He kissed everywhere he could reach on me. “I love you,” he whispered against my skin. “Love you, love you.”
It was as if he lit a firework inside of me. I gripped his thighs and ground down, taking him harder. His hand moved faster and with his name on my lips, I broke apart. A silent scream bowed my back and he pulled me hard against him as he groaned into the back of my neck before pumping hard and throbbing his release inside of me.
My orgasm kept going, my limbs vibrating with leftover pleasure. His fingers stroked up and down my arms. As our panting turned to regular breathing, and our sweat-misted skin dried, we reluctantly separated.
I pulled on my underwear and his T-shirt before getting out of the car. He pulled up his pants and followed me into the house where we both stripped down again and got in the shower, making love again. I didn’t worry about tomorrow, about the heartbreak that was just around the corner.
I just made sure to keep telling him how I felt over and over again with my lips, hands, and body. As we faced each other, drowsy, and kissing softly, I wished I had the guts to say that one extra word.
Stay.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Edie’s Tip #16: I think there would be a lot less road rage if everyone put eyelashes on their headlights and red noses on their grills.
When my eyes finally forced themselves open, I stretched, my arm going to Luke’s side of the bed and finding it empty. His pillow was cool to the touch. Sitting up, I looked around, unable to explain the twisting in my stomach. He wasn’t in the bedroom or bathroom.
Tugging on his T-shirt and a pair of sleep shorts, I went downstairs and found him searching for something. “Morning,” I said cautiously.
“Have you seen my phone?” he asked, a little panicked.
I frowned and shook my head. “Maybe it fell out of your pocket in the Camaro?” For some reason, the memory of the car made my face heat. It was probably how detached he seemed right now. I knew he kept his phone on him in case Alice May needed anything, and I respected his concern. They had both just lost someone they cared about very much.
But this was different. I grabbed my keys out of the bowl by the door and tossed them to him. “What’s wrong?”
He shoved a hand through his hair. So much like Will, yet so different. “I just...I don’t know. My gut says something is wrong.” After his time in the service, I knew that gut feeling was what kept him alive this long.
My stomach tightened as I watched him jog to the car, open the door and run his hand along the seats. He pulled the phone out from underneath the seat and jolted when he saw the screen, dropping the keys. Not bothering with shoes, I ran out after him as he lifted the phone to his ear.
His face was contorted with guilt and anguish. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He hung up and pressed his palms to his forehead, breathing heavy.
I approached him like a wild animal, with my hands in the air. “Luke, come on. I’ll help you pack.”
He shook his head, angry tears making his eyes shine. “She went into labor last night. It’s too early. Her sister’s been calling me all night. They’re afraid—”
I wrapped myself around him as he fell apart, burying his face in my neck. “Shhh, shhh,” I soothed, rubbing his back.
“How am I supposed to do this? How can I walk away from us? How can I leave her alone?”
I pulled back and looked up at him. My heart tried to crawl out of my throat, wanting to escape the damaging blow I was about to give it. “You can’t stay, Luke. You made a promise.”
“But what about us?” he whispered.
“We were never supposed to be an ‘us.’ We both knew this was temporary.” I shrugged with apparent nonchalance. “It was fun though, while it lasted.”
The words cut him exactly how they needed to. He took a step back, anger replacing the heartache of leaving. I pointed to the front door. “I’m going to go cut your check, and I’ll start some coffee while you pack.” Without a word, I ran back into the house, gripping my chest, trying to keep it from collapsing in on my lungs.
I ran the tasks through my head over and over again, trying to focus on them. I found my company checkbook and wrote a check for every last cent I could give him. I was still short, but with the way the housing market was, I had no doubt I could wire the rest of the money soon.
I started the coffee and pulled down my best travel mug. I filled a cooler with some ice packs, bottles of water, and leftovers. I threw in a few bananas and granola bars for good measure. It was all just a few less things I’d have to eventually pack.
Luke burst through the door, slamming it and stomping up the stairs. I heard my furniture moan in protest as he manhandled the drawers to pull his clothes out. I gripped the edge of the counter, reminding myself to breathe. It was better this way.
The coffee machine beeped and I filled the travel mug, carrying it and the cooler to the door. Luke careened down the stairs with a duffle bag slung over his shoulder. He stopped right in front of me and I swallowed hard, unable to look into his eyes. I took a deep breath, trying to memorize the way he smelled one last time.
I gave him the check. “When the pledges come in, I’ll send you the rest.” I didn’t want him to know about the house yet. Not when he could see the pain in my eyes. Not when I could still see the guilt in his.
“So those words you whispered to me last night?” he asked, desperate. “Edith, what if—”
“Heat of the moment, you know,” I interrupted before he changed everything. I knew if he stayed, he’d resent me. The guilt would eat us alive and it would be my relationship with my mother all over again. She’d resented me my entire life. I couldn’t take it if Luke ever looked at me the way she did.
“You can’t tell me we don’t have something amazing,” he said.
I shrugged. “Maybe it was because we both knew it wasn’t going to last.” I was going to throw up everything I had ever eaten. I wanted to fall to my knees and beg him to stay forever. Tell him I would love him until the end of time. Stay, stay, stay.
His jaw tightened, and he nodded once. “I see. Well. Fooled me.” He adjusted his bag on his shoulder and took the check from my hand. “Take care of yourself, Edie.”
He moved to push past me out onto the front step and I shoved the cooler and travel mug into his hand. “Here, take these. It’s a long trip.” I made the mistake of looking in his eyes and I knew if I didn’t run back inside that very moment, my façade would fail me. It was only working because he was so distressed.
“Have a good trip!” I said too cheerfully, then ran back into the house and locked the door. I listened for his truck to start and then strained to hear the sound as it pulled out of the driveway, taking my heart with it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Edie’s Tip #25: On a difficult drive, the right passenger makes all the difference. If they complain about potato chip crumbs or extra loud tunes, leave them at the next gas station.
When Jami barged in a week later, I was on my fifth viewing of Dirty Dancing while wearing a shirt Luke had left behind. I was also eating ice cream out of the container because all of my bowls were dirty. Quite frankly, I wasn’t even sure how clean the spoon was, but who cares?
Jami looked around the living room, inhaled, cringed, then stomped over and ripped the ice cream out of my hand.
“Hey!” I shouted, hitting him with a throw pillow.
He grabbed it and hit me right back. “How long has it been since you showered?”
I ripped the pillow out of his hand and threw it behind the couch. “GO AWAY. No one wants you here.”
He eyed me carefully before he dumped the container on the coffee table, then stomped upstairs. I heard the shower turn on and I wiggled my butt into the couch, trying to sink deeper. Crossing my arms, I shot fire from my glare as he reappeared. He didn’t seem to give a damn as he bent down and picked me up in a firefighter’s hold.
“What are you doing, you crazy person?!” I
yelled, banging on his back.
He smacked my ass. “Calm down, psycho. You’ve got a dozen women in your shop right now waiting for your class and you’re not there. Chieka started with the basics, but they came to see you.”
He walked me straight into the bathroom, pulled off my slippers, and dumped me, clothes and all, into the shower. I screamed bloody murder, but he slammed the door. “If you come down unshowered, I will pour all your wine down the sink!” he yelled.
“Fuck you!” I retorted.
“That’s Caden’s job!”
I had never showered with such anger. I scrubbed my scalp until it tingled and shaved twice because I missed two hairs. But the hot water was magic and suddenly, I started feeling like a human again. Well, three-quarters of a human.
Remembering there were people waiting for me at the shop, I sped through the end of my shower and braided my wet hair. I still looked like I’d been hit by a truck, but at least flies weren’t buzzing around me anymore.
When I finally came downstairs, I smelled coffee and toast. I was shocked to see that Jami had cleaned my kitchen. He turned around when I entered and pointed to the bar where a plate of peanut butter toast and a cup of coffee waited. “Eat. Drink.”
I nodded and slid across the floor, staring at the toast. I picked it up and inspected it as though I had never seen toast before. For the first time in days, my stomach growled, announcing it was finally ready for solid food. I inhaled the toast and coffee, and Jami immediately washed the dirty dishes.
“I swear you’ve used every dish in this house.” He cringed. “At least go paper if you aren’t going to clean. You’ll get flies.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, Grandma.”
He pointed his sponge wand at me. “Damn straight. Now go away. I’m going to start laundry, because if you were eating cereal out of coffee mugs, I don’t even want to think about your underwear situation.”
I ran to him and gave him a kiss on his cheek. He pushed back and gave me a shove toward the door. “When you’re done, we’ll take another load of stuff over to my place, okay?” he called.
I gave him a thumbs-up and ran out the door, trying to ignore the For Sale sign in my front yard. Thankfully, the two viewings we’d had were the day after Luke had left, before it looked like a natural disaster had rolled in. Heartbreak does that to a person.
When I entered the shop, everyone turned to stare at me. Chieka recovered first and motioned her hand toward me. “And now that we’ve learned how to change our headlights, Edie is going to take over.”
She walked over to me and gave me a quick hug. “We changed a tire, headlight lamp, and windshield wipers.”
I clapped my hands and pointed to the truck with the open hood. “Up next, let’s talk about windshield washer fluid and checking your oil!”
As the women gathered around, I fell back into my groove, my heartache taking a back seat to my love of teaching others about their cars. For forty minutes, we went over the car from headlights to taillights and the students all posed for a picture around me at the end, holding up the course completion certificates Tamicka had printed.
“That’s going on Instagram,” Chieka said, quickly tapping buttons on her phone. “And let’s add a filter because, girl, you look like a ghost.”
Tamicka leaned out of her office after the shop emptied, gave me a once-over, and shook her head. “You’re a damned fool,” she said, crossing her arms.
I sighed and took a step forward. “T-Money—”
She held up her hand. “You finally find a man you love more than stuff with memories, you hang onto that man, come hell or high water. You go with him if you need to. You beg him to stay.”
I put my hands on my hips. “How do you know I didn’t beg him to stay?” I shouted, defiantly. I hadn’t asked him, but that wasn’t the point right now.
She turned around, attitude in every sharp movement she made. “Because he would still be here. And you wouldn’t look like you just made the worst mistake of your life.” With that, she slammed the office door and went back to her computer.
Chieka sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Yowza.”
“Am I good to go home?” I asked.
She pointed toward the door. “Get outta here, you look like shit. Get some sleep. See you tomorrow.” She kissed my cheek and then smacked my butt as I walked away.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Edie’s Tip #8: Make sure to get your brakes checked. Nothing is more embarrassing than trying to check out a hot guy and then hearing a SCREEEEEEECH. Or, you know, hitting the car in front of you. NOT that I know from personal experience...nope...
Moving sucked. A week after my sold-out workshop, I was struggling to carry two overfull boxes out when someone grabbed the screen door for me. I stopped dead when I saw Will holding it open, two to-go cups of coffee in his other hand. He looked up at me, his aviators reflecting my hesitation.
I set the boxes down on the porch and stepped away from the door. He let it swing closed, then cautiously extended a coffee to me. “Celine said you take one sugar.” When I didn’t move to take the cup, he rolled his eyes. “It’s not poisoned, I promise.”
I paused for a few beats before accepting the cup. “Are you sure?”
He shrugged one shoulder, a gesture so like Luke my stomach twisted. “I deserved the throat punch.”
I nodded, then motioned to the front door. “Wanna come in?”
He motioned to the step. “Why don’t we sit out here. Just give me one moment.” I sat down, and he set his coffee next to me, then walked over to the For Sale sign. With one yank, he pulled it out of the ground and laid it down on the grass. Tears stung my eyes as I struggled to take a deep breath.
Someone had offered.
I needed to go to the hardware store to get more boxes. Then I had to forward my mail and double-check where the property line ended. I would have to build a fence around the shop, assuming the bid was high enough for me to buy out Luke and Will.
Anxiety clawed the inside of my stomach. I glared at the offensive sign on my lawn for a few long moments, then took a long sip of coffee, swallowing hard. I didn’t really care if it was poisoned anymore.
Will walked back to the stoop and sat down. “You should consider remodeling the shop. Maybe expanding to add a coffee bar.” He took off his sunglasses and tucked them into the front of his shirt, then stared at me.
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. My gaze went from my coffee cup to him a few times before I managed, “I’m so confused right now. Are you sure this isn’t poisoned? Laced with hallucinogens?”
His gaze held mine for a long moment. “I know that we turned to shit. Doesn’t mean I don’t care. But sometimes, I’m a jackass.”
“Sometimes?” I muttered.
He just glared at me. “Don’t. You were right; we didn’t work. And I should’ve talked to you, ended it earlier. But you aren’t blame-free here.”
Shame, anger, and exhaustion all warred in my chest, making my neck hot. “Why are you here, Will?” I sighed. “This day is hard enough.” Now that Luke is gone. Now that my home is gone.
“I’m here to let you know that Sara pulled the house off the market.”
There was only one residential real estate office in town, and it was Will’s company. While I’d used his associate, I wasn’t surprised he knew about it. He and Cynthia were really made for each other with their love of real estate and their obsession with sticking their noses in everyone’s business.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. “When do I need to be out?”
He took a deep breath. “You don’t.”
I stared at him, blinking rapidly. “Um…what?”
“The morning Luke left, Jami showed up at my door and…” He rubbed his jaw. “Let’s just say we had a heart-to-heart. I didn’t know the whole story about what happened with Luke.”
He looked down at his shoes for a moment, like he did when he was embarrassed. “So.” He ran a hand
through his hair. “I started a FundMePlease campaign to raise money for his buddy’s family. You and I both know Luke is too proud to do it himself. A few online papers reposted it and the campaign made fifteen thousand.”
He closed the distance between us and grabbed the coffee cup out of my hand, setting both of ours down. “It also got a huge, anonymous thirty-five thousand dollar donation yesterday. From someone in Grenadine.”
I gasped.
He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me toward him. “I’m paying you back all the deposits for the wedding and for your dress. That’s another ten thousand. That brings you to sixty thousand.”
“I’m still fifteen thousand short,” I choked out. I was nauseated. Would I ever wake up from this nightmare? I just wanted it to be done.
He squeezed my shoulders, which was such a Luke thing to do. “Luke said he’d take it and call it even. I wired the money this morning. Call Jami and he’ll tell you that Luke and I electronically signed the entire parcel over to you an hour ago. Which means…you don’t need to sell. It’s all yours—the shop, the house, and the land, one hundred percent.”
I covered my face with my hands and lowered my head to my knees, sobbing. “W-Will…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
He crouched down in front of me. “This is the way it always should’ve been. This was your dream, Edith.”
My hands dropped. I looked up into the familiar brown eyes, and for the first time in nearly a year, I felt something other than disgust. Maybe grudging respect? “Why did you do this?” I whispered. “I’m your ex.”
“Edith, he’s my big brother. I love him. I’d do almost anything for him.”
I took a shuddering breath, blinking rapidly. “This is totally out of left field.” I narrowed my eyes. “Are you high?”
“No.” His jaw clenched.
Headlights, Dipsticks, & My Ex's Brother Page 18