Cakewalk

by Claire Hastings

  First things first.

  He rapped his knuckle against the old wooden door to Gigi’s room, hoping she was in there. A small sliver of light snuck out from under the door, giving him hope. Her car was still in the drive, and the bathroom door was open, limiting the places she could have run to.

  “Gigi?” he called out. When she didn’t answer, he knocked again. Could she be asleep? Glancing at his watch, he saw it still wasn’t even noon, so sleep was not likely, although he had no idea what time she had gotten up to start prepping the meal. “Gigi?”

  Still no answer.

  “Gigi, I’m sorry. What I did…how I reacted…it’s unforgiveable. I didn’t mean to scare you. I don’t remember you asking about Thanksgiving, and that’s on me. This whole thing is on me. It’s not your fault. I’m so, so sorry.”

  Holden waited, but still no response. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but he knew he’d been hoping for something more than this. If he were being fully honest with himself, what he wanted was for her to open the door, throw her arms around his neck, and kiss him like she had a few weeks ago in the kitchen, even though what he really deserved was for her to open the door and smack him. Hell, even that would be better than the silent treatment.

  He retreated away from the door and headed back to the kitchen to start the cleanup process and figure out a way to win back Gigi’s trust.

  If he could win back her trust.

  13

  Gigi

  “Oh for heaven’s sake!” Gigi exclaimed, turning the key in the ignition of her Jeep, listening to it click over and over again. She wasn’t quite sure why she expected it to start after almost thirty minutes of trying, but she was still holding out hope. This was the last thing she needed right now.

  Two days since the incident in the kitchen and Gigi was still on edge. She’d managed to avoid Holden since, happy to not have to face him. She believed him when he’d told her he was sorry through the door, but that didn’t mean that she wanted to have to look him in the eye or talk to him. Right about now she could go the rest of her life without talking to Holden St. James.

  Flipping the key one last time, Gigi said a little prayer. If this didn’t work, she was going to be forced to walk home from the Busy Bean. She’d gotten here at the crack of dawn, as part of Operation: Avoid Holden, and the last thing she wanted to do was walk back in this cold, dreary winter weather. The engine cranked like it wanted to start for a split second, but then returned to the same clicking as earlier. Gigi’s heart sank as she collapsed back into the driver’s seat.

  It’s okay, Gigi, just call the tow truck and have it taken to the garage. Things like this happen to people all the time…

  A knock on her driver side window startled her, causing her to jump and hit the horn on the steering wheel. The obnoxious noise that followed made both her and her visitor recoil, and she turned to see Holden cautiously approaching again. What is he doing here? She thought, taking in his muscular form, that he looked even bigger under the parka he had on. He moved his hand in a circular motion, indicating he wanted her to roll down the window. Gigi swallowed hard, suddenly nervous at being this close to the man who had knocked a turkey across the room the last time they had been together, but did as he asked.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, a nervous smile tugging at his lips.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, confused. This was way too late in the day for him to be going for his run. Had he been out running errands and saw her sitting here? Oh please, please, please don’t let him have witnessed today’s calamity…

  “Kirk called, said your car wouldn’t start.”

  Stupid Kirk. Why couldn’t he have just minded his own business. It was bad enough that she’d had to ask him if he could drive her home, only for him to look at her like she was crazy. How was she to know he had sold his car and walked everywhere to “reduce carbon emissions”? But now she also had to deal with the fact that he called and told on her? She had no idea when he was leaving for Costa Rica, but right about now it couldn’t be soon enough.

  “Um, yeah. It just keeps making this clicking noise,” she offered up.

  “Probably the alternator. Guys down at the garage will have to look at it.”

  “Okay, good to know.”

  “C’mon, I’ll give you a ride home.” He nodded his head in the direction of his truck across the parking lot. Had he really come into town just to pick her up?

  “I have to call the tow truck,” she said, trying to make an excuse. It was a lame one—they both knew it—but it was all she could think of. While there was a part of her that was thrilled to see him and wanted to launch herself into his arms and cry, another part of her wanted more than just a car door between them.

  “I already took care of that. Kirk is gonna watch for them. Just leave the keys in the visor.”

  “And just what makes you think I’m going to get into a car with you?” she spat. The words were sudden and harsher than she intended, but she didn’t regret it. He needed to know that showing up like a white knight with a working vehicle didn’t mean that he was out of the doghouse.

  Holden’s face fell at her reaction, a look of hurt taking over. Gigi steeled herself, trying to remember that she didn’t care if she hurt him. He’d hurt her worse.

  “After the way I acted the other day, you have every right to not trust me. I was an ogre, and I am so, so sorry. But if you’ll just give me a chance, let me drive you home and I’ll explain everything. And if you still hate me, then I’ll help you find another place to live and move you there myself.”

  Gigi looked him up and down. The sincere expression on his face made her just want to melt into his arms. Even after the events of the last couple of days, she did still trust him, even if she didn’t know why. But she was curious as to what set him off, and it seemed the only way she was going to get her answer was to take him up on his offer.

  Nodding, she opened the door and slid out, placing her keys between the visor and the roof of the car. Holden helped her up into his truck, which he had left running so it was nice and warm. The short drive back to the house was silent and awkward, but no part of Gigi could bring herself to say anything. There was nothing to say.

  Once they were inside the house, Gigi only felt more awkward. The fireplace in the living room was lit, giving the room a warm glow that was more inviting than she wanted to admit. Holden had moved the overstuffed couch closer to the fireplace, between the two large armchairs that normally flanked it, making it look like a scene from a magazine showing off the perfect New England fall Saturday night.

  “Okay if we talk in here?” he asked, walking into the living room. “Fire feels good.”

  Gigi nodded and headed toward the fire. Holden was right—the heat coming off of it did feel good. She watched as he sat down on one end of the couch, motioning for her to join him. Instead of taking the other end of the couch, though, she sat in one of the chairs—the one farthest from him, trying to put some space between them. A hurt look flashed across Holden’s face as he watched her purposefully sit as far as she could from him, but she didn’t care. She needed the space.

  “Gigi, I’m so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped the way that I did. I don’t know what came over me. I’ve never acted like that in my life. Which probably isn’t much of a consolation, but it’s the truth.”

  “It’s not a consolation at all.” Everyone had a first time; she knew this all too well.

  Holden nodded solemnly, turning on the couch so that he faced her. Running his hands through his hair, an almost tortured look crossed his face as he searched for the words, like he was unsure exactly where to start.

  “Six and a half years ago my team won the league. Soccer in other countries is different than American sports. There isn’t a playoff system. It’s whatever team has the most points at the end of the season wins. We’d been in a battle with Liverpool all season long, and they were our last match of the seaso
n. We had one point on them in the standings, so as long as we didn’t lose that game, we won the cup. They were a tough team, with some of the best players in the world, but we managed to edge them out one nothing, and we won the cup,” Holden began, his voice tense. Gigi’s mind flashed back to the game—she knew it well. Bradley had taken to following the English Premier League that season due to a client of his being a big Liverpool supporter. Things had not ended well in their house when they lost that game. “It was one of the happiest moments of my life. Right up there with my wedding day and Hannah telling me she was pregnant. We were all kinds of hyped up after the game, and a bunch of my teammates wanted to go out and celebrate. Hannah was exhausted, and being seven months pregnant I couldn’t blame her. I told her I’d skip the celebrating and we’d just go home, but she was insistent that I go out with the guys. So I went out with them.”

  Holden swallowed hard, and Gigi could see the tears glistening in his eyes. His large frame shook as he tried to steady himself. Gigi felt her heart ache already, anticipating what was coming next.

  “I stumbled my way back to our flat sometime in the ungodly hours of the morning. My only concern was that I didn’t want to wake Hannah. That was until I walked down the hall to our condo and found the door wide open. I rushed inside, no idea what I was expecting to find, but whatever I thought, it wasn’t my wife lying in a pool of her own blood.” A sob escaped from Holden as he closed his eyes, turning to look away from her as he tried not to let the tears take over. Gigi could feel tears of her own starting to fall, watching him, trying to even begin to understand the pain. She wanted to tell him it was okay, that crying was okay, but she didn’t want to interrupt his story. “I rushed to her and tried to find a pulse, but couldn’t. There was so much blood everywhere. When the EMTs and everyone got there, they told me there was nothing they could do. She’d been dead for a couple of hours by that point.”

  “Holden…”

  “So while I was out celebrating a stupid championship, letting random people buy us drinks and congratulate us, my wife and daughter were at home, dying. Autopsy showed that she was stabbed three times in the abdomen and slowly bled to death. Her and the baby,” he continued, his voice breaking with emotion. He sucked in a long breath, seeming to hold it as he fought through the pain that was obviously tearing through him. Turning back to Gigi, he looked her in the eye, emotion written all over his face. “Hannah told me she was pregnant on Thanksgiving—her favorite holiday. Throughout her pregnancy, she talked about how she couldn’t wait for us to celebrate ‘as a family.’”

  “So when…”

  “So when I came downstairs and you were cooking, it brought it all back. Her announcement, her death, and how I wasn’t there to protect them. I swear I didn’t hear you say anything about it last week. I would have told you that I don’t do Thanksgiving had I heard you ask. It’s my fault for not protecting you from myself, just like I wasn’t there for Hannah.”

  Gigi held her breath, taking in his words. “It’s my fault for not protecting you.” She’d spent the last two nights lying awake trying to figure out if Holden was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, just as her husband had been. But that one sentence told her that she’d been wrong for jumping to that conclusion. He was running from painful memories, just as she was—their ghosts simply haunted them a little differently.

  She got up and moved over to the couch, still keeping a distance between them. His tears left streaks down his cheeks leading to his scruffy beard, and Gigi fought the urge to brush them away. As much as her body was craving him, she wasn’t quite ready for what touching him would mean. But maybe it was time for another type of intimacy. He’d come clean to her, maybe it was time she let him into her world as well.

  “You weren’t the only one who lost something that night.”

  Holden

  "I don’t follow,” Holden said. He swiped away at the tears that were making their way down his face. Crying was one of those things that men never admitted to doing, yet in this moment he felt no embarrassment about crying in front of Gigi. He was still much more ashamed of his anger earlier.

  “It sounds like you and Hannah were really, really happy. Which is not something I can say about Bradley and me. We started off that way, I think. Or at least, I did. But over time, things changed,” she said, looking away from him and into her lap. She picked at her fingernail, and Holden could feel the nerves radiating off of her. “I could do very little right in the eyes of my husband. I realize I’m not the smartest girl in the world, but I like to think I’m not a complete idiot. Except, to Bradley I was. Everything was my fault, even if I didn’t actually have anything to do with it. It started out with him telling me that I should just stick to what I’m good at, or that it was a good thing I’m pretty. That was one of his favorites, actually.”

  “Did he…” Holden started, but then stopped himself. How exactly did one finish that sentence? Beat you? Abuse you? Either way, it sounded trite. He had no idea if she would confirm his suspicions, but if she did, he didn’t want her to think for a second that this was something he didn’t take to heart.

  Gigi nodded, but didn’t look up at him, a heavy sigh escaping her lips. “He was okay if he was sober. Then the worst he would do was just yell. But mostly it was little digs here and there. If he had been drinking, however…well then, all bets were off. First time he did it was after a client dinner. He said I embarrassed him because I called the client’s wife Laura, and her name was Laurie. I told myself that it was just because he was stressed about landing this client, and really, I should have known the woman’s name. But then he did it again, and again. And I kept making excuses.”

  “There is no excuse for that, Gigi,” he told her. He wanted so badly to reach for her, pull her into his arms, or even just hold her hand. To let her know that someone else’s touch could be gentle and soothing.

  “You’d be amazed what you can justify,” she whispered. “Something I’ve always wanted was to be a mom. I know that sounds cliché, but, I dunno, I’ve just always pictured myself with a little mini me. Playing dress-up, painting our nails, hanging out at the pool, that kind of thing. I know being a parent is more than that, but no one dreams of dirty diapers—just the fun stuff. Bradley and I had talked about starting a family, and he seemed excited about the idea. Even told me that I had finally done something right, preparing to give him an heir. You’d have thought it was the 1800s with the way he talked about it, but it was enough to curb his temper for a bit.” She paused again, as if she were trying to prepare herself. “A couple of months into trying, he was working on landing this major client, who it just so happened was a Brit, and was really, really into soccer. His team of choice was Liverpool. I don’t pretend to know anything about sports, but I do know that they lost the championship that year. I made the mistake of getting in Bradley’s way shortly after the game ended. He lost his temper, and I ended up at the bottom of the stairs.”

  Gigi barely got the last words out before a sob wracked her body and she collapsed forward, her head falling into her hands as she cried. Holden felt his heart break into pieces, and he couldn’t hold back any longer. He rushed to her, kneeling down in front of her, placing his hands on her upper arms. He moved his hands up and down lightly, trying to comfort her as she cried. He didn’t take for granted the fact that she didn’t flinch under his touch. If anything, it just made his heart ache even more.

  “Gigi…”

  “That was the day I lost my hope. If I had been honest with myself, maybe I would have lost it sooner, or at least not held on to it so tightly. But there was a part of me that really thought that a baby would fix things. Like somehow if I gave him that heir, that it would be a turning point for us. But after that, I knew I couldn’t bring a baby into that house. I couldn’t do that to my child. So, I secretly got an IUD put in—that way he would never have to know I’d changed my mind and was working against it. After a few more months, our lack of success was just one more w
ay I was a failure. I couldn’t even have a baby. ‘The most basic female function,’ as he put it. He started to spend a lot more nights out after that.”

  “Was he unfaithful?”

  “I had my suspicions, but the one time that I actually worked up the nerve to ask, he denied it. He threw me up against the wall, shoving the accusations back in my face. Because why would I think that unless I was sneaking around on him? The bruises he left on my arms that night meant I had to wear long-sleeved shirts for a week, in the July heat, just so no one would see. I knew better than to ask ever again.”

  “Gigi, I’m so, so sorry. You didn’t deserve my temper the other day, and fuck…I must have scared you shitless when I threw the turkey. That’s all on me, sweetheart. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “I was so afraid that you were just like him,” she said, looking up at him, tears still running down her face. Even with her tear-stained cheeks and red, puffy eyes, she was still beautiful. “But it’s my fault for not double-checking with you about the meal. It was stupid of me.”

  “No, no, no. You’re not stupid. So far from it. I shouldn’t have said that. You are anything but stupid. None of it is your fault, Gigi. Real men don’t do that shit. It was his flaw, not yours,” he told her, hoping she heard his words. “And it’s on me for the way I reacted. You did nothing wrong. Not yesterday, not six years ago.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong either, Holden,” she said softly, looking into his eyes.

  “I did a lot of things very wrong on Thursday, sweetheart.”