by Kylie Scott
Meanwhile, Pete had been out working at a site all day. This was good. The less we saw of one another the better. Like, forever and ever. How many times could you get your heart broken by the same person before you finally wised up? That was the question. And if he thought sending me flowers would smooth shit over, the man was sadly mistaken.
When he did come in, it was late. Later than I’d actually intended to be there. He strode past my desk, giving me side eyes. Cowardly fuck. I ignored him entirely. This tactic worked awesomely right up until he yelled at me from his office. I took my time, wandering on over to the doorway. Sometimes, petty victories were the way to go.
“What are these flowers doing in here?” he asked, glaring at the offending vase full of red roses and tropical blooms. They were spectacular, really.
“Well, I didn’t want them.”
“And you think I do?”
I crossed my arms, shrugged. “Give them to Leona if you like. I don’t really care.”
His gaze narrowed on me.
“Was that all?” I asked.
“Wait. You think I had something to do with these?”
Now I was confused. “You didn’t?”
Frown in place, he tore the little envelope off, ripping it open to read the card. Must have been a hard day. Smears of dust covered his face, his mood obviously every bit as good as mine.
“‘Dear Adele,’” he read. “‘I hear you’re still in town. Call me. Jeremy.’”
“Really? Huh.”
He held the card out to me, but I just waved it away.
“Shanti’s obviously been busy,” I said. “I mean, you can see how I would just assume they were some lame suck-up attempt from you.”
His tongue played behind his cheek. “I thought about sending some. Figured you’d just throw them at me.”
“That vase looks heavy too. It would hurt.”
“Yes, it would.”
“Let me guess,” I said, tapping a finger against my lips. “Were you going to run with the always golden ‘I hope we can still be friends’ line?”
“Had a bit more to say than that, actually.” He sat back in his chair, watching me. Bastard.
“‘Sorry I stuck my dick in you and then changed my mind?’” I rested my head against the door frame, getting comfortable. “That could look pretty on a card if you used the right font. A bit of calligraphy, maybe.”
“You think?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s quite poetic, really.”
He raised his brows. “I admit, I panicked last night. But I think calling it off is best for both of us.”
Wow. What fuckery. I honestly had nothing.
“I can see that now’s maybe not the best time to try to talk to you about this,” he continued. “What with us being at work, plus you apparently wanting to cut off my balls and wear them as earrings or something. Can you get these flowers out of here, please?”
“Pete, Pete, Pete. Give them to Leona or whoever is next on your fuck-friend list. Even better, take them to Helga and brighten up her day. I care not.” I sighed. “Or you could just watch them wither and die as you contemplate the fragility of life. I mean, what does it all mean? Though maybe you’ve already got it figured out and being alone is best. In the end, don’t we all just die alone, anyway?”
“Adele,” he said through gritted teeth.
I wiggled my fingers goodbye at him. Only to turn and find Dad waiting for me. Not so subtly listening to the entire conversation would be my bet.
“You ready to go, sweetheart?” he asked, apparently ignoring Pete. Their relationship was their business.
And our relationship was our business—and I was done. “Sounds good.”
Chapter Thirteen
Thursday Night
“Why are there four place settings?”
“Because I invited someone to dinner,” said Shanti, putting the finishing touches on the plates of salmon, baby potatoes, and asparagus. “You can start serving these please, dear.”
“Who did you invite?” I asked, highly suspicious.
Dad, meanwhile, just did as told. Marriage had mellowed him. Though I daresay Shanti had tamed him years ago.
The night had been so clammy and still, we’d retreated inside and turned on the air-conditioning. It gave me a chance to experience the new formal dining room. Shanti had gone for the same fusion of antiques with a modern edge. A beautiful old mahogany sideboard and matching dining table and chairs, with the walls painted a peacock blue. The pop of color was in-your-face stunning.
“Ah, Pete,” said Shanti with her usual serene smile. “Right on time.”
He carried a bouquet of native flowers in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other. Good to see his expression was wildly fucking uncomfortable. As it should be.
“Are you sure this was a good idea?” asked Dad, not even bothering with discreet.
“We are a family. Albeit, the family we have made for ourselves.” Shanti pulled out a chair and gracefully sank into it. “We will behave like a family regardless of who is currently angry and disappointed in whom right now.”
Nobody argued. Nobody dared.
“Who are those flowers for, Peter?” she asked, gaze curious. “They’re very beautiful.”
The grim smile returned. “I thought you might like them.”
What a suck-up.
“How sweet. Just put them on the sideboard,” said Shanti. “Thank you.”
Dad sat down and got busy drinking his beer. “How was the Meriel place today?”
“Coming along well.” Pete nodded, taking his place beside me. Dammit. “Adele, would you like to try the wine? You like Sémillon, right?”
Shanti beamed. “That was a very nice gesture, Peter. I’m sure Adele would love a glass.”
“Or I could just stick a straw in the bottle,” I whispered.
“What was that, darling?”
“A glass sounds great.”
Pete poured the alcoholic offering into the wineglass in front of me, filling it up nice and tall. Wise of him.
“Dinner looks wonderful,” I said, raising the glass in my new stepmother’s direction. “Thank you for cooking.”
She beamed. “My pleasure. It’s lovely to get to spend some more time with you.”
“About that—I’ll be heading back to Sydney tomorrow,” I said. “The temp agency called this afternoon with good news. They’ve found someone who can cover Helga’s position, starting in the morning. I’ve left plenty of instructions and advice for her; I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
Dad frowned. “Thought you might stay at least until the weekend.”
“I’d rather avoid the weekend traffic.” I gave him a small smile.
“Have you thought some more about the job?” asked Shanti, eyes wide and innocent. Not. “Your father tells me you’ve been doing a brilliant job this week and I’m sure we’d all love to have you here permanently. Wouldn’t we, Andrew? Peter?”
“Damn right,” said Dad.
Pete forced a smile. “Of course. You’ve proven yourself without a doubt this week. I mean that. The job’s yours if you want it.”
“Thanks,” I said, studying my plate.
“What do you think?” Dad watched me from across the table. “Sweetheart?”
Everyone’s gaze was on me. Talk about being put on the spot. I picked up my wine, downing a couple of mouthfuls. Given recent emotional upheavals, the level of scrutiny was extreme. Hopefully my concealer hid the worst of the bruising beneath my eyes. A broken heart was a bitch on the complexion. But it’d been my own dumb fault, getting all wrapped up in him. Thinking we actually had a chance. We were both messed-up people in our own sweet way. I guess two wrongs really didn’t make a right.
“You could go, give your two weeks’ notice straight away,” he said. “Be back here in no time.”
I took a deep breath. “Thank you, Dad. But no. I—”
“This is about Pete, isn’t it?” Dad’s voice was flat. Dark.
<
br /> “We talked about this,” said Shanti, placing her hand on Dad’s arm. “Andrew, we have to let them work it out for themselves. If that is the reason, and she can’t see herself being happy here right now, then that’s the way it is. Maybe things will change sometime in the future.”
Dad scowled and drank his beer. I drank my wine. And Pete sat beside me, rigid. So dinner was turning out to not have the most festive mood. What a surprise.
Shanti picked up her glass of red wine. “For now, we let Adele go back to Sydney, where she will no doubt find someone who sees exactly how beautiful and wonderful she is, sweeps her off her feet, and makes her forget that our Peter ever even existed. Why, he’ll be nothing but a dim, sad memory to her in no time. Meanwhile, Peter can go back to having meaningless relationships based on almost casual sex with women he barely even likes.”
At that point, Pete started drinking too. Couldn’t really blame him.
Dad wore the mightiest smirk I’d ever seen. He really did have excellent taste in women. Shanti was the best. Also, I was beginning to strongly suspect that I wasn’t necessarily the alluded-to angry and disappointed-in person present tonight. My new stepmother having my back was all kinds of awesome.
“To Adele and her very bright future,” Shanti toasted.
“Thank you.” I wasn’t sure whether to cry or to laugh. “That was really . . . thank you.”
“Anytime, my darling.”
“What are you doing here, Adele?”
It was around midnight when I banged on his door. Little wonder he answered in sleeping bottoms and nothing else. Hazel and I had had a long chat on the phone. But getting it all out and going over it, trying to sort out the pieces, hadn’t helped. I’d lain in bed wide awake, staring at the ceiling for hours. However, storming Castle Pete in pajama shorts, a tank top, and bare feet might not have been the wisest idea.
“I realized I have some things I need to say to you before I leave,” I said.
He stepped back, swinging an arm wide. “By all means, come on in. I haven’t been insulted nearly enough today.”
“In the my-broken-heart-versus-your-mild-inconvenience-and-a-few-insults contest, I’m the clear winner,” I said. “So suck it up.”
The door shut behind me, Pete’s eyes full of regret. It pissed me off even more than the poor-me expression he’d been laying on the moment before. Best just not to look at him directly. Anyway, his bare-naked chest was a distraction I could do without. The rounds of his pecs and his sexy brown nipples. A dusting of chest hair above and the happy trail disappearing into the waistband of his pajamas below.
“I left a pair of underwear here too, last night,” I said. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find them. Send them to me. You don’t get to have souvenirs.”
His lips thinned to nothing.
I scowled, but asked the question I had come to ask, planting my hands on my hips. “If you knew you were just going to break it off as soon as it was convenient, why did you even start with me?”
“Because I didn’t know.”
“Oh, please.”
“Yeah, it was likely, but . . .”
“But what?”
His jaw tensed. “I don’t know, okay? I wasn’t thinking long term or consequences, I just—”
“Wanted to fuck me.”
“Wanted to be with you.” He started pacing. “Jesus, Adele. You turn up back here with your wise-ass mouth, getting in my face like you always did, all grown up and looking hot as fuck. What was I supposed to do?”
“How about not think with your dick for a change?”
“This isn’t all on me. You wanted into my bed.”
“Because I thought there was a chance you’d finally see me. That you’d get real with me. But you knew you never would. Real isn’t even on your radar,” I said, hands shoving into his chest, forcing him back a step. “Why have you not sorted out your issues, huh? Still running scared like a little boy from any sort of emotional vulnerability at forty. What the fuck, Pete?”
“Maybe I didn’t want my life upended based on only three days of being together,” he said. “Maybe I don’t make major decisions based on a whim, like you do.”
“Firstly, I agreed to take it day by day. But when it came down to it you didn’t have my back about that. And a whim?” I asked, incredulous. “Are you serious?”
“What if I’m not the person you think I am and you decide this isn’t what you want after all?”
“You think I don’t know you?”
“I think you’ve got some idea in your head of who I am. Like a teenage fucking crush.”
“Oh, Pete. I do not have you on a pedestal, rest assured,” I said.
“Adele—”
“I love you, you idiot.”
He paused, face going pale. “You don’t love me.”
“Yes. I do. Unfortunately for me.”
He just stared at me.
“And you’re not some vague notion or dream-date ideal to me,” I said, pushing him back another step. “I know who you are. I know where you come from. Hell, I even know what your problems are, not that I can solve them for you. I know that losing your mother and having your dad neglect you hurt something inside of you that hasn’t healed. You act all nice and easygoing, but underneath you’re all hard surfaces. No one can break through. You hardly trust anyone, forget letting someone near enough to hurt you again.”
He blinked, mouth a flat line.
“I know your flaws and your virtues; I’ve heard just about all of your stories and told you mine too. I opened up to you like I never have to anyone else.” I shoved him again, getting in his face just like he’d accused me of doing. “Give me a better answer than ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time,’ Pete. Tell me you felt something for me.”
“I . . .”
“Tell me.”
But he had nothing. Jesus.
The disappointment was beyond bitter. A lead weight I’d carry with me all of my days, but I would not cry. He didn’t deserve my tears and emotions. Not ever again. Without saying a word, I slipped out the door, heading back to Dad and Shanti’s. Maybe there was a murmur behind me as I left the room, but I scarcely heard it. Outside, bare feet meant taking it easy on the asphalt. I’d had enough pain for pretty much forever.
“Wait,” he called out behind me. “Adele.”
I ignored him, picking my way through the front garden and around to the side of the house. Nothing remained to be said. We were done. And what a beautiful night to have everything come crashing down, shining moon and twinkling stars.
“Hey,” he hissed, keeping his voice down. “You don’t just leave like that.”
“You want to shake hands? Hug it out? What?”
“Would you . . .” He grabbed my arm, drawing me to a halt.
I shook him off. “It’s over, Pete. Now we go our separate ways. That’s how this works.”
“You climbed down the tree?”
I shrugged, lifting myself up onto the first handy foothold of the trunk. Inside, I felt so foolish and empty. “If they knew I’d gone crawling back to you after everything . . .”
“You didn’t come crawling back. You damn near kicked my ass.”
“Maybe the two things aren’t so different. And keep your voice down.”
Fortunately, the house wasn’t too far off the ground. Just high enough to ensure that a ninja-style jump and roll out of my bedroom window would be really unadvised.
“I hope you’re being careful,” he said.
“I hope you’re fucking off.”
He snorted.
“Dickhead,” I muttered, trying to hang onto my anger. It was much better than the all-consuming sadness threatening to sink me.
Despite my years of not climbing backyard trees, it wasn’t too hard to reach the branch running alongside the open window. I inched along carefully, taking it slow.
“This is fucking ridiculous,” he whispered.
“You’re sneaking back into your dad’s house in the middle of the night again like you’re a teenager.”
“And this is the last time I’ll ever do it too. Poignant, really.”
Nothing from him.
“In the future, we will not be friends,” I said, stating the facts. “We will not be anything.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Give me an alternative.”
More nothing.
I sat on the branch beside my window, trying to think of any last words. Any final thing I had to say to him. He stood below, hands on hips, looking up at me. That’s when I heard the cracking sound and suddenly everything, me included, plummeted toward the ground.
The emergency room was pretty quiet at two in the morning. They’d already glued up Pete’s cut and diagnosed him with a mild concussion. He lay on the hospital bed alongside mine, resting. Most of his face was white as the bedsheets, but one side of his forehead had started turning spectacular shades of purple and gray. The wound neatly dissected his left eyebrow. When it healed, it would give him a dashing, roguish air.
“You’ll probably look like a pirate,” I told him. Because irritating the crap out of the jerk remained its own reward. What a night. “Women dig scars. This is going to bring your game up to a whole other level. You should probably be thanking me.”
He didn’t even open his eyes. “Shut up, Adele.”
“Shut up, the both of you,” said Dad, sitting in a chair to the side. There was much thunder and ire upon his tired face even several hours later.
Shanti just gave me a weary smile. She’d run out of laughter about an hour back. Not that she hadn’t been concerned for our various injuries. But the whole situation seemed to have left her mostly amused. Guess we were better than reality TV.
“You’re free to go,” the male nurse said, giving me a friendly nod. At least someone was still talking to me.
You’d have thought I’d made Pete stand directly underneath the branch, then cunningly orchestrated it breaking, the way people were carrying on. Like I’d made the poor innocent man try to catch me along with a decent-sized part of a tree. Such a dumb idea. And it wasn’t like I’d come out of the accident unscathed either. My ulna was fractured, meaning I’d be wearing a cast over my forearm for quite a while. At least it was a nice blue color. Mom had always encouraged me to find a positive even in the most messed up of situations.