Neat

by Steiner, Kandi

  Dad started the applause, Mom teared up, Mac looked bored — and I tried my best but failed epically to hide my expression of horror.

  No.

  No, no, no!

  Mom wrapped me in a hug, and Dad made some comment about me being stunned, a laugh rolling off his lips. All the while, I searched for Logan — and it wasn’t hard to find him, because the entire distillery was watching him, too.

  They were watching the entire Becker family.

  Logan stood like a statue, just as stunned as me, his eyes on my father while Jordan held a firm hand on his shoulder. Their mother, though small beside them, was standing tall, head held high, a determined-level expression on her face. Their youngest brother, Michael, stood just as tall and silent on the other side of her, shaking his head, his brows furrowed over angry eyes.

  I willed Logan to look at me as my father reached to pull me into a hug next. The room was a mixture of awkward applause and animated chatter. Suspicious eyes glared up at me, and I didn’t have to read lips to know the things they were saying about me weren’t flattering. I didn’t blame them. I hated myself in that moment, too.

  This job shouldn’t be mine. It was never meant to be mine.

  It belonged to Logan, and I wasn’t the only one who knew that.

  The man I’d had in my bed all weekend looked like a stranger under that pale blue light. And when his eyes found mine, he looked at me like I was a stranger, too — like everything between us was a lie.

  I pleaded with him as much as I silently could to wait, to not draw conclusions, to let me think, to let me fix this. But he pursed his lips, shook his head, and then he was shaking his brother off him and tearing through the crowd.

  I pulled out of my father’s grasp, running down the steps and chasing after him. I didn’t give a fuck what anyone said about me, about us, because at this point — they were talking, anyway.

  The only thing I cared about was getting to Logan and making him see that I had nothing to do with this.

  It was snowing lightly when I shoved through the doors that led to the parking lot, and my breaths racked through my chest painfully as I searched for Logan. I found him storming across the wet concrete toward his truck, and I ran, feet screaming in my heels the entire time.

  “Logan!” I called, but he didn’t so much as stutter or pause. “Logan, wait!”

  He spun then, and I nearly crashed into him, skidding to a stop with just a foot between us.

  I held up my hands, trying to catch my breath. “Logan, I am so sorry. I had—”

  “You had what, Mallory?” he fired back, standing tall. “You had no idea that was coming? You had nothing to do with it? You had no intention of hurting me?”

  I gaped at him, because of course that was exactly what I was going to say. But when those words rolled from his lips, shame shaded my cheeks, because he knew as well as I did that somewhere, in the back of my mind, I suspected this might happen.

  He suspected it, too.

  And I did nothing to stop it.

  “Do you know how long I’ve fought for that job, Mallory? How many hours I’ve put in, how many years of my life I’ve dedicated to this company, just trying to keep my own family’s legacy alive, trying to fight for my father — who has no voice to fight for himself anymore?”

  “Of course, I do,” I said, reaching for him, but he pulled away like I was poison. I swallowed, letting my hands fall limp at my sides. “Logan, of course I know that. I know so much about you, and I want to know everything. I’m falling in lo—”

  “Don’t,” he warned, his voice a thunderous growl. “Don’t you dare say that to me — not right now. Not when you just ripped my fucking heart out on that stage in front of everyone in this goddamn town.”

  My throat closed in, emotion strangling me from the inside.

  “I trusted you,” he breathed. “I let you in like I’ve never let another woman in before. I told you things about myself that not even my family knows. And you know what?” He laughed, fist hitting his chest hard. “It’s me I’m pissed at the most. It’s me who was the fucking idiot, trusting a Scooter, giving myself to a woman who has showed this whole town time and time again that the only thing she cares about is herself.”

  I gasped. “Logan… you don’t mean that.”

  “You’re going to tell me you had no idea that this was coming?” he asked, stepping into my space. I took a step back. “You’re going to look me in the eyes and say your father never hinted at this, that you never thought to talk to him about it, or to talk to me about it — especially after everything that’s happened between us?”

  I swallowed, body trembling as more snow fell down around us. Little flakes caught on his lashes, in his hair, and he looked so devastatingly beautiful in that moment that I had to cross my arms to keep from reaching out for him.

  I wanted to pull him into me, comfort him, tell him I would never hurt him…

  But he was right.

  There was a part of me that suspected my father had this in his plan. I wondered why the timing was the way it was, why he wanted me in the tour department out of all the departments there were at the distillery. I was an art major — I should have been in marketing with my brother.

  The truth was — I knew.

  Deep down, I knew.

  And I’d been too chicken shit to do anything about it.

  “I can fix it,” I breathed, sniffing against the cold. “Please, just give me a chance to fix it.”

  “You can’t,” he said, stepping into me again. This time, I didn’t move away. I looked him right in the eyes as he gave me the lashing I deserved. “Your dad just announced that you’re the new manager in front of everyone. You can’t convince him to go back on that, and you can’t do anything without him taking the studio away from you. Admit it, he played you, and a part of you knew it would end up like this.” Logan shook his head. “It’s actually kind of perfect, isn’t it? Playing with me the way you have been the past month. Was it one last dig at your father? One last way to piss him off before he locked you into a life you never wanted?”

  I choked on a sob that had no tears to back it, a result of years of me training myself not to feel. I would have given anything to cry in that moment, to throw myself into Logan’s arms and beg for his forgiveness.

  But I didn’t deserve it.

  “I was just another way to rebel, wasn’t I? When everything else was out of your control, when you knew you had to play by his rules, I was the only way you could get your hits in, huh?”

  I shook my head, bottom lip quivering, but I had no words to fight back. I had nothing but my bleeding heart in my hands — a heart I knew Logan wouldn’t take. Not now. Not ever again.

  I didn’t deserve Logan Becker, because I was exactly the piece of shit he was describing me to be.

  And the best thing I could do for him was let him go.

  Logan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before he let his hand fall to his side. His eyes searched mine, and they welled with tears the longer he stared. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and then his head fell as he shook it. When he looked at me again, it was with a single tear slipping down his cheek.

  “I was so blinded by you that I couldn’t see,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “All I wanted was to love you. Nothing else mattered. And now…” he swallowed. “Now, I’ve lost everything. Including you — and I never even had you at all, did I?”

  My face twisted, again, all the signs of crying without the actual tears making themselves known. My heart ached so violently inside my chest I thought it would revolt and tear itself out of my body just to escape the pain.

  He was everything to me.

  But how could he ever believe me if I told him that, after everything that had happened?

  When I didn’t answer, Logan shook his head, putting his hands up as if it was his final surrender. Then, he turned, storming the rest of the way to his truck. He climbed inside, slammed the door, roared the
engine to life, and peeled out of the parking lot, leaving me damp and cold in the falling snow.

  And it was right where I deserved to be.

  Mallory

  On my phone, there were a dozen missed calls and texts.

  There were texts from my mother, asking where I was, and from my father, warning me to not upset my mother on Christmas Day. There were missed calls from my brother, from my grandparents on my mother’s side, and from Chris — who had left a few threatening voicemails that he’d beat down my door if I didn’t answer him soon. There were texts from acquaintances and “friends,” wishing me a Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

  But there wasn’t a single word from Logan.

  I didn’t know why I hoped for it, why my heart leapt into my throat every time my phone buzzed, or why I ever expected to see his name on the screen when I unlocked it. Last night hadn’t been a small fight. It hadn’t been a little misunderstanding that would feel silly and insignificant in the morning light. It had been the final blow in a fight neither of us even realized we were in. It was a total knock out.

  And now, here I was, beaten and bruised on the cold floor of what I hoped my life would be, wishing I could go back in time and do everything differently.

  If I had Doc’s DeLorean, I’d set the dial to send me back a little over a month ago. I’d go back and tell my father to take his deal and shove it right up his ass, because I would have listened to that little voice inside me that knew he wasn’t exposing all his cards. I’d known who my father was my entire adult life, and I’d been naïve to ignore what I knew about him just so I could selfishly pretend there was no reason not to take the deal he offered me, to get my dream if all I had to do was sacrifice a little time at the distillery.

  If I hadn’t realized it from the beginning, I definitely should have figured it out once I got on the inside.

  Once I saw how everyone in that department looked up to Logan, once I saw how, effortlessly, he was the best on that entire team, and once I put two and two together that my uncle was retiring, and that I’d been sent to that department despite the fact that I was the least qualified in our family to give tours…

  I should have known.

  I should have stood up, found my voice, fought for justice like I always did.

  I should have stopped it.

  But I didn’t.

  Part of me ignored it because I didn’t want to have my dream ripped from me when I’d only just had the chance to hold it in my hands. Part of me ignored it because I was scared, because I had nowhere to go, because failing didn’t feel like an option for me — and I would avoid it all costs.

  And perhaps the largest part of me ignored it because the more time I spent with Logan, the more I fell for him — and I thought if I ignored everything else that wasn’t him, I could live in a blissful little bubble where nothing could touch us.

  I didn’t think of him, of his dreams, of his happiness — when it seemed all he’d done the past month was put my dreams and happiness first.

  My chest ached as memories of us working in the shop filtered through my mind. I longed for those long afternoons, laughing and listening to music and learning more about him. I yearned for a different last name, for a different family, for a different circumstance where I could have met Logan Becker and fallen for him and let him fall for me without any of this shit being an issue.

  But that wasn’t the world I lived in.

  My phone buzzed on the coffee table again, but this time I didn’t even move to check the screen. I knew it wasn’t Logan, and I knew that whoever it was, I didn’t want to talk to. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. It didn’t matter that it was Christmas Day — I was perfectly content being miserable.

  And alone.

  It was what I deserved to be.

  I hadn’t eaten since the night before, the thought of food so revolting I couldn’t stomach so much as a piece of toast, so my legs were a little wobbly as I wrapped my thick robe around me and padded downstairs to the shop. Snow had covered the town last night, leaving us with a beautiful white Christmas that every little kid and mother, alike, had prayed for. Under different circumstances, I might have run out to play in it. I might have been having a snowball fight with Logan, or laughing as I got soaked making snow angels.

  As it was, Main Street was empty, everyone home with their families celebrating the birth of Christ, and I found the vacancy comforting. It left me alone with my thoughts, alone with my misery, alone with my broken heart — and my ability to use it to create something.

  It was the only thing I wanted to do, other than sit around and feel sorry for myself. I wanted to bring something to life — and before I could make a choice of how, my body made it for me. My feet carried me numbly over to one of the stools in front of a blank sketch pad, and I sat with my back to the store windows, letting the late afternoon light cast its light over the cream paper.

  It was cold in the studio, but I didn’t turn the heat on. If anything, I wanted to feel that cold down to my bones. I sat there, shivering, pulling the sketch pad into my lap and propping my feet on the footrest of the stool. For a while, I just stared at that blank sheet, vision blurring, heart slowing to an almost nonexistent beat within my chest.

  Then, I drew.

  Time slipped away easily, just like it always did when I lost myself in art. The afternoon light turned to evening light, a bright glow from the setting sun reflecting off the snow and casting the studio in a halo so beautiful it might as well have been sent from the heavens. I found comfort in the familiar scratching sounds of the pencil against the paper, in the way nothing slowly turned to something. Gray dust covered my hand, and my back and shoulders ached from poor posture, but still, I drew.

  And blended.

  And created contrast and depth and everything that was so challenging with sketching — that challenge usually the medicine that healed all my ailments.

  But when the pencil fell limp in my fingers and I stared down at the face that stared back at me — the one that had haunted my dreams all night, too — I didn’t feel any relief.

  I only felt the deep, all-encompassing, impossible-to-ignore urge to make everything wrong right again.

  I’d brought Logan to life on that paper — the crinkle of his eyes when he smiled, that dimple on his cheeks, one hand seeming to hold the face of the person looking at the drawing while the other rested under the pillow he laid his head on. My sheets pooled around his waist, allowing me to bring the lean lines of his toned stomach to life. His hair was a mess, just the way I liked it, and he was looking at me like I was the only thing that mattered in this entire world.

  Like the way I looked at him.

  I sighed, dropping the pencil to the pad and scrubbing my hands over my face. I didn’t even care that I was surely marking my face with pencil dust. I wanted to rub away the exhaustion, the headache, the stress.

  When I lowered my hands again, I found myself staring at the photograph of him eating pizza and taking notes that first day we’d worked on the shop. My heart crawled into my throat, and I tried and failed to swallow past it as I looked at him.

  I could only remember one life-altering moment in my life.

  That night my father chose his reputation over me, the night he made it clear that my safety and wellness came second to the connections he needed to run business — I made a choice. I chose to never lean on my family again, to never abide by the rules they set for me, to forge my own path and forsake what anyone in this town ever had to say about it. I chose what was right over what was wrong, what was hard over what was easy, and what was just over what was unjust.

  Now, I found myself sitting in that same, hollow, yet somehow exciting kind of moment.

  I was on the precipice of making a decision that would alter everything. I would no longer be able to wake up in the life I’d known, in the comfort I’d made a home in, in the certainty I’d found peace in. Because once I made the choice that I was teetering on making
, everything would change, and though it was the harder path to walk — it was the right one.

  I stood, setting my sketch to the side and walking over to stand in front of the photo of Logan. My heart clambered in my chest, and I placed a hand over the spot where it ached, soothing it as best I could.

  He was worth it.

  He was worth everything.

  And no matter what it cost me, I would do right by him.

  That was a promise.

  Logan

  I told you so.

  It was the unspoken theme of that Christmas Day.

  I felt those words floating in the air, could practically hear them coming from my mother, from my brothers, from myself — though no one spoke them out loud.

  For all intents and purposes, it was a Christmas like any other. We all gathered at Mom’s last night after the party at the distillery, and Mom made cookies that we decorated just like we did every Christmas Eve since we were kids. Her favorite Frank Sinatra Christmas album played on the speakers, we all wore matching flannel pajama bottoms, and though we were quieter than usual, and I was a fucking wreck inside, we all kept it together on the outside.

  No one spoke about the promotion.

  No one asked me about Mallory.

  No one gave away that we were all hurting, that we were all upset, and that once again — our family had been disrespected by the Scooters.

  Instead, my brothers and I put on our happy faces for Mom, and she put on her happy face for us, and we made cookies and watched old Christmas cartoons and then we made a big pallet in the middle of the living room floor. The three brothers slept there while Mom slept on the couch, and though it felt wrong to not have Noah there, it was still home.

  It was still Christmas.

  I wished it was a rainy, cold day in the middle of November that I felt this kind of pain. I wished I could be alone, in my bed, in my own home. It felt like a betrayal to my soul to open gifts that morning, to eat a lavish Christmas dinner, to pretend I gave a shit about anything other than running to the person who had caused me more pain than I’d felt since my father passed away, and somehow finding a way to make it right with her.