by Leddy Harper
In an instant, fear washed over her eyes, locking her within its cage. Her mask slid into place with a coy smirk and crimson cheeks. “I find it ironic that the man who’s pining after his ex—who he has labeled as the one who got away—is suggesting that I let go of my inhibitions and jump in feet first. Yeah…no thank you. I don’t have a problem killing time for a week, but I’m not going to sit around with you and wait for your soulmate—or whoever she is—to come back.”
If I knew she wouldn’t push me away, I would’ve told her the truth. I would’ve explained it all to her. But I couldn’t. Because no matter how deeply I trusted my intuition on this, it wouldn’t ease her fears. If anything, it’d exasperate them.
There was always a runner and a chaser.
She was no doubt the runner.
And I wouldn’t give her a reason to flee.
“Want to go somewhere tomorrow?” My question caught her off guard, which made me laugh. “It’s your last day before you fly out. Let’s get out of here. Go out of town. We can stay the night, and on the way back, I can swing you by the airport.”
“Where are we going?”
I shrugged, even though I knew exactly where I wanted to go. “We could go anywhere. I hear Savannah’s really nice this time of year. Have you ever been?”
“Nope, can’t say that I have.”
“Good. We’ll go there. We’ll get up in the morning, fuck in the shower, then grab our bags, fuck one last time, and then hit the road.” I gently nipped at her bottom lip, knowing how much it drove her crazy.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re using this to convince me to come back?”
I covered her mouth with mine, just long enough to silence her. Then I pulled away, looked deep into her eyes, and said, “Mark my words, babe…I will get my way. And you will come back.”
Mercy Wright would be mine before she boarded that plane.
End of story.
7
Mercy
Within forty-eight hours, my life had flipped upside down.
Turned inside out.
Twisted around before finally settling into a beautiful chaos that excited and scared me all at once. But as I pulled into the parking space in front of my apartment building with exhaustion clinging to my lids, all I could think about was getting my suitcase upstairs and falling into bed. Well, that wasn’t necessarily true. Brogan encompassed the majority of my thoughts, most of which were the very reasons I planned to crawl beneath my covers and catch up on lost sleep.
I pushed through the front door, wheeled my suitcase against the wall, and engaged the deadbolt behind me. When I turned, ready to trudge to my room, my heart stopped, and an abrasive cry ripped from my chest. A figure standing in the living room a few feet away startled me. But I soon regained my senses and realized he wasn’t an intruder.
Yet relief was the last thing I experienced.
Instead, I was pissed to find him in my apartment without my permission.
“Why are you here, Jordan?” If he expected to find a brokenhearted woman, he’d come to the wrong place. Anger continued to fuel me, leaving no room for sorrow or regret. I’d left that behind on the sidewalk outside his house, right before I left with Brogan.
“You refuse to answer my calls or texts. Your mom and Stella won’t tell me what’s going on. You’ve disappeared all week,” he cried, holding up a stack of mail that dated my absence. “What happened? Why won’t you talk to me?”
“I take it you haven’t found the ring?”
His glistening eyes narrowed, his brows stitching together. But as soon as his gaze fell to my left hand, the confusion shifted—though it didn’t disappear. Now, rather than puzzled at what ring I’d meant, it was clear he was lost as to why I’d taken it off.
“I left it on your entryway table. Last Friday night when I went back to get my stuff. You see…I flew in a couple of days early to surprise you. Imagine my surprise when I tracked your location to Rulebreakers and caught you grinding on another woman.”
No less than three expressions flashed across his face—everything from bewilderment to shock. But the one that stuck out most was the flash of guilt. Followed by the flicker of regret. “There’s got to be some sort of mix up here, Mercy. I wasn’t with another woman.”
“Are you trying to tell me you weren’t at Rulebreakers last Friday night?”
“Yeah, I was. But I wasn’t with a woman. I was out with the guys. We stopped there for maybe an hour and then we left.”
“What time? And where’d you go?”
He shifted on his feet, eyes falling upon everything in the room except me. “Maybe around midnight? I don’t know. Terence was down the street at Eight Ball and asked us to head over for a few games of pool. I didn’t check my watch, but I think it was around midnight. I got home about two thirty. Two forty-five the latest.”
I had to fist my hands and clench my jaw to keep from getting sucked in. I wouldn’t have considered myself a weak person, but when it came to the people I cared about—loved even—I had a tendency to believe them. Or at the very least, want to believe them.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t go back now.
Not after Brogan.
Not after our trip to Savannah yesterday.
“I saw you, Jordan. Are you trying to tell me I don’t know what I saw?”
He huffed and dropped his head forward. “It’s a dark club. And the whole time I was there, it was packed. Could it be possible that maybe you just thought you saw me? But really…it was some other guy?”
“What are the chances of two guys who look almost identical—same height and build, same hair, same mannerisms—who also own the same shirt, being at the same place at the same time? Do you think I’m an idiot? You can only pass off so many coincidences before you have to accept that it’s exactly what it looks like. And Friday night, it looked like you were fucking some other chick on the dance floor.” I was borderline hysterical, which was probably the reason he kept his distance.
“What shirt, Mercy?”
I groaned, frustrated with him, my inability to put an end to this madness, and the entire situation as a whole. “The one I got you for Christmas last year. The blue one with the big fish on the back.”
“You mean the shirt I left here the last time I was in town? The one that’s probably still hanging up in your closet? If that’s the shirt you’re talking about, then how could I have possibly worn it Friday night while out fucking around on you?”
Somehow, I’d forgotten that he had left it here, or that it was currently in my closet. The possibility that I hadn’t seen him with another woman—but rather, some other guy with another woman—strangled me with the cold, unrelenting hands of guilt.
I’d slept with another man. Had allowed him to do unspeakable things to my body.
But worse than that, I’d gone to Savannah with him. Where we…
The tears wouldn’t let up. Once they’d broken free, they refused to relent. But I wouldn’t break. I wouldn’t collapse on the floor or curl into a ball. I’d found my way into this situation, and I would find my way out.
But not now.
Not tonight.
“I need to process this.” I stepped aside, giving him enough space to get to the front door. “I can’t even begin to wrap my head around it all right now.”
“Wrap your head around what, Mercy?”
“Jordan…” My voice gave out in the middle of his name. I was on the verge of telling him that I’d spent the last week sabotaging everything we’d built all because I thought I had caught him with another woman. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to him. Instead, I swallowed my shame and muttered, “I need to be alone.”
“But I just told you it wasn’t me.”
“I know. But that doesn’t make the last week disappear.”
“Did you…” He shook his head, his pinched face a detailed sketch of utter agony. “Did you do something last week?”
All I could do was nod and
pray for the best.
It took him a moment, but he eventually settled in his skin. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he blinked rapidly, though once he calmed long enough to speak, he said, “It’s okay, Mercy. You didn’t do it on purpose. I get it. We can get past it; I know we can.”
My fingertips were numb. My knees weak. Each breath moved in and out of my lungs like a toy car over a bumpy road. But even as the room around me spun and my throat nearly closed on itself, my heart continued to sing, as if its beats were controlled by someone else.
“We can’t, Jordan.”
“Why not?”
“Because…I got married yesterday.”
“Do you believe him?” Stella asked from the floor, where she proceeded to contort into ridiculous yoga poses while I remained curled into the corner of her couch.
My head throbbed, and my eyes felt like they could pop out of my skull at any second. With every aching tremor, Jordan’s face pulsed through my mind, only to be replaced with Brogan’s. I was stuck in an emotional tug-o-war I never wanted to be a part of. “Believe what?”
“That it wasn’t him? You’re the only one who knows what you saw that night.”
She was right. And if I closed my eyes and pictured the dance floor, the swirling lights that had crossed his face numerous times, the way he had smiled…there was no way that man could’ve been anyone other than Jordan.
“His shirt is hanging in my closet. The one I saw him wearing that night.”
Her eye roll was exaggerated, as was the fluttering of her lashes. “It’s not the only shirt with a big fish on the back to have ever been made, Best Friend. I’m not saying he’s guilty, but let’s not fool ourselves. It’s entirely possible he owns more than one.”
“I don’t know what to believe anymore.” After spilling the proverbial beans to Jordan, I spent the remainder of the night in tears over a decision I wasn’t prepared to make. Over regrets and guilt. And over all the confusion it brought forth.
“Well, do you want to be with him? Mystery guy aside, yes or no?”
“I love him.” That wasn’t her question. “Until a week ago, I couldn’t imagine my life without Jordan.” Again, not what she’d asked. “And now…I don’t know how I feel or what I want. I’m so confused.”
“Come on, let’s get through this so we can move on to B. Because I seriously want to hear all about that, and until you come to terms with Jordan—or close enough to it—you’ll skimp on all the good shit.”
A traitorous grin stretched my lips. “Oh, trust me, Stella…there’s enough good shit to go around twice over.” No matter how guilty I felt over the entire situation, whether the guy in the club was or wasn’t Jordan, it didn’t eliminate the butterflies in my stomach or the hiccup in my heartbeat whenever I thought of Brogan.
Stella bent forward and grabbed her ankles, looking at me through her parted legs, upside down. “Either way, hurry up. You told Jordan about your sex-filled week with a stranger, and he said he doesn’t care. Well, in more or less words. Do you believe him?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t doubt him. I fully trusted him when he called this morning to tell me that, if I wanted, he was willing to put it all behind us. Except, Stella didn’t know the whole story. We hadn’t moved beyond the Jordan part, which meant she wasn’t fully aware of just what we’d have to get past. “He wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it.”
“So really, you’re stuck between whatever you have with this sex god and the future you’ve planned with Jordan. Am I right?” With her face beet-red, she rolled into a sitting position that didn’t look anything close to comfortable.
“Basically. Yes.”
“All right. We can come back to this. But first, I need to know what you have with the other one. A list to compare, if you will. So…spill the beans, bitch. What’s his name?”
“Brogan.” I couldn’t even say it without smiling.
Which meant it took me far too long to recognize Stella’s frozen expression, brows peaked high on her forehead. “For the love of cannabis, please tell me you know what his last name is.”
“Daniels.”
“No fucking way,” she whispered and then stared at me with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. “The Brogan Daniels? Wrong Daniels? The guy who owns Wrong Inc?”
My stomach bottomed out. “Yeah…how do you know who he is?”
“The real question should be: How do you not know who he is? He’s got one of the hottest shows on television. Every woman in America—and at least two dozen other countries—would give their left tit to suck his dick. Me included.”
“Okay, can we not talk about you getting anywhere near his genitals? Thanks.”
To my surprise, I learned that Stella’s eyebrows could, in fact, lift even higher. And there was a good chance she’d scare small children with her Grinch-like grin. “Did I just detect possessiveness in your tone? I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sound like that. Like you could beat on your chest and fight off all the horny bitches of the world who want your man.”
I rolled my eyes, though I couldn’t deny that she was right. “Back up to the part about him being on TV. What does that mean, exactly?”
“He has his own show where they pretty much film his tattoo shop and the people he works with. And bits and pieces of his life. It’s reality TV, so I guess it’s not surprising that you don’t know what I’m talking about. Although, I figured you would’ve at least recognized him from magazines or something.”
“Nope. I’m fairly certain I would’ve remembered his face if I had.”
She clapped loudly, garnering my attention. “Listen, Best Friend…I know I said we’d come back to Jordan and the decision you have to make, but that was before I knew your sex god was Wrong. I don’t give a flying shit what future you might have with him, my vote is for Wrong. All the way. Screw Jordan; fuck Brogan. Literally.”
“You think I should choose the unstable path over the one I’ve spent years paving?” Realizing who I was talking to, I laughed to myself and shook my head. “Never mind. Of course you do.”
“How’d you two leave it yesterday when he dropped you off at the airport?”
It was now or never. “I told him I would come back once I had everything packed and shipped to his house.”
“What the hell, Mercy? You’re such a gossip-hoarding heifer.” She threw a pillow at me, and I thanked my lucky stars it had been something soft instead of something hard, because I had no doubt she would’ve chucked anything within arm’s reach. “You told him you’d move in with him?”
I glanced to where she sat, verifying that she had nothing else to lob at me, and then took a deep breath. “Well, considering I’m his wife, I didn’t think it made sense for me to live anywhere else.”
I’d managed to do what no one else had—make Stella speechless.
“Say something.”
“Wife?” she asked, lunging at me. “Shut the fuck up! You’re lying.”
I should not have been surprised that out of all the words in the English language, those were the ones she’d picked. “Nope. I told you that we went to Savannah on Friday. And after he made me come harder than I’ve ever come in my entire life, he took advantage of the high I was on and convinced me that it would be a good idea to get married.”
“You’re lying.”
I covered my face and shook my head. “I’m pretty sure he picked Savannah on purpose because, as it turns out, there’s no waiting period between getting a marriage license and saying I do. We threw clothes on and raced down to the courthouse before oxygen could return to my brain.”
“Shut up.” When I stopped talking, she grabbed my arms and shook me, not at all caring that I had a headache. “What’s wrong with you? Tell me everything, dammit. Don’t stop until every second has been accounted for.”
“What else do you want me to say, Stella?”
“For starters, how did he ask? What made you say yes without a seven-page list of pros and cons? Oh…” Sh
e quirked her lips to the side, a smile twitching at the corner. “The sex. I always thought he looked like he knew what he was doing. But back to business, woman!”
I couldn’t keep up with her. It was one of the things I loved most about her—even when it frustrated me. “We were just lying there, like we always do after sex, and he said we should get married. At first, I thought it was a joke, so I played along. Then I saw the look in his eyes and realized he was serious.”
Her eyes widened just before she glanced at my hand. “Did he have a ring?”
“No. It’s the one thing that makes me question how planned it was. Part of me believes he took me to Savannah, picked that specific place on purpose, knowing how quickly someone can get married there. He just seemed so determined, so…eager that I can’t imagine he hadn’t thought about it before that moment. But he didn’t have a ring, nor did we exchange any at the courthouse. Who knows…maybe he’s not a ring-wearing guy?” I’d learned how easy it was to take a ring off, so I wasn’t overly concerned about not having one. Having Brogan was enough.
“That’s okay; we’ve got time to work on him getting you a big rock. A big, shiny, sparkly rock that blinds anyone who looks too closely at it. One I can wear on occasion.” She flicked her wrist in dismissal, as if she’d suggested we share shoes, not a diamond ring. “Moving on. How long did it take you to say yes?”
“Seconds. If that.”
“Impressive, Mercy. You’re not one to make such rash decisions.”
I ran my hands down my face, shocked at myself for nearly every choice I’d made over the last week. “I know. That’s the craziest part of it all. I didn’t think twice. I didn’t analyze it from every side or pick it apart. I didn’t contemplate the repercussions. It was like he had asked what two plus two is. The answer was instant.” I groaned and closed my eyes. “I can’t explain it, Stella. I wish I could. The only thing I can say is it felt right.”
She stared, blinking dramatically, waiting for more.