by Krista Wolf
Picking up the duffel bag, he turned away. I felt like total shit as he started down the driveway.
“David!” I called after him.
Tate grabbed my arm. He prevented me from taking a step.
“Let him go,” he said quietly. “Give him a minute.”
Eric rushed after his son, meeting him at the curb. After a fierce little back and forth David turned and started up the street, shrugging his father off.
“Who’s Ryan?” asked Cole quietly.
“One of his childhood friends,” I answered. “He lives a few blocks away.”
I watched sadly as David disappeared around the next corner. Eric came storming back, looking absolutely furious.
“You did this,” he snarled, pointing at me. “If you weren’t such a—”
“EASY there,” said Cole sharply, as all three of them stepped up. “You might want to think about your next words, because they’re going to have consequences.”
Eric stopped in his tracks, the wind suddenly going out of his sails.
“He’s right,” Tate added, folding his arms. “Make sure you really want to say them.”
Standing face to face with all three of them, my ex-husband’s face went sour. The anger was still there, but now it was laced with fear.
He stared at each of the guys in turn, then at me. Finally, after one last defiant look, he turned and walked back down to the street.
“You really married that asshat?” asked Jacob, as my ex-husband skulked out of sight.
“I was young,” I shrugged, adding a sigh. “My decision-making skills weren’t as finely-tuned as they are now.”
“You got that right,” said Tate, sliding an arm over my shoulder.
Forty-Six
SERENA
I spent the rest of the day at home, brooding over what happened. Trying to figure out a way to somehow contact David, preferably without going through Eric.
His old number had stopped working, and I didn’t have his new one. I thought about walking down to Ryan’s house — if I could even remember which one it was — but the guys wisely advised me against it.
“He asked for time,” they told me together. “Give it to him.”
I was thrilled to learn of their plans to take me out, but disappointed it was no longer going to happen. Instead we agreed to a raincheck, then stayed in and drank the wine Tate brought. I also climbed into the attic and retrieved the box of David’s things. I’d never gone through it, but I knew it contained everything to do with his childhood. The early part of it anyway, before his father got involved with me.
Despite everything, I also felt guilty. The things Eric had insinuated, although maybe not in proper context, were all true. Yes, I’d rented his old room. Yes, I’d taken up with his former teammates… in more ways than he could ever possibly know or understand. And yes, I’d even taken the car. Although that last part I didn’t feel the least bit guilty about, considering it was the only real asset Eric had ever left me with.
When it came to my ex-husband, I didn’t feel badly at all. He was every bit the self-centered asshole I remembered, and then some. He hadn’t paid a lick of child-support after running off to Europe, and had barely even kept in touch with his son. Somehow he’d assumed I’d stay and take care of things here — the house, David, everything. That he could just come back and find everything exactly the same, despite having abandoned his previous life for an entirely new one.
We watched movies together as we usually did, only this time I passed out on the couch. I woke up wrapped in Tate’s arms, to the sound of birds chirping and the morning sun streaming in through the windows. It was a beautiful day outside. Everything seemed calm, tranquil. So very different from yesterday, when I was emotionally drained.
A quick shower later, I was an all new woman. I got dressed and stepped into the kitchen to the smell of coffee, bacon, and eggs. Maybe french toast? I was eager to see…
Then I turned the corner, and saw four men seated around the table, instead of three.
“Hi Serena.”
David was seated beside his teammates, with Cole on the other side. The four of them seemed to be smiling, even laughing. It lifted my heart to see them in such good spirits.
“David…” I smiled. “I— I didn’t know you were—”
“Coming for breakfast? Yeah. Neither did I, but here I am.”
A cup of coffee was pressed into my hand. I didn’t even see who did the deed.
“We were catching up on old times,” said Jacob. “Friends. Gossip. School stuff. You really didn’t miss anything.”
I nodded, glad to see everyone getting along. As strange as it was, I was happy to see David’s anger from yesterday had dissipated.
“That box of your things!” I said, suddenly snapping my fingers. “I brought it down. It’s in the living room.”
“I know,” he said, nodding toward the others. “They already gave it to me.”
“Oh.”
“I was hoping to talk to you, though,” he said calmly. Pushing back from his chair, he stood up. “Can we take a walk?”
My stomach flip-flopped uncertainly, but of course I nodded. I didn’t know what he wanted from me, or what else he might need. But whatever it was…
“Yeah sure,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We went out through the back door this time, instead of the front. Everything was bright and beautiful, especially in the morning sun.
“I see Jacob’s been keeping up with everything,” David noted, leading me down toward the back end of the yard. There were flower beds back there that I used to keep. Right now they were empty. “Except for this, though.”
“Yeah, that one’s on me,” I said. “It was too much work, too much weeding. I had to give up on it, when I started working double shifts.”
David nodded, with his hands in his pockets. He looked reluctant. Like he had to ask me something.
“I’m sorry you had to work doubles,” he said finally. “That’s sort of my fault.”
“Nah,” I said dismissively. “There are a ton of other things around here that—”
“Serena listen,” he interrupted, his voice going suddenly serious. “I don’t know what’s going on between you and the guys. They won’t say anything to me, but I can tell it’s something.”
I’d been raising my coffee to my lips. A butterfly flitted between us, as I stopped mid-sip.
“You don’t have to say anything by the way,” he went on. “Whatever it is, I don’t even need to know. Because as long as you’re happy, I don’t really care.”
His eyes met mine, and surprisingly there was no judgment. There was nothing there except peace now. Peace… and a maturity that wasn’t there the last time I’d seen him.
“All I know is that you were there for me,” David continued. “You did things my father should’ve done. That piece of crap left us both in the dust. And no matter how he acted yesterday, he knows it.”
I was stunned. Everything coming out of his mouth I’d wanted to hear for years. But listening to it now, it was the last thing I expected.
“You never tried to be my mother, and that was good,” he went on. “And yet you were always supportive. Always there. I never told you how much I appreciated that.”
“You weren’t at a very appreciative age,” I smiled. “One day when you have teenagers of your own, you’ll realize that.”
“Yes, but then what I did to you…” he went on more sullenly. “That wasn’t right. I left you high and dry, just like my father did.”
“David—”
“No,” he countered. “Serena, I ditched school — after having begged you to pay for it. I was a complete asshole. I left you with all these student loans…”
“Yes, but you didn’t mean any of that,” I cut in. “You met someone special. Someone you fell in love with. You ran off to be with her, and you built something together.”
Now it was David’s turn to look astonished. He couldn’t b
elieve I actually understood. Trying to ease his mind, I smiled.
“Sure at first I was a little pissed, but just looking at you now I can see I was wrong. David I’m actually very proud of you,” I said truthfully. “You followed your heart. I’m so thrilled you’re getting married. And I wish the both of you the best.”
His eyes filled with tears, and then suddenly I was in his arms being crushed by a tremendous hug. Letting my coffee drop to the garden soil, I hugged him back. We stayed like that for a while, the both of us glassy-eyed but smiling.
“What’s her name?” I asked abruptly.
“Mariana,” he sniffed.
“That’s a beautiful name.”
“She’s a beautiful woman,” he laughed, and I laughed along with him.
By the time we parted, tears were streaming down both our faces. Then I looked down, and he was handing me an envelope.
“What’s this?”
“A check,” said David. “It’s not all of it, but it’s a good chunk of what I owe you for school.”
I scoffed at him and shook my head. “There’s no way I’m taking that.”
“Serena please,” he said. “I’m doing really well down there. So is Mariana. We can afford this. We can—”
“Yeah, well I’m doing well up here,” I cut him off. “You’ve got a wedding to pay for, and weddings are expensive. Use this money for that. Or even better, put it toward a beautiful honeymoon.”
He paused awkwardly, still looking down at the envelope. I took his hand and curled his fingers back around it.
“Please,” I told him. “Consider it a wedding gift. Or just consider it a getting-away-from-him gift,” I said, nodding toward the spot where his father had made a complete ass of himself yesterday. “And tell Mariana I give her my blessing, but that she’d better take really good care of you. I can be wicked if I need to be.”
Slowly he pulled the envelope back and laughed. “A wicked stepmother, huh?”
“The worst,” I winked at him.
“Fine,” David sighed at last. “You have to do me a favor though. Actually two favors, if you can.”
“Alright,” I smiled. “What the first one?”
“Don’t you DARE give him that car,” he swore, shaking his head.
Reaching down, I picked up my dirty coffee mug and laughed. “Not gonna happen. Ever.”
“Good!” he breathed a sigh of relief.
“And what’s the other one?” I grinned.
“Come to my wedding.”
I looked back at David, and his face was all smiles. My heart suddenly weighed a thousand pounds.
“Really?”
“The guys too,” David added happily, nodding toward the house. “Bring one, bring all, bring whoever you want.”
Epilogue
SERENA
“I still can’t believe how different weddings are down here,” I sighed, flopping onto the bed. “But even more than that, how beautiful that whole thing was.”
Jacob sat down beside me, causing the bed to sink. He began removing his shoes.
“And let’s not forget how beautiful the bride was too,” he smirked.
I reached out and slapped him playfully on the arm. I couldn’t argue, though. As a bride, Mariana had been absolutely breathtaking. And David — handsome in his own right — was very lucky to have her.
“The food was better than the both of them,” Cole declared, rubbing his stomach. His shirt was half unbuttoned, with his perfectly-rippled abs peeking through. Exactly the way I liked it.
“I never knew you could stuff that many different things in an empanada,” he declared.
“Tucumanas,” said Tate.
“Huh?”
“They were called tucumanas,” Tate corrected him. “I think.”
“And what about those fried stuffed potato things?” added Jacob, smacking his lips. “And that one dish with all the corn…”
I closed my eyes for the first time all day, and thought about all the things we’d done. Bolivia was a hundred times more beautiful than I imagined it to be. We’d spent the morning walking the gardens beyond our bungalow, and the afternoon celebrating David’s wedding in the center of the town square. The bride and groom had eventually waved goodbye, and the four of us spent the rest of the evening walking the white-stuccoed streets of Sucre, with their clay-tiled rooftops and beautiful church spires.
And now here we were, with a bottle of wine and the rest of the night ahead of us.
Eleven months.
It had taken David a little longer than he thought to finally tie the knot. But he’d done it for the right reasons: family. Mariana’s grandparents couldn’t make the trip until now, and so they’d postponed their wedding just for them.
I can’t believe it’s been almost a year!
In the span of time between Jacob kissing me in my backyard and making the flight down here together, so many things had happened. Almost every one of them had been wonderful. The guys and I had only grown closer together, our relationship growing more tight-knit and intimate until we were all under the same roof.
And then… changes.
It began with Tate’s uncle, approaching him with staggering news. When he’d told him he’d sold the garage without even consulting him, Tate had been hurt and astonished.
“Did you really want this old place?” his grand-uncle had grunted. “Honestly?”
At first Tate couldn’t answer. The grungy old garage and sales lot had been all he’d known.
“Search your heart, son,” the old man had told him. “This place was my life, my dream. But it’s an anchor, too. It doesn’t have to be yours.”
He’d handed Tate a check — a six figure check — and then laughed gruffly. “You’re going to do your own thing,” the old man told him, “like you always have. Like you’re doing with that girl,” he’d added with a wink.
Tate had tried pushing the check back his way, but the old man had shook his head adamantly.
“I don’t need this,” he’d told him. “I’ve got everything I need with Rae. But you… you have time. Time to start fresh. Time to follow your own dream, not mine.”
As he returned home that night, totally numb, we didn’t know whether to celebrate or mourn. The garage would’ve kept him on if he wanted to stay — that was a stipulation his uncle had seen to. But other than that, it was an all new place with an all new owner. Tate was a relic, there. As young as he was, he was still just a dusty fixture from the previous era.
“Wanna get out of here?”
They were the words that had changed everything. He’d uttered them as we sat around the kitchen table, the four of us together.
“You mean out out?” Jacob had asked.
“Yeah. Someplace new. Someplace… different.”
“Someplace with snow?” I’d asked hopefully.
Cole had chimed in, totally loving the idea. So had Jacob. And that left me… still in my old house. Still working my old job, even with the newer gigs mixed in.
“I’m in,” I’d told them excitedly. “I’m in, if you guys are.”
That was three months ago. In that time, everything had changed. I sold the house — as well as everything in it — and with the upgraded basement actually made a little bit of money. Jacob easily sold his landscaping clients to a competitor, and Cole declared he could do his job no matter where we ended up.
And where we ended up was up north, almost a thousand miles away. Somewhere that had snow in the winter and flowers in the summer. Somewhere beautiful and fun and new and exciting, where there weren’t any ghosts or even a single link to our past lives.
Oh, except for the GTO.
That we took with us, if only because it represented the forging of our union together. The car had brought Tate to me. Tate had brought Cole. Jacob had always been there, and so it felt natural driving the beautiful vehicle halfway across the country to begin a new life with only the money in our bank accounts and the clothes on our backs.
And begin a new life we had.
The best part about it was that no one knew us, and there was nothing to hide from anyone. We reveled in being open in public, and the guys never shied away from kissing or touching me or holding my hand.
It took less than a week to get a job as a photographer’s assistant, in a studio I absolutely adored. Tate took one of the empty bays at a local garage. Cole’s business took off almost immediately; a combination of a big construction boom plus a good carpenter with a wide-open schedule.
Jacob applied at the local sheriff’s office and started right back up landscaping while he waited for the call. There were lawns to be cut in the summer, and snow to be plowed all winter long. In no time he was making money again, and on his off days, helping Cole with his many projects.
We took up renting a small house, for now at least. It gave us enough room to live our lives, but also allowed us to save for a bigger place. Everything would come in time. The guys were sure of it. I was even more sure of it… as long as I was with them.
And God, I loved being with them.
By the time we got the invitation for the wedding, we were well-settled in. We’d flown down a couple of days early, enjoying the Bolivian countryside. We’d flown over the rainforest! Hiked the Maragua crater. We’d shopped the colorful Tarabuco market, until our feet were so sore we couldn’t take another step. And now…
Now we were all sprawled out on a springy soft bed, in a bungalow in the middle of Sucre. Exhausted but deliriously happy.
“Is this one bottle of wine really all we have?”
Cole looked forlorn about our depleted supply, but uncorked the bottle anyway. He began pouring.
“Might want to stay sober if we’re going to outlast her,” Tate said, throwing me a wink.
“And when’s the last time you outlasted me?” I challenged.
“I think it was your birthday,” Jacob pointed out. “Or don’t you remember?”
I smiled defeatedly, my cheeks turning two shades pinker as I recalled the details of that night. The guys had taken me out for a delicious dinner and gotten me pleasantly tipsy. Instead of going home they’d surprised me with a nearby motel room, where they tied my wrists to the bedposts and proceeded to drain themselves into me, over and over again, and I passed out from the delirium of climaxing so much.
