Savor

by Lexi Buchanan

  Reaching for the note, I begin to read and feel my legs give way as my ass drops to the chair. I start at the beginning and try to let her words sink in . . .

  Ryder,

  My heart was involved in this relationship long before we had a ‘relationship’ and knowing that you’re feeling so torn as to what to do about ‘me’ breaks my heart.

  I gave you my trust, which I’ve never given to someone who isn’t family before, and you didn’t give me yours, which breaks my heart.

  No matter what you said about Brittany, and the sometimes jealousy that would hit me, I still loved you and took a chance on you, but your feelings for me obviously don’t run as deeply as mine for you, which breaks my heart.

  Hearing you talking to Jace about me, tore me apart.

  I find, after overhearing you with Jace, that I’m not sure what the hell I’m still doing here. It makes me wonder why you haven’t broken things off between us before now.

  I can’t stay here and pretend that everything is perfect when it obviously isn’t. I can’t stay here waiting for you to tell me that you don’t love me, and don’t want me in your life anymore.

  So, although I’m leaving, it’s to make my life and soul a bit easier because hearing you tell me to my face that you want me out of your life would kill me.

  I hope you find the ‘one’ special woman who makes you whole, because that obviously isn’t me.

  Goodbye Ryder,

  D

  Coming to the end of her letter, I find non-stop tears pouring out of my eyes. I still don’t wipe them away.

  All I feel is regret and, I guess, the bastard in me feels relief.

  Regret that she overheard my conversation with Jace, regret that because of what she overheard, she’s lost all trust in me and truly believes that I don’t love her. The relief I feel is because I don’t have to face her. I don’t have to tell her what’s happening in my life to screw up the life I wanted to build with her.

  Even thinking all that, I’m still not sure I’m going to be able to walk away from her without seeing her, and maybe talking to her.

  I need to stop being an ass and pull myself together so I can go and find her. Instead of being a chickenshit, I need to face my damn problems, instead of letting them drown me.

  Dahlia really is my heart. I need to know where she is so I can make sure she stays safe, and so I know where to go to get her back when my shit really is all in the past.

  Dahlia

  Running to Mia turned out to be the perfect decision. At least, I think it is.

  Although she spent nearly an hour trying to talk me out of running without telling anyone, and trying to get me to stay and talk to Ryder, she finally gave in when she realized I needed out of there.

  So that’s how I discovered that Mia’s father owns a house in Portsmouth, and within ten minutes, I had the keys in my hand and a flight booked, again thanks to Mia.

  The house is free and I can stay for as long as I want.

  I hadn’t planned on running too far, just far enough to think without bumping into Ryder or Reece. I need to carry on without Ryder in my life, and to decide what I’m going to do about our baby. Do I tell him I’m pregnant? Or wait and tell him after the baby is born? I’ve never been so torn in my entire life.

  I’m probably going to have to tell him sooner rather than later because I don’t have the funds to support a child. I have some savings, which I’m using while I’m here in Portsmouth. At least I don’t have to pay rent, as Mia wouldn’t hear anything of it. The house was just sitting empty.

  If I hadn’t wanted to just leave and get away before Ryder had chance of finding me, I’d have insisted on her taking something, but I hadn’t. In a way, I’m glad because my funds aren’t as healthy as I’d like.

  Portsmouth is a beautiful town and while it was starting to shut down, I know in summer, the yachts will be constantly on the water, at least that’s what all the locals have been telling me. I’m also finding it peaceful and a different way of life than back home in Alabama.

  I’ve only been here three days, and other than stocking up on food, I haven’t left the house.

  The back of the house has a screened in patio and a pool, which is covered during the winter months. The gate at the back, leads onto what would be a golden sandy beach, but now it’s covered in snow. It’s below freezing outside with icicles hanging from the garage.

  After the first day here, where I cried most of the day, I decided, for the good of our baby, to pull myself together. Heaven knows what harm my upset can cause to our unborn child.

  I may slip up when I’m in bed at night craving Ryder’s arms around me, but during the day I’m not doing too badly. If I’m upset, I can’t eat, and I need to eat to make sure our baby grows.

  The solitude of the location I relish.

  The intrusion of the guy who’s just moved in next door is unwelcome. He moved in yesterday and I think the whole of Portsmouth must have heard the racket made. Hopefully, he’ll keep to himself and not be one of those people who have to introduce themselves to the friendly neighbors. That title doesn’t apply to me.

  But I’m sure I have enough manners to make him a coffee before sending him on his way. I’ll just have to make sure he understands I want to be alone. I can be polite about it, maybe. I hope that he’ll like decaf, as that’s all I’ve bought. It’s horrid but I’ll have to get used to it, and I plan on drinking more water. I might as well start being healthy from the get go.

  Which brings me to the fact that I need to find a doctor to register with and get checked out. Up to now, I’ve been lucky with morning sickness, and I hope I continue being so. I certainly don’t want to suffer like the women in the magazines I’ve read do. That would be a nightmare.

  Opening a bottle of water, I hear the doorbell going off. How many guesses should I take that my visitor is the neighbor?

  Hearing the doorbell again, I make my way to the door and, on opening, I’m faced with a scruffy looking guy, who looks as though he’s had better days. A bit like me.

  “Um, hi,” he stumbles over his words, “I was wondering if you could spare a coffee? I’m afraid I’m not very organized with the last minute move and everything.”

  “I don’t usually have coffee with strangers.”

  He seems surprised and maybe a little disappointed at my comeback.

  So I offer an olive branch. “I’m Dahlia.” I hold my hand out.

  He hesitates, before swallowing my hand in his large one. “Max. Sorry, I guess I should have said that as soon as you opened the door. Let me try again.”

  Releasing my hand, he says, “Hi, I’m Max and I moved in next door yesterday. Would you, by any chance, be willing to take pity on me and offer me a cup of coffee?” He smiles and I notice his dimples hiding behind the scruff covering the lower half of this face.

  “C’mon in.” He seems harmless enough, but when he smiles, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

  As he walks past me into the house, a citrus scent hits my nostrils, which tells me he might look scruffy but he’s certainly clean.

  “The kitchen is through here.” I lead the way, wondering what’s going on with him.

  Until I opened the door, I wasn’t planning on being very hospitable considering I wanted to be left alone, but now my curiosity is piqued.

  “Take a seat.” I open the cupboard and search through the jars of things I’d discovered when I arrived. “I’m sure I spotted a jar of coffee in here.”

  “You don’t drink coffee.”

  I turn to answer Max and see his eyes on me as he yawns behind his hand.

  “Decaf. The regular stuff will have to wait a while.”

  He glances at my stomach before meeting my eyes again.

  It’s my secret to keep, but something is making me want to tell the man sitting at my table. He looks as though he could do with someone to talk to as well.

  “Is that why you’re running?”

  “I’m no
t running,” I quickly reply.

  I am running though, in a way.

  “My relationship with the father was . . . different. I don’t know how else to describe it. I loved him. I still do. I’m just not sure he loved me as much as he said he did.” I shrug and turn away, back to making the coffee as a tear slips down my cheek.

  I swipe it away with impatience. Tears are banned.

  With a heavy sigh, I take the cup of coffee over to Max and pass him the tin with biscuits in. “Help yourself.”

  I join him at the table and after a few minutes of silence, while I watch him wake up as he consumes the coffee, I ask, “So what are you running from?”

  His eyes shoot to mine, which I hold. “You know why I’m here alone, it’s only fair.” I smile. “Besides, if we’re going to be friends, then you need to talk to me.”

  I’m rewarded with the first real smile as his eyes dance with amusement before they cloud over again with sadness.

  “You might not want to be friends when I tell you why I’ve suddenly moved here.”

  “You haven’t murdered someone, have you?”

  He chuckles, his eyes stay flat. “No, I haven’t . . . yet.”

  That doesn’t sound good.

  “Yet?” I raise a brow in question.

  “I’m a college professor, or was. A colleague wanted my position with a desperation I’ve never known before. So he decided to follow me, unbeknown to me. He discovered that I was living with someone, as in having a relationship with them.” He takes a sip of his coffee.

  “I don’t see where this is going.”

  “The relationship I was in was with another guy.”

  “Oh.” I’m surprised, but it doesn’t bother me. “But why did you lose your job? Surely there’s a law that says you can’t be fired because of your sexual orientation.”

  “They didn’t fire me.” He runs his hands through his hair while lost in his own thoughts. “I quit.” He turns back to me. “The whole thing blew up in my face. My parents had a feeling I was gay but didn’t know for sure until I told them six days ago, before they found out some other way. The guy I was living with . . . moved out. Said it wasn’t working for him.”

  “So I find myself renting the house next door to you from a friend. I have no job and lost the guy I thought cared about me.” He shrugs. “My stay here isn’t permanent, just a stepping stone until I can find another job, another town to start over. I need to be away from everyone who I thought loved and supported me, but didn’t. When something like this happens, it goes to show you who your true friends and family are.”

  I seriously don’t know what to say. The man called Max is a stranger to me, but my heart goes out to him. Why can’t everyone accept the life choices others make? He’s not a mass murderer or anything; he’s gay for God’s sake. It makes me angry.

  “I’m really sorry you’re having to go through all this, and I’d say this is the start of a beautiful friendship.” I smile and briefly cover his hand with mine.

  Isn’t it funny how hearing the word ‘gay’ automatically puts you at ease with a guy?

  Max squeezes my hand before letting go.

  “Thank you.” He nods his head and I realize I’ve just made a new friend.

  Chapter Twenty

  Ryder

  “You’re a slob,” Jace complains, shoving dirty pots into the sink he’s just filled with water while I stay in my prone, laid back position on the sofa.

  It’s been two weeks since I discovered Dahlia gone. Two weeks of hell. Two weeks of falling asleep on the sofa. Two weeks of missing the woman I love every minute of every day.

  After Evan’s call, which turned my life upside down, I shut everyone out. Jace showing up today is his way of trying to help a situation where there’s nothing that anyone can do.

  Suzie has been managing and running Kix while I’ve ignored everything around me while living on pizza. I’m getting sick of fast food though. And I’m getting sicker of Jace turning up here and calling me a slob. It’s forcing me to take a good look around at not just the apartment, which is a mess, but at myself.

  If I want Dahlia to come back, I need to start looking after the apartment. If she walked in right now, she’d probably turn around and keep running.

  My feelings for her haven’t changed, and I’m desperate to have her back in my arms. But until my fucked up past is resolved, I can’t do that to her. Which also makes me feel like the biggest bastard alive, considering the only way for everything to be back to rights is with Brittany dying. And even then, I’m not sure anything will ever be the same again.

  Somehow, I’m going to get Reece to tell me her location. I’m not going to talk to her, but I need to see her, at the least. I need to know how she’s doing and I can’t do that without setting my eyes on her.

  Jace, of course, has come charging in today to get me back into the land of the living, although he hasn’t been there in a long while.

  I’m not sure how he’d react if I started laughing at him standing at the sink sorting my kitchen out. He’s the least domestic of the two of us and seeing him now is damn amusing.

  Dragging my sorry ass from the sofa, I take one last glance at him before heading to the bathroom to shower and shave. I probably look like a wild beast with the fur all over my damn face. It’s itchy as fuck as well.

  To save time, I shave while in the shower and probably nick myself in the process a few hundred times it feels. Finally, feeling cleaner, I step out and wrap a towel around my waist.

  When I reach my bedroom, I realize I need to add laundry to the list of things I have to do. I can’t see the bed for jeans and shirts. I guess it’s as well that I’ve got no intention of sleeping in it again until Dahlia is home with me.

  Feeling more positive than I have for the past two weeks, I head out the room to find Jace.

  I’m hungry, and not for pizza.

  “Eat that,” Jace demands, pointing at the table where he’s just placed two plates heaped with scrambled eggs and toast.

  I’m not about to complain because this is one of a few meals he can actually cook and have your taste buds exploding with flavor.

  This time is no exception as I dig in; he’s added tomato, mushroom and cheese, which he must have brought with him because I know my fridge isn’t stocked.

  “You’re going to be sick if you don’t slow down,” he comments, as he sits across from me.

  He’s right. I hate it when he’s right.

  “Thanks for doing this.”

  “Hmm.”

  I place my fork down and ask, “What does ‘hmm’ mean?”

  He chews on his food and washes it down with a large gulp of his coffee.

  “I know what Dahlia means to you, and I know you felt, at the time, that you were doing the right thing, but this is wrong. You should be going after her and explain what’s really going on. It’s a difficult situation, but you need Dahlia here with you.”

  He eats more food and watches me between bites.

  “She entered the relationship with you knowing about Brittany. I know it was hit and miss at the beginning, but you two are right for each other. And no matter how difficult she’d find what’s happening now, I bet she’d want to be here. You don’t love Brittany and you never have. Dahlia will understand you being compassionate and not going through with the divorce when she discovers the reason behind your decision.”

  I push my plate away, unable to eat any more with my stomach threatening to rebel.

  “I want Dahlia here more than anything, and I constantly miss her.” I sigh, feeling about ninety years old. “I just can’t ask her to live with me while my wife is dying of cancer. Before with the divorce going ahead, it was different. This is something I can’t ask of her . . . I’m such a coward.”

  He raises a brow and sits back in the chair, sipping his second cup of coffee.

  “I’m afraid that if I ask her, she won’t want to know.”

  “I’ll never agree
with you not telling her, but you know her best.”

  I debate whether or not to tell him my plans but, in the end, there’s no need to keep them from anyone.

  “I need to go and see her.”

  He pauses mid-sip.

  “I’m not going to let her see me, but I’m going to find out where she is and just . . . see her.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” he offers.

  Do I?

  “I think I’ll be good, but thanks for asking.”

  “You aren’t going to do anything stupid, are you?”

  “I seriously just want to see her and make sure she’s okay. That’s all. I’m not going to go and talk to her until I’m free to do so.”

  He nods. “How are you going to find out where she is?”

  “Reece.”

  “And he’s really going to tell you, huh?”

  “He will when I tell him what’s really going on.”

  And I know that’s what I have to do. I have to tell him the truth and hope he won’t go and tell Dahlia.

  Reece is the only one who will know where she is, at least, that’s what I’m thinking. Up until she gave me her trust, it was always Reece.

  It kills me knowing that she believes I’ve betrayed her and, in a way, I have. Which makes me wonder if I’ll ever gain her trust again.

  “When are you leaving?” Jace breaks into my thoughts.

  “As soon as I know where she is.”

  Dahlia

  It’s been eleven weeks since I left everything I knew and began the new chapter of my life alone.

  It has taken time but I’ve learned to smile again with the help of Max, who has started looking for jobs. This worries me, because he’s the glue holding me together and I don’t know what I’ll do if he leaves Portsmouth.

  He assures me he’ll stay until the baby is born, but he doesn’t have bottomless funds, which makes me feel guilty.

  Would he have moved on already? Gotten a new job, and be earning a salary, if it wasn’t for me?

  I know I’m the one keeping him here and I wish I was strong enough to tell him to go and find his perfect job, but I’m not. I’m being selfish wanting my friend with me when I give birth to my beautiful daughter. A daughter. I had an ultrasound a couple of weeks ago and the OB asked me if I wanted to know the sex of my baby. Until she asked, I told myself that I didn’t want to know. But my decision changed with the blink of an eye and she told me. I’d burst into tears and the nurse had to go and get Max, who had been in the waiting room.