Weird? Yes.
True? Also, yes.
Awkward? Hell, yes.
My stomach sinks with that heavy, uncomfortable sensation that won’t budge. It just sits inside you and makes you miserable. I shift my weight in the seat and loosen the white-knuckle grip I have on the steering wheel in hopes of releasing some of the stress.
It doesn’t.
I take a quick right, causing the sunglasses on the dash to drift to the passenger side and rattle against the glass. Hadley grips the door as the truck climbs to the top of the hill. We’re nearly vertical, the engine groaning because I didn’t flip it in four-wheel drive. Hadley’s grip stays tense until we’re safely settled at the peak.
I cut the engine, and George’s voice melts away. It’s just Hadley and me—two people trying to figure out what to do with the other.
She looks at me warily as she sets the paper bag on the floorboard. The little clover pendant rises and falls about the same hectic speed as my breath. She gives me a half-smile, one loaded with a hundred questions, before she opens the door and climbs out.
Her arms stretch to the side, her face tilted to the sky. The rust-colored shirt brings out the redness in her hair, and I wonder if Samuel knows it gets less red as the seasons change. Then in the summer, the sun will kiss her again and the coppery strands will pop like they do now.
I wonder if he knows anything about her I don’t. The idea pummels me yet sparks an entire line of thought I don’t want to go down.
It’s not even about her making memories with someone else. It’s that they aren’t with me. That feels completely selfish, but I can’t help it. Just as I can’t help how wrong it feels to have sections of our lives that don’t intersect.
Lance’s stupid one-liner floats through my head like a digital banner, blinking its message over and over. If I don’t marry her, someone else will. The only problem is, when it comes to me and Hadley, I can’t marry her. I can’t do that to her or even ask that of her, no matter how much she thinks she wants it. But that means I’m going in some arbitrary box in her head, and I don’t even know what that means.
Would she call me if something happened and she couldn’t get a hold of Cross? Because she does that now. Like nine months or so ago when she popped a tire on her way back to Vigo. She called me. Or the time before that when she thought someone had broken in her house—she called me. Would that stop too?
Nah, fuck that.
I shove open the door so hard it bounces the springs.
Hadley looks over the hood of the truck at me. “You okay?”
“I’m just gonna fucking say this,” I say, planting both hands on the damp truck. “And I want you to listen.”
“Oh, this should be good.”
“Don’t start. Please.”
“Uh, I believe it’s you who almost broke the door off its hinges and proclaimed you had something to say.” Both hands go to her hips as she squares up with me. It’s a defense mechanism loud and clear, and the fact she goes there automatically makes me feel like shit.
“I don’t wanna fight, Had.”
“You always wanna fight.”
I press off the hood and walk around the front of the truck. “I do always want to fight with you.”
Her shoulders drop. “Well, there ya go.”
“And on that note, I’ve been thinking …”
She blows out slowly, pressing her lips together in resignation. Her eyes flutter closed for no more than a second before she stands tall and opens them again. “I’ve been thinking too, Mach.”
A pain shoots across the back of my neck. “You first.”
As I watch her wrestle with what to say, as I feel the air between us swirl with the unknown, I almost wish I hadn’t seen her walking today. That I hadn’t picked her up. That I hadn’t bought her lunch or brought her to this place—our place.
“I always make this weird between us,” she starts. “I—”
“You don’t make anything weird. You’re honest.” I bite the inside of my cheek out of pure frustration. “That’s more than I can say for me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means …” I sigh. “It means you’re not to blame for us not getting along.”
The can of tobacco in my back pocket is suddenly very present. Needing the relief a quick dip would provide, I start to grab it.
“You make it very clear what you want and don’t want,” she says, enunciating the words carefully. “It’s me who puts the pressure on us and makes everything awful.”
I forget all about the tobacco. “Everything isn’t awful.”
“Not right now. But a lot of the time.”
“Hadley, look …” I move until I’m standing just a few feet away from her. There’s a resolution in her eyes that gives me hope that we can work it out. I can’t not have her in my life, but I can’t be in it so deep I fuck her up either. “We have to figure this out.”
“Figure what out?”
“This. Whatever it is.”
There’s a pull from somewhere deep inside me that draws me to her. That makes me want to take her in my arms, bury my face in the messy, rain-mussed hair on the top of her head, and hold her tight. It’s so strong it takes all my strength not to reach out, pull her to me, and never let go.
She clears her throat. “Emily and I were talking last night.”
“Was she drinking? Because I’ve seen that girl drink more than anyone her size should be able to get away with.”
“She was.” She grins. “But her advice was spot-on, I think.”
“Which was?”
“Yeah.” She takes a deep breath. “She says I need to relax.”
A laugh flows from me before I even know it’s happening. “I’ve said that for years.”
“Well, it sounds more logical coming from her.”
“Of course, it does.”
“And that surprises me because Emily isn’t logical about much of anything.” She laughs. “Guess you never know where good advice might pop up.”
“Trust me. I know. Believe it or not, I found a little wisdom in something Lance said last night.” I cringe as I bring it up. His words echo in my brain again, and I feel them in my soul.
“Oh, this I have to hear.”
“If I go quoting Lance, the world might go up in flames.”
She laughs freely. “Taking advice from Lance might ensure the same ending.” She makes a face. “Did it have anything to do with dating apps?”
“No. I think Mariah would kill him if he even mentioned that.”
“I think I like Mariah.”
“You would.” I nod. The tension in my neck eases, bringing a relief I didn’t know I needed. “She’s pretty and smart and feisty like another woman I know.”
Hadley’s cheeks pink.
“Hadley—”
“No. Let me go first,” she says, cutting me off. “For the first time in your life, let me go first.”
“Oh, yeah, like you don’t always end up dominating a conversation.”
“What? I don’t. You’re crazy.”
“And”—I smirk—“can I point out I always let you go first?”
If her cheeks pinked before, they’re full-on red now. It’s adorable and sexy and even brought this conversation here, I need to redirect it. Immediately.
I laugh. “If you don’t hurry up and say whatever it is, I’m gonna eat your taco salad.”
“Don’t touch that or I’ll cut your fingers off.” She gathers herself. “Okay. So a lot of our problem is me being too focused on putting how I feel about you in a box with a neat little label. I’ve never been able to just see you like another guy. I don’t have to brand my relationship with other men. I shouldn’t brand you. Or … us.”
“You should be able to do that pretty fucking easy with other men. ‘Friend’ isn’t hard.”
“I’m not just friends with every guy I know, Machlan.”
“Oh, really?” I say. Crossing my
arms over my chest, I try to ignore the irritation gaining traction in my stomach. “How many guys are you not ‘just friends’ with?”
“Enough.” She draws out the word before busting out in a fit of giggles. “It’s you who needs to relax.”
“This is as relaxed as I get.”
“And that’s sad. But true,” she says. “Anyway, Em says I need to treat you like any other guy. Like I would a guy I met at the dry cleaners, for example, or an old friend.”
“You want to treat me like Peck?”
“Well, maybe.” She shrugs. “I guess.”
“This should be fun,” I grumble.
She swats my shoulder as she walks by. When I turn around, she’s facing where the sun would be if it were visible.
“You want to be my friend?” I ask the question slowly, getting a feel for it as I say it. “Is that what you’re saying?”
She considers this. “I think a friend label will work because we’ve always been friends, right? I mean, more or less. At least until I figure it out, I guess.”
“I’m tired of your guesses. You want to hammer this out? Then let’s hammer it out.”
She turns to look at me. She’s a warm fixture on a backdrop of pine trees and the slate sky, a bright spot in an otherwise bleak day. The slant of her lips is down, not up, and I can’t see the gold in her eyes either. It’s a stark reminder of the reality of this situation.
“Fine. Do you want to be my friend, Machlan?”
“Is this a George Strait thing? Is there a box to check yes or no?”
Her chest shakes, but she doesn’t allow me the laugh. “This is not a George Strait thing. But I might make you cross your heart when you answer.”
“I can’t with you and country song references.”
Despite the ache in my chest that says otherwise, I don’t want to be in her life on that kind of level. I don’t want to be her friend at all.
What I want is to hear about her day at the dental office before I leave the house for the bar. I want to come home to find her snuggled up in my blankets with a book beside her. I want to hear her jab me about haircuts and take her to Nana’s for Sunday dinners and plan my whole weekend around a bunch of chores she wants done—chores I’ll bitch about just to see her get worked up.
That’s what I want. I want her on every fucking level. I want her so much I can’t do it to her.
Lance’s voice filters through my mind again. If I don’t marry her, someone else will.
What the fuck do I do now?
Sixteen
Hadley
The view from atop Bluebird this time of year is my favorite. The leaves are starting to change, giving hints of the show they’ll put on a few weeks from now. It’s still subtle now with just touches of golds and crimsons. It’s pretty, but my favorite view anytime, anywhere is standing just a few feet behind me.
I wonder if he’s pacing, and if he is, why. I don’t want to turn around and look, but I feel his presence. He gets closer, then farther away, then closer again. My lungs hold the air that’s filled them. My heart rattles in my chest, and I can feel my pulse pounding in the side of my neck.
Something has been different between us today. Initially, I thought it was my attempt at a new mindset courtesy of Emily. But the longer we’re together, the more I think it’s not just me.
“The truth is,” he says, making me jump, “I don’t want to be friends with you.”
I shake my head, hoping it loosens the fog in my skull as I try to process Machlan’s words.
Silence settles on Bluebird Hill. The only sound is the rush of oxygen my lungs finally let go.
My bottom lip starts to quiver. I don’t want to be friends with you.
He can’t mean that.
Fighting tears, I clutch a hand to my chest and try to steady myself. This is exactly what I wanted when I came to Linton, and now that I’m getting it, it feels like I’m being sliced and there are no bandages big enough to stop the damage.
His palm cups the edge of my shoulder. His long, muscled fingers wrap around my arm.
Closing my eyes, I remind myself this is exactly why I’m here, and that maybe, just maybe, the universe is helping me for once. My eyes open as his hand slips from my shoulder and I turn to look at him.
“I knew that,” I say, the lump in my throat obvious. “That was sort of a rhetorical question.”
His forehead mars, the lines forming above his eyes deep and many. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“There’s kind of only one way you can take it when someone says they don’t want to be your friend,” I say, forcing a laugh. Turning to the truck, I continue. “Besides, this makes that whole box thing easier—”
“Stop.” His hand touches my shoulder again but pulls away immediately this time.
I stop. I stop and listen for his voice, wait for the explanation that I think is going to come. What kind of an explanation it is, I don’t know. I don’t even want to guess at it. But something is coming. I can feel it.
“The truth is,” he says, giving my words back to me, “you aren’t just any girl to me, and you never will be.”
There isn’t even a warning. My eyes fill with tears—red-hot, guppy-sized dollops of water cloud my vision of the truck.
“Fuck, Hadley.” He steps in front of me. On his face is a scowl he wears so well. It’s usually aimed at me, but this time, I get the feeling it’s not. That maybe it’s aimed at himself.
“What are you doing?” I ask. I fight so hard to keep the tears from streaming down my face. If the dam breaks and one passes, it’ll be a cascade of emotions I can’t control. I have it under wraps until I look him in the eye.
My knees wobble as I see something in those orbs I’ve only seen a couple of times in my life. On the other occasions, I thought it was love. I believed this look to mean he felt something for me in line with what I felt so deeply for him.
Now, I’m not sure what to think.
Or maybe, I’m afraid of what to think.
“I’m really out of my wheelhouse here,” he says.
I give him a half-smile. “So this has nothing to do with alcohol, cars, poker, or sex?”
He grins sheepishly. “It has a little to do with sex.”
Blowing out a breath, the tears absorbing into my body, I find a kernel of steadiness inside myself and hold onto it for dear life.
“You kind of fucked me up a little with that whole ‘I want to love Samuel’ bullshit,” he says.
“It’s not bullshit.”
“No, I know it’s not. I know you want to fall in love with some respectable guy and have the whole house and kids and dogs thing you didn’t have growing up. I get it.”
It takes everything I have to force the weight in my chest away. “I do want that. I’m ready for it now. And …” The weight comes back with full force, barreling its way through my defenses and filling my abdomen. I can’t blink the tears back this time. I can’t fight the lump in my throat either. My nose burns as my gaze settles on Machlan.
He stiffens, his eyes going wide before filling with a mix of fear and confusion. A half-step is taken back as he runs a hand along his stubbled jaw. The breeze whips around us, rustling a clump of wet leaves stuck to our shoes.
His mouth opens as if he’s about to speak, but nothing comes out. As if he’s afraid to bring up the topic he’s pretty certain I was about to broach—one we’ve only discussed a handful of times.
A sadness creeps across his handsome face and settles deep in my heart.
Energy drains from my body. If I could drop to the cold, wet ground and curl in a ball, I would. The edges of the rocks and the sticky mud would be preferred over the hell of looking into Machlan’s face and seeing my own feelings reflected.
My gaze hits the gravel because I can’t look at him. I consider heading to the truck and ending this conversation when he speaks.
“And what, Hadley?” His voice is low, careful. Almost like he was forced to ask it a
nd definitely like he already knows the answer.
My heart races, my palms sweat despite the cool temperatures. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the air around us picks up too, and the world around us seems to go faster.
I close my eyes and see her sweet little face all bundled up in a pink blanket Machlan bought at a discount store the day before I went into labor.
“And I hope someday I’ll make her proud.”
The last few words come out in a hiccup. I’m not sure they even make it into the air before Machlan pulls me to his chest. His arms envelop me in the warmth of his body as my own torso shakes with a force it only does when I cry about this.
About her.
About our daughter.
I don’t cry a lot. Sometimes on her birthday when I’m alone and wondering what she would be doing if she were with me and not with the wonderful couple who adopted her that April afternoon. There’s just something about having this conversation with Machlan that feels overwhelming today.
The longer I cry, the tighter he holds me.
I think about waddling into that little store and watching Machlan choose a blanket as though it was the most important purchase he’d ever make. How he woke up that morning in the dingy little motel and this was the only thing he wanted to do—buy the baby a blanket.
His cheek lays on the top of my head, and I’m not sure if he’s holding me or I’m holding him. My own trembling makes it hard to tell if it’s all me or if some of it is coming from him too. Either way, as deeply as it hurts, it feels better to know I’m not hurting alone.
It’s only when I’ve thoroughly soaked his shirt and my chest stops vibrating and my tears turn into whimpers does he loosen his grip. He plants a kiss to the top of my head that I think I’m not supposed to feel before he lets me go.
“Sorry,” I mumble, stepping back. I dab my eyes with the corner of my damp shirt. “I didn’t mean to break down on you like that.”
He brushes a lock of hair that’s matted to my cheek off my face. His thumb glides over my skin, his palm cupping my cheek before he withdraws it. “Do you think about her a lot?”
Gibson Boys Box Set Page 79