Changed

by Alicia Renee Kline

  “He’s a good guy and he’s doing the best that he can,” he theorized. “But if the best he can do doesn’t make you happy, then what’s the point?”

  “I don’t know Doug. I wish I did.”

  “You’ve got so much to give the right person, Gracie. Don’t force someone to take it. Not even Will.”

  I bit my lip and wondered if he’d ever given Lauren advice like that. If he had, she sure hadn’t listened, staying with Eric long after the shelf life of their coupling had ended. Perhaps he had learned from her experiences and wanted to pass that lesson on to me so that I didn’t make the same mistakes.

  If you stayed with someone, putting up with their shit just because you were afraid of being alone, then you only prolonged the grief and agony of a relationship that was never meant to go anywhere in the first place. If there were issues that were insurmountable, and neither one of you was willing to budge, you just needed to cut your losses while you still could.

  The only person that you were capable of changing was the one that stared back at you in the mirror. And I was positive I wasn’t ready to meet her gaze yet and tell her that I had failed. I also wasn’t about to budge on my position.

  That night after I hung up with Doug, I cuddled down in my bed, a death grip upon Will’s t-shirt. I gave myself a pep talk, doing my damnedest to convince myself that I had done the right thing, even as I surrounded myself in the comfort of his memory, in the scent of his body.

  I found myself wishing more than anything that I could feel his arms around me just one more time.

  The one thing I didn’t do was cry.

  It wasn’t for lack of trying.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Grace.”

  Someone’s voice called out to me from what seemed to be the general vicinity of my feet. A deep, husky tone. Definitely in the male register. Of course, had I been thinking clearly, I would have known exactly who was addressing me. But in the foggy recesses of my brain, riddled not only with exhaustion but also with alcohol, the only male in my head was Will.

  So I was understandably disappointed when my eyes fluttered open and Chris stood over my bed.

  “Christopher,” I moaned, “what are you doing here?”

  “We called before coming, remember?” Blake prodded, coming into view behind her husband’s shoulder.

  I scrunched up my face and vaguely recalled something like my phone ringing. Then me answering and some sort of discussion going on. But that could have been all in my head, too.

  “You don’t remember,” she confirmed.

  I shook my head. Better to go with the honest approach.

  “I called you about an hour ago. Told you to get your butt out of bed and that we were coming to pick you up for breakfast.”

  “Why?”

  Panic hit me as I tried not to be obvious about searching for Will’s shirt. I wasn’t certain that either one of them would recognize it if they saw it, especially out of context like it was, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. I wasn’t coherent enough to explain that one away. Fortunately, my body was sprawled upon the bulk of it. I took my hand and discreetly shoved it underneath my comforter while I waited for her to explain.

  “Because Doug called me and asked me to check up on you,” she said honestly. No pussy footing around with the truth there.

  “I’m fine. You two run along. We’ll go some other time.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Blake crossed her arms over her chest. “You get your ass up now and get ready. Shower, makeup, hair, all of it. We’ll wait.”

  “Hurry up,” Chris interjected, “I’m really hungry.”

  Me, I was just trying to imagine myself in an alternate reality where my boss didn’t have a key to my house and hadn’t let herself into my bedroom with her husband in tow while I was sleeping. Especially since she was now concentrating on righting the empty bottle of wine on my nightstand and picking up my discarded glass from the carpet. Too bad for me that it didn’t work.

  “I’m not going to get out of this, am I?”

  “Not on your life.”

  Doug’s concern for me was flattering and frustrating all at the same time. I wondered if Blake and Chris had planned to go out to breakfast already, or if she was just pretending like they had so that I wouldn’t feel bad. It made sense that my father figure would pick her to take on the task of the well-being check instead of his own daughter, considering that with a newborn Lauren couldn’t just get up and go save the world when she was deployed.

  But how I would have preferred Blake to come alone. Not that I minded Chris; it was just difficult with him tagging along given his friendship with Will. If Blake had appeared solo, I might have unleashed the full story upon her before swearing her to secrecy.

  “Please tell me that all this-” Chris gestured to the artifacts of my drinking, my inability to remember a conversation had an hour prior, and the fact that I was still firmly in bed at what had to be ten in the morning, “is not a result of working for my wife. Just between you and me, I heard she can be a bitch.”

  Blake adeptly elbowed him in the ribs, even though a smile played upon her lips.

  Their playfulness only heightened my despair.

  “No, it has nothing to do with Blake.”

  “It’s a guy,” Blake said confidently.

  My heart responded before I had a chance to. I took a deep breath and attempted to calm the pounding in my chest. Certainly Doug wouldn’t have ratted me out completely? Would he have done it slightly? Unknowingly? What the fuck had he told her?

  I really couldn’t afford to lose one of the three people on my list, but damn it, I would write him off if I had to.

  “See?” She pointed at my stricken features. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “I’m not seeing anyone,” I protested weakly. “Remember, I don’t date.”

  Blake snorted. “You don’t have to be dating someone to be totally wrecked by what they’ve done. Or what they didn’t do.”

  Chris stared at her, obviously reading a double meaning into her words. She was referring to her own history with him, but it wasn’t clear which one of them had done the wrecking. A good case could be made for either one of them. “Before I become some sort of a scapegoat, I’m just going to go out to the living room and watch TV.”

  He retreated down the hall, but not before Blake handed him the evidence from my drinking binge to take care of. The thought of Chris throwing away my trash and loading my dishwasher was mildly amusing. It only added to the humor in the situation that he didn’t protest one bit.

  “You want to talk about it?” Blake sat on the edge of my bed, settling in for a good gossip session.

  “Not really.”

  She stared in my direction, daring me with those blue eyes of hers to reconsider my decision and spill my innermost secrets. Had I given her the same look the morning after Lauren’s wedding?

  Blake shrugged as if my refusal meant nothing to her. “Suit yourself. But keep in mind that I can be impartial. It’s not like you’d be talking about anyone I knew anyway.”

  “Fine.”

  Her comment had emboldened me. Since she had no idea that the person in question was Will, I didn’t have any qualms about sharing with her the bare bones of my problem.

  She waited for me to continue.

  “There was this guy in Indianapolis,” I said slowly, crafting my story in the back of my head as I told it, “but he’s no longer.”

  There. That was kind of the truth. And I definitely had her attention now.

  “Because of the move?”

  I nodded. “Because of the move. The end.”

  No reason for her to know that it was because I had moved closer to him, not further away.

  “So why haven’t we heard of this dude before?”

  “We weren’t ever really serious. It started as a fling. And I had just started flinging with him when you offered me the job. So I knew pretty early on that nothing was going to come of it.
But it still sucks.”

  “That’s why I stuck to one night stands. No emotional attachment at all.”

  “That’s what this started out as. A night of drunken sex. And then it happened again. And then I was kissing him at midnight on New Year’s Eve and he had a toothbrush at my apartment and I was doing his laundry.”

  “I thought you just told me it wasn’t ever serious.”

  “I did.”

  “Well then, you lied to yourself, girlfriend.”

  “Maybe so, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was short lived. It doesn’t change that he didn’t want to continue things when I came up here.”

  “Did he beg you to stay in Indy?”

  I pretended to consider. “No.”

  She looked disappointed.

  “He told me that he wouldn’t stand in my way and that I had to decide what it was that I wanted for myself.”

  “So he was hurt that you chose your job over him? Where have I heard that before?”

  “It’s not a replay of Eric and Lauren. I promise. He wasn’t a douchebag about it at all. He never gave me an ultimatum.”

  Well, not an ultimatum about that.

  “So he just let you go and didn’t say a word?”

  “More like I didn’t let him say much. I knew where he stood and where I stood, and that there would be no meeting in the middle. And then I walked away from it.”

  “So this whatever is self-inflicted?”

  I shrugged. “No one knows how to hurt me worse than I do. But really, I wasn’t going to cave and give him what he wanted. So I decided upon a clean break instead of prolonging the torture.”

  “I suppose that’s smart. End things before the real feelings start. It stings enough as it is, right?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Does Lauren know him?”

  “No. I met him after she moved up here.”

  My response was quick and not entirely a lie. Even though Will had been in her wedding party, she’d proven that she didn’t know the least bit of trivia about him. Lauren probably wouldn’t even recognize him if she saw him out of context, like if they happened upon each other at the gas station or something.

  “Damn. I was hoping that she’d give me the inside scoop. You’re not giving me much to work with here.”

  I sighed. “And just what are you plotting in that evil little mind of yours?”

  “I was just interested in what you considered attractive. I’m not sure of your type.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Whatever. Everyone has a type that they gravitate towards.”

  “No, not really.”

  “Fine. Be evasive. If you decide you want to open up, I’m here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now go take a shower and get ready. I’m not letting you go without food.”

  She patted the edge of my bed as she stood. A part of me wanted to grab her arm and pull her back down to the mattress. Instead, I let her go.

  The truth she so wanted to uncover was on the tip of my tongue, threatening to fall out. But I knew that no matter how badly he had hurt me by demanding keeping things a secret, I wouldn’t betray his wishes out of spite. I had pushed and pressed for him to bring things out into the open and he had shut me down every time. If he knew I’d already blabbed to Doug, the scene last night would have been even more difficult to swallow. And I knew without a doubt that Doug wouldn’t tell a soul. Blake would share with Chris and then the rest would be history.

  She latched my bedroom door behind her as she exited. Once I had all the privacy I was going to get with two semi-unexpected guests, I raised my body from the bed and went to take a much deserved shower.

  In all actuality, I didn’t feel all that bad physically. I held my alcohol fairly well, when I wanted to. Last night hadn’t been one of those occasions that it was considered a plus. It would have been poetic justice to get sloppy drunk and pass out on the bathroom floor in front of the toilet after ridding the memory of him from my body. But no such luck.

  I certainly didn’t look hung over. I confirmed in the mirror that I simply looked sad. Not that that was any better. However, sad was more socially acceptable and we were going out in public.

  I showered quickly, mindful of the fact that Chris would undoubtedly complain about it taking me forever to get ready. I wasn’t looking forward to a dose of his good-natured ribbing, so I threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater, bunched my wet hair up into a knot on top of my head, and tried to conceal a portion of the misery with a quick stroke of makeup. Good enough, considering.

  Turned out that it didn’t matter about the delay. Chris and Blake were passing the time quite handily by making out on my couch.

  “Jesus, you two. Get a room.”

  “Sorry,” Blake apologized immediately, sitting up and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  For his part, Chris didn’t look the least bit upset that I caught them in the act.

  For my part, I was jealous not only of the fact that they were in a loving relationship, but that they didn’t care who knew it. As fun as it might sound to sneak around, the novelty wore off damn quick. The rush I’d gotten from necking with Will in a closet I would gladly trade for the opportunity to kiss him in public, at my friend’s house, without fear of being caught because it just didn’t matter.

  “Ready?” I prodded.

  Blake exchanged a look with her husband, then excused herself to go use the guest bathroom. I pretended I didn’t notice that the whole thing had been rehearsed and took a deep breath to steel myself for the inevitable.

  “I’m fine. Really,” I preempted him when he didn’t immediately launch into his prepared script.

  “You’re sure you don’t need me to beat up someone for you? I’ll do it. I did it for Lauren, and I don’t like her near as much as I like you.”

  Something akin to a cross between a smile and a grimace slid over my face. It was touching that he felt like he had some sort of duty to protect me. It was comforting that he liked me, but I wasn’t about to assign him to number four on my list yet. And it was just plain disturbing that if I took him up on his offer, that he’d just unknowingly vowed to cause physical harm to one of his closest friends.

  We were an incestuous bunch, the six of us. The whole Blake/Chris/Lauren/Matthew thing took on an entirely different dynamic for me now. I understood Chris’s loyalty to Matthew and his reluctance to allow Lauren into the fold because she’d strung Blake’s brother around for an entire year and a half with her indecisiveness. Now Chris had declared allegiance to me, but he’d certainly drop that if he knew the source of my pain, wouldn’t he?

  I didn’t want to be caught in the middle. No way, no how. I’d always considered Chris to be an ass when it came to how he treated Lauren, but now I understood. If he were ever to find out about what had gone on between me and Will, I’d be the recipient of the same consternation. He’d side with Will, because he just would. They were the actual friends, not us.

  “No. Thanks for the show of solidarity, but it’s not necessary. I’m the one that walked out on him, not the other way around. If anything, you should probably beat me up.”

  He stood up and came over to me, wrapping me in a hug. A genuine embrace, one with feeling and meant to provide comfort. So unlike the one he’d given Lauren after making her cry, captured on film by her stalker for us to all laugh about later. I allowed myself to relax in his arms, soaking up his warmth.

  “Never going to happen, sweetheart,” he whispered into the top of my head. “I’ll always take care of you.”

  I bit my lip, feeling like a traitor. If only he knew the truth, he wouldn’t be saying those things. It felt wrong to soak up his sympathy now. But at the same time, I was immensely touched by it.

  “Thank you,” I managed as I pulled away.

  “Not that I think you need anyone to take care of you,” he amended as he instinctively increased the distance between us.

 
; I forced a grin, a glimmer of my usual personality slicing through the fog. “Don’t forget it, Christopher.”

  Chris smiled right back at me. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Grace.”

  “Well, I feel better,” Blake announced loudly from down the hall.

  Apparently, she felt that we’d had enough alone time for whatever the intended purpose was. I thanked her silently for her word of warning. Even though it had been purely innocent, I still wouldn’t have wanted her to come back to the sight of me wrapped in her husband’s arms, his face buried in my hair. That was just asking for trouble.

  “Let’s go,” Blake said, stopping by my couch to pick up her purse. Her bag in one hand, she threaded the fingers of her other through Chris’s.

  Since I didn’t have anyone to hold hands with, I pretended like it didn’t matter and grabbed my own bag.

  We assumed our usual positions in the Trailblazer: Chris driving and Blake up front, me in the back. Apparently, the place we were eating what would no longer be breakfast, but more accurately brunch, was not up for debate. I supposed that was what happened when you were still the out-of-towner; you didn’t get a say.

  But I gave my opinion regardless when we pulled up in the parking lot of the same pancake place that Lauren and I had eaten at when I’d met her at the hotel during her exile and brief stint of homelessness.

  “Isn’t there any place else in this damn town to have a meal?” I grumbled. “I swear, all of you go to like the same three restaurants.”

  Chris turned to me to gauge my level of seriousness. “What? I like pancakes. And bacon. Don’t tell me you have a problem with that.”

  I sighed. “No. Just remembering when I was here with Lauren when she was hiding out from you guys. I was busy trying to ease her out of her depression and she was busy being afraid that she was going to run into one of you. Especially Matthew, even though I secretly think she wanted it to happen.”

  “That was a sucky time,” Blake agreed, going off into a place far away. “But I suppose that it’s fitting that we’re dragging you here now. Depression mixes well with breakfast food. And just think, with who you’re hiding from being in Indianapolis, you won’t have to worry about him walking in the door.”