Southern Heartbreaker: A Charleston Heat Novel

by Peterson, Jessica

  I know he’s trying to make me feel better. But my mom’s words immediately pop into my head nonetheless. You give an inch, and then you give another, and then all of a sudden all those inches turn into miles.

  The magma in my head starts to boil. My heart pounds, sending shockwaves of panic through my torso. Making my gut twist in the most painful way imaginable.

  Oh God.

  Oh my God.

  A month into this parenting thing, and it’s already happening.

  I’m already giving in. Sacrificing something I love—one of my dreams—at the altar of motherhood.

  It’s just an inch now. Just a month or two or six. But over time, inches and months add up.

  Just ask my mom.

  Agreeing to date Ford and be a stepmom to Bryce, I think wildly, was a mistake.

  What the hell am I supposed to do here? The thought of disappointing Bryce is pure agony. Like, my heart cracks in two just thinking about it.

  But by not disappointing her, I’m disappointing my readers. I’m putting my business at risk.

  No matter what I do, I’m screwed.

  I thank my agent, apologizing again, and hang up the phone.

  Oh my God what a freaking mess I’ve gotten myself into.

  “Stop it,” I say out loud to myself. “You’re sick, you haven’t eaten a solid meal in four days, and you’re not thinking straight. This is awful, but it doesn’t mean your career is finished.”

  But now that my fevered mind has caught onto the idea, it won’t let go. Those mean little thoughts turn into mean big thoughts.

  I was an idiot to volunteer for the coaching position.

  I was an even bigger idiot to think I could do the juggle. The relationship-parenthood-career juggle.

  Maybe other parents can make the balance happen. Maybe, I don’t know, I’m missing some essential something that would make me less of a train wreck at this. More patience. More organization. More willpower.

  My career is just so much more than just my career. It’s my passion. My outlet. A source of immense satisfaction and pride. By pushing back deadlines, I’m not only putting a lot of money on the line. Sponsorships. Future royalties. Future book deals. I’m putting my heart there, too. My sense of self. My hard-won readership that took me over a decade to build.

  I’ve been pushing and pushing, and now I’ve gone and pushed myself right over the edge. Yeah, we’re just moving my pub date back a few months. But what happens next time when, I don’t know, Ford is launching a huge project, and the nanny disappears, and I have work to do but there’s no one else to watch Bryce?

  It’s just an inch now—just the flu—but I imagine there will be bigger problems in the future, especially with everything I’m taking on. Ones that will require me to give another inch, and then another, and another and another and another until I don’t recognize myself or my life anymore. I’ve seen where this path leads, and it dead ends in a situation like my mother’s.

  I can’t do this. I can’t give miles.

  I can’t end up at a dead end. I’ve worked too long. I finally have the career of my dreams.

  Ford and Bryce deserve better. My readers deserve better. My dreams deserve better than this.

  I crawl into bed. Cry some more. I’m going to have to tell Ford. I just don’t know how.

  And poor Bryce. I feel horrible for letting her down. Horrible to the point that it makes me feel even more nauseous than I’ve been over the past how many days.

  But I can’t let myself down, either.

  My heart heaves when I hear the knock on my door. I’m not expecting anyone. My mom and Ford usually let me know when they’re coming.

  I throw my robe over my ratty pajamas and head for the door. Twisting the deadbolt, the breath leaves my lungs when I find Ford on my doorstep. A brown paper grocery bag tucked into the crook of his arm. Furrow in his brow that deepens as he takes in my appearance.

  He’s scruffier than usual. Eyes bloodshot. Looks like he’s slept even less than I have.

  My stomach bottoms out. I don’t want to hurt him. But I’d be hurting him more by not being upfront about where my head’s at. I have to be honest. Right?

  Right.

  It’s the right thing to do. I just had no idea doing the right thing could make me feel so rotten on the inside.

  “E,” he says, voice raspy soft with sympathy as he searches my face. “Aw, sweetheart—shit. Just—”

  “You shouldn’t be here. I’m still contagious”—I wipe my nose with the back of my thumb—“and I don’t want to get you sick, too. You’re, like, the last man standing at this point.”

  He puts his hand on the door. Holding it open, like he’s worried I’ll close it in his face or something.

  “You got another thing coming if you think I’m about to walk away leaving you like this. Last text you sent me said you were about to hop on a call with your agent to tell him you wouldn’t be making your deadline. That had to have been awful.” He tilts his chin. “So go inside. Let me take care of you. I got you a few things that’ll help you feel better.”

  “Ford—”

  “Let me do this, E.” My insides turn over at the hint of desperation in his gaze. “Please.”

  Wrapping my robe around my torso, I let out a breath and nod. “Okay. Come in.”

  He follows me to the kitchen. Watching him empty the contents of the grocery bag onto my kitchen counter—Saltines, chicken soup, Gatorade—my eyes smart.

  See? He’s so good at this stuff. The caretaking. He doesn’t get sick. Doesn’t fuck up at work. He’s cut out for parenthood. He can handle it without losing himself. I can’t.

  “Thank you, Ford. You shouldn’t have,” I say.

  “Yes, I should’ve. It’s my fault you got sick in the first place.”

  I look away. Sniffle. “It’s no one’s fault, Ford. These things happen.” I look back at him. “So, yeah. I officially missed my deadline. My agent is going to try to extend it, but in all likelihood that means pushing back the pub date several months.”

  His face falls. “Oh, Eva. Sweetheart. I’m sorry. Really, really sorry.”

  “I’m so mad at myself.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. Christ.” He spears a hand through his hair, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “I should’ve never let you coach that fucking team.”

  A spark of anger catches inside my stomach. “‘Let me?’”

  “That came out wrong.” He drags that same hand across his face. “What I meant to say is that I should’ve pushed back a little more when you volunteered to do it. I knew it was a lot, especially when you were trying to tie up this huge project, too.”

  I take a deep breath. Let it out.

  “It is too much,” I say. “I see that now. Ford—”

  The words stick inside my throat.

  “What?” he asks.

  “I don’t think I can do this.”

  His eyebrows bounce up. “Write the cookbook, or…?”

  “This. You and me—the stepparent thing—all of it. I feel horrible, and I’m so sorry I—I thought I could take it on, I really did, but…oh, Ford, I’m just really, really sorry.” My eyes blur as the words hang between us. I want to say more, but I can’t breathe around the lump in my throat, much less speak.

  At last Ford blinks. “Okay. No, no, it’s not okay. But I’m not really sure what to say to that right now, other than you’re sick, and you’re in pain, and you should probably go to bed so you can get better and we can talk about this later.”

  “It’s too much. The sooner I rip this band-aid off…” I shake my head, crossing my arms. “Look. I just missed this huge deadline. I’m falling down on my work. I have to tell my readers that the book they’ve been dying for isn’t going to be published anytime soon. I have to tell my sponsors we won’t be getting all that extra site traffic I’ve been promising them. I’m putting my business at risk. What if this book doesn’t do well now? What if I don’t get picked up for
future book deals? I’m falling down on you and Bryce—”

  “How the hell are you falling down on us?” His eyes flicker with panic. “What are you even talking about? You’ve been doing an incredible job being there for both of us. As a matter of fact, I agree with you that you’re taking on way too much on. That’s the problem. Maybe if you stopped trying so much, you wouldn’t feel this way.”

  My mind whirrs. Alternating anger and hurt like slides in a projection carousel. “How can I not try my best with y’all? You mean the world to me. I wanted to be the best partner to you. I wanted to be the best stepmom to Bryce. But I can’t do that and accomplish what I want to—I can’t make my own dreams happen, too.”

  Ford blinks again. “Your own dreams?”

  “The ones I have for my career, and my writing,” I say, rolling my wrist as I try to grasp the right words. Tears are leaking out of my eyes left and right. “You know how important my job is to me. You know how much I love what I do, and how long I’ve worked to get where I am. And I can’t—” I have to look away. “I can’t show up for my work and my readers the way I need to when I’m…you know. Trying to juggle it with you, and Bryce, and—and parenthood in general. I’m already making a sacrifice I shouldn’t be. I mean, this is just the flu. What’s going to happen when something bigger happens? Something worse? What will I have to give up then?”

  The way my mom had to give up photography when shit hit the fan with my sister.

  Ford just stares at me. Features frozen in a look of disbelief.

  “I get why you’re upset. Really, E, I do. I feel terrible about you missing your deadline. I offered to help in any way that I could—”

  “You can’t help. Not with that.”

  He holds up his hands. “I know. But I offered. I’m trying my best, too. And I’m saying—trying to say, and obviously sticking my foot in my mouth while I’m saying it—is that Bryce and I don’t need you to do all these things for us. Not if they’re making you feel overwhelmed and miserable. Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  The words burst out of my mouth. “Because! I didn’t know I would end up missing my deadline because I was bedridden with the flu.”

  “That only happened because you took on too damn much!” His voice rises, making my pulse jump. Even when we were angsty, dramatic twenty-somethings, he never shouted at me like this. “I told you the pizza night was lovely but ridiculous. I told you not to take the coaching position. But you did it anyway. Now you’re sick and upset. I’m upset. This all could’ve been avoided if you’d just listened to me. I’ve been doing this parent thing for a while now, E. Safe to say I know what I’m talking about.”

  I glare at him. “Don’t patronize me. You think I’m ridiculous?”

  “No. I said all the effort you put into pizza night is ridiculous. Bryce would be perfectly content with frozen pizza that’s still partially frozen. I mean, she’s four, so…”

  “But I wanted to do better than that,” I say. “I just can’t. Not if I want to accomplish the things I do.”

  “Then stop trying to be the perfect stepmom. Didn’t we talk for hours about how much I admire you for doing your own thing? Being a free spirit? I don’t need you to be some Stepford wife version of yourself for us. I just need you to be happy, E.”

  I shake my head again. My face feels tight from—God, from who knows what at this point? Tears and fever and dehydration and hurt.

  “Coming from the guy who tries to be the perfect dad. It’s too overwhelming. I’m overwhelmed, Ford.”

  He throws up his arms. “You think I’m not? Jesus Christ, Eva, I’ve been running around like a lunatic trying to do better for you, too. I want this to work. So bad.”

  My heart twists. “I want that, too. But if we’re both trying our damnedest and it isn’t happening—it never will, Ford. And maybe…I don’t know. Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe us having to put in so much effort is a sign we shouldn’t be together. You have to agree that a relationship this new shouldn’t be this difficult.”

  “No. No, I don’t agree with that at all. We’re not kids anymore, E. Our lives are more complicated. Things are better, but they’re more difficult. We’ve got careers. Responsibilities. Of course it’s going to be hard. What matters is how hard we’re willing to fight to overcome all that shit. The more we fight, the more rewarding it will be. I genuinely believe that, and I think you do, too.”

  “But that’s just it. I have to use the fight I have in me for other things. I have to fight for my own happy ending.”

  Ford plants his hands on the island, flattening his palms as he rocks back on his heels. Rocks forward. He takes several deep breaths, nostrils flaring. I wait and I shake and I wonder how the hell we got here. How we went from flirting at a baby shower to shouting at each other in the kitchen of my rental apartment.

  I can honestly say I have never felt worse in my life. But what choice do I have? I know my story can and will end differently from my mother’s. In order for that to happen, though, I have to make different decisions than she did.

  I have to stop giving inches and start taking them instead.

  “Look. I think we’re both at the end of our ropes right now with everyone being sick. Why don’t you chug this”—straightening, he snaps a Gatorade off the pack and holds it out to me—“and get back into bed. We’ll talk when you’re feeling better.”

  He keeps holding out the Gatorade. I look at it, wanting to die.

  “I can’t.” I swallow. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to string you and Bryce along. I should’ve never…well. Knowing what I do now—we gave it a chance, and now I see that it was never going to work. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Ford. I don’t know what else to say except that I am so, so sorry, but I just can’t be the partner you need. I’m not cut out for motherhood.”

  He looks at me. Looks and looks. A single tear slips out of his eye, and the scaffolding inside my chest collapses. I catch a wisp of a thought. If it’s not meant to be, then why does letting him go hurt so bad?

  If I’m making the right choice, why does this hurt so bad?

  Ford sniffs. Draws his lips into a tight line.

  “Okay,” he says, tapping the outside of his fist on the countertop. “Okay.”

  And then he turns and leaves. Taking the air in the room and my heart with him.

  Ford mentioned a couple times that we felt star-crossed. That fate had somehow conspired to bring us together despite enormous obstacles. In his mind, the term was a romantic one. A positive one.

  But the term has a negative meaning, too. Star-crossed lovers are doomed. Headed for disaster. The kind of disaster that had Capulets and Montagues killing each other in the streets.

  Ford and I were barreling toward disaster from the start. I just didn’t see it until now.

  Chapter Thirty

  Ford

  My hands shake as I grip the steering wheel, guiding my truck to a stop at a red light.

  Did that really just happen?

  Did Eva really just break up with me? A week ago, I told her I loved her.

  A week ago, she told me she loved me.

  And then she goes and pulls the ripcord out of nowhere.

  The guy behind me honks. I blink, realizing the light is green. Fuck this.

  Fuck him. I honk back and give him the finger when he zooms past me in the right lane.

  I feel numb and keyed up, all at once. There’s a faint ringing in my ears. What I imagine I’d hear if a bomb went off nearby.

  I was expecting Eva to be upset when I decided to bring her some sick day supplies on my way home from the office. At that point, I knew she’d had to have missed her deadline. But I had no idea I’d be walking into the line of fire.

  The worst part is that I get it. I understand why she feels the way she does. And I feel horrible about it. I let things go way too far. The second Bryce and I walked into that first pizza night, I knew Eva was wiped. I saw it, but I didn’t do a damn thing about it.
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  The second Eva volunteered to coach Bryce’s team, I knew it was a bad idea. Again, I didn’t do enough. I just let it happen, thinking—hoping—it would work out.

  It didn’t.

  I should have fucking known better. Eva has definitely rubbed off on me. But I hadn’t realized that I’d rubbed off on her, too. And not in a good way. She saw me running myself into the ground trying to be everything to everyone—trying to be the ultimate success story—and she ended up doing the same thing to herself.

  Now we’re both burnt out beyond belief. She’s sick as a dog. I’m broken and more overwhelmed than ever.

  I’m at a total loss for what to do.

  Late afternoon sunlight slices through my windshield, making my eyes water. I don’t care. I just stare straight ahead, wondering how the fuck I got here.

  I did not handle that well back at Eva’s apartment. I shouldn’t have raised my voice with her. Shouldn’t have said those stupid, patronizing things. I just kind of…lost it.

  Which isn’t like me. I can count the number of times I’ve lost my temper on one hand. But Eva makes me lose my fucking mind.

  She puts me totally off my game in a way few people do. I want to make this right. I need to make it right. But the defeated look on her face when I got there, and the conviction in her eyes when she said she “wasn’t cut out for motherhood”—

  Seemed like her mind was made up. Even though I call bullshit on the not-cut-out-for-being-a-mom thing. In the few weeks she’s known Bryce, Eva’s been nothing short of wonderful with her.

  Then again, that’s not my call to make. You can be good with kids and not want to be a parent yourself. I get that. I get why she’d make that choice.

  But God, do I wish she were making a different one. I want that so badly—I squeeze the steering wheel so tightly—it fucking hurts.