“Fuck you,” I mumbled just before biting into a wing. That right there was another reason I’d stopped dating the friends of whatever woman Mikey happened to be hooking up with. There’d been one—a kindergarten teacher named Poppy—who’d gone on and on about my dimples after our first date. He’d never let me live it down.
“I still don’t understand why you haven’t made a move on Rosalie yet,” he said, reaching into his pocket to pull out cash to pay his half of the bill.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have time for a relationship.” I polished off the rest of the wings in record time.
He snorted. “Who said anything about a relationship? Just show her a good time. If her marriage was as bad as she says, she probably hasn’t had a good dicking in a good, long while. She’d probably thank you afterward.”
I tilted my head to give Mikey the same annoyed stare I’d been giving him for practically our whole lives. I loved him like a brother—hell, better than a brother, considering my relationship with Colton—but he took crass to a whole new level. It was a wonder any woman actually slept with him given some of the shit that came out of his mouth. Worse, they seemed to throw themselves at him in droves. Frankly, I didn’t get the appeal. Then again, a bulky six-foot-four dude covered from head to toe in colorful tattoos wasn’t really my thing.
Neither was the way he spoke about Rosalie. “Don’t talk about her like that. She’s my friend.”
He lifted his hands in supplication. “Sure, man. Of course.”
I couldn’t figure out his sudden about-face until I followed his gaze down to my hand where I gripped a fork tightly, its tines pointed toward him. Huh. When had that happened? Slowly, I uncoiled my fingers from around the utensil and set it back down.
“All I’m saying is some of the best sex I’ve had was with women I genuinely liked.” He wiped his hands one final time before pushing his stool away from the table.
“The fact that you sleep with women you don’t like continues to baffle me,” I said, tossing a couple of twenties down next to the bill and following him toward the exit. Call me old-fashioned, but fucking someone you actively loathed was just too weird a concept for me to wrap my head around.
“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it. All that screaming and slapping and snarling can be hot.” He groaned. “Shit, now I’m hard.”
I shook my head as we stepped out into the chilly night and headed toward our trucks. “You’re a pig; you know that?” My voice was more exasperated than anything else. One of my secret hopes was that someday soon an absolute hurricane force of a woman would come along and rock my best friend’s world right off its axis. Until then, I kept him in check the best way I knew how: calling him out on his ridiculous bullshit.
He smirked as he pressed the keyfob to unlock his pickup. “Oink, oink, motherfucker.”
Without conscious thought, my gaze wandered over to the farmhouse. Rosalie and Gloria’s cars were both out front, and a light shone through the sheer living room curtains indicating at least one of them was home.
Earlier, when I’d told Mikey that I hadn’t heard from Gloria in a week, what I’d actually been thinking was that I hadn’t heard from Rosalie either. I couldn’t explain how it had happened so quickly, but I’d grown to care about her, and not just in an “I want to lay her down and have my way with her” sort of way. Physical attraction aside, I legitimately enjoyed her company, and despite the way our dinner had ended the week before, I thought she enjoyed mine, too.
So why were we acting like a couple of idiots by avoiding each other? We hadn’t done anything wrong, and as far as I was concerned, there was zero reason why we shouldn’t continue hanging out.
I was halfway across the yard when my phone rang in my pocket. I stopped and pulled it out, a smile crossing my face when I saw it was Briana calling. I hit the green button to answer and lifted the phone to my ear. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Did you get my package?”
My head swung back in the direction I’d come from, eyes scanning my porch for signs of a delivery. “Umm, I don’t see anything.”
“Hmm,” she hummed. “I got a notification they left it there about an hour ago. I was worried a bear would get it or something.”
I turned back toward my house. “Not sure I’ve seen any bears wandering around the property lately.”
“Well, it is Vermont. One can never be too careful.”
I climbed the steps to my porch, spotting a small brown box leaning against the front door. “It’s here.” I bent over and picked the box up, shaking it to try and figure out what my sister thought was important enough to send me. “What’s inside that has you so worried about bears getting to it?”
“Food, obviously. More specifically, brownies. Double chocolate peanut butter pretzel brownies, to be even more specific. I baked them for a woman I’m trying to sleep with, but then I found out that she’s allergic to peanuts. Her loss is your gain.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t just eat them yourself.” I said, trying to quickly move past the part of the conversation where we discussed my sister’s sex life. Briana was what you might call an over-sharer, and I was keen to avoid her sharing the details of her recent sexcapades.
“Did you not just hear the part where I said I’m trying to get naked with this woman? I do not need to be eating a dozen brownies.”
“And I do?”
“Last I heard from Mikey, you were all about that monk life, so yes. You can afford to eat the best damn brownies you’ll ever taste since you’re in no danger of anyone seeing you naked anytime soon. Besides, don’t you run like twenty-five miles a day, followed by approximately a thousand sit-ups? So even if you weren’t celibate, it wouldn’t matter. You’re a beast.”
I chuckled. “First of all, it’s five miles and a hundred sit-ups. And second of all—”
“Shit. Gotta go. The boss is coming this way. Enjoy the brownies!”
Before I could say anything more, the line went dead. I shook my head, pushing my door open and setting the box down onto a small table I’d built out of reclaimed lumber from a hundred-year-old barn I’d turned into a garage on my last project. Taking the Swiss Army knife I carried everywhere with me out of my front pocket, I sliced into the packing tape and pulled out a large Tupperware container filled to the brim with thick, rich brownies.
Despite my sister’s misplaced confidence in my ability to single-handedly consume ten thousand calories of chocolatey goodness, there was no way I’d be able to get through them by myself. Briefly, I considered taking them to work with me, but my crew would only inhale them in one bite, not stopping to appreciate how much time and effort Briana had put into making them. My sister did not fuck around when it came to her baked goods.
I nibbled on the crunchy part of an end piece—the best part, if you asked me—and considered my options for how best to dispose of them in a way that honored my sister’s efforts. Or, at least, I pretended to. In actuality, I was stewing over her taunts about my sex life—or lack thereof. Which only made me think about Rosalie again, and how I’d like nothing more than to break my dry spell with her. Which also forced me to accept that no matter how hard I tried to focus my thoughts elsewhere, they always circled back around to the blonde beauty who lived next door.
Securing the lid back onto the container, I headed back outside before I could convince myself this wasn’t a great idea. What did I think would happen? I’d present her with the best damn brownies she’d ever tasted, and then she’d promptly drag me upstairs where she’d tear my clothes off, all while her mom sat downstairs with a smug look on her face? I snorted at the ridiculous picture I’d just painted in my mind but didn’t alter my course.
Striding up the front steps, I knocked confidently on the front door, reminding myself that I’d intended to stop in before my sister had called. This wasn’t about trying to seduce Rosalie with brownies. Nothing had changed about my plans, except now I came bearing tasty gifts.
<
br /> I was about to knock a second time when Gloria cracked the door open and popped her head out. “Preston?”
I pushed the brownies out toward her. “Special delivery from my sister, the baker.”
She briefly turned to look over her shoulder, her gaze shooting to the stairs that led up to the second and third floors of the house. When she turned back to me, her eyes were cautious. Still, she opened the door anyhow and welcomed me inside. “Rosalie’s sleeping.”
My brows dipped in confusion. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet. “Is she okay?”
She gestured toward the soft floral couch, where I took a seat. She joined me at the far end. “She’s had a rough few days.”
“Do you need me to run out and get any medicine or anything?”
Gloria waved away the offer. “No, it’s nothing like that. I’m afraid she’s more heartsick than anything.”
Unbidden, a small stab of pain lanced through me. I hated the idea that Rosalie was hurting, and I desperately wanted to take away her pain. Hadn’t she been through enough already? “Is there anything I can do?”
She shook her head. “Not unless you can convince Blake to do what’s right.”
I felt a growl of anger begin to form low in the back of my throat but suppressed it before I scared the little old lady sitting next to me. Then again, given the vitriol with which Gloria typically spoke about her son-in-law, I wasn’t sure she’d be all that troubled by my show of rage. I could only imagine what the bastard had done this time.
Gloria patted my knee when I failed to keep my snarl contained. “You and me both.”
“Why is he dragging this out?” This wasn’t the first time I’d asked the question, but I was curious to learn if Gloria had a different point of view than her daughter.
She shook her head with dismay. “Blake’s trying to get her to sign away her rights to the insurance money from the gallery, which, in California, is considered community property. Rosalie built that business from scratch, and he knows it, but his lawyers are claiming he financed it with money he’d earned before they were married. Until they agree on how to divide their assets, they can’t finalize the divorce. He’s essentially holding her hostage.”
She fisted her hands in her lap. “All she wants to do is move on, but he won’t let her. Every time they talk, it’s something new. I’m convinced he’s drawing this out to punish her for leaving him in the first place. Blake Wentworth is not someone used to being told no.”
Sadly, I understood all too well what it was like to go up against someone like that; the type of man who took what he wanted simply because he could. I also knew how hard it was to keep fighting when sometimes it felt easier just to give in and let the tide take you where it may.
“It’s just a lot for her to deal with right now.” Gloria’s eyes turned sad as she pushed to her feet, an unspoken prompt that it was time for me to leave. She sighed when we reached the door. “I wish you could have met her before. You two would have been perfect for each other. I thought you might be perfect for her now, but I’ve never seen her this sad before. She’s just really beaten down by it all.”
I swallowed deeply, unsure of what to say in the face of her honesty. Half an hour ago, I’d been picturing all the sinful things I wanted to do to this woman’s daughter, but Rosalie didn’t need a man trying to get in her pants. She needed a friend to encourage her to keep fighting for herself.
“I’m here for her, whatever she needs.”
“Are you sure?”
I nodded brusquely. “Like I said—whatever she needs, I’m here.”
12
Rosalie
I’d spent the last three days hiding out from the world, wallowing in self-pity. But I was done with all that. For one, I smelled disgusting. And my room was a shambles. I’d been here for weeks, and everything I owned was tossed in a pile in the corner of the room.
I’d finally accepted that my divorce was officially in limbo, and now it was time for me to accept another hard truth: I wasn’t moving out of my mom’s house anytime soon, and that meant I needed to get my shit together.
With a deep sigh, I flung myself off the bed and got to work turning the space into one that I could settle into for the long haul.
Several hours later, I was down to the last three boxes I’d brought with me to Vermont. Seeing as how we were going into the deepest dregs of winter, I pushed the two labeled “summer clothes” into a corner at the far edge of the room under the attic’s eaves and hefted the third one onto my newly-made bed. Grabbing the Exacto knife I’d commandeered from my mom’s toolbox down in the basement, I sliced into the duct tape, confused to find the box filled with packing peanuts.
When I’d fled California, I hadn’t done the best job packing, and I certainly hadn’t taken the time to buy proper packing materials. Throwing my clothes into large black Hefty bags and the rest of my stuff into various Amazon boxes I’d found down in our building’s trash room had been more my style. After all, I hadn’t had the time or the inclination to be precious about my belongings when I’d just caught my husband with his dick in another woman’s mouth.
The only positive to come from finally witnessing Blake cheating on me with my own eyes was it had given me the push I’d needed to leave him. If I hadn’t walked in on Philomena servicing him like a Hoover vacuum cleaner, I might still be living in San Francisco, wondering if I’d ever work up the courage to go through with divorcing him.
True, when I’d imagined starting over on my own, I hadn’t pictured doing it in my mom’s attic like some Grey Gardens reject, but I told myself now that the fact that I’d done it at all was what mattered most. I had plenty of time to land on my feet.
Sure you do, a voice that sounded suspiciously like my own mocked from within my consciousness. It’s not like you have a biological clock ticking dangerously close to its expiration date or anything.
I squeezed my hands to the side of my head, trying desperately to keep those thoughts at bay. It wasn’t like I’d been itching to have a kid before I’d left Blake. And I sure as heck didn’t need to be thinking about having one now. I needed to focus on the small wins, and right now that meant figuring out what was in this box.
Slowly, I tossed the packing peanuts over my shoulder, heedless of where they landed, as I uncovered its contents. I gasped when I spied the worn leather camera bag I’d used to cart around the Nikon D70 I’d picked up at a second-hand shop when I was in high school. Under it was another bag that housed an old Minolta 35mm camera Vernon had passed down to me when I’d first expressed an interest in photography. Beneath the cameras, I uncovered a flat, rectangular box that contained the photographs I’d exhibited for my senior project. I’d been so proud of the portfolio I’d put together, but the feeling had been short-lived. Good grades for pretty pictures didn’t pay the bills.
Gingerly, I removed the Nikon from its bag and raised the viewfinder to my eye. Panning the room as if I was looking for my next shot, a flash of something bright coming from outside sparked in my peripheral vision. Curious, I moved to the window and pulled aside the curtain, my eye seeking out what might have triggered the flash of light.
There, I found Preston sitting out on his porch with a whittling knife in one hand and a long, thin piece of wood in the other. His brows were pursed in concentration while his big, strong hands cradled the wood so gently. For the first time in what felt like forever, my finger itched to take a picture. Not merely a simple click on my phone for something to put up on Instagram, but an honest-to-goodness composed photograph.
Wistfully, my mind harkened back to the folio sitting atop my comforter. My senior project’s theme had been “Men At Work,” perfect for the moment in front of me. That semester, I’d traveled all over the Bay Area to capture images of everyday life. While some of my classmates had focused on the wealth and glitz of Silicon Valley and its many millionaires, it had been important to me to showcase the people who kept that world moving—people like the
garbagemen who kept our city streets clean, the train conductors who ferried us to and fro, the hospital janitors who worked tirelessly in the background, the fireman who kept us safe … and so on and so forth.
I hadn’t come from money, and I hadn’t wanted to perpetuate the myth that it was the only good thing about the society we lived in. If I found it odd that less than a couple of years later, I was as far removed from the subjects I’d photographed as one could be, I tried not to dwell on it. In hindsight, there’d been a lot I’d chosen not to dwell on. Only now that I’d removed myself from those circles could I see how the constant need to keep up appearances had worn me down. It was no wonder I wasn’t smiling in all those pictures Preston had seen of me; I’d had nothing to smile about.
And speaking of pictures and Preston ...
Even though the camera wasn’t charged—nor did it have a memory card on which to capture any new images—I framed the scene below as if it were, pressing the button to fire the manual shutter, the faint clicking noise of the button still somehow loud in my quiet bedroom. With a sigh, I let the curtain drop closed and backed away from the window before Preston could look up and catch me admiring him from my attic perch.
I moved back to my bed and put the camera away, taking extra time and attention to ensure that it was stored properly. It wasn’t the best camera money could buy, nor was it worth much to anyone else, but once upon a time I’d thought it was the key to my future. How wrong I’d been.
A tear slid down my cheek to land on my lap as I put those girlish dreams away for good and made another important decision about my life. I’d taken the brave step of leaving an emotionally abusive marriage, and now it was time for me to start looking toward the future instead of always living in the past.
Without conscious thought, my gaze traveled to the window, and my mind latched onto the man sitting below working with his hands to bring beauty into the world.
Preston was the type of man I’d once loved photographing, and that was because he was the type of man I could admire. He’d been kind to me from the moment we’d first met even though everything he’d heard about me had painted a picture so similar to the selfish, grasping woman who’d dumped him for his brother. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d never wanted to speak to me. He’d had absolutely zero reason to strike up a friendship with me, and yet he had.
Homecoming (Speakeasy) Page 8