by C. A. Harms
Leaning against the side of the barn, with one foot propped up on a mound of dirt, stood Mike, a beer in his hand, that same worn ball cap from the other night pulled down so low it was impossible to see his eyes from this distance. But I knew they were watching me; I could feel it. His mouth was pressed into a tight line, his stance stiff and unlike his normal relaxed state.
Long gone was the playful guy that would always smile or offer some type of smartass response when he found me watching him. In its place was an angry, brooding man that I wasn’t sure how to accept.
“How long do you think it will take before they all come rushing over? Now that the food is all out, that is.” Raven bumped into my hip with her own, and I finally looked away from Mike. “They’re like a pack of wolves.” She laughed, and I again forced a smile.
Just then, Gran brought her fingers to her lips and blew out a whistle so loud it gained the attention of every one of the guys there. One by one, they began to walk in our direction, Mike being the last one to follow.
I had been here for close to two hours, helping to get things ready, and not once had I heard him talk to anyone. Instead, he silently observed, stewing, it would seem, which I knew couldn’t be good. I felt like everything was closing in around me, almost to a point of suffocation, an uneasy feeling that left me wanting to do nothing more than flee.
“I’ll be back in a few seconds,” I said in a rush and turned around toward the house. Bathroom, I mouthed over my shoulder to Raven and hurried off before she could offer to go inside with me. I just needed a few minutes to regain my composure.
I hid away in the bathroom, splashing cold water on my face. I felt sick to my stomach and considered making up an excuse that I was not feeling well so I could leave. But that would just trigger my mom to insist she take me back to my childhood home so she could ensure I got what I needed to get better. It was the nurse in her, the need to care for and soothe. At this point, the last thing I needed was for her to hover.
The only choice was for me to suck it up and lie in the bed I’d made.
Opening the door to the bathroom, I started to step outside only to be ushered backward by a bear of a man. The door shut behind me, and within seconds, I was pinned to the countertop, his body pressed firmly to mine.
“What are—” I didn’t get to finish the question. Mike lifted his hands up to cup the sides of my face and pressed his lips to mine. The kiss was one of urgency, one of dominance. I wanted to fight it, inside I was screaming to push him away, but my body could only react to something I’d imagined more than a hundred times.
A moan escaped me, and he circled my waist with his arm to lift my body up. Placing my ass onto the countertop, I hooked my legs around his waist, and it was his turn to moan.
He felt good. No, correction, he felt damn good.
One hand on my ass, he offered a squeeze just as his tongue broke through the barrier of my lips. “This is you not wanting me?” I froze, hearing the anger and sarcasm in his voice. “And this is me proving you wrong.” It was a version of Mike I hadn’t ever seen, a cold and callous man. “You’ve been so busy pushing your friend at me, telling me I should ask her out. But the truth is you’re scared. You’re terrified to face the fact that you feel something for me, too. But I’m done playing this game. If you can’t accept what’s right in front of you, then—”
He didn’t finish his sentence but instead backed away. And I was left breathless, panting on the counter. He turned, walked to the door, and without looking back, he pulled open the door and walked out.
I sat there, staring after him, feeling like I had whiplash from the dismissal I’d just received. I couldn’t move. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I was breathing. All I did know was that it hurt. It hurt like nothing I’d felt before.
What had I done?
Chapter Nineteen
Mike
I didn’t know what in the hell was wrong with me. I mean, it was Maddison, and I treated her like she was nothing more than a stranger. But I was pissed, angry with her for lying to me and for pushing me away instead of talking things out. I showed up at her place fully intending to tell her that I wanted her. I would have told everyone about us; I didn’t want her to have to face it in case there was resistance from anyone. I was willing to accept all the weight on my shoulders just to clear the way for us to make this work.
And she dismissed me.
I told myself when she refused to admit that something had shifted that I would move on. I didn’t need this shit. I didn’t want these games.
I was doing a pretty great job, too, or so I thought. Until she looked across the yard and we connected. Those feelings she triggered hit me all over again, and before I knew what I was doing, I had her pinned to the bathroom sink and my mouth was on hers.
I didn’t even recognize myself at that moment.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” I looked up to find Gavin, my father, looking around the side of the house. I barged out the back door and paced, trying to slow my racing heart. And my racing mind. More than once, I stopped myself from going back inside to tell her that this was all driving me out of my fucking mind. I was like a smoldering fire after gasoline had been thrown on it. What I felt inside was out of control, and I wasn’t sure how to tame it.
“Your brother said you were back here.” My father continued to approach me, watching me closely, weighing out the possibilities.
Little shit was always doing whatever he could to get me back for all the shit I pulled over on him. “Remind me to thank him for that later.” By thank him, I meant knock him around a little bit to express my overwhelming gratitude.
“You mind telling me what’s going on?” You don’t want to know, believe me. “You’ve been moving around here all day with a chip on your shoulder. You got something you wanna talk about?”
“I’m good.” I kicked the ground at my feet. “Not sleeping much.” It was true, but not for the reasons he was probably thinking.
“Do you know how hard it was for your momma and me, hell, even Garrett, when you were gone? I know it was even rougher on you, but we were here every day moving through our days, feeling your absence. Sometimes I’d find your mother just sitting in your room staring at your bedding as she carefully ran her hand over the worn-out quilt on your bed.” I stopped pacing just to stare at him. “A parent wants nothing more than to protect their children. It doesn’t matter their age. We want to make things right, take away the pain, and while you were thousands of miles away, one of the hardest things was the fact that we couldn’t even attempt to correct any wrongs.”
I wasn’t sure what was going on, so fixing this would prove to be extremely difficult.
“Something’s brewing inside of you, son. It has been for some time now. You’re not yourself, and my first instinct is to make it right.” No one could make this right. “I have a feeling I know what’s going on, but I can’t help unless you talk to me.”
“Even if you knew, you couldn’t help.”
“Don’t underestimate me.” I met his penetrating stare once more to find him grinning at me. “I fought through some pretty difficult times to get to Maria, and then again when we saw you and knew that you belonged with us.” My chest ached with respect for him and for my mother. “Love isn’t always easy.” I felt my pulse quicken. “It’s damn hard on most days, but if you find that one, the person you know without a doubt in your mind belongs at your side, then you push through the rough times. You don’t let anyone tell you that it’s not worth it, because like I said, loving someone is difficult. It’s exhausting, even.”
There was no way he could know. Could he?
“The two of you have been walking on eggshells for days.” Oh, fuck. “I’m not the only one that’s noticed the difference, Mikey.” I always felt like a little kid all over again every time he called me that. “Just talk to her, face what’s going on, and together, decide where to go from there. Everything else will fall into place after that.”
“I tried,” I caved, feeling overwhelmed. I didn’t plan to but looking up to see my father staring back at me, I couldn’t control it any longer. “She said there was nothing there.”
“And you believe her?”
“No,” I added with a laugh that had nothing to do with humor. “I showed up at her place to talk, and all she did was tell me I should take Raven out. Told me that she liked me and all kinds of other bullshit, trying to direct me away from herself.”
I took in a deep breath, feeling like I was about to spin out of control once more.
“Maybe she’s right.” I fisted my hair with one hand. “It’s too complicated and better off left alone.”
My father crossed his arms over his chest but said nothing. It was something he always did while I was growing up. He did that with Garrett, too. He never talked for us, never pushed us to go down one path or another; he only listened. He took it all in, nodded on occasion, or scowled when he heard something he didn’t much like but never forced us to make one choice over the other. He was always there but let us be the ones to decide which route best suited us.
“I don’t want things to change between Maddison and me, but I’m afraid they already have.” With that, he simply nodded his head and stepped closer to pat me on the shoulder as I walked on by with purpose, knowing exactly what needed to be done.
As we emerged from the side of the house, I immediately started to seek her out. It didn’t take long to find her. The beauty of her stood out even when she was attempting to hide. She sat at one of the picnic tables, with Raven at her side and Grace and Chloe opposite her. She used her fork to move the food around on her plate but never actually took a bite.
My feet began to move as I bypassed everyone and stepped in behind her. I watched as her back and shoulders tensed, causing her to sit up a little taller when she sensed my presence. “Go away.” She whispered the words without even turning around.
All the others at the table slowly looked up, shifting their gaze between Maddison and me. Raven wrinkled her brows in confusion, and all of this should have stopped me, but my impulses were too strong. A desperation to make things right, the need to see her smile, it was all overpowering me.
“Will you please just give me five minutes?” I should have cared that I was gaining an audience, but all I could feel was the need to have her look at me and now see the same sadness I heard in her voice. I had to fix this. “If you want me to leave you alone after that, I will.”
“I want you to leave me alone now,” she whispered, but I heard her clearly. “I just need you to stop.”
I sat on the small space next to her, my body touching hers, and she tried to lean away from me. That broke my heart. “Maybe you two shouldn’t do this here.” Raven looked over her shoulder, and it was then I looked back at our family. My father and Reed stood near the porch looking over at us, my mother and Alexis whispering between one another with their eyes locked on our table. And then Colt, his arms crossed over his chest, a scowl on his face as he stared me down like I’d committed a crime. Maybe I had, but I didn’t know how to stop what I was feeling.
But the tension this entire thing was causing, not just with us but with our family, it was too much. She was right. I didn’t want to be the cause of any type of fallout, and I understood in that moment exactly what Maddison meant when she said we couldn’t.
“I just want you to know that I’m sorry.” I still stared at Colt but spoke to Maddison. “And you’re right.” I hadn’t even said the words, and my heart was already shattering from the pain it was causing just to think them. “There isn’t anything between us, just some weird moment that I think is best if we both forget about it.”
I felt like my chest was being cracked open, but this was what I needed to do.
“I just want everything to go back to the way it was.” It was the last thing I wanted. “Can we do that, Mad?” I finally looked over at her to find her peeking over her shoulder, tears in her eyes. Her sadness was enough to cripple me. “Can we be who we were before?”
“I don’t know if we’ll ever be that way again.”
Neither of us moved as we stared into each other’s eyes. The realization of what we had done to our relationship hit us both with equal force. I wanted to hug her, but that just felt wrong now. I wanted to force a smile and see her give me one in return, but I knew that wouldn’t make anything better.
So instead, I stood, reaching into my pockets to retrieve my keys, and turned my back to Maddison and to the rest of my family and walked toward my truck instead.
Climbing up inside, I turned over the key, and without a second thought, I backed down the driveway, using the shoulder to eventually turn around.
I never even took the chance to look back toward the house through my rearview mirror because, had I done so, I knew it would be uncontrollable that I would go back. As I drove for what felt like hours, I heard my phone vibrating in the passenger seat but ignored the incoming calls. Right now, I just couldn’t face what I knew was waiting on the other end of that line.
Questions, lots and lots of questions. But none that I had the answers to.
Chapter Twenty
Maddison
“Just tell us.” My mother pushed even harder, and I sat at the kitchen table in my gran’s kitchen with my head hung low. I couldn’t get the image of Mike’s face out of my head, that lost look that practically broke me in two. “What happened?”
My heart sank when I looked up to see a worried look and every single one of the faces looking back at me. But it was Maria’s that hit me the hardest. Tears stained her cheeks, and if I knew one thing, I knew that Maria didn’t shed a tear often. She was headstrong, and on most days, a badass, but not today. At this very moment, she was sad, worried even.
“He kissed me,” I finally said, and everyone stared at me without saying a word. “But it didn’t start there.”
“What didn’t start where?” It was Gran who asked me as she sat down at the table beside me. The rest were still staring like they were lost in thought, registering what I’d told them.
“There’s been this weird thing going on between us that I don’t think either of us unstop, exactly. A flirting thing.” I took in a shuddering breath as I turned my phone over and over in my hands. I wanted to call him the second he left, but I knew he wouldn’t answer. Hell, I was mad at myself for letting him go.
“But to be honest, I think it even started sooner than that.”
“I don’t understand,” Gran added, and my mother stepped in closer.
“I think we’ve all seen the signs.” She looked back at Kori and Maria.
“What signs?” Gran jumped in, sounding frustrated. “And am I the only damn person here that hasn’t seen them?”
Kori laughed, leaning in to hug her mother, and the rest of us laughed a little, too. “Oh, Momma, you’re just too sweet.”
“Okay, fine.” She finally smiled, too. “So, will someone please fill me in, then?”
“I think Maddison is gonna fill us all in.” My gaze locked on my mother. “Then we’re gonna help our kids figure this out.” Tears filled my eyes to the point that they were all becoming a little blurry. My throat burned, and my chest felt like something heavy was crushing it, but I nodded in agreement, and they all joined me at the table.
For the next thirty minutes, I told them all everything. I told them the details of every rush of emotions, every feeling that him just being close inflicted. I also told them my fears and confusions about everything. I ended with what took place in the bathroom here, and when I looked up, I found something I never thought I would. Smiles, happy elated smiles on each of their faces.
“Sounds to me like the makings of a real love story.” We all turned around to see Raven and AJ standing in the doorway of the kitchen. AJ was the one that spoke, and Raven was only staring at me.
“I’m sorry.” Again, I was apologizing to my friend for not telling her, for not being truthful in
the beginning. I knew this would change us; it would linger between us in everything we did from today and forward.
“I’m gonna head home.” It was all she said before turning around and leaving through the back door. AJ followed behind her after giving me a sympathetic look.
“I know she liked him.” Maria placed her hand on my shoulder. Tilting my head back, I looked up at the woman that raised Mike. “But I think we all know that regardless of what’s taking place here, that never would have worked.”
“We do?”
“She’s not my son’s type.”
“Who is?” I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to that.
“You.” She offered me the smile I needed and the blessing I was fearful that we would never get. “You’re his Mad.” She pushed my hair back off my face. “You’ve always been that sweet girl he followed around. He told us all it was to keep you from hurting yourself, but we all knew it was more. He was different with you, always so careful and so particular. He would watch you, like he was memorizing your movements, and when he was young, he had that starry look in his eyes whenever you came into the room. This isn’t wrong, Maddison. I think it’s exactly how everything was meant to turn out.”
“You do?”
Maria nodded as she looked around the room at everyone else. One by one, they agreed, besides Gran, who still looked so confused. It was the humor the situation needed as we all hugged her and told her we loved her. She was such a sweet woman; in her eyes, we were all her babies, and in us, she only saw the good. She only saw crazy kids doing crazy things. None of it really meant anything. We were just that, kids.
***
I found myself back at my parents’ house in my childhood room. Sitting on my bed, I held my phone in my hand, my finger hovering over the call button. It was quiet in the house, just after ten, and I knew everyone else had gone to bed.
I’d given myself a pep talk, then I’d given myself a second one when the first one didn’t work.