“What’s the rest of it?” she asks.
“Probably nothing.”
“But …”
“Can’t you let it be?” I laugh, a nervous energy in the words that Whitney doesn’t miss.
“I wouldn’t be your best friend if I let it be. Might as well spill so we can move on to dessert.”
My eyes close and all I see is that little notification on his phone. The green square with the pink splash of color, the same icon I hit every night to talk to him for weeks.
“It’s no big deal,” I say, wiggling in my seat. “I just saw today that he still had the app where I met him. Well, where Nerdy Nurse met him.”
She lifts a brow. “Do you still have it?”
“I deleted it after we went to my mom’s. There was no agreement to delete it. I mean, we aren’t even in a place where that’s a conversation we’re having, you know?”
“But you feel like maybe it was an unspoken agreement?” she asks guardedly.
Groaning into my hands, I try to settle myself. “Apparently, but I shouldn’t.”
“You aren’t wrong to feel this way.”
I hear her but I don’t hear her.
“Maybe it’s nothing, Whit. It’s an app. It means nothing.” Scraping my teeth over the inside of my bottom lip, the words echo in my brain. Like if I hear them enough, I’ll believe them. “It means nothing.”
My friend looks at me, her head tilted to the side. “What brought this on?”
“I saw it on his phone today. It was lying there. I wasn’t snooping.” I try to reason with myself, fighting a surge of bile in my stomach. “I’m just paranoid, I think.”
“You think?” she asks, trying to override the laugh that wants to permeate the words.
“Insecure. Do you like that word better?”
“I don’t like any of them, to be honest.”
Me either.
My muscles pull tight across my back, my neck tensing as I struggle to stay even-keeled. I’m a ball of taut, twisted emotions on the inside and out and a good, loud scream is the only way I can think of to release some of the energy. But that’s what crazy people do and I’m not going crazy. Not today, at least.
“I’m just struggling with being smart and being open at the same time,” I explain. “I want to be open with Lance, give him all the benefit of the doubt. I don’t want to burden him with Eric’s sins.”
“Sounds very reasonable of you,” she grins.
“But, at the same time, I did that with Eric and look where it got me. That wound still stings and if I don’t pay attention to that, I might get stung again.”
Whitney chuckles. “It must be terrible to be so logical. You can’t even have fun.”
“I know,” I whine. “This is the first time since Eric where I’ve felt like maybe I’ve put those rose-colored glasses back on. Like maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see and not what was real. I refuse to do that again, you know? I won’t be that blind girl ever, ever again.”
“You aren’t blind. You’re nervous and nervous is good. Nervous is smart. But you being nervous makes me want dessert.” Whitney stands, slipping her sneakers back on.
“I think I have leftover brownies,” I offer without a lot of initiative.
“Come on,” she says, pulling me up. “Let’s go buy overpriced slices of cheesecake at Peaches. We’ll bring them here and binge watch a show.”
I don’t love television, but I also don’t love sitting around sulking. Or worrying. Or lamenting over a man I’m not sure is mine.
“I don’t even have a show,” I note, shoving Lance out of my mind.
“Oh, girl, I’ll fix that.”
She gives me a complete list of all the offerings currently available on my subscription service as we get in her car and head through Linton. The streetlights are on, casting a pretty glow over the little town I’ve come to love.
“The one about royalty is my pick based off your fabulous descriptions,” I add, watching Dr. Burns’ office pass by.
“You’ll love that.”
“I don’t want to watch it if you’ve already seen it,” I protest.
“Only one episode,” she insists. “Besides, I watch so many shows I can’t remember what they’re about. It’s one of the fabulous things about being me—”
“Hey.” I lean forward quickly, the seat belt snapping me back in my seat. I try to see down the side road leading to Crave but we’ve gone by it before I can get turned around. An eerie calm fills my veins as my brain clears out everything that’s not absolutely necessary. “Take a right up here and go around the block.”
“Why?” she asks as she hits the breaks to slow down for the turn.
“Just do it.”
My breath steams up the window as I pant against it like a puppy. Using the sleeve of my shirt, I wipe off the fog so I can see.
The side streets are fairly empty except for a few cars sitting on the street in front of houses. There’s a dog in the yard of the large Victorian house I love on the corner as we turn and make our way back toward Beecher Street.
My breath is the only sound in the car as I pull oxygen in through my mouth. There’s a burn in my chest, like the bitter fluids from my stomach have somehow escaped and now fill my entire cavity.
Whitney pushes the car slowly up the road. There, just a few slots back from the corner, is Lance’s car.
“Son of a bitch,” I whisper. My clothes feel too clingy, everything too tight, too itchy, as we pass the parked car. There’s nothing around open this time of night in this part of town except Crave.
He did blow me off.
Mentally, I start linking things together, things I hope don’t belong together. Things like a broken date with me, his car at the bar, the app I saw today.
Stop it.
My hand shakes as I toy with the necklace rising and falling with every harsh breath. I tell myself the gut instinct I had today that something was wrong was actually right and I should have some sense of comfort in that. But I don’t. I don’t when it’s still churning, warning me there’s more to come.
“You think he’s in there?” Whitney asks, watching me out of the corner of her eye.
Gulping, I nod. “Yeah.”
“It was rhetorical,” she sighs, pulling through the stop sign as a car comes up behind us. “Where else would he be?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, picking at the corner of my fingernail. “Just head to Peaches and let me think about it.”
“By thinking do you mean talking? Because I have opinions.”
“I’m sure you do,” I grumble. “His brother owns Crave,” I note. “Maybe he’s there talking about something with him.”
“Maybe.” She doesn’t sound persuaded.
“Maybe.” Neither do I.
Twenty-Eight
Lance
I’m not sure how the temperature dropped quickly enough to have me shaking. I’m also not one-hundred-percent sure how long I’ve stood on Mariah’s doorstep, but it’s been long enough that her neighbor has looked out the window twice.
The kitchen light is on and I can see through the opening in the curtains that her purse is sitting by the sofa. I ring the bell again. Rocking back and forth on my heels, I pray she answers. Then I turn around with a follow-up prayer that she doesn’t.
If I fail to come out hitting hard tonight, and I’m not even in a place to appreciate the pun, I won’t have the balls to do it tomorrow. There’s a chance I don’t have the balls to pull this off now either but the fact I’m standing on her porch, fortified with a little tequila thanks to Nora at Crave, I’m as close as I’ll ever be.
It would seem I have two choices: to tell her I love her or to tell her it’s over. That, however, is not the case. There is only one possible answer and it’s the one ripping my insides apart.
I love this girl, so it has to be over. It’s some fucked-up mathematical equation that reminds me why I went into history and not algebra. Then again, history
says the best offense is a strong defense, so here we are either way.
I’ll miss the quiet times with Mariah as much as the loud ones, the moments where we’re in the car and not saying a word. Those times almost soothe me somehow. I’ll crave for the rest of my life the look she gets when she sees me for more than what I present to the world. She sees the good in me, the potential, the man who’s capable of more than a quick, amazing fuck. There won’t be a way to replace the privilege of being the guy she chooses to spend an evening with.
Blaire says there’s always hope, but I’m not sure if I even want to go there. What can I hope for at this point? That she moves on from me? That I don’t miss her so much I lose my mind? That she doesn’t feel half the pain I’m going to feel if I manage to go through with this?
I turn toward my car when a set of headlights comes down the road. It slows as it nears, pulling up the driveway at a crawl.
Scratching the side of my neck, the feel of my nails digging into my flesh is barely discernible in relation to the tight pain stretching across my chest. It’s hard to even take in enough oxygen to stay standing as Mariah gets out of the car. She gives a quick goodbye to whomever is driving, not even looking my way until the car has backed out onto the road.
She fiddles with a take-out bag in her hand as she makes her way toward me. Her steps are methodical, one in front of the other. Each one ratchets tighter on my nerves.
“Hey,” I say as she draws near. The frog in my throat is obvious and I swallow to press it down. “I hope it’s okay I’m here.”
“Sure.” She plays with a lock of her hair. “I, um, went with Whitney over to Peaches to get dessert.”
“What’d you get?”
“Cheesecake.” She flips her gaze to mine, her baby blues filled with unease. “We were going to bring it back here and watch some show about the royals, but we ran into Coach Collins and the new guy the school board hired for soccer.”
His name alone creates a storm inside me. My hands ball into fists at my sides as I try to remind myself I can’t be jealous. She’s not mine. And that right there is the most frustrating part of this whole damn dilemma.
“What’d he want today, anyway?” I ask, unable to help myself.
She pops the key in the lock and swings the door open. “Just to see about the delivery of some books and manuals I ordered for the football program.”
“Oh.”
“Why?” She steps inside the house, taking her shoes off by the door.
“It just seemed like a lot of talk and laughter over football manuals.”
Her shoulders lift and fall. “He’s nice.”
There’s more to it than that but she’s not going to give it to me.
My body burns from the tension in my muscles as I watch her busy herself with a hundred things besides looking at me. Each tick of the clock that goes by reduces my frustration over the fucking coach and moves it more toward a hollow sensation that tells me something is wrong.
“Are you going to come in or not?” A look is cast over her shoulder, one that can only be defined as on guard.
Before I step inside, I rethink what Nora told me at Crave: how you only come across true love once in your life, the kind of love that sets your world on fire. Love that makes you happily lose yourself in the smoke because you’d rather die from the fumes than live without it.
That’s Mariah for me.
For the first time in my adult life, a relationship is not just about the sex. With her, it’s more than the conversations we have, or the way she looks at me, or the way she makes me want to consider what impact my actions have on the world. She doesn’t just make me want to be better for her. She makes me better in every way.
Nora said coming over here and breaking it off with her was the stupidest move I could make. She’s seen me do some seriously stupid shit too.
I agree. This is so fucking stupid. It’s stupid in the same way chemotherapy makes you sick but you have to undergo it to rid yourself of cancer. But, just like chemo, this is best choice I can make under the circumstances.
I cross the threshold and shut the door behind me. She stands in the little hallway that leads to the kitchen, the light illuminating her from behind.
There’s a suspicion, a leeriness to her gaze that seems so utterly unfair. It’s the most cutting thing I’ve felt in a very long time. I want to whisk her up into my arms and kiss the hell out of her. I want to tell her to stop looking at me like that. I want to tell her I’m standing here wondering what she would look like under the kitchen light at three in the morning when she comes down for a glass of water and I follow her because I can’t stand to be in bed without her. That I wonder what she’d look like in this position in the middle of the night prepping a bottle while I lie in bed with a baby awaiting her return. What she would look like coming in after a concert she’d always wanted to see.
All of this confession is on the tip of my tongue, ready to be screamed from the deepest recesses of my consciousness.
“How was your evening?” she asks, choosing each word with the care of a surgeon.
“Good. Helped Machlan and Peck fix Nana’s shed.”
She arches a brow. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
Exhaling a hasty breath, she turns away. Her hand plants on the refrigerator door. “What’s wrong, Lance?”
I take a step back. I’m not ready for this conversation. I thought I was in control, still figuring out how to bring it up, and I’m sure as hell not ready to go there yet. There was supposed to be time to figure this out first, to get a game plan, to maybe hold her one last time.
“Lance?” She turns on her heel and leans against the counter. “What’s the matter?”
“Why do you think something is the matter?”
Her arms cross her chest. “I don’t know what all of this is, but it’s not us.”
This is the opening I need, handed to me on a silver platter—one I’m trying to shove right back her way instead of just accepting.
My heart clenches as I read all the messages her eyes are telling me. “What is us, Mariah?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Goddamnit.
Not yet.
I’m not ready.
“Can I ask you a question?” I ask, wrapping my hands around the posts of a chair.
“You just did.”
Cracking a smile, I can’t find it in my heart to fire back at her with some innuendo-filled response. “What do you want?”
“You mean like pizza?” she gulps.
“I know you like pizza.”
“And sushi,” she adds, her bottom lip starting to quiver.
“And tacos, right?”
She nods, sitting at the table with her hands in her lap. I don’t trust myself to move because I know exactly what I’ll do—It’ll end with her in my lap, putting off this conversation.
“I meant more like …” I think about how to phrase it. “What are the most important things you want out of life?”
Pretending I’m just waiting on her reply, I send her a silent plea that tells her to answer in a way I can feel good about. I want her to talk me out of this.
Her features soften, letting go of the fear that had crept into the lines of her face. She pulls her knees to her chest. “Night kisses,” she says just loud enough for me to hear.
I look at the ceiling as her words slice open a wound across my heart I’m certain will never heal.
“I don’t want anything fancy,” she says softly. “Loyalty from those I love. Feeling safe, like I don’t have to compete with anyone for anything.”
“You deserve all of that.”
“I think I do.” She puts her feet back on the floor as I look down at her. “What do you want, Lance?”
I pace a circle around her kitchen, my hands in my hair, tugging at the roots. I wish I could tell her what it is I really want.
Her.
Just her.
“I don’t kn
ow what I want,” I lie, unable to even look at her as I say it. My teeth clench, trying not to let the words by.
“I see.”
No, you don’t see!
Panic gathers in my core, melting everything in its path as it spreads through me like a virus. I pivot on my heel and look at my girl.
There’s a steeliness there. It’s cold and guarded and not at all the way she should look. I hate that I put it there. Me. I put that look of distrust on the woman I just want to protect and love and shower with kisses day and night.
I imagine the war that would be waged in those beautiful baby blues when she had to pick between the experience of a lifetime, of carrying a child, and of loving a man who is, by all accounts, unworthy of that love. The truth is, I know she loves me. Maybe even as much as I love her and the fact I’ve let this happen is heartbreaking.
She deserves so much more than me, a broken version of a teenage boy who’s gone to bed after eating everyone’s cookies.
“You know I don’t expect anything from you, right?” she asks.
“Mariah, wait …”
She gets to her feet, pushing in her chair. “Lance, it’s fine. I—”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” My chest rises and falls like I’ve ran a marathon, the air rushing out of my body in sharp, painful bursts. “It’s not you, Mariah.”
She smiles, but not at me. It’s directed inwardly, I think, like she predicted this.
I can predict too. I know she’d choose me over children. And my fear is too fucking deep that one day she’d turn forty and realize she’d given up something she could never get back just because I wrecked a car at eighteen and fucked up my life.
It’s unfair for someone’s tragedies to bleed onto another. I won’t do that to her, even if this kills me.
“Look,” I say, fighting the blaze in my ribs, “this isn’t about you.”
“It never is.” She shakes her head, turning away from me. “You’ve been kind and—”
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