“Austin, I do things without thinking first. Sometimes it can be fixed, and other times it can’t be. There are times when I’m thankful for the decision I made, but right now, I’m not sure I did a good thing.”
“Okay, listen to me,” he says. “If you want to stay here, you can stay here. I’ll find a job and move up here with you if that’s what you want. If you don’t want to be with me, I can understand that too. I care about you enough that I only want what’s going to give you the freedom to breathe and be the amazing person you are. I’ll go home right now if you tell me to, Scarlett. I’ll miss you like crazy and probably never get over what we’ve shared in the last month, but if that’s what you need, that’s what I’ll give you.”
How is he so confident about everything? How does he keep his composure like this? Why am I such a loose cannon? Why am I so goddamn broken? There’s a chance he’s going to think I’m so bat-shit crazy for doing what I did that he might run on his own. I probably wouldn’t blame him.
“I think there’s something wrong with me,” I tell him.
“No, there isn’t. We are who we are because of the life we’ve lived through. You’re perfect.”
“Stop saying that,” I tell him.
He releases his grip on my knees and stands up, giving me space. “Okay, I’m going to go to the hotel and grab my bag. I’ll get an Uber. Do you want me to stay there for a while?”
I nod my head. “I’m sorry, Austin. I’m sorry you have to see this side of me. I’m sorry.” I try to take more deep breaths, in slowly through my nose, out through my mouth, over and over, but it’s not working.
“Okay, so I’ll come back. Is that okay?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
Austin places his hand on the back of my head and kisses my cheek. “I have my phone if you need anything.”
I nod again, waiting for the door to close behind him.
I pull my phone out and press the button I avoid so often.
“Hello?” Mom answers.
“Mom?”
“Scarlett? Where have you been?”
“I’ve tried to call you, but Dad always answers. Why has he been home so often?”
“He’s in the process of retiring. Are you okay, sweetie?” she asks. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“Can you get out of the house?” I ask her.
She thinks for a minute, and I hear a rustling in the receiver. “Yeah, I have about an hour.”
“Meet me at Starbucks on Main?”
“Okay, sweetie.”
I change my clothes as quickly as I can and tie my hair up in a ponytail. I run down the stairs, spotting the looks on Brendan and Kalvin’s faces. I run halfway out the door before I realize it’ll take me an hour to get there if I take the bus. Running back in, I breathlessly ask Kalvin, “Can I borrow your car?”
“Uh, um—”
Without waiting for an answer, I grab Kalvin’s keys off the entry table. “Thank you. I’ll be careful.”
I fly through the streets, praying for a parking spot on the street so I don’t have to walk a mile. After a couple of loops around Main Street, I find a metered spot. Of course, Kalvin has a compartment in his glove box for just quarters, so I take a handful and feed the meter. Thanks again, Kalvin.
I run to the Starbucks and find Mom sitting outside on the bench. I drop down next to her, feeling her frailness as she hugs me. “Is everything okay?” she asks.
“No,” I tell her, taking her thin hands within mine. Her sleeves rise a bit and see bruises lining her skin. “Mom, I need you to leave Dad.”
“Sweetie, don’t be ridiculous. I can’t do that. I’m fifty. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Come with me or something.”
“No, Scarlett. I’m not going to live in your apartment with you. You need to have your own life now.”
“Mom, I am so screwed up from the abuse I watched going on with you and Dad all those years. You have no idea. I don’t know how to fix myself anymore and I think it’s because you’re still in that situation. I need you to be away from him.”
She looks surprised to hear this. “Honey, I’m okay. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“You’re not okay,” I tell her. “What’s your dream, Mom?”
“Dreams are foolish, Scarlett. I live in the moment. You know that.”
My chest hurts as I try to make her see. “No, mom, you need to see the future. You need to imagine it.”
“It’s today, but with another date,” she says. I look into her sagging, sad eyes.
“You’ve been abused for thirty years. It’s over now.”
“You can’t say that, Scarlett.”
“What’s your dream, Mom?” I don’t remove my stare from hers. “Tell me.”
“I want him to die,” she whispers. “I want friends. I want to be loved.”
I hug her as her words shatter my heart. They make my bones hurt. “Where do you dream of being?”
She pauses but not for long. She’s thought of it before, I can tell. “Anywhere but here.”
“Good.”
“Scarlett, I’m still not living with you somewhere, so get that thought out of your head. I will not be a burden in a life that you need to build for yourself right now.”
“I understand,” I tell her.
“What did you do?” She can’t figure me out—this person I am right now. It’s not me, or maybe it is, and I’ve never known better.
“I fell in love, Mom.”
Her hand presses up against her chest. “Scarlett, you met someone?”
The smile on my face is proof. I can’t control the happiness pouring out of me even as I look at the pain Mom has endured for so long. I know now that there is no way to go backward. I just have to look forward.
“Come with me,” I tell her.
“How on earth am I supposed to do that?”
“Do you think there’s time to pack a bag of stuff?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she says.
“Then I’ll buy you new stuff. I’ve been saving.” I haven’t needed to spend much money while having free room and board this last month. I was saving up for an apartment, but I’ll live there a little longer if that means getting her settled.
“Sweetie, don’t be silly.” She stands up and pats my lap. “Follow me.” I follow her down the block with no clue as to what she’s doing. “I know what you think of me, Scarlett. I don’t blame you. You’ve never learned anything from me but how to be a weak person.”
“That’s not true, Mom.” It is a little true, but I wouldn’t hold that against her.
She walks up to an ATM, and with a shaky hand she reaches to the bottom of her purse and pulls out a black card. I only see it for a brief second as she points it toward the card reader. Dad’s name is on the card. “He’s so stupid,” she says. She presses in six numbers for the pin and then types a number so large, I’m not sure the ATM can fulfill her request.
“Mom?”
“I’ve earned it,” she says.
Somehow, the ATM satisfies out her request in the form of twenties. The machine is working on overdrive for what must be two minutes, but she carefully places the wad of cash into her purse and walks away as if nothing just happened. “Where are we going?” She asks.
“To Brendan’s,” I tell her. I’m staring at the side of her face, trying to comprehend everything I’m feeling, but all I can focus on is pride. I’m proud of Mom, and I’m proud of myself.
“How is Brendan? Gosh, I haven’t seen him in years. Is it Brendan? Is he the one you’re in love with?”
I snicker. “No, it’s not Brendan. He’s with someone too.”
“Oh,” she says.
“The car is just over there.” I point to Kalvin’s Lexus.
“That’s your car?” Mom asks with surprise.
“No, it’s Brendan’s boyfriend’s car.”
Her face contorts in surprise and confusion, but she doesn’t glance over at me. �
��That makes so much sense now.” I can see the thoughts running through her head at a mile a minute. “Good for them.”
“Yeah.” God, I hope they aren’t still fighting when we get back.
I pull into the driveway, hearing the sound of laughing instead of yelling coming from the open front door. Thank goodness.
“Come on in,” I tell Mom.
She follows me up the front steps and I open the door, finding Brendan, Kalvin, and Austin shooting the shit. “Nice of you to come back in one piece,” Austin says. “Where did you go?”
I take my mom’s arm and pull her into the living room. “Everyone this is my mom. Mom, this is Brendan, Kalvin, and—that’s Austin.”
Austin is the first to stand up and make his way over. “Mrs. Thorpe, it’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” Austin lays it on thick and kisses her hand. I’m pretty sure Mom is blushing, which is adorable.
“Oh my, you’re not from around here, are you?”
“No, ma’am. I’m from a little town in South Carolina.”
“Ah, a Southern gentleman. The perfect fit for my daughter.” I knew the words were rolling around in her head, I was just counting the seconds down until she spoke them out loud.
“I guess so,” Austin says.
“Mrs. Thorpe, it’s so nice to see you again,” Brendan says.
“Mrs. Thorpe?” she questions with laughter. “Brendan, dear, it’s okay. You can still call me Rose.”
Brendan shoots Kalvin a glaring look. “Rose, I’m Kalvin,” he says, standing up to shake her hand. It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Mom says.
“Mrs. Thorpe, I sure hope I’m not being rude, but would you mind if I stole your daughter for just a brief moment?” Austin asks.
“If you talk to me like that, you can have whatever you’d like,” Mom says. Oh, God.
“Mom.”
“Go ahead, I’ll catch up with Brendan and Kalvin,” she says.
I follow Austin up the stairs to the room I’ve been staying in. He closes the door behind us. “Okay, Miss Spontaneity, let’s play catch up for a minute, okay? My mind is spinnin’ darlin’, and I need some answers from you.”
“Okay,” I tell him. He’s freshly showered and in dry clothes, clothes that don’t resemble ones I’ve ever seen him in, but it’s obvious he’s trying to fit in here with his Henley long-sleeve shirt and casual jeans. “You look very Boston, by the way.”
“Scarlett ... ”
“I don’t want to be up here anymore,” I tell him. “This doesn’t feel like home to me.”
He sits down on the window sill and crosses his leg over his knee. “Okay, so where do you want to go?”
“Back home.”
Austin’s eyebrows sew together. “Isn’t this home?”
“Home is where a person can spend forever.”
“And this is coming from a person who can’t think about tomorrow? I’m confused.”
“I was happy in South Carolina—in Blytheville, but I was feeling a lot of guilt, knowing my mom was here still living through the horrors I was forced to live with for so long. I don’t think I could ever fully be happy anywhere because of that.” Austin is starting to look nervous, which I can understand. I’m probably not talking fast enough, but I know it will all make sense when I get it out.
“I want to live in Blytheville, and I want to find a good place for my mom to live. I need to get her out of this state.”
“That’s all this is?” he asks. “Why didn’t you just say so? I would have helped you.”
“Everything hit me very hard when we were talking earlier. I couldn’t figure out why I was so uncomfortable everywhere, or why I’ve been too scared to think about tomorrow. Then it dawned on me. If I know she’s okay, I can be okay.”
“Of course,” he agrees. “I’m glad you figured it out.”
I sit down on the bed and inhale sharply through my nose. “Yup.”
“So, why were you upset about me going into the hotel you interviewed at?”
I look up at him. His face is clean of emotion, but his eyes are full of apprehension. “They offered me a job.”
“That’s amazing,” he says. “Or not ... ” He laughs softly. “Scarlett, I don’t know what you want, darlin’. Just tell me.”
“I thanked them for the offer, but turned the job down.”
Austin smiles, but it fades after a second. “That’s why you’re scared to go in there?”
“No,” I tell him.
“Okay, I give up?”
“They offered me more money to take the position, but I said no.”
“Oh, wow they really wanted you, huh?”
“Yeah. They offered me even more when I said no again. I honestly don’t know why, but I turned down a salary most sane people wouldn’t turn down.”
“Wait, what?”
“I don’t know, Austin. While I was sitting in the interview, looking out the window at the surrounding buildings, I got an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I realized that if I had to think about the future … that was not what I wanted for the rest of my life. There’s really no amount of money that’s worth more than happiness.”
“How much are we talkin’ here?”
“Eighty-thousand plus benefits and housing.”
“Holy crap, Scarlett. Do they have a hotel in South Carolina?” he asks.
I lower my head to hide my silent snicker. “So, you know how I told you I almost screwed that up last time?”
“Yeah,” he says, sounding puzzled.
“Well, I excused myself to go to the restroom, and I called the headquarters and asked them if there were any similar availabilities in the area surrounding Blytheville.”
“And?”
“There is one. In the next town over—Trident,” I tell him.
“That’s like a five-minute drive,” he says.
“I know.”
“So, what happened then?” he presses.
“I told headquarters what I was offered for a compensation package and asked if they could make that happen in Trident. If so, I would go down there.”
Austin’s mouth is hanging open with shock. “There’s no way they’d agree to that salary in South Carolina.”
“They did,” I tell him. “I went back to tell the hiring manager about the other location and—we’ll just say no one was very happy after spending money to fly me up here, upping my salary and throwing in all the bonuses just so I could call Trident’s location. They kind of told me to leave and never come back.”
“Dang, Scarlett. I knew you were a fireball, but that’s like ... I don’t even know what to call it, but hell, you are incredible. You want something, you just go get it, and you’re taking care of your mama on top of it all.”
“Everything feels right, now,” I tell him.
“Everything is right.”
“I haven’t really told my mom any of this, but as long as I get her out of here, I don’t think she’ll care where she goes.”
“You know what, there are a million adult communities for people who are fifty and older in Trident. It’s very residential—kind of perfect for your mom.”
“See. Perfect,” I tell him. Sometimes acting in the moment doesn’t screw me over. I won this time, I think.
“What about us?” Austin asks.
“Smother me a little more,” I tell him.
His lips curl into a greedy smile. “Careful what you ask for. Smotherin’ doesn’t mean the same thing to you as it does to me.”
“What does it mean to you?” I ask, curiously.
He stands up from the windowsill and walks over to me at a slow pace—the kind of pace I’m not a fan of yet. I might be moving down South, but I’m still a fast-paced kind of girl.
I decide to avoid complaining as one of his knees press into the bed and he pushes me down into the plush comforter. He climbs over me and my lungs fall flat. It doesn’t get old with him. Austin dips his head,
and takes my lips with his, biting down and tugging gently. “For every tomorrow you will give me, I will make you wish there was never a yesterday,” he says.
I run my hands up the scruff of his cheeks and look into his beautiful eyes, seeing the truth written across his face, knowing there is nothing to be worried about. “Okay,” I tell him.
He leans back into kiss me again, scooping his arms under my back.
The door opens. “Scarlett,” Mom says. “Oh my God.” Austin jumps up and rolls off the bed.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I apologize.”
“Uh,” Mom says looking between the two of us. “Is there one like you for my age?”
I close my eyes and cover my face.
“I see where you get your sharpness from,” Austin says.
“Why don’t you two come downstairs? There will be plenty of time for boning later,” she says. Oh, God.
“Mom!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Austin
A MONTH LATER
Again? Dammit. “Waldo, where are you?” I open the front door and spot Scarlett and Waldo playing Frisbee across the dirt road. “Nothing says good morning like thinking your girlfriend left in the middle of the night and then finding your dog walked out too,” I shout out to Scarlett.
“I made you breakfast, grumpy.” I guess I’ve never been much of a morning person, but it’s been a little nicer waking up next to Scarlett when she doesn’t get out of bed before me.
The hotel lets her choose her main shifts, so she matched it up to my schedule the best she could. They have suites for the staff at the hotel, so she splits her time between there and here, but it may have been here a little more than there recently. I went years convincing myself I’d be okay waking up alone for the rest of my life because I didn’t think a good relationship could exist after everything I’ve seen, so it was easier not to expect anything.
“What did you make?” I ask her.
“Bacon.”
“Scarlett … ”
“What?”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny,” she argues.
“You know Betsy Blue, the pig version, has been missing for a few days now.”
The Man Cave Collection: Manservant, Man Flu, Man Handler, and Man Buns Page 81