Saving Ever After (Ever After #4)

by Stephanie Hoffman McManus

  “Yeah, actually I did.”

  “Oh,” she seemed pleasantly surprised by my admission. “Well you must really be missing me bad then. Let’s see if I can do something to make you feel a little better, babe. Where are you right now?”

  “I’m at your place,” I told her. Again, she seemed to take in that bit of information with unexpected pleasure.

  “What room are you in?”

  “The living room.”

  “I want you to go to the bedroom, Chris, and I want you to take off your clothes and get on the bed.” That rich, silky tone slid seductively through the phone and I knew right where she was headed with this. I wasted no time in complying with her wishes, lying back on the bed we shared, fully undressed, hoping this would remind me of our connection and help clear my mind of all the other shit wearing on it.

  “Done, now it’s your turn, and baby. I want you to take your time stripping off each piece of clothing. You know how I appreciate attention to detail, so don’t leave anything out. I want to hear it all,” I told her, trying to get into it.

  She moaned softly through the phone, “You make me so hot Chris.”

  “Then take it off, babe. I’m waiting.” My gut felt tight as the words fell from my lips, because I knew I wasn’t feeling it as much as I should be. I exhaled a deep breath, trying to rid myself of the turmoil and everything holding me back. She was my girlfriend. I wanted her. I wanted this. No, I needed this.

  We finished together and then ended the call, only I didn’t feel satisfied. At all. I felt like an asshole. The world’s biggest asshole, and liar, because when she asked me if it was good, I said yes. It wasn’t. It was forced. It had been a struggle to get into it. Even in the hottest moments, I was one stray thought away from just having to fake it.

  Now my thoughts were nothing but a jumbled mess, and I felt all the doubt and unease creeping in. How many nights had we been apart and had to settle for this long distance connection? So many. Yet, it had never felt so lacking before. I had never felt so lacking before.

  Nothing had changed.

  Something had changed.

  Everything had changed. I just didn’t know it yet.

  Chapter 12

  Mia

  When I woke Sunday morning there was none of the anxiousness I’d woken with the day before. It also lacked the excited anticipation that came with knowing Chris was just on the other side of my door, because he wasn’t. He wasn’t out there plotting to get me back for pranks pulled. Breakfast wouldn’t be waiting for me on the counter. Spending time with him at all wasn’t something that I had to look forward to. He’d left last night. For whatever reason.

  I couldn’t help but think that the reason was me. Sometime between our hike and him making me dinner last night, awkward tension had slipped in and ended the easy and comfortable interaction between us. Like a flip had been switched.

  He regarded me more carefully, hardly speaking to me through dinner and the movie. He was more guarded than he’d been all day, closing himself off, hiding his smiles from me, taking away his teasing and his laughter. I wanted them back. I wanted to go back to yesterday morning and relive the day over and over so that he couldn’t take it all away.

  He had to know. He had to have figured out what each one of those smiles did to me. How contagious they were, the way they spread from his lips to mine. He must have seen the way I lost myself in our conversations, snatching up every word he spoke, every story and part of himself he shared with me, collecting all the bits of him, hoarding them like an obsessed connoisseur. How many times had he caught my eyes lingering on him a little too long and appreciatively? I couldn’t stop myself if I tried, and I had tried, but around him, that was the only way I knew how to be.

  How much of myself had I let him see in return? Too much. There wasn’t another person out there who had witnessed the extent of my gamer nerdiness. Nobody, and I mean nobody, knew about all the hours I spent glued to my computer screen battling mages, or the nights after Destiny came out that I’d stayed up until three and four o’clock in the morning until finally defeating Crota. Or the way I followed new game releases, actually marking them on my calendar, growing giddy with excitement as each one got closer. I’d told him all that though, and he’d laughed, but not to make fun of me. He made me feel like my nerdy side wasn’t just acceptable, but that it was almost charming. He was into gaming the way I was.

  I let him see me in sweatpants and no make up for crying out loud. That was just not something I did. I had to look and be put together at all times. Those were the standards that had been engrained in me since childhood, and in two days he made me feel so comfortable with him, that it was easy to say to hell with them. He let me be me and never made me feel bad for it. He never gave me a bad time about my laugh that was sometimes too loud, or my un-feminine like language that came out during video games and the way I could easily get fired up, or my occasional clumsiness, okay it was more than occasional. I kept waiting for him to give me the pointed look I saw all too often from my mother, or for him to roll his eyes like Leila and say, “God, Mia, you’re such a train wreck sometimes.” He never did.

  When he left, I knew I’d done something to push him away though. He probably saw right through me, and my attempt to make him dinner. I don’t know what I’d been thinking, hoping to impress him and do something nice for him. Cooking was not a skill I possessed. Find him a killer outfit to wear to rock the Grammy’s; I could do that no problem. Kick his ass at the newest Mortal Combat; I only needed one hand to do that. Make him an edible meal, not so much.

  I needed to stick to my strengths and stop trying to be something I wasn’t, like for instance a girl that Christian Cross would ever be remotely interested in as anything more than someone who could help him beat Destiny, or Skyrim, or whatever game, in record time.

  Ugh.

  That thought led me back to my current, semi-depressed state, sitting in Ace and Sadie’s giant house, with just Ivy for company. I’d never had a pet before, but I liked her. Mostly she just followed me around the house, lying at my feet any time I sat down. She was such a sweet dog. I wished I could have a dog in my dorm. Her quiet presence and the warmth of her body tucked around my feet kept back some of the loneliness.

  Two days ago, all I had wanted was to escape to this place, to have the house to myself. Now, being here alone was almost worse than being back at my dorm. I was more aware than ever of my loneliness. I hadn’t even brought my computer with me, thinking it would be a good idea to disconnect from all social media and my online games for one weekend. I was regretting that now that I was mindlessly watching reruns of Criminal Minds and debating whether or not I wanted to call my sister, Caitlyn, and try to catch up with her.

  Leila and I rarely spoke, except of course when she was texting me to tell me how embarrassed she was to be related to me. With Cait, I tried to maintain somewhat of a relationship, but I wasn’t nearly as close to her as I was Sadie. Leila and Cait were born with a best friend, a second half, someone to always have their back. They came into this world as a team. Sadie was the oldest, but despite the almost eight year gap between us, she’d been my best friend growing up. She never treated me like the bratty baby sister. It was hard after Mom kicked her out and during those few years I couldn’t see her.

  That was when things started deteriorating between me and Mom. I’d only just turned eleven and suddenly I lost the only person I thought I could count on. I felt isolated and alone at home and I blamed her, and I blamed Dad for not stopping it. I acted out and did a lot of things I shouldn’t have, but I was a kid and I was angry and hurt and confused. I didn’t feel like I had anyone I could trust. Not my mom who never seemed pleased with me and made the only person I had, leave. Not my dad who worked all the time. And not even Sadie who left. I understood why she did, why she wouldn’t give up Clayton, but it still hurt to have the only person I let myself depend on, leave. And not my other sisters who picked on me and excluded me.r />
  I understood that their relationship was special, but that didn’t mean I’d never been jealous of it. Or jealous of how they always seemed to have our mother’s praise. I would never be as close with them, but they were still my sisters, so I pulled up Cait’s number and pressed call.

  “Hey, Mia, what’s up?” Cait answered.

  “Nothing really, just haven’t talked to you in a while. I wanted to see how you and Leila are doing.”

  “Oh, you know, we’re doing good.”

  “That’s good. How’s work? Dad said things have been kind of crazy on his level, have you guys had to work crazy hours too?” Cait and Leila had forgone the college route, jumping right into the workforce at Dad’s company in marketing, doing ad design and such. From everything I’d heard Dad say, they were quickly working their way up through the ranks. It seemed I was the only Pierce who didn’t know where I fit in.

  “Work is great. It has been a little hectic, but not so much that we couldn’t take a few days off this weekend to fly out to New York,” Cait chirped and I wondered how she and Leila ever accomplished anything when it seemed that they were always jetting off on mini vacations.

  “You’re in New York? You guys should come up to Boston if you have time before you head back to Seattle,” I suggested.

  “Oh yeah, maybe. Just a second Mia,” she said and then her voice became somewhat muffled as if she’d covered it with her hand or pulled it away from her face, but I could still make out the words she spoke. “Hey Leila, what time did Mom say to meet her at the restaurant? Okay, then we’d better finish up here and get going. I still want to try on the red dress. Then I’ll be ready.” Her voice came back through the phone clearly. “Hey Mia, I’m actually in the middle of something right now, so I have to go, but I’ll talk to Leila and –”

  “You’re with Mom?”

  “Yeah. The trip was her idea. She wanted to do a little shopping and have a girls’ weekend. We had to indulge her, you know. Since the divorce and everything, she’s been determined not to let it get her down, but like I said, I’ve got to go. Maybe we’ll see you later. Hope school is going well. Talk to you soon.” She ended the call and I set my phone down beside me, trying to swallow back the hurt.

  I guess Mom wasn’t too busy for a trip. She was just too busy for a trip to see me. Not even Cait or Leila had thought to invite me to join them for the weekend. It wasn’t like New York was that far. They knew family weekend was this weekend. Fuck, why did it sting so much? It wasn’t like I was surprised, or that I even really wanted to be in New York shopping and dining out with them. Okay, maybe I did a little. I hated the way the jealousy churned in my stomach, and the last thing I wanted to do was sit around this place with only it to keep me company. I was better off going back to campus.

  I went to my room and packed the few things I’d brought with me, taking just a second to send a quick text to Chris to let him know I was taking off. It would be safe for him to return without my presence here to deter him. I promised myself I wouldn’t waste another second dwelling on him or Leila or Cait or my Mom. I didn’t need anything from them. I especially didn’t need Chris making me feel like I was somebody to him, only to rip that feeling away. I was just fine on my own. Even if Leland was a stupid ass face, I still had friends back at school. It was easier to be their Mia, to be fake Mia, than to let somebody see the real me and be rejected.

  I texted Jillian before I was even out of the driveway to see if there was anything fun going on tonight. I doubted it since it was Sunday, but if anyone could find a party, it was Jillian. She came through for me just a couple minutes later saying she knew of a party going on. I informed her that I was about twenty minutes away and then I would be ready to party all night. She sent back an all caps, “WOOHOO!”

  In true Jillian fashion, I wasn’t in my room thirty seconds before she was pounding on the door and then pushing her way inside with Heidi and Dawn in tow. “Where the hell you been all weekend?” she asked, throwing herself down on my bed.

  “I was dog and house sitting for my sister while she was out of town with her fiancé.”

  “Ooh, why didn’t you say so? We could have kept you company and had our own little get together.” By get together, she meant party, but there was no way in hell I would ever throw a party at Ace’s house, or even invite them over.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t. One of their roommates was in and out all weekend, so we would have been busted. Maybe next time they go out of town,” I lied.

  “Okay, well get your ass into something sexy so we can head over to Marshall’s.”

  “Who’s Marshall?” I asked. The name was unfamiliar so I didn’t think I’d met him, unless I’d just been too drunk to remember.

  “His parents are friends of my parents, so we kind of grew up in the same circles. He can be a pompous douchebag sometimes, but he throws good parties and we occasionally hook up.”

  I didn’t understand how she could be so blasé about hooking up with someone she just admitted to thinking was a douchebag, but if there was one thing I’d learned about Jillian and Heidi and Dawn in the past month and a half, it was that they had even fewer limits than I did. They were unapologetically brazen. They came from money, not Pierce kind of money, but still money, and they loved to party. And they loved guys. Shallow, maybe, fun, yes, and it was easy to keep things surface level with them.

  My life would be so much better if I could learn to be more like them. Bold. Unashamed and carefree. It was so much easier than trying to please everyone and be what everyone wanted me to be. And it was better than trying to show people the real me and realizing it would never be enough for them. The real me didn’t have a place in Jillian’s world. I didn’t really enjoy the parties. I hated who I was when I drank, but that was what these girls expected, what my friends in high school had expected, and even if I had to be something I wasn’t, it was better than being me, all by myself. So I would put on my party girl mask, and be that girl, because she was liked and she was fun.

  I changed out of the yoga pants and sweatshirt I had on, and into a pair of skintight jeans and a sexy top, slipping my feet into a gorgeous pair of black, crystal covered Louboutins. Sexy shoes made me feel almost as good as sexy lingerie. There wasn’t much a woman couldn’t accomplish with sexy underwear and sassy heels.

  “Are Leland and Derek going to be there?” I asked as an afterthought as we made our way out of my room.

  “Yeah, why? You’ve totally got the hots for Leland don’t you?” Jillian jumped all over me. “There was some serious sexual tension between you guys last weekend.” Actually there wasn’t much of anything between us last weekend. Not clothing anyway.

  “I’d stay away from him if I were you,” Heidi added.

  “Why?” It was a little too late for that, I thought. Although, since it happened we’d both been doing an excellent job of staying away from each other.

  “He’s a total player, and I don’t get the feeling that you’re into that.”

  “Oh,” was all I said, but apparently there was a lot in my ‘oh’ because Jillian’s eyes went wide, and she grabbed me by the arm, stopping me right in the middle of the hall.

  “Holy shit, you already did him, didn’t you?” I couldn’t meet her eyes. I looked away and my gaze landed on Heidi who was watching me with an odd expression. My entire face heated in embarrassment. Jillian took that as her confirmation. “Shit, I knew it when he texted me to tell me he was taking care of you, or well I didn’t know, know, but I suspected. Damn him, I told him to leave you alone, that you were too nice for him. Have you talked to him since?”

  I shook my head.

  “Asshole,” Jillian muttered. “Look, Heidi’s right. We love the boys, they’re our boys, but they can be . . .”

  “Complete dicks,” Dawn finished for her.

  “Yeah, pretty much. Don’t feel bad or embarrassed though, you’re not the first girl he’s done this too.”

  “Yeah, he has the atten
tion span of a two year old when it comes to girls. We used to hook up, but it got old fast,” Heidi shared.

  “See, just brush it off like Heidi. It’s really not a big deal, and if you don’t make it one, he won’t. You guys will be cool, you’ll see.” Jillian grabbed my arm again, pulling me toward the elevators.

  Yeah Mia, just be cool.

  It was easier said than done though. It wasn’t five minutes after we walked in the door of this guy Marshall’s condo, that I spotted Leland flirting with a pretty blonde thing. Was I jealous? I don’t really know. I don’t think so. Was I hurt and angry that he could be so inconsiderate and blow me off so easily?

  Hell yes.

  At least when I thought I’d made a mistake and didn’t really want to be with him, I was still willing to talk to him and try to keep the relationship. I’d worried about how he would feel and what he expected and wanted. It didn’t seem as if he’d considered me in the aftermath at all. That didn’t just hurt, it pissed me off, and my angry side is also my most reckless side.

  Once that anger started burning in my gut, it just kept building and my mind kept stoking it with more fuel. Leila. Cait. Mommy Dearest. Workaholic Dad. Doucheface Leland and his hoochie Barbie Doll. Chris and his perfect Katrina.

  The more I gave into the anger, the more I drank. With every drink, I just wanted to escape these feelings. I didn’t want to be so mad, and I knew that all the anger just stemmed from the hurt underneath it, but I didn’t know how to turn off the hurt. The alcohol seemed to numb it, or at least make it bearable. Nothing made it go away completely though. That didn’t stop me from trying to drown it.

  I forced myself to join in conversations and laugh with everyone else. I even played my first game of beer pong, and lost because by that point my motor skills were beyond impaired. It was only by sheer luck that I sank a single ball, but I kept playing and dancing excitedly every time I did it. People laughed and cheered and I was a part of the fun, instead of watching it.