didn’t force a leak. I didn’t make it fall. I didn’t do this.”
“No, you’re right. You’re innocent, as always. It’s never your fault. Nothing—nothing—is ever your fault,” I snapped.
Natalie interjected, her voice hard, “It’s clear that we’re off for today. I know I put a difficult timeframe on you, and you delivered something truly outstanding. But there is no way for me to shoot this, and I’m not certain you can conduct yourselves in a way that we’ll be able to photograph you all and the rest of the shop. I need to talk to my team, figure out what to do. We’ll be in touch.”
Luke hurried down from the ladder. “Natalie, please. Wait.”
He hopped down, following her as she hauled ass out of the shop. I watched them talk on the sidewalk—Natalie stern and closed, Luke pleading. With a narrowing of her eyes and a curt nod, they parted.
The second he started for the door, I started for the back.
Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t face him. I couldn’t control my tears. I couldn’t understand what had happened with the shoot, with the shop, with Luke. And I couldn’t fathom what would come.
All I knew was that I needed to get somewhere safer than this in order to figure it out.
He called after me. I didn’t stop. I’d leave through the back. Go home. Pray Dad wasn’t awake. I’d climb into my bed and stay there until my tears were dry and I had a plan.
“Tess,” Luke called again, closer.
I picked up my pace.
“Tess, stop.” He hooked his hand in my elbow and pulled me to a stop.
“Let me go.” With a whirl and a snap, I removed my arm from his grip, glaring up at him through angry tears.
“Please, let me explain.”
“You were with her last night. That’s why you came back here so upset.”
A sorrowful nod. “I was going to tell you tonight. We had to get the installation done, and—”
“Bullshit, Luke. She’s why you were late. You should have told me. If you had told me, I wouldn’t have been blindsided. I could have prepared myself for this, but now … now…” My throat closed, choking off the words.
His dark brows came together. “I should have called you in the middle of all this and told you I was going to Wendy’s? That I didn’t know what she’d do to herself if I didn’t? What was I supposed to do, Tess? And then … then she told me … she told me she’s…” The words died in his throat.
He couldn’t even say it, and in that moment, I wanted to feel sorry for him. I wanted to understand.
But I couldn’t. It was too fresh, too raw, and I was too tired to be reasonable or logical.
“I can’t do this,” I said, my voice broken.
And his face crumpled. “Do this? With me?”
I shook my head. “I can’t talk about this right now. I can’t. There’s nothing I can say, no way I can be rational. I … I need … I need to think and I need to try to understand and I need to get away from you to do that.”
He searched my face, took my hands, and I let him, too tired to fight. “This happened before you, before I left LA—”
“Stop,” I sobbed, removing my hands from his. “Please. I don’t … I don’t want to know the details. Not yet, not when I just…”
“Tell me it’s going to be all right. Tell me you trust me still.”
“I … I can’t.”
He stilled. “Because you don’t?”
“Because I don’t know.”
Something cracked behind his eyes. “I don’t love her, Tess. And she knows I’m in love with someone else.”
My eyes widened, locking on his. I was made of stone. “Luke, do not finish that thought. Do not say those words right now.” Shaky words. Shaking hands. Knees locked. Feet stuck.
The knot of his throat rose and fell. A nod, small and resigned. His gaze fell to the ground.
And I did the only thing I could.
I turned and ran.
20
HEART BURN
LUKE
I watched my heart walk out the door.
A space in my chest opened up, empty but for tingling static, sharp with electricity, frenetic and edged with pain. One day ago, my life had been on a different trajectory, one lit with hope and possibility. Twenty-four hours ago, my biggest concern had been a sunflower supplier and the length of time I’d have to endure before I could hold Tess.
Now I’d lost her.
She needed time—unsurprising, as well as I knew Tess—time to get her bearings, to figure out what she thought, how she felt about the succession of bombs that had detonated. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that time would not fix this. Time wouldn’t reverse the impact. It wouldn’t change the fact that Wendy was pregnant.
I couldn’t imagine how it’d happened—Wendy’d been on birth control since I’d known her. But the why and how of it didn’t matter. Everything had changed with the knowledge, and everything had fallen apart with Wendy’s announcement.
And now, Tess was gone. The magazine shot was potentially ruined. My family was upside down. All because of me.
So I’d have to fix it all. Starting with what I could.
I turned, heading numbly into the shop where my siblings were busy disassembling the broken installation with flat lips and drawn brows and far too much silence for the number of Bennets in one room. They glanced up as I entered the room, pausing and gathering around when I stopped. Accusation weighed heavy on their faces.
With a painful swallow, I started with the first and most important thing.
“I’m sorry.”
I don’t know if it was the sight of me or the tone of those two little words, but their faces softened in unison.
I shook my head, glancing at the ground. “She told me last night. I was going to tell you guys as soon as I talked to Tess and this meeting was done. I thought I had at least that long. Should have known better.”
Laney shifted at my side and laid her small hand on my arm. “Luke … how did you get yourself into this mess?”
I tried to swallow the stone in my throat. “We went out before I left LA. She … she’s always been on birth control, so I didn’t think to…”
Laney and Jett shared a look, but it was Marcus who said what they all seemed to be thinking.
“Do you think she did this on purpose? To trap you?”
“
I can’t believe you’d even say that,” I snapped.
“Come on, Luke,” he urged. “It’s not an unreasonable assumption. The shop is doing better—”
“That wasn’t the case when we slept together.”
“Are you sure she’s even really pregnant?” Laney asked.
“She wouldn’t lie about being pregnant.”
“Why not? Fake a miscarriage. Get out from under the lie, but lock you down first,” she postulated.
A defensive wind blew through me, hot and bitter. “I know you all think she’s conniving and predatory, but it’s not the truth, and deep down, you know it. I know you want to protect me, but villainizing her, making up your own story? That doesn’t help any of us. I’ll be the first to admit that she would use me—trust me, of all of us, it’s me who has a front row seat to that particular truth. But there are things she would lie about and things she wouldn’t. Trust me. Please, trust me.”
None of them looked convinced.
“Okay, let’s assume she’s pregnant then,” Kash said. “Are you sure it’s yours?” He glanced at our siblings, adding, “She had a boyfriend she conveniently failed to mention until after she slept with Luke.”
Outrage and hope sparked in the room, a strange, heavy combination of emotions. A couple of curses. Half-smile here and there. A disbelieving, scoffing laugh under someone’s breath.
I stood in the center of them, numb.
In the hours I’d spent in solitude last night, I’d worked it all out, knowing it could go either way. Her story made sense, timeline-wise. It explained Wendy’s coming back, her insistence to see me. I took that information, applied it to the opposite—maybe it wasn’t mine, and she’d made the whole thing up to trap me. And then I’d accepted both possibilities as best I could, packing it away so I could focus on this meeting, the ruins of which lay in crumpled piles in the window.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. Sighed with a breath drawn from the very bottom of my lungs. “It’s possible. I don’t know when she’s due or how far along she is. She was hysterical when she told me, and I had to get back to the shop with supplies. There was no time to get into it. And today … well, you saw how much was accomplished today.”
Marcus’s face darkened. “You need to nail this down and get confirmation from a doctor. I know you want to believe her, but—”
“I don’t want to believe her, Marcus. I don’t want this to be true, not with her, not like this. If it is, you know I won’t walk away. But I’m under no illusions when it comes to Wendy or her intentions, especially when her back’s against the wall. I have something to do with why she’s back, and either it’s because I’m the father of her child or because she wants me to be.”
Laney shook her head. “God, if she lied … Luke, this is so fucked up. And Tess…”
Pain split my chest in two at the mention of her name. “I know.”
Jett’s brows were drawn. “What about the magazine? Do you think you can patch that up?”
“Not until I hear from them. I’ll try to reach out in a few days, but I can’t force them to give me another chance any more than I can Tess. Time and space. That’s all I’ve got to work with. And in the meantime, I’ll figure out exactly what’s going on with Wendy.”
“You’re gonna have to deal with Mom too,” Kash added.
Everyone sighed at that, even Marcus.
“You committed the cardinal sin,” Laney noted. “You slept with Wendy, and Mom will see that as a personal betrayal. She’s probably wondering what she did wrong when you were a baby that you’d sleep with Wendy after all she’s done to you.”
“I’ll talk to her tonight, after she burns an effigy and cries over my baby pictures.”
“And how are you planning on avoiding her and Tess?” Marcus asked.
“You act like avoiding things isn’t a special skill of mine.” A chuckle rolled through them, but I didn’t so much as smile. “I’ll stay here all day. I’ve got the installation to figure out, or at least break down. See if I can get another one put together with stuff we have in storage. That should take me all day. I don’t suspect anyone will bother me. The only one who wants to talk to me is the one person I don’t want to see.”
“Wendy. Goddamn her,” Laney said with a shake of her head. “How can we help?”
“Just keep the front running so I can salvage what I can, where I can.”
We broke the meeting with a plan—Kash and Jett would finish breaking down the installations. Laney would check on Mom. Marcus would get the rest of the store ready to open.
And I would escape to the back.
The second I could, I did, dragging myself to storage. I clicked on the lights to assess our stock, but when I looked around at the space—our space, mine and hers—I felt the last bit of my will crack and shatter. The pieces we’d worked on. The old rocking chair with the blanket slung over the back. The pile of hay.
I lowered myself to sit in the hay, dropping my head to my hands, closing the world out. The familiar scent of this place, like old wood and sweet hay and fragrant florals drifting in from the greenhouse. It wasn’t a realization of my mistakes, and it wasn’t a marker of loss.
Because I’d known what I had to lose from the start.
And despite how I’d tried to keep her, I might have lost Tess for good.
TESS
I bolted out the back door, blinded by the sun and drowning in the heat. The block I traveled home was navigated through a sheet of tears, my destination in my forethought and a thousand emotions bubbling beneath it.
Just get home. Get home. Get home. When you get home, then you can break.
The stairwell was cool and dark, my composure crumbling with every step. I unlocked the door. Stepped inside.
The one place in the world I needed was home, and the picture of this place was tangible in my mind.
A picture that no longer existed.
The walls were white but for the accent wall of Mom’s ugly, old wallpaper. The kitchen, white and pristine, Carrera marble countertops to replace the old pea-soup formica, backed by subway tile.
It was beautiful. But it wasn’t home, not anymore.
Everything had changed. And all because of Luke.
Before he’d come back, everything had been perfectly normal, perfectly predictable. But ever since he’d walked through the door of Longbourne again, it had been nothing but chaos. What had once been stable, secure, familiar, was turned upside down, inside out. The shop. My home.
My heart.
I couldn’t look at the room. I needed my place, my safe place, the one place I knew hadn’t changed.
“Tess?” Dad called from his study. “That you?”
It wasn’t me. I didn’t know who I even was anymore.
But I followed the sound of his voice to face what I could. When I passed the threshold, his face ran a gamut of emotions—concern, sadness, pain, anger.
“What happened?” he asked.
I drew a shaky breath. “The installation broke. We didn’t get the feature.”
“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.”
A weak smile touched my lips, forced and aching with falsity. “I … I just need some time. Rest.”
He nodded. “All right. Go shower and sleep. I’m here. Okay, Pigeon?”
I nodded, my chin quivering. “Okay, Daddy.”
But when I stepped into the hallway, I didn’t head to the other side of the apartment for my room.
I turned for Dad’s room instead.
This room was the same as it had always been. The book she’d been reading when she died still sat on the nightstand. The bedding had faded and thinned, but it was the same navy-blue and white florals, the bed neatly made with care by Dad every day. But I didn’t linger. Instead, I opened the closet, dropping to sit in the small corner, closing the door behind me.
Light snuck in through the slats of the shutters, slashing lines of light on everything inside.
And I laid my head on my kne
es and cried for all I’d lost.
21
EMPTY SPACES
TESS
My exhaustion was complete.
I was a fire that had burned to ash, leaving only dust and dying embers. What had once been solid was now in pieces small enough to be carried away by nothing more than a gentle breeze. But somehow, I found a way to haul myself out of bed that morning. To dress and brush my teeth, bleary-eyed and numb. To exchange a few words of deflection with my father before ducking out the front door. And I went down to the flower shop, not ready to face what awaited me, but without any choice in the matter.
The shop needed me, and so did Mrs. Bennet.
I’d spent a long time in the safety of Mom’s closet, exhausting my tears long enough to shower and slide into bed. But as tired as I was, I barely slept, my mind too frantic, too busy fantasizing about all the unhappy endings that could come to pass, all the things I would lose in their wake. It was only between fits of crying and long, silent stretches spent staring at my ceiling that I fell into restless sleep, the kind that exploited exhaustion without relieving it.
Two hours I lasted before I peeled myself out of bed with one objective—distraction.
I cooked two meals from scratch. Watered the plants. Took some photos for Instagram. Played Mario Kart with Dad. Watched a couple of my favorite romcoms—The Princess Bride and Soapdish. Dove into a new book and stayed up until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. But the second I turned out the light and my distractions were gone, my brain woke up and chugged through everything that had come to pass, imagined what would come next.
The first item of business was to try to pin down exactly why I was so upset, and I boiled it down to a few points, which I held on to, repeating them on a loop like Arya Stark and her kill list.
At the surface was the skin-deep wound: we had lost our shot with the magazine, not only by looking like a pack of fools, but incompetent fools. I looked incompetent—which on its own hit a deep perfectionist trigger in me—and the responsibility felt like mine, regardless of my knowledge that it wasn’t.
