Jude kept his eyes on the road as we made the two-hour drive to the Phoenix airport and I kept mine on the blur of desert going by. We’d accomplished everything we came here to do—his mother was content, the performance was convincing, and we hadn’t collapsed under the weight of our own scar tissue. Better than that, even, we’d healed some of those old wounds.
We were quiet but it wasn’t the thorny silence that’d dominated the front side of this trip. This silence settled around us like the gentle slant of morning sunlight, warm and familiar. It gave me the time to take apart the last few days and put them back together in an order I could understand. I already knew some of it would end up in the Shit That Doesn’t Make Sense and Shouldn’t Have Happened file but I couldn’t help going over it again and again.
I still didn’t know how I wanted to handle all that I’d learned about my parents in the past day. My default response of avoidance wasn’t going to work this time around. If it had ever worked. But it wasn’t like I could call them up and have a calm discussion. They’d insist I was wrong or confused or—better yet—misled by Jude. Oh, they’d love to ride that pony all the way into town. Even if I produced an actual copy of the restraining order, they’d find a way to tell me it wasn’t real.
All I knew was that they’d taken enough from me.
As for the rest, I knew I wasn’t ready to let go yet. Of Jude, of the person I let myself be when I was with him, of this cobbled-together version of us. Of the new and old, and the ways we felt the same but different.
But none of that fit into this arrangement. He was off to Seattle for work and then back to Michigan for his son. I was Boston-bound with Emme’s wedding swallowing up the week to come. This was the precise end we’d agreed upon, it was the closure I’d come looking for—and I couldn’t stop thinking about waking up with him again. Couldn’t stop thinking about all the time we’d lost and the years we’d consigned to being angry and hurt and adrift. And then there was everything I’d given up, everything I’d lost.
It just seemed so fucking unfair.
And where did that leave us? Was it just…over? Was that how it ended this time? Were we supposed to walk away now like the past week hadn’t blown a hole through our history? As if we hadn’t discovered each other all over again?
As we made our way into the airport and through security, I felt it slipping away. This was it. This was where we’d leave each other—and I knew I’d have only myself to blame if I didn’t do something.
We stopped near the departures board. Jude’s flight left about forty-five minutes before mine but we had some time before he was due to board.
He motioned toward the restaurants tucked into the terminal. ‘Hungry?’ he asked.
‘Not too much,’ I said. ‘You?’
He shook his head as he typed on his phone. ‘I’m good. It’s a quick flight up to Seattle.’
I made noises about needing something new to read and he followed me around, still busy with his phone, as I gave nearly every book at the newsstand a thorough inspection. I didn’t choose any of them because I’d only stared blindly at those books while the inside of my head rang with fifteen different alarm bells, all of them blaring Do something! Don’t leave like this!
We wandered into another shop where Jude stopped to look at a display of Arizona-themed keychains. ‘Percy likes keychains,’ he said when he noticed me staring. ‘I grab one for him whenever I’m in a new city. He has at least ten on his backpack and another few on his lunchbox.’
‘That’s cute,’ I said.
‘Wait. Check it out.’ He held up a bejeweled magnet in the shape of a lizard. ‘I think you need a souvenir.’
I recoiled at the thought. ‘I don’t need any help remembering that monster but thanks so much for thinking of me.’
‘Nah. This is going home with you.’
Jude selected a saguaro cactus keychain for Percy and a bottle of cold brew coffee along with the magnet. I left him to pay and ended up staring at an assortment of lollipops with actual scorpions inside them. Absolutely terrifying.
He returned to my side and pulled my bag from my shoulder, pawing at my cases and pouches like they belonged to him. He settled on the small quilted coin purse where I kept my tea bags. His gaze locked on mine, he tucked the lizard between packets of mint, ginger, and chamomile.
‘Promise me you’ll put this on your fridge,’ he said, returning the purse to the depths of my bag. He added a bottle of water and the brand of cinnamon gum I liked. ‘Don’t let me down, Saunders.’
At my silence, he pressed a thumb to my forehead, smoothing out the creases that’d gathered there. It was such a small, intimate touch. One I never would’ve longed for, but now that I’d felt it, I didn’t see how I could live without it. I swallowed hard, choking down the grief that’d soaked me down to my shoes.
The boarding call for Jude’s flight came through. We both turned in the direction of his gate, watching it like we wanted to make sure it was real. That he’d get on that flight and go to Seattle, and I’d go back to Boston, and this would end. We’d be finished, again.
It felt like the ground was gradually giving way beneath me and I reached for the first solid thing I could find. ‘My friend Emme’s wedding is this weekend,’ I started, breathless for no good reason, ‘and it’s in this adorable small town on the Rhode Island coast. Friendship. That’s the name of the town. My other friend Shay, she owns a tulip farm. I think I told you that already. Anyway, she moved there a few years ago when she inherited it and now she hosts events there. Grace, another one of my friends, she got married there last year. Now it’s Emme’s turn and—and you should come. If you want. If you can. I mean, I know you have work and everything but if you can, you should.’ I shifted my bag to the other shoulder, adding, ‘I know Emme won’t mind. It’s a massive wedding and I have a plus-one but there wasn’t anyone I wanted to bring until… If you wanted, you could come. With me.’
He stared off into the terminal for a minute. It was just enough time to replay every desperate, rambling thing I’d said.
Then he cleared his throat and folded me into his arms. I went, a bit stiff and slightly confused. He held me tight until I relaxed into him. ‘I’m tied up all week,’ he said, his lips brushing my ear. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, it’s fine. No. I just thought—since, well, everything. But it’s fine.’
He didn’t argue with this and he didn’t let me go either. The next boarding group was called for his flight but we stayed there, twined together. I didn’t know if he felt everything fall apart too. I was afraid that he didn’t.
‘You killed it this week. You were awesome with my mom. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.’
Finally, he stepped back and shoved his hands in his pockets. I tried to do the same but the ring on my left hand caught on the seam. I stared at the ring for a second but then yanked it off. ‘This is yours,’ I said, the band pinched between my fingers.
A moment passed when he only blinked at the ring, and inside that tiny ounce of time I heard him tell me to keep it. That it belonged to me and should stay on my hand. That he belonged to me. That we were only pretending about pretending now. That we’d finished the fake part and we could be real now.
But as the silence stretched, I knew I’d only hear those words in my head.
With a nod, he plucked the ring from my fingers and dropped it into a pocket. Another boarding announcement for his flight rang out and he tipped his head toward the gate. ‘Get home safe, Saunders.’
I watched him stroll down the terminal and join the people queued up at the gate. He shuffled closer to the door, his phone in hand and his head bowed as he swiped at the screen. I held my breath as he scanned his boarding pass, feeling the sum of this week expanding in my chest like a balloon. I needed something from him—anything—before this ended.
But he stepped through the door and down the jetway without another glance.
I gripped my luggage handle tighter, my palm damp and my joints aching as final boarding calls were announced and the gate door shut.
I stayed there for a long time, staring at that door the same way I’d stared at him all week. Still, I couldn’t find any clues to help me make sense of what we’d become. Of who we were now. And I didn’t think it mattered anymore.
If this was the closure I’d wanted, no one warned me it would hurt like hell.
‘Hey. I think Em’s trying to get your attention.’
I blinked away from the perfect cube of watermelon speared on the end of my fork and toward the young woman seated beside me. One of Emme’s sisters-in-law. I knew her name. We’d met before. A few times. In the past couple of days, even. But my head was somewhere else, and it’d been there since landing in Boston a week ago.
The first few days back had gone about as well as expected, all of which was to say I was barely functional as a human. I was late to everything, responded to texts only in my head, and looked hungover at all times despite keeping to the most basic, flare-proofed diet. I woke up throughout the night, always peering into the darkness as if I’d find him there beside me.
And I was being the worst bridesmaid ever. I’d forgotten about my final dress fitting and then forgot to pick up my dress before leaving for Friendship. Shay gently snatched the bachelorette bar hop away from me when I admitted I hadn’t confirmed the plans—and it didn’t even strike a fragile, perfectionist chord in me.
Even now, seated at this long, gorgeous table in the Twin Tulip rose garden where I was surrounded by some of the best women I knew for Emme’s bridal luncheon, I couldn’t drag my mind away from Arizona. From Jude. From us.
I set the fork down. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t catch that.’
She slung an arm around my shoulders and shifted me toward Emme. ‘Are you okay? You kind of zoned out there,’ she whispered. ‘Your girl’s been trying to grab you for the past few minutes.’
‘Sorry!’ I called, sending Emme a helpless shrug. ‘I’m still strangely jet-lagged. It’s weird, I know. I’m working on it.’
I murmured my thanks to the woman beside me. Her lips twisted as she said, ‘It’s Ruth.’
‘I knew that,’ I said, cringing. ‘I swear, I did. I’m not usually this much of a mess.’
Her answering nod told me none of this was especially believable.
‘We wanted to hear all about this trip,’ Emme said, gesturing to her stepsister Ines on one side of her, Shay to the other. ‘How did I not know anything about this? I need all the details. Jamie told me you went to Arizona?’
I cut a glance to Ruth. She smothered a smile as if she understood the exact dimensions of the corner I’d been backed into. ‘It all came together at the last minute. An old friend needed some help. With a family thing.’
Jamie cackled before slapping a hand over her mouth. ‘Don’t mind me,’ she said.
Emme leaned in, her elbows braced on the white tablecloth and her chin cradled in her clasped fingers. ‘What kind of help?’
I went back to my watermelon. ‘Well.’
The truth—the entirety of it—was a complicated thing. I knew there were pieces this group would understand since they had some experience with relationships that started under curious circumstances. But there were also pieces that felt like artifacts from another lifetime, too fine and fragile to expose to sunlight.
I felt the heat of everyone’s attention on my face. If I didn’t say something soon, I’d have to clutch my belly and dash for the house, claiming an irritable bowel situation. No one ever asked follow-up questions about those issues.
‘An old friend,’ I started, ‘his mom, who I’d adored back when we were in high school, was diagnosed with advanced stage breast cancer.’
‘Oh my god,’ Emme said, sympathy quickly taking the place of her curiosity. ‘Oh, Audrey, I’m so sorry to hear that.’
‘She was really going through it,’ I went on. ‘And she asked my friend—Jude, his name’s Jude—to promise that he’d find someone. That he’d settle down after she was gone. He was distraught, obviously, and told his mom that he was planning on proposing very soon.’
Emme uncorked another bottle of champagne, saying, ‘I think I know where this is going.’
‘Me too,’ Shay murmured.
‘Yeah, so, I went out to Arizona with him last week to visit his mom,’ I said, ‘as his fiancée.’
The table was silent for a long moment while everyone shared sidelong glances. Then, Ruth asked, ‘Is there going to be a wedding? Or are you expecting the mother to die before it gets to that point?’
‘Ruthie!’ one of her sisters cried. Chloe. Maybe Amber? In my defense, they looked a lot alike.
‘It’s a valid question given the setup, Amber,’ Ruth said.
Then the other one was Chloe. Okay. This was good. Progress. I only had one other sister to identify. I wasn’t completely failing as a bridesmaid.
‘It’s a rude question,’ Amber seethed.
Chloe nodded in agreement. Ruth made a low, irritable sound. Kind of like a jammed spice grinder.
‘Well, fortunately for all involved,’ I started, ‘Jude’s mom made an incredible recovery. She’ll still need close monitoring and frequent scans, but she’s not going anywhere soon.’
‘Then it’s the wedding route?’ Ruth asked.
I started to answer but stopped myself. It would’ve been easier to condense this into a bite-sized story if that week with Jude hadn’t broken me open. This wasn’t just a favor and it wasn’t just a trip to Arizona and he wasn’t just an old friend. It was a week I’d borrowed from another alternate lifetime and I still didn’t know how to fold myself back into this lifetime without giving up everything I’d shoved into my pockets along the way.
‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘Next month, he’ll tell her we decided to call it off.’
‘I don’t know,’ Grace said. ‘If I was dying and my kid told me he was getting married but then broke it off a month later, I’d call him on that shit. I’d play Sick Mommy until he confessed to his crimes.’
‘That’s because you’re actually an evil stepmother,’ Jamie said. ‘You just don’t have any stepchildren to torment.’
‘I’m sure I could find some,’ Grace said.
‘Am I correct in my understanding that this is a non-romantic friend?’ Ines asked. ‘Or does friend imply something else in this context?’
I swallowed hard. My throat was tight, sticky. ‘You could say we have a bit of a romantic history.’
From across the table, Jamie mouthed, Just a bit?
‘Then it’s possible that this construct was conceived to rekindle that romantic history,’ Ines went on.
‘Probably not,’ I said, reaching for my water.
‘But there’s a chance,’ Ines said.
I drained the glass as another pang of emptiness hit my chest. ‘That wasn’t how we left things last week.’
‘You’re still riding the newlywed high, Mrs. Jones,’ Emme said, bringing a hand to her stepsister’s forearm. ‘Not everyone is looking to get paired off.’ She smiled in my direction though it could’ve been a wince. ‘I hope you’re okay. It sounds complicated.’
‘Very complicated,’ I said. ‘But I’m fine. Just fighting this jet lag. I guess it hits a lot harder at thirty-five.’
The lookalike sisters offered their own jet lag stories. Beside me, Ruth rolled her eyes out loud. When I glanced at her, she said, ‘I’m just being petty. Ignore me. Everyone else does.’
‘You can be petty with me all you want if you remind me of your younger sister’s name.’
She ran a glance over me, her brows pinched like she’d only now discovered I was a human woman and not a woody stalk of asparagus in a sundress as she’d originally believed. ‘Claudia,’ she said. ‘You’re diving into this thing without a plus-one, then? Are we the only ones?’
I folded my arms over my abdomen to muffle the grumbles coming from my belly. ‘Jamie’s my date,’ I said, tipping my chin toward her.
‘But we’re big fans of threesomes so you can vibe with us this weekend,’ Jamie said.
‘She doesn’t mean—’
Jamie cut me off with, ‘Yes, she does.’
Ruth glanced between us, her tight expression flickering through at least four different emotions while Jamie fluttered her lashes with her most feline grin. ‘Okay, I don’t know what I just stepped in here but let me say you’re both beautiful and much less full of yourselves than I expected. Very unfortunately, I do prefer the male apparatus. Believe me, there’s no one less impressed with that fact than me. And not for lack of exploration, right? I went to college on a rugby scholarship. My best friends are all over the rainbow. Nothing but love and respect from me.’
‘It really is unfortunate,’ Jamie said with a groan. ‘I wish I didn’t enjoy dicks so much. They always come attached to the most insufferable creatures.’
‘Every fucking time,’ Ruth murmured. ‘It’s really becoming a problem. I don’t like men. I can’t trust most of them. Barely respect them. Until they get their house in order, I’ll be abstaining.’
I wanted to agree with the sentiment but recent history wouldn’t allow it. Not when I could still feel his hands trailing over my body, his growls kissed into my skin. I must’ve made some kind of noise because I blinked and found both of them gaping at me. ‘What?’ I asked as heat filled my cheeks.
Jamie leaned in close. Ruth did the same. ‘It sounds like you left a few details out of your report,’ Jamie said. ‘We’ll be getting to the bottom of that later.’
‘Yeah, I need to hear this,’ Ruth said. ‘You’re a sweetheart but you have no poker face to speak of. You’d fold like a lawn chair in a deposition.’
I glared at them though the corner of my mouth betrayed me with a twitch. ‘It’s not fair that you’re joining forces to bully me.’
‘Baby, I’m on a no-drinks, no-dick diet this weekend,’ Jamie said. ‘All I have keeping me going is my tenderhearted brand of bullying.’
‘My brand doesn’t prioritize tenderness or hearts,’ Ruth said. ‘Sorry. I’m just trying to avoid my sisters because I might actually murder them if they make one more comment about how sad it is that I don’t have a date.’
Jamie reached across the table and patted her hand. ‘Something tells me you have plenty of heart,’ Jamie said. ‘Just in your own way.’
Laughing, Ruth said, ‘That’s not what everyone else says.’
‘We don’t give a fuck about everyone else,’ I said.
Again, Ruth and Jamie shared a glance—and then burst out laughing. I smiled and for the first time all week, it didn’t feel like I was dragging a boulder uphill.
‘Okay, wait a minute. No, wait,’ Jamie said from the far end of my bed, her head resting on a collection of lacy throw pillows. The house at Twin Tulip farms was nothing if not ornate. ‘I don’t believe this.’
‘Neither do I,’ Ruth said from beside me, an afghan wrapped around her shoulders. For a July night, there was a surprising chill in the air. ‘There’s gotta be more to it.’
‘Which part?’ I asked, sifting through the container of ginger cookies I’d baked specifically for late-night nibbles this weekend. I always kept my own baked goods around in case my gut started acting up. It was why I’d started baking in the first place, back when my body seemed to reject everything I ate. That, and it annoyed the hell out of my ex when I made a mess in the kitchen.
‘You basically put a saddle on that boy and rode him until the break of dawn,’ Jamie said.
‘That paints a picture,’ Ruth murmured.
‘And you share all these painful secrets you’ve both been carrying around for years,’ Jamie went on. ‘And then it’s over. You high-five at the airport—’
‘There were no high-fives,’ I said, passing the cookies to Ruth.
‘—and leave all those good bed feels behind like it was your basic summer camp bangathon.’
‘What the hell kind of summer camp did you go to?’ Ruth asked her.
‘The point is,’ Jamie continued, ‘you had the big emotional moments and the unhinged sex—’
‘I never said anything about it being unhinged.’
She shot me a flat stare. ‘Well, your face said it was unhinged and I’m going to trust that a lot more than I’m going to trust the maidenly version of events you fed us.’
‘These are really good,’ Ruth said, holding up half a cookie.
‘Thank you. Baking makes me happy. It helps me unwind,’ I said. ‘I’ll make you some next week. Cinnamon buns too.’
‘Her buns will change your life,’ Jamie said.
She peered at Jamie. ‘Are you talking about actual cinnamon buns or is that a reference to something else?’
‘You’ll get used to her,’ I said to Ruth. ‘Actual buns. I make my own dough.’
‘Yeah, you do,’ Jamie howled.
I shrugged. ‘See what I mean?’
‘We have to stay on track here,’ Jamie said, nudging Ruth’s leg. ‘No more buns. Not unless they’re your hot fiancé’s buns.’
‘Hold that thought. Do you have pics of this guy? I need a visual,’ Ruth said.
Jamie sprang up, the pillows scattering to the floor. ‘We definitely need photos.’
I reached for my phone. Not that I’d spent the past week stalking Janet’s social media accounts or anything but I did know she’d posted a few photos from the engagement party. I’d saved a screenshot but that was only because I didn’t want to accidentally like the post. God forbid I stumbled into a situation where Janet wanted to follow me on social media or we ended up chatting in DMs. Just thinking long-range.
I handed over my phone, saying, ‘Have at him, you little hyenas.’
‘Oh shiiiiiit.’ Ruth motioned to the screen. ‘That’s not a man, that’s a pile of bricks.’
‘Who needs an ox when you can have this boy plowing your fields?’ Jamie dissolved into giggles.
Ruth zoomed in on where his palm rested on the curve of my hip, his fingers spread out to cover a wide territory. ‘Would you look at that hand? It’s like a baseball mitt.’
‘Another inch and he’d be knocking on your front door,’ Jamie said.
‘He doesn’t bother with places as trivial as gyms,’ Ruth said. ‘Not when he could walk into any parking lot and lift cars instead.’
‘Protein eats him,’ Jamie said, still giggling. ‘He looks like he could pick you up with two fingers.’
‘He looks like the kind of guy who could walk into a bar fight and end the whole thing with one punch,’ Ruth said.
‘He looks like the kind of guy who would take on a bear just for the challenge of it,’ Jamie said.
‘He looks like the kind of guy who doesn’t have a bed frame because he breaks all of them without even trying,’ Ruth said.
‘He looks like the kind of guy who has reason to believe it might not fit,’ Jamie said. ‘Honestly, honey, I’m impressed. I bet he’s more than a handful.’
She mimed struggling to wrap her hand around a certain object. Ruth swatted her shoulder and they both fell over laughing again. A beat passed and I couldn’t hold back anymore. I laughed too.
‘He’s looked like that since he was sixteen,’ I said. ‘More or less.’
‘Okay, now you’re just bragging,’ Jamie said. ‘We get it. The goddesses have chosen you as their favorite.’ She zoomed in on a few different angles. ‘How did he not split you like a snap pea the first time around?’
Ruth pressed both hands to her eyes. ‘I will never recover from that mental image.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t remember it being bad.’ Very much the opposite but I wasn’t getting into those details right now. ‘It was his first time too. Maybe that was part of it.’
‘Color me surprised that he’s a caring, gentle lover.’ Jamie sniffed. ‘Until it’s time to crack the headboard.’
‘Explain to me one more time why you’re eating cookies in bed with us,’ Ruth said, ‘and not with the guy you obviously love very much?’
I exhaled a sad laugh. ‘Because that’s never how it goes for us.’
Read In a Second (Friendship, RI Book 3) By Kate Canterbary Chapter 40 –
Today’s vocabulary word: embolden
‘This place holds a deeply significant spot in my heart,’ Shay said over the 90s rock music bleeding into the parking lot. ‘The floors are sticky, the decor is not worth attempting to understand, and the drinks are inconsistent. But it’s very special.’
I glanced at the low-slung building with Woodchucker’s in lights across the front—but Billy’s on the door. All part of the charm, I was sure.
Emme, clad in a short, sparkly veil, belted out a laugh. ‘Am I allowed to ask why it’s special? Or will I figure it out when we’re inside?’
This was the third and final spot on the bachelorette bar hop. We’d all piled into a small party bus after the welcome celebration wrapped and hit the town. Or as much as anyone could hit this small, coastal town where almost everything was closed by ten.
‘You get to throw axes the night before your wedding,’ Shay said.
‘Say less,’ Emme said.
‘Not that I’m expecting anything bad to happen but I know for a fact that the boys could be here in less than twenty minutes if needed,’ Shay said.
‘It sounds like there’s a story in there somewhere,’ Grace said.
Shay beamed as she held the door open. ‘Oh, there is.’
‘It’s fun that y’all decided to wear heels tonight even though you’re both eleven feet tall,’ Jamie said, swinging a glance between me and Ruth. ‘I look like an American Girl doll next to you two.’
‘Yeah, it’s such a tragedy that you’re petite and adorable,’ Ruth said to her.
‘You’re adorable too.’ When Ruth only rolled her eyes, Jamie added, ‘Shut up and look at you! You’re gorgeous. Like, when did the Hunters of Artemis pull up? Let’s talk about that hair. I know the color’s natural and I take offense to that because every time I ask my stylist for it, I come out looking like the burned bottom of a muffin. My god, those lips. Do you know how much people pay to get lips like yours? A lot. And this figure? Girl, please. Don’t know if you’ve heard but strong is sexy as fuck.’
Ruth waved her off. ‘You’re just being nice.’
‘Jamie is not actually nice,’ I said. ‘She’s kind, which is very different from nice. She doesn’t bullshit and she won’t say it if she doesn’t mean it.’
Nodding, Jamie added, ‘I know men who’d cry for the privilege of licking your toes.’
‘I—I don’t think I want that,’ she said. ‘But thank you? I guess?’
‘Anytime, babycakes.’ Jamie hooked her elbows with me and Ruth, following our group inside. ‘You’re gorgeous too, my dancing queen.’
‘Thank you, sweetie.’ I patted her hand. ‘We should start making plans to buy tiny houses next to each other when we retire. Where should we go?’
‘My bones need heat.’ She clutched her jean jacket to her chest and faked a shiver. ‘Bring me back to my true love, the sun.’
‘We could be like Janet and Rita.’ After we polished off the cookies, we’d talked about Jude’s mom and the life she’d made for herself as she recovered. I was disappointed I wouldn’t be going back there. ‘Accidentally high on X all the time, making mosaic art, and dating the neighbor dudes.’
‘It doesn’t sound terrible,’ she said.
Ruth grabbed drinks for us—for whatever reason, bartenders always paid attention to her—and we settled around a high-top table near the axe-throwing lanes. Ruth’s sisters Chloe and Amber had already started a round and appeared frighteningly good at it too.
When we glanced at Ruth in question, she said, ‘We grew up chopping wood. New Hampshire, you know? And they have a lot of unprocessed rage.’
‘Don’t we all?’ Jamie drawled as she fished a cherry out of her ginger ale.
As with our previous bar hops, we’d arranged our phones on the tabletop. Jamie for her dad. Ruth for work purposes. She was a corporate attorney and, according to her, never off the clock. I had the least compelling reason: waiting on a boy who wasn’t waiting on me anymore.
I tapped a finger to Jamie’s phone. ‘How’s your dad doing?’
She pursed her lips around the straw. ‘You mean how’s he dealing with not being allowed to shower unless someone’s there in case he falls? Or with the diabetes dietitian who won’t let him eat a pound of peanut M&Ms before bed? Or the part where he wants a detailed itinerary of what I’m doing and where I’m going every day along with a list of phone numbers in case he needs to reach me?’
‘Doesn’t he have your cell phone number?’ Ruth asked.
‘He finds this inadequate,’ she said.
‘How are you doing with all this?’ I asked.
‘About the same but I’m sure I’ll get over it. I just have too much time to obsess right now.’ Her shoulders lifted. ‘My therapist thinks I have some inner child work to do if I’m feeling this much friction about moving back home.’
‘Maybe I need some inner child work too because I’d sign on as legal counsel to the mafia before I moved back home,’ Ruth said.
‘Is your therapist offering a group rate for this? Because I could use some of that too,’ I said.
‘You’re saying throuples therapy is cool but a friendly little threesome is not? Rude.’ Jamie rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll ask next week.’
‘Check these two out,’ Ruth said.
Chloe and Amber finished their set and now Emme and Ines were locked in a battle of their own. No one was keeping score, and even if they did, it would be tied at zero-zero since they couldn’t stop laughing long enough to put anything into their throws.
But the trash talk was pristine.
‘You couldn’t hit the broad side of a bus with that aim,’ Ines called.
‘I know you like to be the best but you don’t have to work so hard at missing every bull’s-eye,’ Emme called back.
‘Sounds like something you’d say to your husband after a bad game,’ her stepsister said.
‘I just hope your husband knows how to find the target better than you do,’ Emme replied.
‘You throw like you have five percent battery life,’ Ines said.
Jamie snorted into her ginger ale. ‘These two have the jokes tonight. Whew. Remind me to hydrate them before tucking them into bed.’
My phone buzzed across the table, clattering into the other phones as Emme and Ines kept on with the insults. I reared back when I saw the notification.
Jude: can you give me a call?
Jude: sometime tonight, if possible
‘What? What’s wrong?’ Jamie asked.
I pointed to my phone. ‘Jude. He texted me.’
Ruth rolled her hand. ‘And what did this text say?’
‘He wants to know if I’ll call him,’ I said.
‘The answer is yes,’ Ruth said.
I blinked at her. ‘Is it?’
Jamie hopped off her stool and pointed to the door. ‘Outside, children. We’re not calling your fella from the middle of a bar with yet another Oasis song blasting in the background and the bride snort-giggling like a piglet over there.’
‘But what do I say?’ I asked as they herded me to the exit.
‘Let’s find out what he wants before we throw ourselves into the deep end,’ Jamie said. ‘There’s nothing wrong with putting a man on hold for a few minutes.’
‘Huh,’ Ruth murmured as we stepped into the damp evening air. ‘Never thought of that.’
‘I’ll explain the deep magic to you later,’ Jamie said. ‘Right now, we need to get Audrey’s fiancé on the phone—’
‘He’s not my fiancé,’ I said.
‘—and find out when he’s coming to collect his future wife.’
‘I really don’t think that’s how it’s going to go,’ I said.
‘Call him and find out,’ Ruth said, stomping a foot on the gravel with each word.
I sucked in a huge breath as I stared at his contact on my screen. Before I could talk myself out of it, I placed the call. He answered immediately.
‘Hey, there you are,’ he said, those quiet, raspy words sliding around me like an old familiar blanket.
I wanted to stay there forever. Right inside that warm, gentle There you are. In the place where I knew who I was. Here I am.
‘I, uh—’ He paused. ‘How are you? Did you get back all right?’
‘Yeah, everything went fine.’ Even to my ear, my tone was crisp. I knew he heard it because he heard everything. ‘How are you? How’s Seattle?’
‘It’s been a busy week. Flat-out, all day, every day,’ he said, a thin apology buried somewhere in there. ‘Percy was pissed because I nodded off in the middle of reading a story over a video call a few nights ago.’
I breathed out a laugh. ‘Understandable.’
‘I realized the other day that I never got to talk to you about his school stuff,’ Jude said. ‘I don’t know if you remember but—’
‘I remember.’ I paced away from the bar as I stared up at the night sky. Tons of stars out here without the city lights. ‘I think I tried to convince you I was sober. Not sure why I thought that was a good idea.’
‘Yeah, it was amusing,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to figure out what would be best for him. I figured you’d have some insider knowledge.’
Jamie snapped her fingers, urgently gesturing for me to come back toward her and Ruth. I held up a hand, stayed where I was. ‘Maybe, yeah. I’m not an expert on special education but I could talk it through with you if that helps.’
‘I’d like that.’
He was quiet for a long moment that reminded me of driving through the night from the Salt Lake airport to—wherever it was we ended up. Back when we didn’t know how to talk to each other and everything we did was wrong. I didn’t know how we’d wound up back in that thicket again.
Before I could offer to call him sometime next week, after the wedding and the day or two I’d need to physically and mentally recover from all its events, he said, ‘About your friend’s wedding.’
I glanced back to Jamie and Ruth. They made several frantic gestures I couldn’t interpret. ‘What about it?’
‘Are you still looking for a date?’
I staggered back a step and heard Jamie cry, ‘Oh my god, she’s going to faint.’
I waved her off, saying to Jude, ‘Why do you ask?’
He made a noise, something that lived on the spectrum between a growl and a groan. ‘Because I’m leaving on a red-eye flight to Boston in two hours, Saunders, and it would really help if I knew where to find you when I land.’
Read In a Second (Friendship, RI Book 3) By Kate Canterbary Chapter 41 –
Today’s vocabulary word: energy
I knew I’d fucked up.
I’d known it the minute I walked away from Audrey in Phoenix and every single minute after that until I booked the flight to Boston.
There was no defending it either. I got lost in my head, in all the immovable pieces of my life. In Percy and Brenda, my mother and my work. Not to mention Audrey’s fucking family and the shit they liked to stir up.
I couldn’t believe it took me so long to figure out that I needed to be at this wedding with her. I spent the entire week with a tension headache and a knot in my stomach, and it wasn’t until I let myself think about her for more than a second that I realized I’d fucked up.
Boarding that red-eye flight was the only solution, even if it did create a few problems. Greatest and highest being that I hadn’t packed a decent suit for my week in Seattle. I didn’t have much use for anything like that when I spent most of my days between labs and conference rooms. But there was no way in hell I could show up to this wedding looking like I’d just finished tearing apart a transmission.
It took a few hours of running around Boston but I got myself in order before making the drive to Rhode Island. Mom called while I was on the road and she just about blew out the windows screaming with delight over my last-minute plan to attend the wedding with Audrey.
‘It’s nice to see that I did raise you right after all,’ she said. ‘I just hate that you two spend so much time apart. It can’t be much fun.’
She said fun in a waggled eyebrow way that I chose to ignore.
‘Have you made any decisions about where you’ll settle down together?’ she asked. ‘It sounded to me like Audrey’s pretty happy in Boston.’
Every time I thought I’d reached the end of the lies, another gate opened up and a whole new road extended out into the horizon. A perpetuating pain I’d inflicted upon myself. ‘We’re still figuring that out.’
‘I know couples today are very…innovative with their lifestyles,’ she said. ‘And you know I’ll support you regardless, but I just want things to be easy for you. For once.’
‘I know, and it will be. Eventually.’ Another lie, probably.
She was quiet for a moment and I felt the energy shift. ‘Have you thought about growing your family at all? Giving Percy a brother or sister?’
A sound came out of me, something startled but also immediately defensive. ‘We’re not having this conversation, Mom.’
‘I’m just wondering if Audrey’s said anything about wanting children of her own.’
This—and a few other things—was why I’d spent the week stuck in my own mental hamster wheel. My kid consumed a solid seventy percent of my life right now, if not more. It was different when he was with Brenda for the summer, but during the school year, Percy ran my life. It was hard and exhausting, but I loved my son and the family we made together. I couldn’t give him any less than that.
And I had no idea how to present any of that to Audrey. I didn’t know how to carve out space for her in that world and I didn’t trust that I could be everything she needed while also being everything Percy needed.
Even if I asked Audrey to move in with us tomorrow—which was far from the most ridiculous thing I’d considered in the past seven days—I didn’t know if she wanted to be in a relationship with someone who had a young kid. Maybe she’d foreclosed herself to all variety of parenting after the hell she’d been through. Maybe it would screw with her mental health to put herself in any kind of adoptive mom role. And none of that touched on the possibility that she wouldn’t want anything to do with the present state of my custody issues.
All I knew was that it was messy on every side.
Another thing I knew was that I’d handled this all wrong. I had a lot of unfucking to do here, and not just from the last week.
‘Let’s keep the wedding on the agenda and save the future children item for another meeting,’ I said.
‘I’m just hoping you don’t have to travel too much while you’re newlyweds,’ she said. ‘You’ve been apart so much while dating and engaged. I don’t understand how you do it. I’d be so lonely.’
I had to rub a hand over my chest to ease the ache there. ‘It’s been tough,’ I said. Not a lie. ‘But we’re working on it.’
‘Good. That’s what I like to hear.’ Her sandals slapped on the Saltillo tile as she walked through the house. ‘Just so you know, my PET scan came back this morning. Clean as a whistle.’
‘Excellent news,’ I said. One more weight off my shoulders. ‘I guess you were right about the healing energy there in Sedona.’
‘That helps,’ she said, ‘but I think it’s mostly sunshine and weed keepin’ me going these days.’
I didn’t advertise this fact but Audrey was the only woman I’d ever dated, as far as strict definitions of dating went. I’d spent the first semester of my university experience in shock after everything went to hell with us and I couldn’t stomach the idea of being close to another person in any way, at all. I didn’t recognize it as shock then but that was what happened. Like that static-y silence after an explosion.
Eventually, I got back out there but in the douchiest way possible. I was that asshole who’d make it clear from the start that it was just sex. No sleepovers. No repeat visits. Definitely no follow-up messages asking if I wanted to hang out in a few weeks. Certainly no feelings.
That worked for me until I met Penny. I mean, it kept working for about ten months after meeting Penny but then my entire world flopped on its side.
Once Percy entered the picture, making time for casual sex dropped to the bottom of my priority list. It wasn’t just the surprise fatherhood but the impact of losing Penny, Percy’s injuries, my mom’s diagnosis, Brenda’s insistence on split custody—the hits came hard and fast.
And honestly, I was a little gun-shy. I’d used a condom with Penny. She’d said she was on the pill. I didn’t want to roll the dice on another statistical improbability.
Which wasn’t to say I was a monk but I didn’t get much time for those kinds of recreational activities. Another thing I didn’t have time for? Going to weddings. Most of my friends were gearheads or pilots, and they all seemed to elope or have small, backyard weddings. Since I didn’t date, this was basically my first formal wedding.
If we didn’t count Audrey’s.
I didn’t know what I was in for but after going through four security checkpoints and then being led to a golf cart for a ten-minute drive through a literal cow pasture, I realized this wedding was going to be quite the initiation.
The guy driving the cart, the crew-cut, brick-wall sort, parked along the side of a narrow road and escorted me down a winding driveway toward a large, old Victorian home. He handed me off to another security guard, one who looked me over before saying into his headset, ‘Inform the bride that her guest has arrived.’
‘Oh, no, don’t bother her,’ I said, waving him off. ‘No, not the bride. One of the bridesmaids. Audrey. Audrey’s mine. I’m not here for the bride.’
‘Pardon me, sir, but we’re all here for the bride.’ He went on staring at me, completely stone-faced. ‘Mrs. Ralston personally added you to the VIP list.’
‘Mrs. Ralston,’ I repeated. I glanced at the buzz of activity around me, rocking back on my heels when I spotted a massive portrait of a lovely dark-haired woman and the most decorated quarterback of this generation. ‘Yes. Mrs. Ralston. Of course.’
Holy shit. I guess it was a good thing I’d snagged a new suit.
The security guard motioned to the stone path leading to the front steps of the Victorian. ‘Wait here.’
Before I could even thank him, the woman from the photo spilled out of the doorway, three women scrambling behind her to hold the long train of her dress. ‘Well, hello there,’ she said, her hands on her hips. ‘You must be the fiancé.’
‘Oh my god, Emme, keep that to yourself.’ From somewhere behind the mass of white fluff, Audrey appeared. She wore the same blue dress as the other bridesmaids, her hair gathered back in a pretty bun. Her cheeks were pink and she kept her eyes low, but she bounded down those stairs and right into my arms. ‘You came,’ she said against my neck.
‘You asked.’ I let myself breathe her in, to feel every spot where she pressed against me. ‘It just took me a few days to figure it out.’
‘Let’s not do that anymore.’
I dropped a kiss on her lips. ‘Agreed.’
‘This is really fucking adorable and all,’ one of the women shouted, ‘but we don’t have time to redo your makeup.’
‘Or hair,’ another said.
‘But we do have the steamer ready to go if those big paws of his wrinkle your dress,’ yet another maid called.
‘Don’t get me in trouble,’ Audrey whispered.
I shot a glance over her shoulder to the women watching from the porch. ‘Hey, so, you didn’t tell me this was Ryan Ralston’s wedding.’
‘It’s not. It’s Emme’s wedding,’ she said. ‘He happens to be here too.’
‘A little warning would’ve been nice,’ I said, my lips on her cheek. ‘I’ve been to classified meetings with the federal government that had less security than this place.’
She smoothed her hands down my lapels. ‘But you’re here now.’
I tucked a loose strand of hair over her ear. ‘Sorry it took so long.’
She shrugged this off. I knew she would, even if I didn’t deserve it. She just didn’t know how to let herself be someone’s problem. ‘It’s okay but—’ She tipped her head toward the bridal party. ‘I should probably get back.’
‘But first.’ Another kiss, light enough to keep all the makeup intact. ‘You look amazing. Do you know that?’
She shrugged, shook her head, glanced away. ‘I’ve worn this dress a few times now. It’s fine. Nothing amazing.’
‘It’s not the dress,’ I said. ‘It’s you.’ I looped an arm around her waist, pulled her in close. ‘Do I get to keep you after this ceremony? Or are you still on duty?’
‘We’re definitely gonna need that steamer,’ a bridesmaid muttered.
‘I have some time once we’re finished with photos,’ she said, a sweet little grin brightening her face.
‘You didn’t answer my question. Do I get to keep you?’
She rolled her lips together as the pink of her cheeks deepened. ‘We’ll talk about that later.’
‘Um, excuse me? Fiancé? I truly, honestly, sincerely hate to be the one to break up this outpouring of love and sexual tension but I will need my darling Audrey back if I’m going to get married this afternoon.’
I closed my arms around Audrey, held her tight to my chest. ‘Apologies,’ I said to Emme. ‘Congratulations, by the way.’
‘You might not be saying that when the boys are done with you,’ she replied.
Before I could ask for an explanation on that, Emme retreated into the house. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Hmm? Oh. Nothing. Just Emme’s sense of humor,’ Audrey said. She patted my lapels. ‘I’ll see you later.’
I brushed a quick kiss to her lips and watched as she disappeared inside the Victorian with all the other women in blue dresses. I stayed there, staring at the generous wraparound porch and the people bustling in and out of the house. Everyone had a purpose, a part to play in this production.
It felt good to be here. Like I was finally doing something right.
Behind me, a throat cleared. I didn’t think anything of it until the throat repeated itself, and then, ‘Hello. Hi! I take it you’re here with Audrey?’
I turned around to find a white guy about my age with a beer bottle in hand and a goofy grin on his face. Tallish, broadish, dark hair with one helluva ‘stache. ‘Yeah. Hey. I’m Jude.’
‘Jude! Good to meet you, man.’ He said this like he was already my best friend. I couldn’t fight off the twitch of a smile. ‘I’m Ben. Grace’s husband.’
‘Grace,’ I repeated. ‘She’s…one of the teachers. Right? Third grade?’
‘In on the first shot,’ he shouted, clapping me on the back.
It dawned on me that, for the first time, I was in Audrey’s ecosystem. These were her people, her friends and their partners, and this was the world she’d built for herself. I should’ve noticed that a few minutes ago when they’d been right there but I hadn’t been able to focus on anyone but Audrey.
Fuck. I had to get this right.
Ben pointed his beer toward a few men standing about twenty feet away, near the garden. Rather, one of the many gardens. ‘I’ll introduce you to our squad.’
I followed him down a stone path, murmuring in agreement as he chattered about the weather or something like that. The words group chat came up several times and I wasn’t sure what I’d agreed to but I rattled off my number to him regardless.
‘The man of the hour,’ Ben said, motioning to one of the all-time greatest players of college and pro football as if his face wasn’t on half the billboards in Boston. ‘Ryan Ralston, sir, allow me to introduce you to Jude, the lovely Miss Audrey’s companion for the weekend.’
I’d admit it. I was starstruck. I wasn’t obsessive about sports but this guy was a big fucking deal. I managed to clasp his hand, saying, ‘Congratulations. Thanks for having me here to celebrate with you and Emme.’
‘Happy to have you,’ he said easily. ‘Emme was very excited when she heard you could make it.’
‘This here is Noah Barden.’ Ben made a sweeping gesture toward a thick, burly man who seemed to smile about as much as I did. ‘He and his wife own this farm and the one up the hill that way.’
‘That’s Shay?’ I asked. ‘The kindergarten teacher?’
‘My wife used to teach kindergarten.’ He gave my hand a firm shake. ‘She’s moved up to first grade now.’
‘Yeah, right, I heard about that.’ I didn’t remember that specific detail but I hadn’t spent much time asking Audrey about—well, anything. Most of the time we’d spent together I’d wasted it on empty silences. I could’ve drowned myself in every tiny detail of her life but instead I’d wanted to prove points. To grab hold of my anger and frustration, and grip them in my fist like shards of glass. And look who had to deal with those consequences now.
‘And we’ve got Jakobi Jones,’ Ben said, motioning to the other man.
‘Hey. How’s it going?’ he asked, holding out his hand. ‘I’m Ines’s husband.’
Ines? I shook his hand a beat longer than necessary as I tried to remember Audrey mentioning someone named Ines. Shit. I had nothing on Ines. ‘Does she teach with Audrey?’
Jakobi laughed to himself as he ran a hand over the back of his neck. ‘No, she’s in engineering.’
‘Which field? I’m in aeronautics,’ I said. ‘Propulsion testing and development.’
‘Then she’d love to talk to you about that. She’s in robotics,’ he replied, just as Noah said, ‘It’s interesting how I’ve known Audrey for years and she visits our home at least once a month and somehow, the past eighteen hours is the first we’ve heard of you.’
Ben made a trombone sound that my son would’ve found endlessly amusing while Jakobi read every word on the label of his beer bottle.
Ah. This was what Emme had meant.
I dipped my hands into my pockets and went with the truth. ‘That’s probably because, until recently, the last time we talked was about twelve years ago when she was about to marry a rageaholic dickhead who deserves to be neutered with a rusty screwdriver.’
‘Mmm. Yeah, I can see how that might not come up in conversation,’ Ryan said.
‘I’ve known Audrey since we were fifteen,’ I went on. ‘We go back a long way.’
‘And where is it you’re going now?’ Noah asked.
Goddamn. This guy knew how to turn up the heat. ‘We’re still figuring that out,’ I said.
Ben, my only friend in the world at this moment, slung an arm over my shoulder. ‘I know all about that but let me tell you, we’ll send you packing if you give that sweet lady any grief.’
Noah eyed me like he wouldn’t mind backing over me with his car. ‘My wife loves Audrey like a sister, which makes her family. I wouldn’t want to see her hurt in any way.’
‘Especially knowing that she’s already been through enough with the ex,’ Ryan added, a brow winging up in warning. I could see how he scared the shit out of his opponents.
Jakobi merely made eye contact and tipped his chin up, which I took to mean no one would ever find my body.
I studied these men for a moment, the other halves of Audrey’s chosen people. And I was fucking thrilled that they loved her enough to put me on notice right from the start.
A laugh stuttered out of me and I patted my chest, saying, ‘Fuck, I really appreciate how willing you guys are to beat the shit out of me.’
‘Nah, we wouldn’t do that,’ Ben said before Noah and Ryan chorused, ‘Yeah, we would.’
I coughed out another laugh. ‘Knock me around if you want but you should know how relieved I am that Saunders has a whole bench of big brothers backing her up. I’ve been so stressed about her being on her own all this time.’
Noah stared at me for a heavy moment. Then, instead of suggesting he feed me into a wood chipper before the ceremony, he said, ‘Welcome to Friendship. Don’t fuck this up.’
Today’s vocabulary word: impermanence
I tried to sit in the back row. Ben wouldn’t hear of it. He marched me to the second row, right behind the bride’s family. I had Noah and Ben on either side of me, and without a single inch of breathing room to figure out how to not fuck this up.
The trouble was, I didn’t know how to do that. Not when I had no idea what came next for us. It wasn’t a simple matter of what I wanted, what she wanted. We lived hundreds of miles apart. An eight-hour drive on a good day. There was a kid involved, not to mention his mother’s family.
And then there was me and all the things I’d kept buttoned up and under control for so long that I barely remembered what I had hiding in there anymore. But it was all starting to crumble and I didn’t know what would happen when it finally fell apart.
The truth was, Audrey wasn’t the start of this great inner crumbling. It stretched all the way back to finding out about Percy and the chaos that followed. Audrey was the fine-point pickaxe, here to chisel away those last pieces of stubborn concrete I’d forced into the seams. I just had to let her.
I watched as Audrey walked down the aisle, her gaze flitting to mine but then quickly away. She smiled like she couldn’t help it, and I loved that. There was the Audrey I knew. That one right there, she was all mine.
I fixed my attention on her instead of the ceremony. I knew she noticed because she caught my eye several times before turning a pointed stare toward the happy couple. There were those good girl manners again.
Eventually, she gave up on redirecting me and held my gaze long enough for that secret smile to return and pink to fill her cheeks. It was like stepping back in time, a reminder of why I’d fallen so hard, why she’d occupied so much space in my head for so long. Why she’d filled my chest with concrete when she left.
The openness in her eyes, the raw vulnerability of it, made it hard to sit still. My hands itched to hold her. I’d die if I couldn’t bury my face in the curve of her neck, couldn’t inhale the scent of her until it filled every part of me.
She tucked a wisp of hair over her ear and I could almost feel those fingers grazing my skin. The need to taste her, to feel her shudder against me, was almost too much to bear while she was right there. I wanted to take my time with her, to map every curve and dip of her body and brand myself on her skin.
I didn’t know where she was spending the night but I hoped to hell I was welcome there too. And not only because I wanted to watch that dress hit the floor. I needed to apologize for going dark on her after Phoenix, explain all the noises in my head, and find out what she wanted from me, if anything.
But the dress hitting the floor…that was very important too.
The ceremony was interminably long.
At first, I resisted the urge to check my watch because I suspected Noah would shank me. But after the third poem and second harp solo performed by Ines, the robotics engineer, I was ready to accept that consequence. It wrapped up not long after and I watched one of the best running backs in the league escort Audrey up the aisle. She said something that made him laugh and he leaned into her, his hand covering the forearm she’d hooked through his elbow. I could admit that I wasn’t one hundred percent clear which one of them I was more jealous of.
Though it wasn’t the first order of business, I was hoping she might introduce us. Later, of course. After I’d had a minute to explain everything.
Ben herded me toward another section of the farm and put a beer bottle in my hand while the bridal party posed for photos. He had a lot to say about an upcoming festival of some sort as well as the work he was doing on his deck over the summer. I might’ve agreed to help him out with that. I really wasn’t paying attention.
At one point, he convinced a waiter to bring us an entire tray of the appetizers being passed—little triangles of grilled cheese sandwiches, crispy taquitos, pulled pork sliders, bite-sized chicken and waffles, mini corn dogs. We inhaled every crumb, barely taking a breath between bites to say These are really fuckin’ good and Try those with the sauce.
If I had signed myself up to work on Ben’s deck, I decided I didn’t mind too much.
‘Here’s what you need to know about these ladies,’ he said. ‘They’d choose each other over us any day, and they won’t be sad about it. Actually, there are times when I think they’d prefer it.’
‘Do I want to know what that means?’
Ben thought about this for a moment, his brows and mustache furrowing as one. ‘It means that they’re fully aware we’re a species known for its flaws, not its features. If we turn into more trouble than we’re worth, they’ll be happy to send us on our way and out of their lives for good.’
I cut a sidelong glance in his direction. ‘Are you asking if I’m that kind of trouble? Or is this another warning?’
He took a long sip from his beer. ‘For as long as I’ve known Audrey, she’s held firm on having no interest in another journey down relationship road.’
‘She’s been through a lot.’
He bobbed his head, saying, ‘Yeah, well, every time one of these gals gets engaged, Audrey tells them how to protect themselves in case they need to leave. To keep money in their name, to make sure they’re listed on all the major assets, to save copies of their documents in places we won’t find.’
‘She’s been through it,’ I said, though I still regretted not stopping in San Diego to waterboard her ex when I had the chance. There would be other opportunities. ‘She’s smart and she’s strong, and she loves those women so she’s not going to let anything happen to them.’
‘You’re damn right about that,’ he said. ‘Don’t be surprised if you find out you’re not the center of her universe.’
Laughing, I tipped back my beer. ‘What? Come on. You’re not the center of your wife’s universe?’
‘I’m the star that lights up her nights,’ he said, completely straight-faced. ‘Her Big Dipper, you might say.’
A beat passed before we doubled over laughing.
‘That was bad,’ I wheezed.
‘Are you kidding me? That was elite,’ he said, tears streaming down his face.
My sides ached. ‘Dude, no.’
Audrey chose that exact moment to appear out of nowhere, a raven-haired woman in a bridesmaid dress by her side. Ben, still cracking himself up and barely able to form coherent words, pulled her into his arms. I moved closer to Audrey, ran a hand down her arm. When I reached her hand, she twined her fingers with mine.
‘Do we want to know what’s happening here?’ Audrey asked, eyeing us.
‘No, ma’am,’ Ben replied.
‘Probably a dick joke, then,’ his wife said. ‘They don’t stop coming.’
Ben nuzzled her cheek. ‘Neither does my—’
She pressed a finger to his lips. ‘You’re allowed to keep some thoughts inside your head.’ She held out her hand to me. ‘Hi. I’m Grace and I’d apologize for anything my husband has said but you seem to be holding up just fine.’
‘Jude,’ I said, shaking her hand. ‘We’re doing all right.’
‘We stole a tray of apps,’ he said. ‘They had those little hot dogs, just like the ones from our wedding.’
‘That’s what happens when you get married at the same place and with the same caterer,’ Grace said.
Audrey shifted toward me, saying, ‘We have some time before the big entrance.’
A brow arched. ‘Big entrance?’
She squeezed my fingers. ‘You know, when everyone’s seated in the tent and they announce the bride and groom.’
I’d have to trust her on that. ‘Then let’s take a walk.’
‘No one’s going to chase after you with a steamer if you get that dress wrinkled,’ Grace said.
‘I can live with that,’ Audrey said as we broke away from them. ‘Oh, and could you check on Jamie? She’s not feeling great and really needs to sit down for a bit.’
‘We’re all over it,’ Ben called.
We headed up a narrow path connecting the gardens to the main house. The roar of the party seemed to fade the minute we reached the Victorian’s front porch. Florists, servers, and security guards still buzzed around the property though it all seemed less chaotic now. Maybe it was exactly as it’d been earlier and I was less chaotic now.
‘Your friends,’ I started, ‘they adore you.’
She laughed as we passed a pair of tire swings hanging from a tree that looked older than time. ‘I guess the good news is that not everyone thinks I’m an antacid.’
‘Those women from the reunion hate their lives and they hate you because you don’t.’ Before she could argue with that, I added, ‘Your friends’ husbands are drawing straws to see which one gets to kick my ass first.’
‘I’m sure that’s a bit of an exaggeration.’
‘Not as much as you’d think. Ryan Ralston offered to personally rip my spleen out if I so much as inconvenience you.’
‘He did not say that.’
‘Strongly implied,’ I said.
‘I know they can be overprotective but they’re some of the best people,’ she said.
I stopped, pulled her toward me and held her close. ‘I wouldn’t want it any other way.’
‘Really? You’re not bothered by low-key death threats?’
‘I fucking love that these people would do anything for you. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.’ I kissed her, slow and gentle. I wanted her to taste the relief on my tongue, the absolute peace that came with knowing she had a family here. That she’d filled the empty spaces around her where her biological family should’ve been with people so much better than them. And that she’d wanted me to join her here.
‘I’d do anything for them too,’ she said. ‘That’s just what people do for the ones they love.’
Like flying across the country and pretending to be my fiancée?
I couldn’t bring myself to ask. I wasn’t prepared to watch her deflect. Wasn’t prepared to deal with the loud, galloping feeling inside me and what it would do if she said yes.
‘This way,’ Audrey whispered, leading me across the gravel drive and around to the far side of a massive yellow barn. A hedgerow of sunflowers greeted us, their faces bright and bold and humming with bees. ‘No one will find us back here.’
It felt like we’d stepped into a different world, one completely cut off from the enormous party underway. ‘Good,’ I said, steering her toward the yellow shingles. ‘It’s my turn to have you.’
Her back met the barn and she reached for me, her hands smoothing up my chest and around my neck as our lips met. The kiss was urgent, a little vicious. Guttural noises sounded low in my throat. She bit me twice and I had to believe it was intentional. I liked it. I also deserved it.
‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you,’ I said to the corner of her mouth. ‘I tried. I fucking tried but it only made me think about you more.’
I pushed a knee between her legs as she yanked my shirt loose and skimmed her hands up my torso. Her fingers scraped along my neck and into my hair, drawing a shiver from her touch.
‘Why did you try so hard?’
‘I’ll explain why I’m an idiot later. First—’ I dropped my hands to her hips. ‘Is it actually okay to wrinkle this dress?’
‘No one here is looking at me or my dress.’
I ran my fingers up her thighs, gathering the long skirt as I went. ‘You’re very wrong about that.’
‘The entire point of a wedding is to gush over the bride,’ she said. ‘None of this day is about me.’
A growl rumbled out of me as my hand slipped between her legs. I cupped her there, letting the heel of my palm rock against her clit. Her breath stuttered and it really was remarkable that I’d nearly convinced myself I could live without this. Without her. ‘Doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of people who’d be happy to keep you warm tonight.’
‘I’m not looking for anyone to do that for me.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
Her shoulder hitched up in a defiant shrug and I knew she was still pissed about the past week. Fair. Extremely fair.
All I could do was grind up against her clit and drop to my knees. I rolled down the thin, stretchy shorts she wore, the ones that were completely sheer and put her cunt on display in a way that wasn’t meant to be sexy but still made me pant.
With the shorts out of my way, I dragged a finger along her seam and then leaned in, kissing my way down the same trail. I loved the taste of her. It activated something primal inside me and I was powerless to do anything but suck her clit until she screamed.
She didn’t say anything as I traced circles around her clit, lapping at her like we had all day, all night for this. Like there was no limit to our time now, those looming shadows left behind in Arizona. I liked that very much.
I slipped a finger inside her, then another. She found a rhythm as I sucked and stroked, and she let out a surprised gasp when her muscles clenched tight. Her inner walls fluttered around my fingers, pulling me, holding me, as her pleasure unfurled.
‘How did you do that so fast?’ she whispered.
‘I think you did that, princess.’ I pushed to my feet, wrenching my belt and zipper open as I went. ‘Can you do it for me one more time?’
She nodded, shaky, a little lost in the orgasm, but she grabbed me by my tie and yanked me close. I settled between her legs and hitched her thigh high on my hip. She was wet like I couldn’t comprehend. My cock was already soaked just from pressing up against her and I knew I could come like this, right here. I wouldn’t even mind.
‘I missed you,’ I said, taking myself in hand and dragging my cockhead through her slippery heat. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips swollen. Tendrils slipped free from her bun. A bit of beard rash reddened her neck. Perfect. Just perfect. Like this, right here.
‘You couldn’t have missed me that much. You went dark and made me wait more than a week.’
She peered at me. There was hurt in her eyes, hurt I’d put there. I’d known what I was doing when I boarded my flight in Phoenix. I knew she’d opened a door and I’d…walked right past it. Which was worse than slamming it shut, I thought.
‘I know.’ I tapped my cock against her clit. Waited for the glint in her eyes to soften. ‘Let me apologize for that.’
She glanced between us, working hard at being unaffected when I knew how much she loved to be teased this way. ‘You can try.’
‘Then I’ll try.’
I filled my hands with her ass, boosting her up against the barn. I slammed into her and a wild roar built in my chest as the unbelievable heat of her swamped my senses. Of the many things I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about, the way her cunt gripped me was one of the most prominent. It came back to me like a haunting.
I kept my lips on her neck even though I worried there would be a mark there tomorrow. My hands stayed fixed on her ass, moving her as I wanted. If this was my best chance to offer up an apology, I was making it a good one.
She raked her fingers through my hair, twisting and pulling with every demanding thrust. I met her eyes as I rocked into her, begging her to feel what I felt. To know that I was here with her, even if it was fucking complicated and our history was full of land mines and I couldn’t promise much of anything. That I wanted her, I’d always wanted her, and maybe that could be enough.
‘I need—’ Audrey moaned as my fingers dug hard into her ass.
‘Anything, baby,’ I growled into her neck. ‘What do you need? Tell me and I’ll give it to you.’
That wasn’t entirely true since I was fucking her up against the broad side of a barn with roughly four hundred people partying not that far away and it wouldn’t surprise me if a security guard wandered down here in a minute or two. There were limits.
‘I need you,’ she whispered, and those words sharpened my arousal into a fine, dangerous thing.
There were going to be small bruises on her backside tomorrow, of that I was certain. One for each of my fingertips. And probably a few on her back from the barn’s shingles. But I’d kiss it all better. I pumped into her hard, harder when her lips landed on my neck and her teeth nipped at my skin. ‘You have me.’
‘For how long?’
My brain took those words and ran with them. ‘As long as you want me,’ I said.
‘Promise?’
She clenched around me, softer than the first time she came but somehow deeper, like her body was trying to swallow me whole. I made the mistake of focusing on those pulses and it snapped my hold on the orgasm gathering at the base of my spine. It was over, out of my hands, nothing I could do to regain control. And it felt so fucking good. Like my entire life had been nothing more than precursors to this moment, this woman. Even this barn.
Her name tumbled out of me over and over as I rutted into her, giving myself to some primitive need to fuck her like I meant it. My cock pulsed for an hour. It seemed that way. When the world came back to me and I could function again, I peppered her neck and bare shoulders with kisses. A few bites too, because she kept flexing her inner muscles and I kept thinking I was about to drop dead from it.
But right now, with my hands roaming over her skin and my cock mostly hard inside her, I regretted everything. There were hours left in this party and people were expecting to see her. I’d have to let her go soon and I’d have to spend the rest of the evening acting like the taste of her cunt wasn’t lingering on my tongue.
I ran my hands down her back, brushing away the dust and bits of yellow paint that we’d shaken loose from the barn. She pressed her lips to mine. I could feel her smile. ‘I should probably get back to Emme,’ she said.
‘I counted eight other bridesmaids. Does she need all of you at once?’ I was being an ass, but in all fairness, I was still inside her. Life beyond the side of this barn did not matter to me.
‘Four of them are Ryan’s sisters and she loves them, of course, but she’s not asking any of them to help her pee.’ I must’ve made a face about that because she added, ‘She needs at least two people holding the dress. Ideally, three.’
I untangled her leg from around my hip and eased out of her with great reluctance. I tried to go slow, thinking that controlled movements resulted in less friction, but that didn’t stop an almighty flood from streaking down her thighs.
‘Oh my,’ Audrey whispered, her hands overflowing with blue fabric and bare from the waist down, eyes wide, lips parted.
I swallowed hard as I tucked myself back into my trousers. Fuck.
‘Let me take care of this.’ I went to my knees and pulled the pocket square from my jacket. ‘I’ve got you.’
Audrey shrieked when I ran the silky fabric up the inside of her leg, laughing and twisting away from me. ‘That tickles!’ she cried.
I stared up at her, lost in the space between her bright, infectious smile and the pink, puffy folds just a few inches from my face. I could stay here until my days ran short and want for nothing.
I finished cleaning my release from her legs and stowed the cloth in my pocket, and then helped her back into the stretchy shorts. My phone buzzed a few times though I chose to ignore it. My kid probably needed to complain about Brenda’s cooking again. He was a picky little tyrant when he wanted to be and he really didn’t understand the Midwestern philosophy on casseroles and salads.
When I gained my feet, we made an attempt at smoothing out her skirt but there wasn’t much hope for it. ‘You look like you’ve been fucked against a barn,’ I said.
She ran a hand through my hair, saying, ‘You too.’
We stared at each other for a moment. I knew if I opened my mouth, it would be to suggest we try out the other three sides of this barn or see about a potting shed. And I knew that wasn’t fair. Not only because I’d fucked her like I wanted her to wake up tomorrow and feel me in every overused muscle but because this was a big night for her friends. She deserved to have fun with them, regardless of whether I craved her on a level that was troubling.
A breeze off the nearby cove kicked up and Audrey rubbed her palms over her bare arms. ‘Here,’ I said, shrugging out of my jacket. I draped it over her shoulders. ‘I’ll walk you back.’
She led me through a different set of gardens this time, telling me stories about weekends spent here with Shay and Jamie, Grace and Emme. We stopped near the house when she said, ‘I’m going to run inside and fix my hair. Grab a drink and I’ll find you.’
‘Not so fast,’ I said, pulling her against my chest and dragging her lower lip between my teeth. I kissed her one last time, stroking my thumbs over her delicate cheeks. ‘I need to check on Percy. I’m going to give him a call and then I’ll find you.’
‘You always do,’ she said.
I grinned. ‘You noticed that?’
She straightened my tie and then smoothed a hand down my chest, stopping only when she hit my belt. I did not mind her hand settling there. ‘What? Like you were trying to be discreet with that entrance at the reunion? Or what about my wedding day?’
I considered these points. ‘I guess not.’
‘That’s all I’m saying.’ She laughed, fussing with my collar again. ‘Go make your call. I’ll meet you in the tent.’
I kissed her forehead and then watched her slip into the house, hitching her skirt up as she went. I lingered there for a minute, not ready to slide back into reality. Eventually, I pulled out my phone and swiped it to life—and everything changed.
Read In a Second (Friendship, RI Book 3) By Kate Canterbary Chapter 43 – Today’s vocabulary word: gathered
Jude: something urgent came up
Jude: I’ll call you in a few days when things settle down
Jude: I’m sorry
Jamie’s message read We’re going to brunch. Don’t make me come to your house and drag you along.
It’d been a week since Emme’s wedding—and the last I’d heard from Jude—and without the nonstop parties and preparations to keep me busy, I had to create my own distractions. I’d tested six new bread recipes, planned out my first full month of lessons, and brought home a new foster dog. Through it all, I somehow found the time to check my phone every few minutes on the off chance I’d missed a call or message from Jude.
I told myself there was a perfectly good explanation for his abrupt departure and the silence that’d followed, but as the days ticked by I felt those threads of certainty slipping through my fingers.
Since I knew better than to call Jamie’s bluff, I set up Bagel the beagle with some peanut butter-flavored busywork and hopped a train into the city.
I found Jamie and Ruth on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, deep into an animated conversation. I loved that they both talked with their entire bodies.
‘About ten more minutes until our table’s ready,’ Jamie said by way of a greeting. She held up a timer on her phone. ‘I feel like I haven’t seen you in a year.’
‘It’s only been a few days,’ I said.
‘But time is weird in the summer,’ she said. ‘There’s so much of it but then it’s over before it even gets started.’
‘The closest I come to a summer break is leaving the office before sunset on Fridays,’ Ruth said.
‘You make five times as much as we do and no one wipes their nose on your skirt,’ Jamie said.
Ruth pointed at her. ‘Valid.’
Once we were seated inside the restaurant and had a team strategy for ordering that covered a wide portion of the menu, Jamie clasped her hands on the table and swung a knowing glance between me and Ruth. ‘I’ve gathered you both here today because we are overdue for a debrief,’ she said.
Ruth snapped her menu shut. ‘What are we debriefing?’
I shot a grin at the woman beside me. I liked that she was brash. That she didn’t seem to worry about offending anyone. She didn’t let herself get caught up in niceties or careful phrasing when blunt truth got the job done. I could learn something from her.
‘Yes, I’m wondering the same,’ I said.
Jamie arched her brows and went on staring with that universal teacher death glare that said I’m waiting for you to do the right thing. Don’t make me remind you what that is.
I probably deserved to be called into confession after the whirlwind I’d kicked up last weekend. No part of it had been subtle and that was a big departure from the role I usually played in this group.
I caught Ruth’s eye and read the Please don’t call on me energy there plain as day. ‘I suppose I can go first,’ I said.
‘I’d love that,’ Jamie said. ‘Please go into great detail on the part where you disappeared for the duration of the cocktail hour and came back looking as though you’d been ridden like a prize pony.’
‘I did not look like—’
‘Your hair was half out of the updo and you had beard burn on your face, neck, and décolletage,’ Jamie said. ‘Don’t even get me started on the condition of your dress, which, I mean, best wishes to your dry cleaner on that chore.’
‘What’s a décolletage?’ Ruth asked.
‘Okay, but pony? Really?’ I asked.
‘Sure, I’ll just look it up for myself,’ Ruth said.
‘I did say prize pony,’ Jamie said. ‘Also, I’d like an update on your missing rider. What happened to Daddy Fiancé? Why didn’t he come back to the party with you? Please tell me you fucked him silly and he needed fluids and oxygen to recover. Where is he now? Is he waiting for you in bed, chained to a headboard? Please say yes.’ She tossed her long dark hair over her shoulder. ‘Please explain what’s happening with you two now. And when will you admit that I was right about him all along?’
I reached for my mimosa and drained it in two gulps. My body would hate me for it later but my head would appreciate it now. ‘I wanted to show him around the tulip farm,’ I said. ‘As you know, we hadn’t talked since the week before, and I love the farm so much and I just wanted a minute away from everything. We ended up over by all the sunflowers and’—I turned my gaze downward and scraped my nail along the hem of my shorts until I could form the words—’and we had a moment there. Against the side of the barn.’
‘What kind of moment?’ Ruth asked.
‘Yeah, what are we talking about here?’ Jamie asked. ‘I don’t know how anyone ends up looking as thoroughly fucked as you did without taking a serious pounding.’
I glanced at the tables surrounding us, praying they hadn’t heard that comment. ‘He, you know,’ I said, the words barely audible as I gestured to my lap.
‘I admire a guy who sees opportunities to enjoy a slice of pie in the most unlikely of moments,’ Jamie said. ‘It takes maturity to put your interests first.’
‘Then we’—I flapped a hand quite pointlessly—’and that’s what happened.’
‘Against the barn? As in outside?’ Ruth asked. ‘During cocktail hour? When people were wandering around the grounds?’
I nodded as I refilled my mimosa. My cheeks burned like a fever.
‘It’s always the quiet ones who turn out to be truly devious,’ Jamie said, wagging a finger at me. ‘I knew there was a reason I liked you.’
‘Yeah, well, he left right after that,’ I said.
‘Talk about dine and dash,’ Jamie muttered.
‘That’s lewd,’ Ruth said. ‘I love it.’
‘But why did he leave?’ Jamie asked. ‘We’re missing something here.’
‘I went back inside and he took a call, and I couldn’t find him after that.’ The words felt like rust in my mouth. ‘He sent me a text saying something urgent came up and…he left. I haven’t heard from him since.’
Ruth and Jamie exchanged deep frowns and furrowed brows.
‘That’s…odd,’ Ruth said.
‘Very odd,’ Jamie said. ‘I’m guessing you’ve tried to contact him since last weekend?’
‘Yep,’ I said, polishing off another mimosa. ‘I’ve called a couple of times. No answer, no call back. I’ve sent messages. No response. It’s not even showing that he’s read the last few messages.’ I set the glass down instead of refilling it. ‘I don’t know if I should keep calling or just…stop trying altogether.’
‘A week is a long time to go silent. Right?’ Ruth asked, glancing between us. ‘Even if he’s in the middle of a shitstorm, it’s not that hard to send a text saying I’m all right and I’ll get back to you in a bit.‘
‘Unless he’s secretly Superman, he has time to text you back,’ Jamie said. ‘Since you’d probably know about his superhero identity, let’s assume it’s something else. He does have a kid with special needs and a mom who just got through breast cancer. And he flew in on a red-eye flight to be your date to this wedding, and the minute he could get you alone, he served it up hot and fresh. I’m trying to add those things up but my calculator keeps turning into a Magic 8 Ball and telling me to ask again later. I don’t know what to say, baby girl.’
‘Neither do I.’ Rubbing my temples, I asked, ‘What if he’s ghosting me? Maybe this is his passive-aggressive way of saying he’s done.’ That it was my turn to be the one left wondering what’d happened.
Ruth and Jamie shared another loaded glance. Jamie motioned to her, asking, ‘Would you care to tackle this one?’
‘I’ll give it a shot.’ Ruth laced her fingers together and stretched out her arms. Cleared her throat, sipped her iced coffee. Then, ‘Did you miss the part where we talked about him hauling his ass across the country to see you? And then immediately shoving his head under your dress because he was so thirsty?’
‘I hear what you’re saying,’ I said, ‘but also—’
‘But you’re not playing at that level,’ Ruth cut in. ‘If I hooked up with someone last weekend and he wasn’t replying to my texts, I’d assume he was done because that’s the field we’re playing on. Hypothetically speaking. I didn’t hook up with anyone. You did and you’re nowhere near that level.’
They just didn’t understand. They didn’t know the ins and outs of my history with Jude, everything we’d been through and the long, complicated mess of it all. They just saw a sweet guy who made time to see me and the rest was a case of bizarre but harmless hiccups.
I knew better. I knew what was really going on here.
‘She’s right,’ Jamie said. ‘She’s also lying and I don’t mean that hypothetically because she definitely hooked up with someone.’
‘What?’ I whirled on Ruth. ‘Who?’
‘This is all news to me,’ Ruth said.
‘The secret benefit of being on heavy-duty antibiotics during the whole wedding weekend was that I was sober enough to keep noticing when y’all disappeared and who else was missing at the same time.’ Jamie’s feline grin was a little scary. ‘And I know that you, Miss Ruthie Ralston, were absent from the cocktail hour and the bouquet toss, and only appeared for the last twenty minutes of the newlywed brunch the next day.’
Ruth straightened her silverware. After a beat, she said, ‘The line for the bathroom was outrageous.’
‘Must’ve been a nightmare,’ Jamie drawled. ‘Be a lamb and remind me who else was missing from those same events, please.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Ruth said, her gaze still fixed on the tabletop. ‘I had to take a few work calls during the reception. I missed a lot of things that night.’
‘Makes sense,’ Jamie said. ‘I can see how you’d need to handle urgent work matters on the Saturday evening of your brother’s wedding. Totally understandable.’
‘Okay, hold the hell on,’ Ruth said. ‘My firm doesn’t give a hot fuck about my brother, his wedding, or Saturdays. I’m a senior associate which means I’m at my desk twelve—but usually sixteen—hours a day and available to the partners at all times. The only time I didn’t have my phone on me the entire weekend was during the ceremony and I was slightly panicked because of it.’
It was my turn to share a frown with Jamie.
‘That’s kinda fucked up,’ Jamie said.
‘Yes, thank you, I know that,’ Ruth whisper-yelled.
The food arrived and we took a minute to organize all the items we’d ordered to share. I dug into my scrambled egg avocado toast in the hope it would get ahead of all the alcohol I’d chugged this morning. Ruth dropped a slice of French toast on my plate and shoveled some of my home fries onto hers.
Jamie leaned back in her seat, tapping a finger to her lips. She ignored her chicken and waffles even as Ruth cut a segment for herself. Then, ‘Must’ve been one helluva work call for you to show up to that brunch on wobbly legs.’
Ruth cut a frayed stare in Jamie’s direction. ‘Mergers and acquisitions will do that to you.’
‘You know what’s so wild,’ Jamie went on, ‘is how that preppy football player friend of your brother’s was missing at all the same times.’ She dipped her finger into the ramekin of maple syrup on her plate and then popped it in her mouth. ‘And when he walked into the brunch, he didn’t look like he’d gotten much sleep. He looked a little rumpled, if you know what I mean.’
‘Even if I did make some astoundingly bad decisions at the wedding—which I’m not saying I did—I wouldn’t advise anyone to divulge that kind of information at a busy restaurant.’ Ruth glanced to the tables beside us, both close enough to reach over and steal a muffin from their bread baskets. ‘Especially with so many rabid sports fans in this city. And you’re also my brother’s wife’s best friends, so that makes it all a little boggy for me.’
‘Ah. Right.’ I hadn’t adjusted to the fame that came along with Emme’s husband but Ruth had much more experience. ‘If you did want to tell us anything, I can promise we won’t let it get back to your brother. Or Emme, if that’s important to you.’
‘We love our cones of silence here,’ Jamie said. ‘Like attorney-client privilege but for our misadventures with the man-children who don’t deserve us.’
Ruth bobbed her head, still hacking away at the French toast. ‘If I did engage in some truly heinous, shameful behavior with a football player-shaped individual, I’d probably be very busy hoping no one noticed. I definitely wouldn’t want to talk about it because I’d probably die of embarrassment in the process and it’s really not a good time for me to die. My apartment is a pigsty and someone would have to deal with that, which just seems like an unfair way to leave things. My mother’s been through enough. She doesn’t need that too.’
Jamie nodded, saying, ‘Speaking of good times to die, have I told you two about the state of my life recently?’
‘Please tell me you’ve cleared this UTI,’ I said.
‘Shit, okay, no boundaries here,’ Ruth said under her breath.
‘That’s better,’ Jamie said, ‘but I’m still on the sex hiatus because of the recurrent UTIs and I awake every day to the realization that I’m still living with my dad. Even worse, I’ve turned into a brunch girl.’
‘What’s wrong with being a brunch girl?’ Ruth asked. ‘Brunch is fantastic.’
‘It’s not about brunch,’ Jamie said. ‘It’s about this moment of my life where I feel like I’m stuck in a waiting room but I don’t know what I’m waiting for or what’s going to happen when the door finally opens.’
The three of us were quiet for a heavy moment. I put my fork down. I needed to absorb those words before I took another bite.
‘I don’t think I like that analogy,’ Ruth said. ‘But I think that’s because I’m in a waiting room too.’
‘I think we’re all in waiting rooms right now,’ I said.
‘Thanks, I hate it,’ Jamie said with a miserable grin. ‘But I’m lucky I have this stone-cold pack of weirdos there with me.’
‘Wait.’ Ruth held up a hand as she shook her head. ‘What?’
‘Complimentary, I swear,’ Jamie said.
‘Just go with it,’ I told her.
We lingered over brunch for another hour but didn’t return to the topics of Jude or anything that might incriminate Ruth. We made plans to meet up for another brunch and an evening of sitting in my backyard and witnessing Bagel the beagle’s remarkable zoomies.
When I dropped into a seat on the train, it dawned on me that I wasn’t drunk. Tipsy, perhaps, but only in the sense that I wouldn’t mind parking myself on the old wrought iron chaise I’d snagged at a yard sale a few years ago and taking a nap. Summer was meant for afternoon naps in the backyard. Especially if Bagel warmed up to me enough to join me on the chaise.
That was all I needed. A lazy afternoon with my new dog friend, and maybe a book that I wasn’t reading with the goal of picking out text-dependent questions. This was fine. I was good.
Except I wasn’t.
I was fractured and I’d forced putty into those cracks but it didn’t mend anything and it didn’t hold. And it didn’t really matter because those cracks weren’t new. They’d shifted, widened now that I knew what it would’ve been like with Jude. If we’d had the chance.
I knew better than to open up his messages and scroll back to the start but I was no good at making the right choice in bad moments. The train lurched between quick stops in Forest Hills and Readville. I knew I’d regret it later but I let myself tap his photo and listen while the call rang. All the things I’d always wanted to say bubbled up to the surface, spilling out in a rush when the line clicked over to voicemail.
‘Jude. Hi. It’s me. It’s Audrey. I’m calling because I want you to know I’ve been really worried about you and you’re not even reading my texts anymore and I’m just asking if you’re okay. I don’t expect you’ll give me that but I’m asking anyway. Because I care about you, even when you make it obvious that I shouldn’t.’ My voice shook. My hands too. My chest was one deep breath away from caving in. ‘And I need to tell you that I know what you’re doing. I get it now. You wanted to leave me the way you think I left you. Give me some of my own medicine, right? You know nothing about that medicine, Jude. Not the first thing. I know you’ll never believe this but everything I did was to protect you. And I can’t believe you’d be so cruel. That you’d let me spend all this time worrying about you and your family. I know that’s how it was for you when I left but my god, we were kids. There was nothing I could’ve done then but I’d never leave you like that now, and you know that. I know you know that.’
I knew this because I’d been sacrificed before. More times that I wanted to admit. If the trappings of this clambake were any indication, I was about to be sacrificed again.
And I knew exactly what I had to do.
And that was important since I didn’t like clams and my social hourglass was maxing out after five minutes. Even if I did have a few landmines to bury.
‘I swear I saw her just over there,’ my mother said to a guy in pink seersucker. ‘She probably didn’t hear us over the waves.’
I ducked under a floppy blue mop head and crept, hunched over, between the bushes and the weathered gray shingles of the house. I didn’t need anyone to explain to me that my behavior had crossed into bizarre territory. I knew this. But I also knew the best place for me was trapped in this cool, quiet world. At least while I gathered some intel.
‘Very choppy out there today,’ Seersucker replied. ‘But I’m hearing tomorrow will be perfect for getting out on the water.’
‘What a relief,’ my mother said, as if she knew anything about sailing. ‘The water was empty today. Such a disappointment.’
My mother was beautiful in an ageless, eerie way. Her work was her face, her figure, but it was also her faith. There was relevance in that plumped-up perfection. There was value. In her world, the only women worth keeping around were the ones who’d figured out how to stop time. Their virtue lived in that plastic youth, and they were nothing without it.
Sometimes I wondered when she’d stopped being a real person. I knew it came before the fillers and the surgeries and the every-four-weeks root touch-ups to keep the silver out of her cornsilk blonde. Her ability to wield power in this world existed only in relation to her willingness to uphold its pointless beauty standards. It was like she’d stepped into a small square of wet concrete and she had to live out the rest of her days there—or cut off her own feet to get free.
‘My goodness, Brecken,’ she said. ‘I just don’t know where that daughter of mine ran off to if she’s not over here.’
‘Not to worry.’ He said this with the easy grace of someone who understood the level of bullshitting required at these affairs. That helped. This wouldn’t work if I had a short fuse on my hands. ‘She’ll turn up.’
‘I appreciate your patience with this expedition I’ve taken you on,’ she said.
‘No patience required,’ he said, which I interpreted to mean I’ve done my community service for the day and now I’m breaking free from your clutches, lady.
I crouched down to stay out of their eyeline but as I moved, a branch shifted, whipping the side of my face. I had to swallow a yelp unless I wanted them to notice my hiding spot. I’d survived many unpleasant things but getting caught in a hydrangea bush and then having to fight my way out while people watched would make for a new all-time low.
I held my breath as they strolled back to the heart of the party. Once she dropped off Seersucker, my mother would come looking for me. She’d quietly enlist everyone in the search—waiters, bartenders, the young men tasked with parking the cars far enough away to give the impression that everyone teleported here.
All of which was to say I couldn’t stay in the bushes all day. Either I dashed back inside, grabbed my things, and made a break for the ferry or I dredged up the ability to interact with other people. To do what I came here to do. There was no in between.
I gave myself a few more minutes behind the hydrangea to check my messages. Nothing from Jude though I did find a bitchy notification that I was consuming significantly more screen time than usual this week. I read a new chapter of a fanfic I followed and looped back to Janet and Rita’s socials (also nothing), and then checked the departure times for the ferry. Just to be sure.
I discovered it’d been easier getting into the bushes than it was getting out. My arms were scratched and my hair was full of leaves and floral debris but not in any whimsical bohemian way.
I shook the dirt from my sundress and hiked through the front yard and into the house. If I ran into my mother, I’d blame my absence on my belly. She hated being reminded that my gut had a lot in common with sweating dynamite. Nice, marriageable women didn’t have those problems.
I was waiting at the bar, sunglasses shielding my eyes as I grinned up at the late afternoon sun, the picture of summertime bliss, when I felt someone sidle up beside me.
‘Audrey, isn’t it?’
I kept my chin tipped to the sky, taking in Seersucker from the corner of my eye. Up close, I placed him around a decade older than me, maybe more, though the wonders of fillers and Botox and money made a plausible case for mid-thirties.
‘It is.’ I gave him my breeziest smile, the one that dug lines into my cheeks. ‘You’ll have to remind me where we’ve met. My memory isn’t with me today.’
‘Apologies,’ he said with a light laugh. He held out his hand. ‘Brecken. Wilhamsen. We’d meant to connect at the Aldyn Thorpe reunion weekend.’
I treated him to all the standard apologies and pleasantries as I sipped my drink, and he did a fine job of acting as if he understood. It was all very civilized and that was the real irony of my parents’ events.
‘If I’m being honest,’ he said, edging in close like we were already coconspirators, ‘I didn’t really want to be there. You did me a big favor by canceling.’ He shot a glance at the bow-tied staff standing watch around the clambake pit. ‘I’m not completely sure I want to be here now.’
That earned a real laugh from me. I reeled him in with a stiff grin that said you and me both, friend.
‘Could I interest you in a walk?’ he asked. ‘And before you answer, I’m going to blackmail you a little by saying I saw you in the hydrangeas.’
I jerked back, startled. ‘You realize it’s not a game if you show all of your cards at the start, right?’
He shrugged, his pristine polo shirt stretching across his narrow shoulders with the movement. ‘It’s still a game. But now everyone knows the stakes.’
‘Going right for the jugular, are we?’
He cringed all the way down to his toes, which I appreciated. A man who could be shamed had a lot going for him. ‘I don’t know why I said that. I didn’t mean blackmail. Not really. It was a bad joke. I’m very bad at jokes. I just meant— Well. I thought you’d want to get out of here for a little while. Because I do.’ He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the path to the beach at his back. ‘I can promise I won’t attempt any more jokes.’
I found myself smiling at him, and for the first time in days, it wasn’t forced. ‘No extortion whatsoever?’
He put a hand over his heart. ‘None.’
I studied him, taking in the simple but ultra-expensive, hand-crafted loafers, the silver peppered through his hair, the mobile phone peeking out of his pocket. He was on the shorter side, coming in around five-eight. I had a good two or three inches on him. He was slim but nothing about him read as athletic or a gym rat. Handsome in a non-specific, unremarkable sense. He was a money guy because everyone here was a money guy one way or another, but he wasn’t lighting up my toxicity meter.
I didn’t know if it was the introverted confessions or the self-deprecating humor but it was easy to say, ‘Yeah. A walk would be nice.’
He handed his glass to the bartender. ‘Might as well get this topped off before we go.’
Once we were adequately refilled, we ditched our shoes at the mouth of the path and strolled along the shore. Brecken asked the standard questions—where I lived, what I did for work, how often I hid in bushes at parties—and I volleyed the same back to him.
He told me all the things he liked about the Hamptons and I told him why I was angry about the ending to a TV show I’d been following for longer than I could defend. It amounted to nothing—and that was what made it manageable. I didn’t have to work too hard at sculpting answers into acceptable shapes and I wasn’t overcome with the need to check for new messages from Jude.
All things considered, a fantastic way to kill an hour and plant the seeds that grow into an invasive weed.
As we approached the path back to my parents’ property, Brecken brushed my elbow. A brief, functional touch. No tingles or belly butterflies involved. ‘I believe your mother intends to set us up. On a date,’ he added. ‘Or something more.’
‘I think you’re right.’
We stopped at the crest of the path, the beach stretching out into low tide on one side, the party in full swing on the other. ‘Would you be interested in that? In a date? Or something more?’
No way in hell was I touching that something more. ‘Would there be blackmail involved? Now that you’ve set the precedent, I have to ask.’
He barked out a laugh and slipped his hands into his pockets. ‘No blackmail,’ he said. ‘I would like to see you again.’
I crossed my arms over my chest. ‘You live in New York, Brecken.’
He bobbed his head several times. ‘I do.’
‘And I live in Boston,’ I said. I’m also in the middle of a traumatic experience that might turn into a breakdown if I don’t get a text back in the next few days.
‘That is true. Yep.’ He rocked back on his heels. ‘But I’ve heard there are roads between New York and Boston now. Surfaces made specifically for driving cars. And these unbelievable new things—what are they called again? Yes, trains. Have you heard about the trains?’
‘I’ve heard rumors of these trains.’ I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘It’s still a long distance for a date.’
‘I have your number from when you made my day by bailing on lunch,’ he said. ‘Would it be okay if I messaged you sometime?’ Before I could respond, he shook his head. ‘No, don’t answer that. I’ll text you. Respond or don’t, your choice.’
I stared at him for a long moment, sifting through the pieces of himself he’d shared and trying to pull the strands together into something I understood.
‘It’s that simple for you?’ I asked.
His shoulders jerked up. ‘If you don’t want to talk to me again, I’m not going to make you. That seems like a lot of work and I don’t see how it would benefit me.’
‘A lot of work,’ I agreed, a bitter tinge in my words. I wanted to believe him but I had some experience with men cut from this cloth and I knew them to become vicious little tyrants when they didn’t get precisely what they wanted.
Before I could say anything else, my mother approached, calling to Brecken, ‘It looks like you found her after all!’
‘We bumped into each other.’ He gave me a chin tip that I read as See? I didn’t out you about the bushes. I’m clearly on your side.
My mother gushed for a few minutes about some local celebrity who’d arrived and departed all within the time we’d been on the beach, how much everyone loved the clams but the lobster was the real highlight this summer, and then someone she thought Brecken would like to meet.
He cut glances to me every so often and I could also hear him asking Are you invisible? because I might as well have been for all the attention my mother paid me.
If I’d trusted Brecken with more than the most basic bits of information about myself, I would’ve used words from his world and explained that I was a commodity here. Nothing more than a good to be bought and sold.
It was nice that he’d noticed, all the same. Most people didn’t. Most were too busy buying and selling their own goods. Perhaps he wasn’t cut from the same old cloth after all. Perhaps he was a rare exception to all of this.
‘I hope you’ll be staying the weekend,’ she said to him. ‘We’d love to host you again.’
‘I’m just here for the evening.’ He gestured to me like I knew what he was talking about. ‘Though I was telling Audrey I’m heading up to Boston this week. For some meetings.’ The leading tone in his words told me to get on board with the charade or get trampled under it. ‘We were just comparing schedules.’
‘Isn’t that exciting,’ she drawled. ‘In that case, I’ll get out of your way.’
‘Thank you. I’d appreciate the privacy,’ Brecken said firmly.
I tried to swallow a chuckle but I didn’t pull it off. My mother frowned at that before taking her time getting back to the party. She glanced at us repeatedly, always grinning and waving, but also cataloging every detail she could find.
This was the life she wanted for me, no matter the cost. Clambakes and summer homes. Women who were never anything more than maidens or mothers. Men who bloodlessly controlled unimaginable sums of money. The narrow scope of power that came with being married into it all. To her, marriage was a vehicle for safety and stability, but it was also a stepping-stone. Relationships were currency in this world and this place was crawling with people who’d throw plenty of it at my father if it gave them the access they craved.
It didn’t matter that after leaving my ex I’d vowed to never shove myself into another empty—or outright harmful—marriage. I couldn’t imagine legally tying myself to another person. Not after all the levels of hell I’d climbed through to end the last marriage. Not after contending with the grief of the years I’d lost to an unhinged man.
I wasn’t looking for another husband and I was comfortable with that. Save for the small, fragile hope I’d long since buried and forgotten until Jude stalked toward me at the reunion.
But now I knew we weren’t meant for a second chance. He’d taken what he wanted and left me the same way I’d left him. That was clear. Two weeks with no news made it painfully obvious and it was silly of me to pretend otherwise. It was time to let go of that hope.
‘Please tell me that wasn’t too presumptuous,’ Brecken said.
My gaze drifted over his shoulders to where the sun dipped low on the horizon. He seemed pleasant enough. He wasn’t overtly craven or self-absorbed in pathological ways. His manner was quiet, self-effacing. No name-dropping, no pointed comments about wealth or status. He’d made a respectable effort at getting to know me, which was a nice touch, and he didn’t seem like the type to get bent out of shape when I called it off.
And I knew he’d never dare to call me princess.
‘I can come to Boston and we can meet up for dinner,’ he went on. ‘If that’s something you’d consider.’
‘And if I canceled a few hours before dinner? What then?’
‘I probably wouldn’t mind,’ he said, laughing. ‘Though, to streamline matters for both of us, the talking point would be that we did go out and there wasn’t any chemistry.’
‘That would be all right with you?’ I peered at him. Perhaps that was why my toxicity meter hadn’t pinged. ‘A cover story?’
The thing my mother didn’t understand about her quest for safety and stability was that I’d found more of both on my own than at any point during my marriage. That I’d found strength and learned self-reliance, and I was better for it. That everything she’d done to buy me a secure future—and drive me far away from Jude—left me dependent on a man who cared little for whether I lived or died.
And the thing I didn’t understand about my mother was how she could tolerate any of that. I supposed existing in a cage of her own made the one she chose for me all the more familiar.
The other thing my mother didn’t understand was that I knew her moves now. I hadn’t seen it coming when they canceled my enrollment at Barnard, packed up my life, and shoved me on a plane to Los Angeles, all while filing a bullshit restraining order against Jude.
I’d been too deep into my depression to put up a fight when they presented my ex-husband as their newest requirement of me. I knew better now—and I had some moves of my own.
Brecken shrugged. ‘What’s the harm?’
I didn’t think he was prepared for a detailed explanation of the pitfalls of fake relationships so I said, ‘You have my number.’
And now, with my checkmate in hand for the night, I turned back toward the house. I didn’t stop when I passed my mother, who launched into an endless stream of breathless questions as she trailed me inside. I went straight for the guest room where I’d dropped my things and made quick work of changing into jeans and a sweatshirt. It would be chilly on the ferry back to New London.
‘You’re behaving like a maniac,’ she said as I shoved today’s dress into a bag. ‘If you’re going to have one of your episodes, will you at least do it in here? Where no one has to see?’
‘I’m leaving.’ I shouldered the bag. I’d laugh if I stopped to consider how long I’d avoided these interactions with my mother. How much discomfort I’d accepted in exchange for skirting a difficult conversation. And to what end? I was full grown and supported myself, and still cowered from confrontation. Later, I’d laugh and then I’d cry and then I’d learn how to stop betraying myself, once and for fucking all. ‘No episodes. Nothing to see. I’m going home.’
‘You can’t just leave—’
‘I think I can,’ I said. ‘I have a lot to do.’
‘It’s a weekend evening in the middle of the summer. What could you possibly have to do that’s worth embarrassing me and your father tonight?’
‘Didn’t you hear Brecken say he was coming to town this week?’
‘Oh. Oh.‘ She stepped away from the door. ‘Then, yes,’ she went on. ‘You should go and—’
‘I knew you’d understand,’ I said, pushing past her.
I opened my messages as the ferry pushed away from the dock. I stared at Jude’s last words to me—I’m sorry—and heard them in my mind as if he was sitting here beside me. But instead of the hurried, halting promise I thought them to be, they were solemn this time. Final. A conclusion to a story that’d ambled on far too long.
His silence wasn’t a symptom. It was proof that we’d reached the end while I was busy thinking about the things I wanted to say and never once saying them. Maybe it would’ve been different if I’d let myself be brave, let myself get hurt. If I’d stopped playing scared. If I’d acted on half the scenarios I’d rehearsed in my mind. If I’d wrapped my arms around the risks and held them tight until they turned into the kind of emotional armor I required to finally get what I wanted. To fix this—and end it the right way.
It would’ve been different if I was different. But I wasn’t.
Brecken’s message came through while I drove home after the ferry.
Brecken: I have some meetings in Boston on Wednesday of this week. If you’re planning to eat dinner that day, do you have any interest in doing it with me?
I wanted to give him credit for calling his shots before shooting them. There was something easy about that—predictable, even. But I’d grown up with a megalomaniac who had both the knack for making outrageous demands sound like simple requests and all the right tools to guarantee compliance. And then I’d married a man who did the same thing but with a hard twist of degradation. I knew better than to trust first impressions.
I didn’t cancel at the last minute. I’d wanted to. I’d written and deleted a dozen texts throughout the day. And Bagel expressed strongly negative feelings when he noticed me fussing with my hair and putting on out-of-the-house clothes. He responded to this by gathering all the shoes he could find and hiding them in his crate. I had to leave the house barefoot, shoes smuggled out in my purse.
I met Brecken at a small Spanish café I liked on an odd corner in Brighton, a local place I’d suggested knowing it wouldn’t show up on any best-of lists. It could be counted on for outstanding patatas bravas and comically bad service. If there was one thing I knew to flip a narcissist’s switch, it was waiting an hour for another round of drinks or never getting that extra napkin.
The service lived up to my expectations but Brecken didn’t flip. When he realized his place setting came short a fork, he just snagged a set from a nearby table. When our wineglasses ran dry, he walked up to the bar and asked for a bottle. Corked it himself. And he really liked the patatas.
We talked about the basic things. Where we’d gone to school, the people we knew. Restaurants we liked and places we wanted to visit. Spanish food and wine carried the evening on its back.
I smiled without forcing it and asked questions I actually wanted answers to. It was comfortable in a plain, hollow way. As I sat there, nodding along with his story about a chicken shop he loved but that never stayed in the same location for more than a few months, this overly plucked civility started to look a lot like closing the garage door with the car running inside.
Brecken seemed, at least on the surface, to be a decent guy. As much as anyone who hoarded wealth and hung around with backroom power brokers like my father could be.
He was, however, gently determined to nail down another date and kinda-sorta float a prenup in my direction if my reading between the lines could be trusted.
He liked New York and wanted me to like New York too, and offered to make some calls to find me a teaching job there if I wanted one. His tone made it clear that he didn’t know why I’d want that but he’d go along with it. He was cool like that.
There was a vacation to some fancy island resort coming up on his calendar. I was welcome to join. He had a condo—I was certain it was a penthouse the size of a Costco—but he was in the market for something different. If I wanted to help with his search, he’d be happy for it.
Life with Brecken would be fine. Polite conversation and lukewarm affection. A partnership more in function than connection. There were worse things than the starved pantomime of having it all.
I let him give me a ride home. I knew it didn’t matter but it occurred to me that I’d never scream at Brecken in the rain. Probably no lizards perched on motel curtains either.
When the driver came to a stop outside my house, Brecken’s poker face failed him. He blinked at my small one-level ranch with its cracked walkway and slightly overgrown grass.
I swallowed a laugh. It was nice to see something rattle that chill demeanor.
‘Let me walk you to the door,’ he said, swinging a glance up and down the street like we were in a war-ravaged neighborhood and not the sleepy Boston suburb of Norwood.
Little did he know, raccoons were the cause of most of the lawlessness around here and they had no compunction about chucking black walnuts at his head if he got in their way. Ask me how I knew.
He settled a hand on my lower back and one on my elbow as we traversed the walkway, the cement topsy-turvy from the roots of an old cherry blossom tree that made the first two weeks of May my favorite days of the entire year.
Bagel started howling as we approached. We shared a smile over that.
‘Thank you for dinner,’ I said, hooking a thumb toward the door. ‘I should really get in there. He’s been in the crate for a few hours now.’
‘Yeah, of course.’ His hand didn’t release my elbow. It wasn’t unpleasant in any way but it said something he hadn’t enunciated yet. After a beat, he said, ‘This might be very forward but—’
Bagel launched into a longer, deeper howl. It was something like a soulful crooning, an old song that awakened his kin. Other dogs in the neighborhood joined in, barking, yipping, howling.
Brecken laughed to himself, shook his head like he couldn’t believe a barking chain was drowning him out. ‘This might be forward but I think we could be good together. You make me feel like I can be honest without worrying that you’ll sell something I say to a podcast.’
I knew I ought to laugh but I didn’t.
‘Perhaps it’s become apparent to you that I’m looking for a companion,’ he went on. ‘I want someone who folds into my life, even if we’re mostly separate day-to-day. I think we could do that for each other but I need you to consider whether that would work for you. I’d prefer you to live in New York, at least most of the year, but I’d understand if you wanted time to ease into that.’
I listened as Bagel shifted into low, mournful howls. He was right; it was unacceptable for me not to include him in the conversation. Especially after an offer like Brecken’s. I’d say I was blindsided by it but only in that he didn’t wait until tomorrow to spring it on me. He could’ve ended the evening on a mild note instead of launching into terms and conditions.
‘You’re sweet,’ I said to him. ‘I have a lot going on right now so I’m not in the best spot to make big decisions. School is starting up in a month and I’m elbow-deep in preparing for that. Plus I have everything going on with Bagel.’ To his furrowed brow, I pointed to the door. ‘The beagle.’
‘We have great bagels in New York,’ he said.
I almost lost my polite façade at the pointlessness of that comment but managed to say, ‘I’d love some time to think.’
All I needed was to make it look like I’d considered his offer. And to get his hand off my elbow before the feral part of my brain took over.
‘I completely understand. The last thing I’d want would be for you to make a snap decision.’
He released my elbow—thank god—and held his arms open, moving in for a hug I hadn’t expected. I knew I wasn’t in danger but that didn’t stop my body from dumping buckets of adrenaline into my system.
‘Thank you again for dinner, Brecken. I hope you have an easy trip back to the city.’
He leaned in to press a kiss to my cheek, and seemed to enjoy it about as much as I did. Cold sweat bloomed on my chest.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he called as he picked his way down the walkway. Like it was a literal minefield.
I turned the handle but waited for the driver to pull away to step inside. I needed to know they were gone before turning my back. I knew I was spiraling into hypervigilance when I flipped the deadbolt but I also knew it would pass. I just needed to breathe through it and remind myself this was my home, I was safe here, and no one could take it away from me.
I rushed to Bagel’s crate before even turning on the lights. He bounded out, running in circles and whining his outrage at being left here all alone. ‘I know, I know,’ I repeated. ‘It was terrible of me to leave you. Never again, friend. Never, ever.’
He followed from a careful distance as I flipped on the lights in the kitchen and living room. I’d need some tea to settle down and I had time to mix up some bread dough for—
The doorbell rang and my entire nervous system jolted at once.
Bagel rushed to the door, sniffing and yipping, but it took me a beat to get moving. I shot a text to Jamie, telling her to call me in three minutes if I didn’t get back to her before then. She, of course, responded with WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING ARE YOU OKAY WHAT’S GOING ON?!?!?
I glanced through the peephole but it was old and rusty, and the lighting out there was more back alley, less front door. I knew it was Brecken. Either he’d come back with another anemic offer—separate penthouses! vacations on different private islands!—or he was here to nudge me toward whatever plan he’d already drafted for our life. Or I’d completely misread him and he was going to scream me into a corner until he got his way.
