by TC Matson
She leaves me with my argument on my tongue, just like she did when I was younger when she knew it would be pointless to bicker.
“Ugh,” I gripe, digging my keys from my purse and heading out to my car.
* * *
I’m just about to Granny’s when my phone rings and I hit the button on my radio to throw it onto Bluetooth. “Hello?”
“Hey, babe,” Sebastian greets me. “I’m going to need you back by next Thursday. I’ve got an art show and you’ll look good on my arm.”
My mouth drops open. He hasn’t called or texted since I’ve been here, and this is the greeting I get? “I’m not coming home until next Saturday,” I tell him.
“Can you speed it up? Come home earlier,” he says, sounding blasé.
“Seriously?” I squeak out dumbfounded. He can’t be serious. Right?
“Yeah. This art show is going to be epic. Besides, I’m sure you’re ready to come home now. It’s been almost two weeks. There’s not much out there but boring fields and horrendous smells.”
“How about my mother?” I snap, anger causing my voice to rise. “By the way, she’s doing okay. And so are my sister and father. Also, I’m okay too. Thanks so much for asking.”
“Didn’t think I needed to ask. Figured you’d let me know if something was wrong. My apologies.”
Has he always been this… this emotionless asshole?
“You didn’t think you needed to ask? How about out of consideration.” I grip my wheel tighter as I fume. “Hell, you could’ve come with me to show support. You know, be on my fucking arm.”
“There’s no need for profanity. I apologized. You seem tense.”
“Because my grandmother just died!” I shout. “The same one I adore and haven’t seen for eleven years! My mother is hurting. My family is hurting. I’ve got the right to feel tense.”
“If you adored her, why did it take you so long to go visit her?” he asks and the guilt collides with the anger, causing a tornadic outrage inside of me. “You’re way out of line, Dakota. I called to tell you that I missed you and—”
“Tell me when you said that because all I heard was you needed me home for your benefit without so much as asking me how I felt. Without so much as calling at all in the two weeks I’ve been here. And without any comforting words.” I’m vibrating with anger as I pull into Granny’s driveway. “Let me lay this out for you, Sebastian. I’m done. We’re done. I don’t deserve someone who is as self-centered and uncaring as you. I don’t know why I’ve waited so damn long to do this.”
There’s a minute long pause. No sounds other than my ragged breaths. “Okay. Our relationship is over. Will you still be able to come Thursday? You’re my plus one.”
“Fucking ridiculous,” I snap as I hang up on the inconsiderate asshole.
A month was too long to put up with him. I don’t even know why I tried.
I take a few calming breaths but am still pissed as I march up Granny’s stairs and unlock the door. The moment I do, though, the anger melts away and is replaced with the warmth and love she always had for me. Her house was always full of love and compassion, always full of joy and laughter. Granny might have been small, but she was larger than life.
Entering, I set my purse on the counter and the apple pie on the stove. It’s eerily quiet. Granny’s house was rarely ever quiet. She always had the TV on, and if she wasn’t in the kitchen cooking, she was in her recliner crocheting.
Old pictures of Momma when she was little, Grandpa, and all the grandbabies hang on the wall. Decorations litter the walls—some older, some new, all handmade. Granny didn’t believe in giving her money to the rich. She wanted to support the locals.
A rumble out front pulls me from the silence. Blake’s Chevrolet truck parks in the driveway. My heart thunders as I watch him hop out and head toward the door, and as I open it, my pulse hammers in my ears.
He’s about to take the first step when he spots me and comes to a halt. “Mary here?” he asks, his face remaining stoic.
“No,” I shake my head. “She’s out with your momma.”
The muscles in his jaw flex and he nods. “I’ll be out back.” And without another word, he disappears around the side of the house.
It’s been a little over an hour since Blake got here. After he checked out the shed, he left and came back a little later with a trailer full of wood. Since then, he’s been hard at it. And I buried myself into cleaning out the back room although trying to keep focus has proven difficult. Every time I turned around, I couldn’t help peeking out the window at him.
Finally, I got fed up. Since I’m unsure about the other rooms, I decided to go upstairs and start organizing the room she used to store all her knitting and crocheting things. But now, I find myself looking out the window and watching Blake again. It’s blistering hot outside. I can tell by how much he’s sweating, his black t-shirt darker over his chest and down the middle of his back.
Young Blake was handsome and muscular. Adult Blake is downright sexy as hell and has bulked up. A lot. Big, tight, bulging muscles in his arms flex as he hoists, hammers, and rips away the old wood. A tattoo on his right arm stretches from his wrist and disappears under the sleeve of his shirt. It dances with his movements, enrapturing me. The muscles in his back jut against his wet shirt. Every once in a while, he uses the bottom of his shirt to wipe his face, lifting it enough to see tone, taut ridges with a dark sliver of hair running from his belly button and disappearing under his waistband.
Deciding to bite the bullet, I grab two water bottles from the fridge and hope he’s too grateful for them to not take any digs. When I walk out, he’s focused on measuring a piece of lumber.
“I brought you some water.”
“Thanks,” he grumbles, not looking up to me.
“Are you hungry? I can fix—”
“No,” he interjects, slicing my sentence.
Frustrated, I sigh. “Momma baked you an apple pie this morning. I brought it here for you.”
“I’ll make sure to thank her when I see her.” Still he doesn’t look up, keeping his view on his hands.
“Do you want me to rip up the bad planks on the back deck for you?” I keep trying.
His jaw clenches, the muscles flexing before he blows a breath and rises to his full six-foot-three height. A crease forms between his brows, casting a shadow over the icy storm swirling in his eyes. “No. I don’t need your help. I don’t want to hear you complain when you get a splinter in your finger. What I’d really like is for you to quit trying to make small talk and let me get my work done so I can go home,” he says, his voice gritty with annoyance.
Lifting my chin in defiance, I counter, “I’ve never complained about a splinter.”
He homes in on me, leveling me with a berating look. A smirk plays on his lips. “When’s the last time you did any hard labor?”
That shuts me up.
“Exactly. I can handle this myself.” He grabs a piece of wood, placing it on the table, and starts the table saw.
The piercing roar added with the smell of freshly cut wood slings memories at me. We were sixteen and out in the machine barn at his ranch as I watched, rapt, while he measured and cut pieces of wood to build an arbor. After he was done, we hopped onto his ATV with the trailer behind us and headed into the north pasture to “our” big oak tree where we made many, many good memories—one of them being where he took my virginity. We worked hard building that arbor. And when we were finished, we sat on the swing I helped hang from under the arbor and looked out over the pond for an hour. We might have also broken the swing in…
“Is that arbor still out there by the pond?” I ask when the saw stops.
His eyes flick up to me, locking his gaze with mine. Something flashes across them for a fleeting moment before the iciness slides back over, shutting it down. He grins like the devil. “Nah. Best fucking bonfire I’ve ever had.”
My temper flares, anger and pain intertwining together. “What is
your problem, Blake?”
“Did you think I’d keep it? Take my next girlfriend there and make new memories? Or did you hope I’d go out there and wish for you to come back to me every day? Would that help you sleep at night?” He throws his arms out to the side. “What the fuck do you want me to say, Dakota?”
The harshness of his words lacerates me—more than I thought they ever would—and my strength dissolves. Emotions clog my throat as tears begin to well in my eyes. I don’t want him to see me cry, to know his words caused it. Spinning on my heels, I hurry into the house, slamming the door behind me. I drop to the couch and let the tears fall, crying into my hands.
“Kota…”
The damn gentleness in his voice pisses me off and I snap my head up. “Don’t you Kota me. Don’t act like you give a damn that you hurt my feelings. You’ve been waiting for that moment for years. Go do your damn victory dance somewhere else.” I sniffle, slapping away the tears on my cheeks. “Why are you being such an asshole? Especially now?”
He glowers at me but keeps his mouth shut.
Jerking to my feet, I lift my chin indignantly, squaring my shoulders and readying for a fight. “You have all this animosity. You got something to say, then say it. Here’s your chance. Get it off your chest and out of your system because I can’t handle it anymore. Not right now.”
“You know why, Dakota.” My name is said slowly, disdainfully, and the coldness of it sends a shiver down my spine. “You left me. Without so much as hearing me out or fuck, without even telling me you were leaving. I hate you so damn much for it too.”
“You cheated on me. You don’t have a reason to hate me. I should hate you,” I snap back.
Infuriation burns in his eyes, his brows pinched together as he scowls. “I never cheated on you. I never touched her and I damn sure didn’t fuck her.”
“I know what I saw,” I scoff.
“You think you know what you saw,” he grits. “Tell me, Kota. When you walked into that room, was I touching her or was she just in the same bed? Any of our clothes off? How far apart were we?”
The horrid memories come rushing back. Blake was so mad at me when I told him I had been accepted in California. I never told him I applied. When I filled out that application, I never thought in a million years I’d be accepted, so I didn’t see the reason to bring more anxiety to an already hard situation. We had plans for when I went to college a few hours away. It kept us together. We could still see each other as much as possible although Blake would’ve missed some work here and there.
When our arguing started turning ugly, Blake stopped it, said he was going to Craig’s and stormed away. We might have been teenagers, but we knew when to walk away from an argument, especially one that was going in circles. I knew he’d get drunk. Craig somehow always had alcohol at his house and usually a party too. I had tried calling Blake later that night to check on him, but he never answered. Nor did he pick up the next morning, so I went searching for him.
Craig’s house was littered with bodies as guys and girls slept everywhere—the couch, the floor, even the countertops. It smelled like pot and a whole lot of liquor. No one stirred as I stepped over them. I checked two rooms before coming to the last bedroom on the right. I specifically recall the alarm bells going off in my head, the sinking feeling I had, and how my hand was shaking when I twisted the knob. But nothing prepared me for the sight before me. Blake was lying on his stomach, an arm under the pillow, legs sprawled out. All of his clothes were on, even his socks. But the blonde hair fanned out on the pillow beside him caught my attention. Heidi was curled up on her side, her back to Blake, and… she was fully clothed.
My eyes flutter against the tears, against the blurry image of Blake looming by the kitchen entrance. “Oh my god…” the words fall past my lips in a whisper.
“I might have been blistering drunk, but I know I never touched her. And had you just listened to either one of us, you’d have realized she came into that room for a safe place to sleep, away from all the drunks, because she knew… she fucking knew I would’ve never touched her. I was crazy about you. You, Dakota. Even after finding out you were going to be seventeen hours away, even after our fight, I was determined to find a way to make us work.”
“I… I don’t—”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he interrupts and the cruelness feels like a slap. “But if you still think I’m lying, Heidi still lives in town. Married with kids now. Go ask her for yourself. She’s got no reason to lie.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“I have every right to be an asshole.”
“I’m sorry, Blake. I was young, emotional, and… I’m sorry,” I whisper, blinking up to him as the tears stream down my cheeks.
Like a smug asshole, the corners of his lips pull up and he flashes a quick smirk through his scowl. “Eleven years later and you finally hear me out.” A humorless laugh echoes off the walls of the kitchen. “Does absolutely nothing for the world you destroyed and the heart you shattered.” Those are his last words as he stalks down the hall and out of the house, slamming the door behind him. Seconds later, his truck starts and he drives away.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and sink back onto the counter, gripping the edges to help keep me steady. He’s right. I didn’t hear him out, but I didn’t need to. I saw what I saw, and walking in on that annihilated me—like a bomb exploded in my chest and decimated my heart. He broke my soul. My entire life changed in that moment, the moment he could’ve stopped.
Leaving him killed me. He was everything I knew, my comfort, my life. I didn’t know life without him in it. It took me years to get over him, and I’m still not sure I really have.
Now, all these years later, I find out my eyes deceived me and nothing happened… It pisses me off. The entire situation pisses me off. Pushing off the counter, I snatch my keys, my purse, and his stupid apple pie and then slam into my car. He thinks he’s got years of pent-up emotions? Well, so do I and mine are ready to explode.
Chapter Eleven
Blake
The crunch of my gravel driveway catches my attention. Dakota probably called Rhett and now he’s coming to give me a cussing out. This time, though, he can kiss my ass. I’ve been waiting years for that moment, the one where she finally realizes she fucked up. Big time.
Except Rhett doesn’t own a black BMW.
Shoving open the screen door, I grab the top, lean on it and squint against the evening sun setting just as Dakota skids to a stop. She slings open the door and stomps toward me holding the pie her mom made for me.
“You forgot your fucking pie,” she seethes and then heaves it at me.
I step out of the way just as it zings past me. It splatters all over my living room floor, bits and pieces shooting off in every direction making one hell of a mess.
“You’ve always had shitty aim.” I turn back to her. “You done now?”
She marches up the steps with fire burning from her red eyes, rears back, and slaps the ever-living fuck out of me, jerking my head to the side. “How dare you, Blake Helms. If it didn’t matter, why are you so hell bent on making my time here more hellish than it already is?”
“I’ve already told you.”
“I lost years with my family!” she seethes, slamming her palms into my chest and shoving me. It doesn’t move me, which only adds fuel to her fire. “You, dammit! I hate this place so much because of you!” She shoves me again.
My restraint shatters, blowing the lid on my anger wide open and exposing all the devastation she left behind. “Don’t you dare blame all this on me. You left. Not me. You applied to that fucking school behind my back. We—”
“I never thought I’d be accepted,” she interrupts with a snarl.
“We had plans and you went and blew all of it up. All the plans we made. Everything,” I blast back. “You changed the course of our lives without so much as fucking talking to me. Don’t act like I don’t have the right to still b
e pissed at you. You never gave me a chance. Never gave me the benefit of the doubt.”
“What if the tables were turned?” She shoves me again. “How do you think you’d react if you walked in on some guy in the same bed as me after an argument like we had?”
“Like an asshole,” I admit, “but I would have never left you. For fuck’s sake, Kota, you were the air I breathed, and you ripped it all away. Because of what? A damn misunderstanding that could have been fixed if you would’ve just talked to me.”
“That still doesn’t give you the right to treat me so bad all these years later.”
“Sure it does. I’ve got years of bottled up hurt. Years of anger. Years of pain. You fucking left me devastated.”
“We were kids, Blake!” her face is red as she screams, fists at her sides.
“Tell me our love was childish. Tell me right now and I swear to you I’ll stay the hell out of your way the rest of your time here.”
Her lashes flutter against the tears in her eyes, but she doesn’t say anything. She can’t. She knows.
“Our type of love? That shit’s real. You stole my best friend, my girlfriend, my everything. You shattered me,” I tell her.
“How do you think I felt when I walked into that room? You think I shattered you? My world imploded.”
“I told you—”
“It doesn’t matter what you said. You didn’t answer any of my calls. I saw it. With my own eyes, Blake. I saw you in the bed with her! What did you think I would’ve thought?”
“Kota, I didn’t—”
“It doesn’t matter now. Right? Isn’t that what you said?” Her chest heaves. Anger and pain storm through her eyes, and I’m positive she sees it in mine as well. “After all these years, if it didn’t matter, why the hell are you such an asshole?”
“Because I still love you and I fucking hate you for it!” I lash out, losing my control, and slapping the side of the house.
She gasps as her mouth falls open, her eyes flashing wide. We stand staring at each other for a few seconds, surrounded by the sounds of our ragged breaths. Then her shoulders sag and she hangs her head. I fight with all my strength not to reach out and touch her, to comfort her. All this is on her this time.