Gwen shook her head. “Mom, we’ve already talked about this. I have been getting out.”
Coming around to her mother’s side, she tugged to get her up.
“You went to the grocery store twice and the pharmacy once. That doesn’t count.”
“It counts as three times more than you’ve been out, Mom. Trust me, I’ll be fine. Dad’s doing better, and you need a break.”
Still, she could see her mom was going to fight her on this. So she pulled out the big guns. “If you don’t go, Dad’s going to think he held you back. And then he’s going to feel guilty on top of already feeling like crap. You don’t want to do that to him, do you?”
Her mom’s chin pulled back. “Wow, you want me to go that bad, huh?”
She did. One of them should have a life. One of them should have some fun.
And the truth was, even if Gwen went out and hit every bar in town, saw every friend she’d ever made, she still would’ve been miserable. It had only been a couple of weeks since Brody had ended things between them, but she hadn’t heard from him once in all that time. No call, no text. Just this aching emptiness inside her that was getting worse every day.
Maybe she’d been silly to expect some kind of contact, but after the way everyone had talked about Brody and his borderline compulsive need to friend up the women he used to date, some small part of her had been holding out hope that he’d do the same with her.
And just like that, her throat tightened, her eyes blurred. Turning away from her mom, Gwen went to the fridge and buried her head within the cold shelves, pretending to look for something. If her mom saw her start to cry again, there was no way she was going to leave this house.
“I’m going to have some of these leftovers for dinner. Maybe watch a movie with Dad.” At least until her dad fell asleep, and then she’d end up in her room, on her bed, staring at the walls and telling herself to get over this business with Brody. To stop trying to figure out what happened. Why he’d left.
The front door opened and closed, followed by the sound of chatter down the hallway.
“Look, Mary’s here. Just go. We’ll be fine.” But when Mary Normandy appeared from the front hall, she had her husband and son in tow.
Ted had been back the weekend before, though Gwen barely saw him. And while her mom had mentioned he was back again, she was surprised to find him smiling at her from the doorway as his dad walked past and set a paper bag on the table.
“What’s this?” Gwen asked, looking from one of them to the next.
Ted answered. “There’s been a coup.” Shoving one fist into his pocket, he shrugged. “Your dad’s starved for male attention, and he recruited mine to come bail him out.”
Bob withdrew a sack of Gardetto’s, a six-pack of near beer, and three ancient tapes for the VHS player she couldn’t believe her dad wouldn’t get rid of.
“Full Metal Jacket, Predator, and Commando. The classics,” he announced with relish, staring down at the lot.
“The moms have girls’ night, the dads are staying in, and I’m assigned to get you out of the house for a while. And before you say no, because I can see on your face that you want to… If you stay here, you’ll be stuck listening to death screams for the next six hours at least. Choose carefully.”
Gwen let out a defeated laugh and shook her head. “So where are we going?”
Ted clapped his hands, rocking back on his heels. “Lady’s choice. We can head over to Winger’s for a beer, Shelby’s for pie, or the rec room at my house. Pick your poison.”
She didn’t even have to think about it. Two hours later, Ted was popping the tops on another couple of Fantas and pushing one into her hand as he flopped down on the sofa beside her. He picked up the remote from the coffee table they’d been propping their feet on since grade school and turned off the credits from Scary Movie.
“Gwennie, you look like hell.”
She laughed quietly, plucking at the pair of Dobson High School sweatpants she really should have retired after graduation and her dad’s oversize flannel shirt. “And here I didn’t think there was a dress code for your basement.”
“That’s not what I mean. I always think you’re beautiful, and those sweats have been a favorite since they were new. But you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”
Focusing on her pop-top, she twisted the metal tab until it broke off, then dropped it into her drink. “Rough week with my dad. I’m fine though.”
Ted licked his bottom lip and shook his head. “Come on, Gwennie. We’ve been friends too long for this. I know you feel like what I told you after the wedding changes things, but it doesn’t. All that stuff has been the same for as far back as we go. The only difference is now you know about it. I’m the same guy you’ve been talking to since before you were making real words. And while I know this stuff with your dad has been a lot, that’s not it.”
No. It wasn’t.
Her eyes cut to the man sitting beside her. He hadn’t asked her about Brody since they’d broken up. He’d known, of course. Probably within an hour of it happening. Her mom had seen her when she came home, and no way had Gwen been able to get past her without some kind of explanation. Word spread fast from there. And that night, Ted had texted her from back in Chicago: I’m here if you need me.
“I can’t talk to you about Brody, Ted. I just can’t.”
Nodding, he set his can on a coaster and queued up another Netflix classic they’d watched a dozen times before. “You’re not ready yet. But I’ll be here when you are.”
She closed her eyes and thought back to that day after the wedding. To the words he’d said before he left.
“I don’t want you to wait for me,” she said quietly. “I don’t want you to wait another day for me.”
She could hear the click of his throat as he swallowed and the long stream of his breath. The movie started to play.
“It’s only been a couple weeks, Gwen. I know you’re still feeling kind of raw. But give it time. Give me time.”
* * *
“Molly. It’s not even dirty. Knock it off.”
She was standing behind the bar, her round belly pressed against the lower shelf while she wiped a rag in wide circles like she was working at some old-time saloon.
“Restless,” she said with a shrug, as though that explained why she was polishing his bar down to the floor.
Blowing out a heavy breath, Brody got up from the stool where he’d been reading through the mail and stretched out his shoulders and neck. Yeah, he might be feeling a little restless too.
He jutted his chin at her. “Is it working?”
Another shrug, this one he took as a no.
Not much was working for him either. He’d been trying to keep busy, keep his mind occupied. He’d even pirated half the jobs he’d hired Jill to do, hoping it would be enough to get his mind off Gwen. Off how she was doing back in Dobson. If Ted had told her how he felt. How she’d reacted.
Whether he was going to open a goddamned invitation to her wedding one of these days while sorting the mail.
Shit. He needed to give the mail back to Jill.
“Yikes, get a load of this one,” Molly muttered under her breath as the chimes over the door sounded behind him. “Sorry, ma’am, we’re not open for another twenty minutes.”
Brody was about to tell whoever it was they could have a seat and wait when he was met with a cool, upper-crust voice not nearly as familiar as it should have been.
“I trust you don’t mind I stopped by without calling ahead. I wasn’t certain I’d have the time.”
Molly was staring, her eyes bugged wide and shifting slowly between the two of them. Brody ducked his head and turned around, rubbing at the back of his neck.
“Mom, what brings you to Belfast?”
Maureen O’Donnel stood near the door, her ginger hair
cut in a severe bob around her jaw, her lips slicked with blazing red. There was nothing soft about her. Not that there ever had been.
Tugging one finger at a time free from her gloves, she turned in a neat circle, surveying the bar she’d never visited before with a critical eye. When her focus landed back on him, she stepped forward.
“I realize you changed your mind about the ring. But I’m in town on business and figured I could save us both the hassle next time if I just gave it to you.”
Opening her stylish clutch, she crossed to the table where he’d been working and held out the heirloom he’d called to ask for the night before he’d found out about Ted.
He didn’t want it. Didn’t like that she was there. But since she was, he didn’t have much choice but to take it from her.
“Thank you.” He picked up the slender band of metal adorned with three diamonds and pushed it deep into his pocket.
It was awkward between them, but he knew he had to say something. “How long will your business keep you in town?”
“I actually wrapped it up this morning. I’m flying out in a few hours.”
Of course she would put him at the very end of her trip. A last priority, only to be tended to if everything else worked out. What a mom.
But who was he to judge when thirty seconds ago, he’d been mentally praying she wouldn’t have time for even a glass of water.
“I appreciate you finding the time to drop this off for me.” Even if the effort was calculated to avoid the inconvenience of being forced to speak to him at some later date.
His mother nodded and gave him her cool smile, the one that paled next to the warm greetings her clients and business associates earned.
He hated that smile. But he returned it nonetheless and walked her to the door. There was a car waiting at the curb, and by the time his mother reached it, she was already on her phone. She didn’t look back.
Jesus, this wasn’t what he’d needed today. Or any day, for that matter.
He turned from the door and stopped to find Pregosaurus rex six inches away, her mouth hanging open in a typical Molly gape.
Here it comes.
“That…was your…mother?”
“Yeah, that was Mom.” He could pretend it wasn’t a big deal that she’d been there, or that Molly had actually laid eyes on her, but he knew it was. “Sorry I didn’t introduce you.”
Molly shook her head in utter disbelief. “She exists. And she’s even worse than you said.”
Yeah.
He started around her, wanting to get the ring into the safe in his office, but then Molly was back at his side, her steps doubled to keep up with his.
“So, umm…Brody. She gave you a ring.”
“It was my great-grandmother’s.”
“She said you didn’t need it anymore. Does that mean you’d…umm…asked her for it? Because if you had, that might go a long way toward explaining why you’ve been so off these past weeks.” She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him to a stop. “Brody, were you going to ask Gwen to marry you?”
He shoved a hand through his hair and wrapped a good chunk in the elastic from his wrist.
“I got ahead of myself.”
“Is that why you’ve been so clammed up about this? Cripes, Brody. A ring?”
“It doesn’t matter. I didn’t ask her—”
“And you’re a wreck. I’ve been trying to stay out of your business because you usually talk to me about stuff when you’re ready. But it’s been a month, and you seem pretty messed up. You’re hardly available at all, and even when you’re around, you’ve got this someone-stole-your-puppy look on your face. You look worse than Max and Jase did before they sorted everything out with Em and Sarah.”
“Molly, there’s nothing to tell.”
“You have a ring in your pocket. Don’t give me that there’s nothing to tell. There absolutely is plenty to tell. And I think it’s time you sat down and did it.”
Molly filled a half pitcher of iced tea and lined up empty shot glasses along the bar.
“If I were one of the guys, I’d get all liquored up with you to get you to talk. But since I’m a million months pregnant, we’ll stick to the soft stuff. But you’re talking.”
Half an hour later, the bar was open, and the first lunch customers were placing their orders. Molly’s chin was propped up on her hand, and Brody was slumped over the bar. “Things were happening so fast. It was never like that for me before. And it felt good. I didn’t want to slow it down.”
Blowing a few strands of blond from her eyes, Molly sighed. “Why would you?”
Because he’d only been seeing what he wanted to see. “There were some fairly obvious signs that I might not have been the right guy for her.”
Like Gwen’s unwavering belief that Ted was the most decent guy on the planet. Her twenty-year crush. Brody never considering that Ted might actually be all that and a bag of chips. Even though he trusted Gwen’s judgment in almost every other way, seeing Ted as a villain was the only way Brody could justify his own feelings, his own actions.
“Cryptic much?” Molly straightened up and rubbed her back. “Signs like what?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Looking at you, it seems like it might. What about Gwen? Is she as bad off as you?”
“I haven’t talked to her.”
Molly coughed, looking at him like he’d grown a third leg. “It’s been a month…and you haven’t… What the heck happened with you guys? Because this isn’t normal, Brody. You don’t get bent out of shape about women. You don’t sulk. And you don’t ever go a whole month without starting to work the friend angle.” Molly’s brows furrowed, and she slapped a hand to her chest. “Did she cheat on you?”
This time, it was his turn to cough. “Gwen? No. Never.”
She let out a huff. “Brody, then what?”
“Look, remember how we were sort of pretending to go out before we actually were?”
“Yeah.”
“She was involved with someone else. Only things had sort of stalled between them. Anyway, I basically talked her out of the guy. I convinced her he wasn’t any good for her, that he’d been playing her, and she needed to move on.”
Molly’s eyes had gone saucer wide. “But?”
“But it turns out I was wrong about this fucker. And even though things were amazing with us, she’s been in love with him forever.”
“She…she picked him? Over you?”
And he had to hand it to her, Molly’s shrieky outrage was exactly what his ego needed. Even if it was misplaced.
“It didn’t come to that.”
She was staring at him, her head cocked to one side. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, the writing was on the wall, and I cared about her too much to put her through the big scene.”
“Yeah, but, Brody, maybe she would have picked you.”
“She’s loved him for twenty years, Molly. She’d stopped waiting, but she never said she stopped loving him. I know what she felt for me was real, and I know it was good. Which meant that if I hadn’t broken up with her, she’d have agonized about it. It would have torn her up.”
“So you set her free. So she didn’t have to choose. Are you even sure she still loves this guy?”
“Twenty years, Molly. You had boyfriends before you and Sean finally got together. What would you have done if you’d found out he’d been in love with you that whole time…while you were serious about someone else?”
She chewed her bottom lip and looked away.
He threw back another shot of iced tea.
They both knew.
Chapter 24
Leaning into the kitchen counter, Gwen stared at the far wall, getting lost in the winding pattern of roses and garden bugs that had been staring back at her since she was a girl. Sh
e was sleeping again. The seemingly bottomless well of tears had finally dried up the week before. And the sharp ache in her chest? Well, it hadn’t gone away, but it had dulled, receding to the background most days.
She wasn’t getting over Brody. Her heart was as raw and fresh a wound as it had been the day he’d left. But at least her heartbreak wasn’t as obvious to everyone else. And sometimes that was as much as a girl could ask for.
From the stove beside her, the kettle began to whistle. She pulled it off the burner and filled the teapot, dunking in a couple of bags of chamomile vanilla.
The doorbell sounding had her checking her watch as she hustled down the hall. It was just before noon, and her parents were watching a movie in the guest room. They didn’t have any plans until later that night with the Normandys since Ted was in town again that weekend.
She knew it wasn’t any of them, because neither Ted nor anyone in his family had used the bell in probably twenty years.
“I’ve got it,” she called, passing the guest room, her heart doing the same pathetic little skip it had every time there’d been an unexpected visitor, call, or text for the past month.
Maybe it was Brody.
She knew it wasn’t. Even if he’d decided he wanted to be friends after all, he wouldn’t drive three hours each way to do it. He’d wait until she was back in Chicago and offer to buy her a beer the next time she was at Belfast.
Still, she couldn’t entirely tamp down that rebel surge of hope.
Swinging the door open wide, she shook her head in bewilderment. “Molly, what in the world are you doing here?”
And even as she asked the question, she found herself scanning the driveway where Molly’s car was parked and then the empty curb beyond the lawn and farther down to where the road curved. But there was no other car and no other familiar face from Chicago.
No Brody.
No Sean either, which struck her as even more strange.
“Freezing my butt off,” Molly answered with a cheeky grin. Rubbing her hands together, she tried to pull the sides of her coat together, but that adorable big belly of hers wouldn’t let it happen.
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