Requested Surrender

by Riley Murphy

  He put his book aside and went to greet her. “I’m glad you’re back. Is everything all right with your family?”

  When she looked up at him he knew she been crying. “No. Things are not okay. Things are bad. Very, very, bad.”

  He reached out to bring her closer to him, but she fought his hold and stepped back.

  “Lacy.”

  “Don’t, please. Don’t. I’m going to get my things and go home.”

  “What happened? Tell me. What’s wrong?” He didn’t try to put his hands on her, but he did block her way to the stairs by stepping in front of her.

  “The bad happened, and even though I know you probably didn’t mean it. At least I hope you didn’t, it doesn’t change the fact that my father doesn’t want me to see you anymore.”

  He hadn’t even met the guy, but then he remembered what he said to her brother and sighed, “It’s because of your brother, isn’t it? Does your father know what kind of a dick that kid is to you?”

  A full thirty seconds ticked by before she asked, “Did you threaten him?”

  David wasn’t going to lie. In fact, if he had to do all over again, he’d do it worse. “Yes.”

  She turned away and then turned back. The look in her eyes unnerved him. He’d never seen her like this. Resigned. No, resolved.

  “It doesn’t matter. Laurie had that coming, so my father will just have to get over it.”

  “So you’ll stay?” He reached for her and she backed away, shaking her head.

  “I can’t.” As he stood there, her eyes welled up until tears fell. These were the kind of tears he hated. They were filled with regret and pain. Hate.

  “Why?”

  “Why did you attack my mother? What could she have done or said to you?”

  David was at a loss. “I didn’t do anything to your mother. Who told you I did?”

  Her shoulders slumped. He remembered that posture and he hated it.

  “My father told me you said, as he put it, unkind things to her. That upset her.”

  He was wracking his brains trying to remember, but came up empty. “I’m sure I didn’t.”

  “But you told. You told my mother about the accident.”

  He didn’t think he did. That aside, didn’t she already know? “Your mother and I barely even spoke.” Then he remembered. “She was the one who brought up the subject. She knew about the accident.”

  The tears stopped as if someone had turned off a tap. He knew what that meant. Lacy was going into self-protect mode. “She didn’t know that I did. How could you tell her?”

  David was trying to piece this together when Lacy stepped around him and went to the stairs. She stopped and turned before going up them. “My mother and father were the only ones who knew I caused the accident. They made a pact never to tell me, because they didn’t want me feeling guilty over it. When you told my mother that I knew about it, she knew that my father had told me.”

  “He broke their pact,” David said flatly, as understanding dawned. “I’m sorry I didn’t know. You never said—”

  “I told you. I told you everything Thursday night. I did and I’m so ashamed.”

  “No.” He went to her, standing less than a foot span apart, as he didn’t want to spook her by touching her. She had shut down, he could tell. It must have been one hell of an afternoon her father put her though. The bastard. “Never be ashamed of opening up or telling the truth. Important things like this are not meant to be hidden away and ignored. I can help you with—”

  “With what? The things my family hid away? What about what you hide away. What about Elaina?”

  Hearing Lacy speak her name was jarring, and he physically reacted to it. Tension rode his shoulders and raced down his spine. Stepping back, he gained reins on his emotions, deciding to give her the space she wanted before she said something they’d both regret. This wasn’t about his ex or the past. This was about the future her father was trying to rob her of.

  She nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d have anything to say about that.”

  “Lacy.”

  She turned her back on him and got halfway up the steps when she stopped. “My mother hasn’t been home since yesterday. After what you said, she and my father got into a big fight and she left. She left because of me.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t even my fault. The blame, if any, lies at your father’s door.” He let out a sigh and then said, “Even still, if I’d known I wouldn’t have said anything. It wasn’t my place. Don’t be mad.”

  She snapped around and clung to the banister. Leaning over it, she cried, “How ironic! When it is your place, you say nothing.” She blinked and then seemed to get a hold of herself. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m getting my things and then I’m leaving.”

  He remained silent as she raced up the rest of the stairs. Deciding to wait until she came back down before having it out with her. Because there was no way he was letting her leave. Not without a fight.

  Five minutes later, his heart pounded as he watched her descend the stairs with her suitcase in hand. When she got to the bottom and tried to walk around him, he couldn’t hold the words back any longer. “I’ll only ask this once. Please reconsider and stay.”

  She shook her head, which really irritated him.

  “I mean it, Lacy, if you leave, you won’t be welcome back here. This is your last chance.”

  “If I wanted it, you’d give me another chance.”

  He heard her quiet murmur, and the hairs on his nape stood on end. She sounded so smug and sure. Hateful almost. “No, Lacy, I won’t.”

  She turned and glared at him. Almost as if she’d been waiting for him to say this. Counting on it. “I see. You give Elaina two chances and I get none? Is that it?”

  The breath was knocked right out of him as he lunged forward and grabbed her by the arms. His earlier tension wound all the way through him as his pulse hammered at double the speed. “Who told you that?” He gave her a gentle shake. “Who?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Lacy spied the confusion, the hurt and anger in David’s eyes and realized what she’d done. She’d come here furious that her dad had just the right amount of ammunition he needed to make her doubt herself. He cited past boyfriends and all the problems she had keeping one. Running down the list, even as she tried to keep David off it. She’d tried not to let her father get under her skin, but he’d kept at her until she was half agreeing with him. She didn’t want to be the cause of another big family catastrophe. Was this why she’d started to see his side of things? Once she had the doubts started, and each of her worries about Elaina and those letters came to the forefront.

  Even still, she swore on the way over here she wouldn’t bring that up. She knew it would be easier to argue over this, than her having to face the truth. Having to admit, once and for all, that her family enabled her to be a constant fuck-up. That was the bad, but the worst was she now suspected they needed her to be that way. It was horrible. Terrible. But nothing in comparison to having to deal with David about that letter.

  Too late.

  David never should have mentioned the concept of hiding things. Wasn’t that what he was doing with those letters? Did it matter? Oh God. He wanted her. He wanted her to stay, and when she was here she didn’t feel bad. She didn’t have to pretend. She wasn’t a constant fuck-up.

  You felt like shit at your parent’s house. You always have to pretend around them.

  Now she’d ruined it. Her dad didn’t even have to do anything. She’d done it all on her own, doing what she always did. Deflecting and talking about anything but what really mattered. Now she’d brought up the one thing she swore she never would. “David.”

  “How did you know? No one knows about that. No one.”

  This was the first time she saw a dent in his armor. Oh, he’d been great about telling her that everyone had flaws and weakness, but until this moment she’d never believed he did…and she was the one who brought
them to light. She saw them clearly now. This is what he was hiding. This was the failure, and how he reacted to it was the disappointment. She closed her eyes because she knew she didn’t want to see the expression on his face when she told him. Maybe he’d understand it was an accident…Another accident.

  “I didn’t mean to read it. I was in your closet and—”

  He let go of her so fast she had to open her eyes so she didn’t fall. When saw him, she wanted to cry. It was as if his features were set in stone.

  “I’m going to ask you to leave now. If you need help getting your bag into the car, please feel free to call Andrew.”

  When he turned to go she called, “I don’t have my sneakers.” It was the most pathetic excuse to stay, even for a few extra moments, but she used it. “You wouldn’t happen to know where they are, would you?”

  He didn’t turn around. “Probably where you always leave them. In the library. Goodbye, Lacy.”

  Her stomach did a flip-flop hearing that. All the way to the library, she turned things over in her mind. By the time she found her shoes and scooped them up, she was working up some anger. Mostly with herself, but also some directed at him. After all they’d been through and everything they’d done together, he was willing to let her walk out of his life without giving her a chance to explain at least?

  She was just about to leave the library and go to his office to try again, when she saw it. Captivating Z. And all she could think was “Oh, no.” David had given her chances, over and over, but just as in that book, this last thing was too much. She was shaking when she tore a Post-it Note off the stack on the desk and wrote four words with an exclamation mark at the end of them. Then she stuck it on the cover and left the book right where he’d find it, before she headed, with sneakers in hand, to his office.

  She didn’t even wait for him to look up. “Are you going to let me explain?”

  “No.”

  As she walked to the desk, she noted how she couldn’t feel her legs. She supposed that was because all of her blood was pumping around her breaking heart. “Please, David. It was an accident. I swear.”

  “Good to know.”

  Now he looked up and she wished he hadn’t. His steely gaze nearly undid her, as that small voice inside her head whispered, It’s over.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, because if I had, I could have told you the one thing that’s been bothering me about those unopened letters.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and narrowed a look at her. If she thought she had anything left to lose she would have kept quiet, but she didn’t, which gave her the freedom to speak her mind.

  “You think you failed Elaina because you turned her away that last time. That’s why you couldn’t open and read the rest of those letters. They represent your failure. But what if…what if Elaina needed you to turn her away that last time? What if your final rejection gave her the strength she needed to finally get clean, because she’d lost something more important to her than the drugs? She never could have realized this without you letting her go. She had to face the bad before she could realize something good. You did that for her.”

  “Are you done?”

  Lacy wasn’t even sure she nodded before she left. She didn’t remember putting her suitcase in the car either. All she kept doing was running over her last words to him and they hurt like hell. When she’d said them she could have been talking about herself. Maybe losing David was the bad she needed to suffer in order for good to happen.

  She pulled into her driveway and cut the car engine. Gripping the steering wheel as she acknowledged the truth. She’d just lost the best thing that had ever happened to her because she’d let her fear and guilt rule her. It was a terrible lesson, but now she understood another thing about Elaina’s situation. The outcome was inevitable, but the lasting effects? Crystal clear. Just like David’s ex, it was time Lacy took care of herself and become the person she was meant to be. Not the person her family wanted her to be, or maybe needed her to be, because she didn’t want be that woman anymore. Being with David had taught her that.

  She didn’t bother bringing her bag into the house, as she wasn’t sure she was going to stay at her place tonight. Arriving at the front door and turning the key in the lock was a surreal experience. The second she heard the click of the door opening, a chill raced up her spine. She felt as if she were entering a prison. She wasn’t even inside and the place was closing in on her. But then she saw beyond the door. Through the hall to the living room, and her knees almost buckled.

  “David…”

  Stepping inside, she put a hand to the bisque-colored walls for support. All this had to be his doing. The fresh paint. The glossy beadboard more than halfway up the walls the way she’d wanted it, and the extra-large tiles on the floor. It was beautiful. Bright and airy. Just as she’d always imagined it to be.

  She didn’t even bother closing the door before she went into the living room. The boxes were gone and in their place against the wall was a huge, high-gloss white armoire. That’s not what held her attention, it was the yellow Post-it Note on the beautiful metal handle that made her go directly for it as her heart pounded and her pulse kicked up speed.

  I hope you like the changes. Joe is very sorry that he didn’t do it right the first time. If you don’t believe me, check every square inch of this place. There isn’t a speck of dust or a drop of dirt. I gave him a bundle of toothbrushes and ordered him to go to work.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, holding the note to her heart, as he’d drawn a winking smiley face. David…

  Getting herself together, she looked down and read the last little bit of the note.

  Consider this a housewarming gift. Those boxes were freaking me out, angel. No more boxes. It’s time you put down some roots.

  D

  She stared at that small piece of paper for a good two minutes. Thinking about what he’d said. Putting down roots? It hurt like hell to know that she’d now be doing that without him. But she was going to do it. She was going to live an epic life. He’d see. She’d make him proud by succeeding. That’s all he ever wanted for her.

  Not your family.

  Thinking about them got anxiety building, but she tamped it down. She wasn’t going to run. Even though every fiber in her being was telling her to get on the phone and call the airline. Escape until this all blew over and she wouldn’t have to face her father, brother, mother or even Colin and Jo with their questions. It would be so much easier to do that.

  She pressed the scrap of paper to her lips and whispered, “I’m not a wanderer.”

  “Lacy?”

  “Mom.” She whirled around, sounding like parent instead of the child. “Where have you been?”

  Her mother put the bags of groceries on the floor and then straightened. “Right here. I still have the spare key. I hope you don’t mind? I thought it would be okay since you were staying with David for a few more days.”

  “And you’d be okay with me staying with him?”

  “Of course.” She frowned as she came forward. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Dad said that David upset you. That he was the reason you needed some space.”

  “You’re very direct these days.”

  “Mom.” If Lacy was a hedger, her mother was her queen. “I’ve had one the worst days of my life. All I want you to do, before I go take a bath and wallow under my covers, is answer my question.”

  “Let me put the groceries away first. I planned on making bacon and eggs for dinner.”

  Lacy stepped forward and caught her mother’s arm before she’d turned to retrieve the groceries. Why hadn’t she ever noticed this before? Her mother was worse than she was about deflecting. “No. Please, I want an answer now.”

  “I wanted some time. To figure things out before I…before—I need to speak to your father before I talk with you about this.”

  When Lacy saw the anxiety she recogn
ized so well in her mother’s expression, she let go. David must have said something really bad for her mom to be this bothered by it. Which didn’t make any sense. What could he have said?

  “All right. I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore, anyways. David and I broke up.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She was heading to the bathroom when the words tumbled out, one after the other. “It was for the best. He and I weren’t suited.” Liar. “We weren’t getting along.” Liar. “I wasn’t really into him.” Lacy. She heard the echo of David’s voice in her mind and it caused her to stop and think about what she was doing.

  She was letting her family off the hook again. Pretending that she didn’t care so they’d never have to live with the knowledge that they’d caused her to lose something that had been very, very dear to her.

  For that reason alone, she deserved a straight answer.

  Instead of going to take a bath, she veered right and followed her mom into the kitchen. “Forget what I just said.”

  “What, dear?”

  She helped her mom put the bags on the counter and turned to her. “All that stuff about David. I was in love with guy. Head over heels, and now he won’t look at me…because Dad accused him of all kinds of awful things and I took Dad’s side and confronted him on them. Which lead to us arguing about other things. So, I think I want to know what happened yesterday. I deserve to know and I’m not going to wait.”

  Her mother was searching for something as she looked at her. Whatever it was, she must have found it because she nodded to the kitchen table and said, “You’re right. Sit down. You do deserve to know.”

  After Lacy took a seat, her mother slipped into the one opposite her and clasped her hands on the table. Here again, Lacy recognized this posture. It was one she always used when she’d lost the battle or had to come clean over something. Judging by the serious light in her mother’s eyes, Lacy would need to brace herself. Were her parents going to get a divorce? That’s the kind of heavy this moment was fraught with.