After we left Vincent’s office, Sanders turned to me, his gaze far too intense to be appropriate for work. “Good work, Roxxo.”
“Thanks, Colonel.” I fought to keep my face neutral. “So are you thinking of partnering with the Lodge?”
“Of course,” he said, his excitement growing more palpable with every step. “I think this could really work,” he said. His eyes shone with a manic excitement.
“Well, as lead events coordinator we’d probably work together regularly,” I said, flicking a glance to him, playing it cool.
Once we reached the lobby, he stopped in front of the fireplace, eyes bright and wide as they bounced around my face. “That’s the best part. I could move out here and start a second location in Green Valley. Guaranteed business through the Lodge and maybe more throughout eastern Tennessee.” He all but bounced on the balls of his feet. “Yes. Yes, this is perfect. I’ll start looking for an apartment today.”
“Today?” The shock of his words chilling me. I forced myself to think about the logistics. “Wait. Wait. You can’t just—”
His smile faltered and I realized I had to be careful how I framed this. He was so quick to go after what he wanted. But he needed to do things the right way. We needed to.
“Okay. Before you do that. Let’s think about a few things. You said you have to go handle your dad’s estate.”
He flinched. “I don’t—”
“And what about your office in Denver? You should probably go talk to them before you do anything sudden.”
“Don’t you want me?” He frowned. “To stay?”
“Sanders,” I said evenly. “Of course, I want that. This last week has been amazing but I just think you should slow down.”
“Why slow down when I know what I want? I want you. I want to be here with you. What else is there to know? We’re a great team. MooreTek said it. Vincent said it. You have a mind for the details. I handle the activities.”
Wasn’t that what he said about Skip? Was that how Sanders saw me? As Skip’s replacement? His words weren’t sitting right. He grabbed my hands as a growing panic sped up my heart. I glanced around.
I tried to pull my hands away but Sanders held me tighter. “What are you looking for?” he asked, his smile was gone.
I tugged my hands free. “We’re at work.”
“Well, they’re going to need to know about us.”
“No, I know. Just. Slow down.” I pressed fingers to my forehead to fix my bangs. “I need to think.”
Icy panic threatened to close my throat. This was all happening too fast. Buses were loading and unloading. A line had queued up at the front desk. The lobby was bustling for a Friday afternoon, guests checking out and new ones arriving.
Breaks squeaked loudly to a stop outside, drawing my attention. Skip stomped off a bus followed immediately by Jack.
I couldn’t hear them but Skip was frowning, fists clenched and head down, as he entered the lobby. From behind him, Jack tossed out his arms and shook his head before turning and getting back on the bus.
“Hey, Skippo,” Sanders called carefully to his partner.
Skip took in the pair of us, clearly noting my panicked gaze as he joined us. His scowl melted into concern. “What’s going on?”
I’d never seen Skip so disheveled. Dirt smeared his cheeks, his flannel and hiking pants were wrinkled and dirty. The smell of campfire and male stung my nose.
“Whoa, mate, you need a shower,” Sanders said.
“I know,” Skip snapped. “That’s where I was headed. You called me over. What’s going on?”
“Geez, cranky. I’ve got great news.”
I kept my face expressionless as Skip looked between us. “Okay?”
“The Lodge wants to partner with Outside the Box,” Sanders said excitedly but faint lines of tension bracketed his eyes. He didn’t like my concerns. He didn’t like seeing his friend grumpy. His gaze flicked to the bus where Jack was presumably trying to get the kids settled to return home. Sanders focused on his best friend. “Is everything okay with Jack? How was the camping trip?”
“One thing at a time,” Skip said. He ran his hand through wild hair.
“It’s good news, mate. I can stay here. You can handle the Denver office.”
“What?” Skip swallowed as a flush splotched up his neck.
“Yeah. I’ll stay out here. Get a place and start a new branch.”
“Wait,” I started. “Vincent just threw out the idea,” I clarified. “He still wants to talk to you both. The Lodge is in a state right now anyway. It could be months before the board approves anything,” I emphasized. Couldn’t he see this was too much for his best friend? Couldn’t he understand that Skip needed him to go slow? Couldn’t he see that I needed him to go slow?
Sanders looked at me like he couldn’t understand why I’d said that.
When Skip spoke, his voice was slow and deliberate. “Dev and the team need to hear from you. You can’t abandon the Denver office.”
“I’m hardly abandoning anybody.”
“You know, Dev and Callum told me they were thinking of starting their own business.”
Sanders faltered for a minute, then shrugged. “So let them. Denver is over. Green Valley is where it’s at.”
Skip’s face drained of color. “I spent the last ten years of my life building that business with you.”
“So come here. Start over and move here with me.”
Skip’s nostrils flared. He glared at Sanders like he couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. “I have a life in Denver. I can’t just drop everything to live here. I can’t just run away from my problems.”
Sanders flinched, the smile completely gone from his face. “Whoa, mate.”
“Okay,” I cut in. This was too much. I didn’t need to be there while they worked through this. I would talk to Sanders later. “I think maybe you two need to talk.”
Sanders threw out his arms. “I don’t understand you. Either of you. This is great news. We’re getting everything we wanted.”
I started to back away.
“No,” Skip said loudly enough that a few people looked over. Vincent looked up at us, his dark eyebrow rose behind his thick black frames. “You’re getting what you want in this moment and you’re forgetting about everything else. You’re distracting yourself from real life.” His hand gestured to me.
Heat burned my cheeks. “I have to go,” I said.
“Roxy, wait,” Sanders called but I couldn’t hear any more. I wouldn’t be the reason Sanders avoided his responsibilities. I wouldn’t be a momentary distraction.
I walked away. I couldn’t look at him anymore. I was too close to breaking. To falling into his arms and letting him use me as an excuse to avoid real life. When I looked up, Vincent’s gaze followed me with a pinched expression that may have been disappointment but I didn’t have the emotional energy to care.
Sanders
I raced after Roxy.
“Hang on, just stay here,” I snapped to Skip. “I can’t let her go.”
Skip ground his teeth and shook his head.
I caught up with Roxy a few feet away. “You can’t just run away from me again,” I said to her.
She flinched. “Don’t you say that to me, when that’s exactly what you’re doing.”
My body went rigid.
She gentled her voice. “You need to deal with your dad’s death, Sanders. You need to go home and take care of your office, your business, and all the other stuff. I’m not the one running.”
“What about us?”
Her face was deliberately cool. “You need time. I need time too. Maybe the timing isn’t right.”
“We make it right, then. I think we have the potential to be something great.”
“Sanders. We are something great … were … I dunno. But I do know that you can’t be in two places at once.”
“And us?” I asked as fear and anger warred in me.
“We were a su
mmer fling.”
Her words sliced me in half. Roxy was lying. She was lying, as sure as I knew when we played two truths and a lie that day. She was pushing me away. She was running. Not me. I saw the moment she left me in her mind. The moment a façade of ice formed over her heart again. One not even my sunshine could thaw.
“You’re just scared,” I said. “Your past is telling you that it won’t work but that’s not true.”
“It is true. We haven’t even slept this last week. We’re lucky nothing messed up. We’re lucky the client was happy. I’ve barely spoken to Gretchen since the moment you got to town. And I’m not saying that’s your fault, of course, but my friendship has to come first. My job. I told you what it meant to me. How long could we keep this up?”
“We would find a way,” I said through my teeth.
“I’m not saying we couldn’t. I just—we just need time, okay?”
“I’m serious about us,” I said.
“Let’s not commit to things we can’t promise. You go take care of what you need to. In a few months, we’ll reevaluate.” Her gaze moved over me one last time, shuttered and cold. She walked away leaving me numb and defeated.
“She’s right,” Skip said, snapping me back to the present.
I frowned at him, I didn’t even hear him come up beside me. “What are you talking about? This fixes everything. I thought you’d be happy.”
His fists were balled at his sides. “This fixes nothing. This is you escaping one problem and leaping into something else.”
“I fixed my mistakes. I got us more steady business than we’d ever have in Denver.” Now I was growing angry.
He shook his head at the ground, jaw tense. “What about the team? What about your father? I’m not going to go back there and clean up your mess. I’m done.”
“What mess? It’s fine. Everything is fine.” I rubbed at my chest, acid burning up my throat. This wasn’t how today was supposed to go. Our week with MooreTek had gone great. Roxy got her promotion. Outside the Box had gained new clients. Why was everyone freaking out?
“Sanders,” he softened his voice. “You have to go home. You have to go say goodbye to your father. You have to get his things. You have to close your apartment, if you’re serious about all this. You have to talk with our employees. You can’t just leave people behind.”
I didn’t want to hear this. Why couldn’t we all just move forward? Couldn’t we just … pretend?
“Fine.” I shook my head. “Fine. If everyone wants me to leave so bad, then I’ll go.”
“Sanders, you know we—”
But I waved him off and made my way to my room. I packed my bags and found a flight home. Twelve hours later, I finally walked into my apartment. Just like that, I’d left Green Valley.
My phone chirped with a voicemail from Roxy. I didn’t want to hear it but I forced myself to listen anyway, just like my dad’s messages.
“I heard that you left.” Her voice was soft, making my insides feel shaky. “I’m not happy that you left without a goodbye. I know I was the one who told you to go but … I don’t want you to think it’s because … I loved our time together. I’m telling you this in voicemail because I don’t think I could have said it to your face without breaking down and just asking you to stay.” Her voice wobbled and I shut my eyes. “You had to leave. You said you want to be better, right? This is where you start.
“I have to be better too. You’ve made me want to be better. There’s so much love just pouring out of you. You’re so lovely and passionate and I’m so thankful for our time together. Take care of yourself, Sanders. Okay? Well, that’s all I have to say. I didn’t want to leave things where they were. I’m so thankful for our time together.” Her voice went higher as she fought back emotion. “It’s a lot more than I ever thought I deserved. It was everything to me. I miss you already. Goodbye.”
The message ended. The silence rang out. I blinked around my empty, dark apartment as my heart thudded loudly against my chest. It was like everything came back at once. Being here, a million things I’d been pushing away came crashing down on me like a storm. There were no distractions or adventures anymore. I dropped my bags and fell to my knees. Then the tears came.
Chapter 25
Roxy
Sanders left. I pushed him away because things were moving too fast. Now it was almost nine and I sat stroking the condensation off my beer outside the Lodge bar on the patio. My shift had ended hours ago but I couldn’t force myself to go home where I would be accosted by memories of my time with Sanders. I stared at the sunset wondering how my life had gone from so perfect to unbearably wrong in just a few minutes.
“I’m leaving in the morning.” Skip’s voice pulled me from my woolgathering.
I blinked back the burning in my eyes and looked up at him. “Okay,” I said.
He held a beer and looked freshly showered but the sadness that radiated off him was almost too much. I gestured to the chair next to me. “Join me?”
We sat in silence for a long time. A new ache spread as I realized how much I would miss Skip too. I mourned the lost potential of what could be a really great friendship.
Without thinking, I reached out and squeezed his hand not taking my focus from the tall pines casting us in shadow.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he said into his beer.
He pursed his mouth and the gleam in his eyes reflected the reds and oranges of the sunset. I knew that he was referring to Sanders’ behavior. “I can’t keep being the one left behind. He does this. He leaves. He runs. He leaps without thinking …”
I remained quiet as he collected himself.
“And I’m always right behind him. I’m always following him into the wreckage. I can’t do it anymore,” he whispered to himself mostly.
“Nobody should be treated that way,” I said hollowly.
I was starting to see Sanders and Skip’s relationship for what it was. A co-dependency. Both of them enabling and holding the other back. This was why I couldn’t let Sanders stay for me. I didn’t want to be his temporary Band-Aid. Sanders struggled with handling his emotions. He had this incessant need to keep everyone around him isolated from his pain. I’d witnessed the turmoil destroying him the night at the playground. I thought he’d cracked open to let it all out and let me in … but he needed more than I could provide.
“He hides. He treats his pain like a wounded animal would. Only coming back out of hiding when he’s better. Like he has to be this magnanimous presence or nothing at all,” Skip said.
I nodded. My heart ached thinking of all the hours in bed we shared. The ways we loved each other’s body. How open he seemed when I first met him. Only to learn later that he was far more shut down and fragile than I ever imagined. If I thought I was locked down, I had nothing on Sanders. It made me want to be more willing to explore emotions other than anger and retreat. It helped me understand that my actions weren’t in a vacuum. I could hurt the ones I loved.
“You deserve better,” I finally said.
“I’m starting to understand that I do.” Skip smiled softly, that hidden, secret smile of someone falling in love and not really believing it. It was the smile I had worn all last week. I was happy for him. Lord knew, the man deserved to be happy. I hoped that the timing of this fallout with Sanders hadn’t ruined that for Skip.
Sometimes you meet a person and you know they’re meant to be in your life even if you aren’t sure how yet. I had felt that way when I met Gretchen as a little girl. A different sort of regret added to my melancholy.
“You deserve all the happiness,” I said holding up my beer to him.
“So do you,” he said and gently tapped my bottle with his own.
“Thanks.” We smiled at each other. “How are you? How are you feeling about the death of Sanders’ Dad? I’m sorry, I never learned his name.”
“His name was William too. Like me. When I moved in with them, they started calling me Skip. To avoid confusion.” He
smiled against the lip of his bottle. “And for other reasons, but that’s a story for another time.”
“William was like a father for you too,” I said.
“Yeah.” He thought for a minute. “I’m sad. So sad. But … you know, it had sort of been coming for a while. I’m thankful for him in so many ways. He saved my life. He made me the man I am.” Emotions tightened his throat. After a few breaths he continued, “But William as I knew him had been gone for a while. I think I accepted that on some level. It may sound terrible but I feel at peace. I’m glad he’s finally with Eleanor again.”
“Was that his wife? Sanders’ mom?” I asked.
William and Eleanor. I ached for the couple I would never meet. Ached for their son. Ached for the bittersweet fact that they were reunited now.
“Yeah. I never met her but William talked about her a lot. More when it was just us two. I think, he was worried it would upset Sanders.”
I frowned.
“What?” he asked me.
“Sanders just made it seem like his dad was okay or maybe not okay after his mom died, but that he handled it well.”
Skip chewed his lip thoughtfully. “William? Yeah, I don’t think he liked for Sanders to see his pain. I think he was so worried what losing his mom might do to Sanders that William fought to be the best dad and keep all that hurt at bay. But he never stopped loving Eleanor. He talked about her all the time.”
“I wonder if Sanders knows this …” I said out loud but was thinking it mostly to myself. It didn’t match the image of the man Sanders had built for me of his father. Would it help if Sanders knew how much his dad had been actually hurting?
“It was why they moved back to America. William couldn’t handle being in Australia. He said it was too painful.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Sanders told me he got a job out in Denver and wanted to be closer to his family,” I told Skip.
Skip digested this information. “I guess in part. He needed family to help raise Sanders. But mostly it was because he missed her.”
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