by Aubrey Cara
“Fine. I’ll give you that one, but what about the rest?”
“Small-town mentality. We’re the new thing to talk about, until something else happens. Did someone say something to you?” I’ll fucking kill them.
“No! No one said anything.” She tosses up her hands. “Say I stay. Then what? We get married? Have babies?”
“Who said anything about marriage and kids?” I mean, shit. Madeline, pregnant with our kid? My gut clenches. Maybe someday.
“That’s what people in relationships do.”
“Says who? Why can’t we have what we have with you living here and not in the city?”
“And I’ll do what here? Farm butterflies?”
I ignore the level of scorn in her voice. “I don’t know, princess. Why don’t you put that Ivy League education to work and think of something? I mean, what about your plans for the old building in Shelbyville?”
“What I’m going to do with that place—if I ever get it—would have been like a side thing. A hobby.”
“Who buys a building as a hobby?”
“I do!”
“That’s some down played bullshit.” She’d told Jess and I about it one night while we laid in dark. She sounded so hopeful and excited about doing something so different than what she’s been doing. Something just for her.
The back door opens, and Jess steps in. “Hey, guys.” He takes in our naked state. Our angry stances. His brows go up. “What did I miss?”
“Princess is going back to the city. Good fucking riddance.”
“We weren’t supposed to be serious,” she yells, and it cuts over my skin.
“Yeah, poor Madeline. She just needed some dirty dick to distract her from her shitty life.”
“It wasn’t like that!”
“No? Then tell me what it was like.”
She stands frozen. “I don’t know,” she finally says.
“Have a nice life, Mads.”
“Jace!” she cries, but I don’t turn around.
I can’t look at her right now.
I’m the stupidest man who ever walked the planet. I knew—fucking knew not to trust Madeline. I knew better than to fall for her again. But I fucking did.
Like a halfwit, I did.
Madeline
Jace storms out of the room, a tattoo-covered ball of masculine rage, and I war with whether I should go after him. I don’t think I can tell him what he wants to hear. This is all happening too fast.
“What’s he talking about?” Jess asks.
“I have to go back to the city.”
“For good?”
It wasn’t supposed to be for good. Or maybe it was. “My apartment. There was a fire. I need to go tie up some loose ends.”
“But you’re coming back.”
“No—I mean yes. I have to take care of things at the lake house and get it on the market. But—” I can’t say it. “I have to get back to my life at some point, right? Start looking for a job. Move on.”
There’s a weight pressing my chest, and the numbness that’s been gone the last few weeks is settling over me.
“Wow. So that’s it?”
“I don’t know what else it can be.”
“You don’t know what else it can be?” His brows pull down, disappointment etching his features, but I don’t know what they expected from me. “It could be something pretty fucking amazing if you let it.”
“Jess—”
“You really want to leave?”
“I don’t want to stay.” But I do. I want to stay, and that scares me. I don’t belong here.
“I don’t believe you.”
A hot, sick emotion spreads up my chest and lodges in my throat. I’ve hurt him. I’ve hurt them both. But that’s not fair. We didn’t have anything defined. We made no promises to each other.
“The three of us were just having fun, right?”
He gives me a long hard look then shakes his head. “Maybe at first. But I think we both know it’s more than that. What we have goes way beyond sex. Why can’t you admit that? Why can’t you let us the fuck in?”
“I can’t!”
“Can’t or won’t?”
I don’t answer. This is all too much. I wasn’t prepared for this discussion.
“You know, Maddie, at some point you’re going to have to let yourself be vulnerable somewhere outside of a bedroom.”
I can’t breathe. I’m drowning in ice water and looking for an escape. Any escape. Why is this so hard?
“Jess, we’re from different worlds.” I cringe at my own choice of words, bile burning up my throat.
“Right.” He steps into my space. Crowds me in and tilts my chin up. “If you want to go so bad and get back to your life.” He puts the last two words in air quotes. “Why are you crying?”
I touch my wet face in surprise. “I don’t know.”
“I do.” He kisses me then. It’s tender but so charged with all the things left unsaid, my lips tingle and for one split second I’m on steady ground.
“Take care of yourself, Maddie.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m done talking you into staying. If you want to be with us, there’s nobody stopping you but you. If you want to go…” He shrugs his expression as hollowed out as I feel.
Then…then he lets me go.
I float back to the city an untethered balloon, drifting.
14
J ess
It kills me to let her leave. Absolutely guts me. But she has to choose to be here with me—with us—on her own. And a part of me doesn’t believe this is it. This can’t be it because if it is...I let the love of my life walk away without a fight.
Jace drags out all the bedding and shit Maddie installed in his room, tossing it outside and going back for more. She’d said she needed a project and redecorated when and where she wanted to. She’d redone the guest room, too. The ultra-soft comforter we’d christened several times in one night, goes next.
“What are you doing?’
“Bonfire.”
Without another word, I grab beers out of the fridge and tequila out of the cabinet. I’m not about to burn the shit she got me. Or the shirt and panties she left in my room last week. But I’ll sit outside with my brother and drown today away.
The other shit I don’t want to forget. Not her taste or the way she’d nestle her ass up to me when she slept, or the yummy noises she’d make when we fed her real food and not those disgusting green smoothies she lives off of.
None of that shit.
But maybe, just maybe if we drink enough, this fucking ache in my chest will go away.
Jace dowses the heap of bedding, a chair, and I’m not even sure what else in lighter fluid then flicks a match and lights it up.
We drink and watch it burn.
“When she walked into town, you should have left her the fuck alone.” Jace’s words break the silent spell I’ve been under, listening to the crackling fire as the flames dancing lower and lower..
“Let’s not get into this right now, man.”
“When would be a better time, brother?” Jace gets in my face. He’s hopped up on butthurt feelings and tequila and wanting to pick a fight. “She fucking left! I fucking told you she would!”
“You don’t think I know that?” I shove him away. “I was here. I watched her go! What the fuck was I supposed to do?”
“Stay the fuck away from her in the first place!” I duck the first swing of his fist. The second catches me in the jaw. My head reels back. Adrenaline and too much booze pumping through my system, I charge him, slamming him to the ground.
We both get in some good hits. We nearly roll into the fire. Jace stumbles to his feet, panting. I get up a little more slowly and just as winded.
Wiping blood from his lips, he limps over to the garage and grabs two folding chairs. He sets them both up and drops down in one then holds out a beer for me.
I take it and plop down, the old lawn chair creaking under my weig
ht.
“She’s coming back.” I don’t know why I’m holding firm to the belief. We may very well never see her again, but the thought is unacceptable.
Jace grunts and take a sip of his beer. “Just like Mom came back.”
I’m blindsided by the comparison. In all the years she’s been gone, he’s never so much as mentioned her. Our mom was a young hippie who was in love with being in love, or so Dad said. She left before we were five. I don’t even remember her as a mom. We met her once in middle school, and she was fruit loops. She’d wanted to make her karmic peace with us or some shit because she’d had another kid. There was a lot of dancing and burning of incense and chanting. She called us the children of her past spirit.
Even at twelve, I knew she wasn’t all there in the head. She’d been nice enough, but I always thought we’d been kind of lucky she left. I also always felt bad our half-sister Sierra was stuck being raised by her, but who knows. Maybe Mom ditched out on her, too. Last we heard, they were living up in Canada.
“Man, Maddie is not mom.”
“Maybe. Doesn’t change facts. She’s going back to her old life, and you and me…we ain’t welcome in it.”
His words sit uncomfortable with me. Mainly because he might be right. I kick myself again for not making her stay. But, what if I had talked her into staying, and she’d been unhappy? It’s better this way. Whether she wants to be with us or not has to be her choice.
Knowing that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
She left.
She fucking left.
15
Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses. ~Ann Landers
M adeline
New York City
Twenty-eight days, eight hours, and twenty-three minutes later
“We got it!” Celia shouts from next room over. “Did you hear me?” Eyes bright with excitement she strides into the sitting room of our shared suite.
“I think they heard you across Central Park.”
“We got the building! The whole thing.”
“What building?”
“The old one in Shelbyville. With the diner? The previous owner passed away, and I had a hell of a time tracking down the son. He’s in his late sixties, retired in Colorado, now, and more than happy to be getting rid of the building.” She gives the air a victorious fist pump.
Sitting back in my chair, a tidal wave of conflicting emotions rushes over me. “Excellent,” I say without feeling.
Going after that building had been an emotional decision borne on sentiment. The diner represented some of the few times my mother let herself and me indulge in things like milkshakes and french fries. Something, in my mother's opinion, women with a care for their figure didn’t do. It was a place of good memories, and my mother used to say she wished someone would buy the three-story building and do something wonderful with it. She had the vision. And when I saw it again, I wanted to put all my savings into creating that for her. Now, I don’t know what I want. Everything is a confusing jumble.
”When do we close?’
“We have two inspections this week. If all goes well, we can move things along and be signing papers in four weeks.”
“Good.”
Celia deflates. “That’s it?”
“I guess we should pack?”
“We don’t have to be there for the inspections. No need to leave the city at all. I’ll have them forwarded to a real estate attorney here.” She sits down behind a little desk in the corner and flips open her laptop.
I try to tell myself it’s for the best we’re not returning to Clover Creek yet. I need time and space to figure out what I’m going to do with my life. I was using the men as a crutch. But disappointment spirals through me. I miss them. Every day and night, I miss them.
“I think I’ve figured out a way to get around the no-compete clause in your contract,” Celia says from where she’s sitting with her nose buried in her computer screen.
I stare down at Central Park, seeing everything and nothing. The trees have already started to turn all the burnished shades of fall. I usually love this season in the city. There’s a lively energy. It’s crisp as the cool breezes that seem to clean away all the stagnation left behind by summer. But, I haven’t enjoyed one day here.
Not when we crossed the bridge into Lower Manhattan.
Not when I ordered food from my favorite Thai place.
Not when my $1200 Louboutin heels clicked on the polished marble floors of my luxury hotel’s lobby, echoing in the vaulted ceilings. I used to love that sound. It was the sound of success and money. This time every click-clack of my expensive shoes rang empty. Lonely. Something’s missing. Or, more specifically, two someones.
Jace would say I’m so depressed, I’ve gone emo. God, I miss him.
“Oh, and I lined up an interview for you with Proctor & Gamble,” she says.
“Doing what?”
“They would like to hire you as an executive business consultant. They’re impressed with your experience and success. They want you to work your magic at their NYC office.”
“How long?”
Celia’s expression falls at my unenthusiastic, dry tone. “Their projected timeline is one week.”
I scoff. That’s problem number one. Rushing a process. They’re a multibillion dollar corporation, and they expect miracles to happen in five to seven business days. Five to seven days of layoffs. Five to seven days of corporate restructuring. Cutting salaries. Expanding bonuses. Looking at every department and discovering what’s weighing them down.
“I’d need a team for this sort of project.”
“They’re only wanting you to focus on three departments. You’ll be working alongside another consultant.”
“Who?” I ask out of curiosity.
“They didn’t say,” she hedges, suddenly intrigued by something on her computer screen.
“Ah, so someone I can’t stand. Lovely.” I wave my hand to stop Celia from saying anything more. It doesn’t matter. “I can’t do it.”
“Of course, you can. You’re Madeline Fitzpatrick.”
Madeline Fitzpatrick. I don’t think that means what it used to. The prospective project at Proctor & Gamble is one the old Madeline wants to sink her teeth into. It would throw me right back into the world I fought and clawed my way to the top in. I should be elated. It’s what I wanted…was hoping for…but…the thrill isn’t there. And the thought of staying in the city and being away from the guys—my guys—freezes my insides.
I see them everywhere. Wonder what they’d think of places like where we’re staying right now. Jace would love it. The doorman wouldn’t know what to make of him, and Jace would love that even more. The man loves making people uncomfortable. Jess…he would hate all the pomp and circumstance. He’d find it entertaining but secretly be annoyed by it.
I hear Mayhue’s voice in the back of my mind, Live your life…hold tight to those you care about. I never felt more alive than I did when I was with Jess and Jace. But it was more than that. I felt like I belonged. Like they were home.
And I pushed them away out of fear and quite honestly because they don’t fit into my plan. The plan I’ve been pursuing for too many years to no end. He died full of regret and alone...
No one loved my father when he died. He had pushed everyone away. And I’m just like him. I don’t know if what the guys and I have is love—I have no idea what love is supposed to be—but I didn’t even give us a chance. I built a career, pushed everyone away thinking everything I had built was success. That I was winning.
I wasn’t ever winning.
“I can’t stay here,” I say.
Celia starts clicking at her laptop. “Here, hotel here? Or room, here? I can have us moved in a snap.”
“City, here.”
She stops typing.<
br />
“I’ve made a mistake. I’m not ready to be back here for good.” I may never be.
“That’s ridiculous. You’re Madeline Fitzpatrick. You don’t make mistakes.”
If only that were true. “Stay in the city,” I tell Celia. “Get back to your life. And I’m going to get back to mine.”
“You didn’t even hear what they’re going to pay you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Madeline. You can’t possibly want to do this. Your career—”
“Doesn’t define me. Not anymore.” I’m already moving. Heading into my sumptuous bedroom with the king-sized bed I’ve lain lonely in every night and grabbing my Hulme Co. suitcase out of the closet.
“What are you going to do out in the middle of nowhere?”
“I’ll oversee construction at the building I’m buying.”
“And after that’s finished?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“I know what’s happening,” she says. “I’ve heard of this. You’re dick blind. Dick too bomb, it’s called.”
I freeze, pulling a Carolina Herrara silk blouse off a hanger. “Did you say dick too bomb?”
She pushes her glasses up her narrow little nose. “It means you’re making poor choices because the penis, or in your case peni, is too enjoyable.” She says this with the calm of a physician explaining tuberculosis. “You’re blinded by orgasms.”
“Is this some Victorian-era thing? Like dick madness?”
“I’m serious,” she huffs then holds up her phone and shows me the urban dictionary definition, headed with an eggplant, a peace sign, and a bomb in emojis.
“Oh, for fucksakes, Celia.” I push her phone down. “Is it so bad I want to go back to Clover Creek and be in a relationship with…two…mechanics?”
Horror mixed with pity etches Celia’s delicate features.
“Okay, out loud it doesn’t sound rational. It’s likely the least rational thing I’ve ever done.” I wave a hand and carefully fold my interwoven Balmain corset-style belt, a little sad it will never get the appreciation it deserves in Clover Creek. “But, maybe I need to do something irrational for a change.”