by Shayla Black
My life is over. Not literally, of course. But life as I dreamed of it? I doubt there’s much I can do to revive that. It’s been five days since Britta left me and the palatial paradise we shared, taking my son with her. As promised, she hired someone to retrieve the rest of her things, along with Jamie’s clothes, toys, and necessities. The house has felt like over ten thousand square feet of pure emptiness since then. Sure, my sister is still here. She means well. She tries to talk to me, cheer me up.
It’s not helping. Nothing is.
On Monday, Maxon lost his shit when Britta quit. I guess he didn’t believe me when I forewarned him. In fact, he and Keeley spent most of the Sunday afternoon following Britta’s departure with me. I’m sure dealing with my catastrophic breakup is not what they wanted to do on their first full day of marriage. But I’m grateful they came.
“I don’t think what Britta did was fair to you,” Harlow insisted just last night. “She laid landmines in front of you, then got angry when you stepped on them. She set you up to fail.”
It’s sweet that she wants to be so loyal and take my side. But she’s wrong. I didn’t see the landmines because I didn’t even stop to look. I made the same mistake now that I did three years ago by treating Britta with distrust before love. And, righteously cloaked in all my wronged fury, I cut her because she made me bleed.
I don’t have the energy to argue with Harlow—or anyone. I haven’t slept in days. I certainly can’t lie in the bed Britta and I shared. I can’t find any peace.
Hell, I don’t think I even deserve it.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pry my eyes open and realize the sun is coming up at my back. I wince at the brightness of the cloudless dawn. I have a splitting headache, and my back is killing me. But drinking Lagavulin out of the bottle and falling asleep at two a.m. on a lounger splayed across the lanai will do that. All I can think of is that my dream wedding should have been tomorrow. If I’d been smart, I would have cancelled everything and gotten what refunds I could. That might have saved me a small fortune. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Some stupid part of me can’t stop hoping…
The phone buzzes again. I fish it out of my pocket to turn it off. I don’t want any more well-meaning texts and phone calls. Especially since I don’t know yet what to say or do. I want to fight for Britta…just as much as I’m sure she’ll hate me even more if I do. I don’t need my tribe’s feel-good chatter telling me to give it another go.
With a sigh, I look at the screen. Keeley has been texting me for an hour. Call me. Call me now. Call me, damn it.
I can’t accuse her of being inconsistent.
Moving like someone a few days shy of becoming a centenarian, I unfold myself from the lounger and head inside, empty bottle in hand. I feel like shit. I’m sure I look like it, too. I can’t remember my last meal. I don’t even miss food.
I don’t miss anything except Britta and Jamie.
God, I sound pathetic. And hungover. Definitely that.
When I walk in the house, Harlow is standing in the kitchen, coffee cup in hand. She watches as I toss the bottle in the trash. Shaking her head, she gives the steaming mug to me, regarding me with a disparaging glance. Yes, I’m sure I look sketchy. I probably smell it, too.
“Want to talk yet?” she asks as I grab the cup and take a sip of the wickedly black brew. She makes java unapologetically strong.
“Do I have a choice?” I force myself to swallow. That shit could acid-wash the chrome off a bumper.
“Not really.”
Didn’t think so. “Is it just you or the whole intervention team?”
“Just me…for now.”
I don’t ask for clarification. If Harlow can reason with me, she won’t call for reinforcements. Got it.
“Can I shower first?”
“Are you finally going to do something today besides drink, beat the shit out of the punching bag upstairs, and sulk?”
“Gosh, Harlow. You really have to stop sparing my feelings. Just say what’s on your mind.”
She laughs. “Well, if your sarcasm is back, I hope that means the rest of you will be soon, too. Shower. I’ll make you breakfast. You’re going to eat it. Then—”
“I need to decide whether I’m going to give up and be a miserable bastard for the rest of my life or fight—again—for the woman who will always own my heart. Is that what you were going to say?” I raise a brow at her.
Her green eyes flare in surprise. “Something like that.”
I sigh. There’s no escaping her pep talk. I have to suck it up. And maybe…maybe it will be good for me to have another female’s perspective. Though with a bastard of a father and two competitive older brothers, Harlow’s feminine outlook on life ranks somewhere between auto mechanic and rugby player.
“I’ll be back in fifteen.” I head for the stairs.
“Make it ten,” she shouts after me.
I acknowledge her with a wave of my hand and find a bottle of ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet. As I start the shower, I try not to look at Britta’s empty counter or remember her swiping everything in her suitcase as, tears rolling, she left me for good.
I’m not very successful.
After a punishingly hot shower and a few more sips of caffeine, I feel marginally better. My brain even starts to kick in again, what-iffing and unfolding scenarios. How much will I always regret it if I give Britta the moral victory and simply leave her alone? How shitty will I feel? A lot. Terribly. But this isn’t about me. How unloved will Britta feel if I don’t even try? How bitter? What about Jamie? He needs a father.
And I can’t leave everyone shattered because I didn’t have the balls to try again.
Harlow is shouting that my time is up when I toss on a pair of clean shorts and a T-shirt, then run my electric razor vaguely over my stubble. I slide into flip-flops and run down the stairs. My headache protests, pounding until it feels as if my brain is trying to push my eyes out of their sockets. I grimace and cradle my head as I enter the kitchen.
“Maybe that will teach you to stop substituting Scotch for dinner.”
I glare her way. “A beacon of compassion… What did I ever do to deserve such a wonderful sister?”
That makes her laugh. “I am wonderful. I’m going to straighten your shit out.” She shakes her head. “Men are so dumb.”
She’s plating eggs as I toss myself onto a stool at the breakfast bar and nurse more coffee. “I’ll ask you what that means only because you’ll tell me whether I want to know or not.”
Harlow pauses, hand on hip. “Stop being snarky.”
“Sorry. Predictably, I’m not in a great mood. But yes, I know I need to do something today. I know I can’t walk away forever and prove to Britta once and for all that I’m an incredible shithead.”
“I was going to say dumb ass, but the rest of the speech is about right.” She flips a couple of pancakes onto my plate, then slams butter and syrup down in front of me. “You weren’t an asshole, Griff. You were stupid. I still stand by my statement that she set you up. But given your history together, I would have needed some proof to take back the dirtbag who crushed me once, too. This is a heap of complicated.”
“Yep.” I shovel in some eggs because I know I’m going to need energy later. “I don’t know how to simplify that.”
“This is why men are so stupid.” She shakes her head. “There’s a reason you keep doing the impulsively idiotic thing. Something makes you believe the worst. Do you do that to all people or just women? You don’t even have to tell me. But you need to tell Britta. Whatever it is, no matter how ugly. Unless you come clean, she will never understand you. If you don’t and if she gives you another chance, you will be doomed to repeat this cycle again.”
Leave it to brutally honest Harlow to cut through five days of my confusion and lay it all out in a few sentences while forking in some pancakes. Granted, I’d somewhat arrived at this conclusion last night in my Scotch-induced stupor.
But it suck
s.
Telling Britta about Julia gave her the power to hurt me. Telling her the rest… She could utterly destroy me.
Then again, can’t she already, simply by not being with me?
“I know.”
“Then why are you sitting here with me?”
“Because you told me to,” I remind her. “And because I’m actually hungry.”
At that, my sister smiles, whipping a mass of dark curls off her shoulder and behind her back. “Glad to hear it. You need to go get your woman back. And you need to convince her to marry you tomorrow.”
Because that won’t be challenging at all. I smirk at Harlow. “Thanks, doc.”
“I’ll send you my bill later.”
“If you’re so damn smart, why are you marrying a man you don’t love?”
She freezes, fork filled with eggs halfway to her mouth. Slowly, she lowers it. “We’re compatible. Simon is easy to get along with…and easy on the eyes. We both want kids. He’ll never demand attention if I’m busy working. He’s a logical choice.”
But his behavior just before the wedding… He’s utterly ignoring her. Doesn’t she care? “Twenty bucks says he’s cheating on you.”
Harlow tries to shrug but falters. “I know he probably does when he’s on the road. But is that really the most important thing in a marriage? He’s kind. He’ll never do half the shit Dad did to Mom. And I won’t fall in love with him so he can’t break me.”
I stare at her like she’s lost her mind. “So the most he has to recommend is that he won’t be asshole enough to hurt you but you won’t care because he’s not interesting enough to fall for? Why get married at all?”
My sister glares at me and scoops up her plate. “I don’t want to be alone. Simon is fine. It will be…fine.”
Fine? “A pretty day is fine. Vanilla ice cream is fine. Flowers are fine. Love should be more than that.”
“I’m not looking for it. I’m glad that you and Maxon found it but…” She dumps her plate in the sink with most of her food still on it. “Yeah, that shit’s not for me. I’m going to…”
When she seems to search for words, I swallow my next bite and try to help her. “Run on the elliptical? Take a shower?”
She shakes her head. “End this conversation. Putting me and love in the same sentence gives me hives. Hey, I need to know if we should keep all the wedding plans tomorrow as is or start bailing on what we can?”
“Leave it. I’ll do my best to get Britta there. If it doesn’t work…” At least I’ll have gotten to see it, and I’ll be able to close my eyes and imagine our perfect wedding for a brief, bittersweet moment. If I can’t have her anymore, at least I’ll have that memory.
“All right.”
Her expression tells me I’m crazy. Maybe I am.
She waves as she heads up the stairs. “Good luck.”
Yeah, I’m going to need it.
How the fuck did I get here?
An hour after breakfast with my sister, I sit outside of Britta’s little blue house. There’s a FOR SALE sign in the yard.
My heart still stops at the sight.
The longer I sit in my Porsche and stare at her door, the more I refuse to give up on her without one last attempt. If she doesn’t want me—us—even after I’ve given her every part of myself… Well, there’s nothing more I can give her.
I check to make certain I have everything I need in my pockets, then I head to the front door. Her car is under the carport. There’s a sign in the window proclaiming it for sale, too. Yes, she might have decided it’s time for a new car. It sounds more likely that she’s decided to leave Maui.
Guts twisting, palms sweating, I knock and wait the longest thirty seconds of my life for her to open the door.
Finally, she cracks it. Her golden hair is slicked into a ponytail. Her face is as bare as her feet. She’s wearing a pair of short denim cutoffs and a too-big Hawaiian-print blouse with the tails tied at her slender waist. I can’t go down the rabbit hole of being aroused by the sight of her. I’ve got too many important things to say. But I can’t help being a man. I think of the perfect night we spent together last weekend. I wish to fuck I could go back there and do it all again and make different choices the next morning.
But I have to play the hand I idiotically dealt myself.
“Griff.” She bites her lip. “What are you doing here?”
“I’d like to talk to you.” I glance across the yard. “You’re moving off the island?”
“Yeah. The landlord called me on Tuesday and told me he’d decided to sell the house. So it seemed like the right time to head back to Chicago.”
She’s not just leaving the island; she’s leaving me. Her mother has always tried to tempt her to go back home. Maybe, with nothing to tie Britta to Maui anymore, she’s relented.
My gut seizes up. If I don’t succeed today, I’ll be lucky if I see Jamie once a year. I’ll be a name, a picture, and a voice to him at most. Britta will only speak to me through lawyers. But if my gamble doesn’t pay off, I won’t even have that.
“You hate Chicago.”
She stifles whatever is on the tip of her tongue. “What else do we have to say? I’m pretty sure we said all we needed to the other morning.”
“I just want one conversation. Can I come in and talk to you? That’s all; just talk.”
When Britta blocks the entry through the door with her body and looks like she’s going to refuse me, I blurt, “I have something you want.”
“You don’t.” She shakes her head. “You don’t have a damn thing I want anymore, Griffin Reed.”
I dig into the pocket of my shorts and take out the papers she gave me weeks ago to force me to relinquish my rights to Jamie. “If you give me thirty minutes, I’ll sign them. And you never have to see me again.”
It guts me to offer her that. Hell, to even think it. The thought of never seeing Britta or my son again is a physical ache twisting my stomach. My chest is on the brink of imploding. I’m making the biggest gamble of my life. If I lose, I can’t even imagine how it will decimate me.
I never wanted to sign the papers. Normally, I would refuse for the rest of my fucking life. But it’s literally the only way I know to persuade Britta to listen. To save us.
Finally, she sighs and opens the door wide enough to admit me. “Thirty minutes.”
“Is Jamie here?” When she nods, I look around for my son. “Can I see him before the clock starts?”
Before Britta can even call him, he comes toddling down the hall, holding a book in one hand and a truck in the other.
“Daddy!”
I run to scoop him up and hold him close. He smells like baby powder and peanut butter and sunshine. Grief twists my insides when I think this may be the last time I hold him. I can’t imagine it. This can’t be it.
“Jamie, boy,” I manage to croak out. “I missed you, buddy.”
He wriggles out of my grip and tries to hand me his truck. “Can we play?”
“Not right now, young man,” Britta says softly. “You’re supposed to be taking a nap.”
“Don’t want my crib,” he insists. “I want da big-boy bed.”
It’s still at the Stowe estate, in the room adjoining the master. It’s the only thing in there that reminds me Jamie once slept feet away from me. Everything else of my son’s is gone.
“I know. How about if I let you sleep in my bed?” When Jamie looks unsure, Britta throws in a sweetener. “And ice cream for dessert.”
“Yeah!” the little boy cheers, then looks my way. “Can we play later?”
Britta sends me a warning glance. Don’t make promises I can’t keep. Right.
“We’ll see,” I say finally. “I hope so.”
“Go on.” Britta shoos him down the hall and into her room. I hear a fan engage. Then she shuts the door behind her.