by Aly Martinez
“Okay?” I shrugged. “I like seeing you. I said you could use my course, but I never said I wasn’t going to stalk you. Price of admission.”
She started to smile, but her face crumbled. “You have to let me go, Tanner. I don’t even know if the woman you fell in love with is real. You’re a good guy who doesn’t deserve to be sitting on anyone’s back burner. Especially not mine.”
I blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. Tears were pouring down her face. but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. “Relax. This isn’t a big deal, Rita. I just wanted to see you. I miss you, okay? Sue me. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I wanted to tell you about it. God forbid maybe run a few ideas past you and get your opinion. But now you’re talking about back burners and bacon? And I’m really getting the feeling that you’re working up the courage to walk away for good.”
Her breathing shuddered, and she looked down at her feet. “We have to stop.”
“We already did stop,” I snapped, the panic that she was slipping through my fingers making my voice rougher than I’d intended. “This is stopped, and you decided that. You don’t get to take the stop away from me too. We will continue this current stop until I’m done. And I’m not fucking done with you, Rita. I haven’t even gotten started. I said I would give you time. So take some fucking time.” I couldn’t breathe, but I couldn’t stand there any longer, either. I turned on a toe and marched away.
I told her I’d wait. She didn’t get to decide for how long. We were good together. We were right. We just needed some time, and she was going to take that fucking time whether she wanted to or not. And then she was going to come back to me.
Because she was mine.
And, damn it, I was hers.
I went back inside, beelining straight to my hammock. It was a mistake because I couldn’t keep the memories of her hand on my chest that first night together out of my head.
To top off the shittiest of shitty days, I got an email from my attorney later that afternoon that turned me into a vortex of anger. It was the table of contents of Shana’s new book.
I broke my phone.
I broke my laptop.
Then I nearly broke my hand putting a hole in wall.
I couldn’t hold on to the one woman I wanted to keep.
And I couldn’t get rid of one who wouldn’t let go.
I spent the rest of the day on the phone with my attorney.
And then I continued to be pissed off, so I watched five episodes of Game of Thrones I’d already seen but assumed Rita hadn’t because watching TV without her was the only immature passive aggressive way I could think to hurt her without actually hurting her. It backfired because it only made me miss her more.
When I finally calmed down enough to entertain the idea of sleep, I shot her a text.
Me: I’m sorry I was watching you. And for everything else too.
Me: Except for how many calories are in bacon, because trust me, if I could control that, it would have been zero years ago.
Her read receipt popped up, but she didn’t respond.
Nor did she show up the next morning.
* * *
Three days later…
Using my toe, I pushed off the wooden railing on my tiny balcony. The sun was going down, and while the view of a lagoon at my new apartment paled in comparison to the lake at my old house, I still loved it.
Because it was all mine.
Some people—cough, Sidney—thought I should have been out letting the wind blow through my hair on the adventure of a lifetime to fall in love with myself again. But let’s be honest, that crap only worked in the movies. In real life you can’t just get on a plane and go backpacking through Europe on some mission of self-discovery. The way my life was going, if I wanted to find the real Rita Hartley, all I had to do was look in the shoe department at Saks.
What? I was a single woman with no children. Shoes were my babies.
Besides, I had a new job that would most likely frown upon me taking a month off after being there for a week. Dr. Blighton was nice but not that nice. I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and it was frustrating me to no end. I’d bought an MCAT study guide, read two pages, and promptly put it away. Two pages and I was positive that ship had sailed. So, due to the need to eat and pay rent, I took another office manager position while I was figuring it out.
I nabbed my glass of wine and a piece of Asiago from the cheese-board-for-one and went back to staring. It was shockingly similar to what I had done only a few months earlier when Greg had to work late. But, this time, I did it sans the wedding ring, so everything tasted that much better.
I hadn’t been back to Tanner’s since our fight on his driveway. I couldn’t stand knowing that I was hurting him, and every day, as I selfishly went to his house to run his course, that was exactly what I was doing.
At first, I’d wanted to finish that course to prove to myself that I wasn’t a failure. I was woman, hear me roar and all that jazz. But every day, every fall, and every bruise, it became more and more personal to me. Those obstacles were symbolic of my life and every failure Greg assumed I would make. Conquering it became my obsession.
But that damn warped wall. I just couldn’t get up it. I ran as hard as I could. Jumped as high as I could. It didn’t matter. I always went sliding back down. I hoped if I could just get to the top, I’d feel like a different woman. And then I could look in the mirror and see someone other than Greg’s failure of a wife.
God knew nothing else had changed about me in the last two months. Secretly, I think that pissed me off more than the warped wall.
The pressure I felt knowing that Tanner was waiting on me was suffocating. Guilt consumed me each time I caught sight of him standing in that window—watching and waiting for me. I never should have told him that we were going to simmer for a while. He had taken it literally, watched pot and all.
So, in what I was learning was true Rita fashion, I quit. On him. On the wall. On me.
Proving once and for all that Greg had been right about me.
I took a sip of my wine, gave the hammock another push, and ignored the tear rolling down my cheek. My doorbell rang just as nightfall snuffed out the sun.
Only a few people knew where I lived, and I’d talked to Sidney less than thirty minutes earlier. She was already in a nightgown and chilling on the couch with Kent.
There was only one other person it could be.
“Your timing only serves as further proof that you are a vampire,” I greeted.
Charlotte’s expression was unreadable. “As a testament to my love, I almost burst into flames twice on the way over here.”
I smiled and shoved the door wide in invitation. She accepted and walked in.
“Nice place,” she said.
And it was. Again, my house with Greg was nicer, but this one was mine. So I loved it that much more.
“I barely recognize you without scrubs on,” I teased, settling on the couch.
She sat on the other end. “Ah…yeah. I’ve…taken a little time off recently.”
I leaned over and gave her hand a squeeze. Her life had been nothing short of a Lifetime movie recently. I’d tried to be as supportive and involved as I could, but Charlotte wasn’t the social type. Leaving her alone was more often than not the best course of action.
“How ya holding up?” I asked.
The corner of her mouth lifted in a very unlike Charlotte Mills half grin. “Really well, actually. Really. Well.”
She pulled her hand away, and I reclined back against the couch.
“So, what has you risking your life for a visit tonight?”
“Tanner.”
I froze.
She swayed her head from side to side. “Well, that’s not totally true. Porter’s worried about his brother. Seems old Sloth is going off the deep end. He paid some woman three million dollars not to publish a book about him.”
My back shot ramrod straight. “He paid of
f Shana? Why? I thought—”
She shrugged. “The fact that he has three million dollars sitting in the bank is making me reconsider calling him Sloth. Christmas will be here before you know it.” She was joking, but not even a hint of humor crossed her face. “What’s going on with you two?”
I cut my gaze away. “Nothing.”
“Right. Let me rephrase. Why isn’t anything going on with you two?”
I forced a smile through the pain. “It’s complicated.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “I’m the queen of complicated, Rita. Lay it on me.”
I laughed. She wasn’t wrong. “I’m just out of a divorce. I can’t get into another relationship.”
“That would have been a great thought to have before you got into a new relationship. Not a few months after you fell in love with him.”
I swung my head her way. “Who said I fell in love with him?”
“Tanner. Though his mom thinks he was your rebound. You’ve got a total mama’s boy on your hands.”
“You know, in theory, best friends dating brothers sounded really fun. I’m seeing now that it will have its downfalls.”
“Spill it, Rita.”
I groaned. “He wasn’t my rebound. I do love him. But we can’t be together until I figure out who the hell I am, and I have no idea how long that’s going to take. But Tanner… The man is stubborn as hell. He told me he’d wait fifteen years, and I really and truly think he meant it. I can’t do that to him.” I closed my eyes. “Don’t get me wrong. I really want to do that to him because the idea of him being with another woman…” I trailed off, shaking my head. “But he deserves better.”
“Better than you? Not possible.”
My eyes flashed open. Charlotte was not the friend who wasted words on pep talks. If it wasn’t an absolute fact, it wasn’t worth her breath.
“Wow,” I breathed. “I think that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Then I’m shit for a friend and you need to promote Sidney unless I can turn it all around today. Agreed?”
“Sure.” I sucked my lips between my teeth and bit down to stifle my laugh.
“Rita, I need you to listen to me. And, like, really listen to me.” She leaned in close, her brown eyes locked on my greens. “You’re better than Greg Laughlin.”
I scoffed. “I know that. But Tanner…”
“You’re better than Greg,” she repeated.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. But we were talking about Tanner.”
“Rita, listen to me. Greg. You’re better than him. You always have been. You always will be.”
I glared at her, frustration mounting. “Do you hear the words that are coming out of my mouth right now? I’m not talking about Greg.”
“You are better than Greg.”
“But what if I’m not!” It just came out. My hand flew to my mouth as if I could catch the words in thin air and shove them back into the dirty little place in my subconscious where they originated.
I didn’t really think that, did I?
Charlotte clapped her hands and shot to her feet. “I knew it! That son of a bitch got in your head.”
But Greg had gotten into so much more than just my head.
“Did you know I didn’t get into med school?”
She blinked, then shook her head.
“Yeah. Apparently, you need more than a twenty-six on your MCAT. Greg assured me I didn’t, so I never took them a second time.”
She winced.
“He told me it was embarrassing enough that I worked as a waitress, he didn’t want more of it by watching me flunk out of med school.”
“God, he is a prick.”
“I think he was right though.”
She tilted her head to the side. “I know he was wrong.”
I drew my knees up to my chest. “I don’t want to be a doctor, Charlotte. I don’t think I ever did. It wasn’t my dream like it was yours or even his. It was just something that I thought would make me enough money to escape who I was. He asked me to marry him and follow him to his residency and I said yes before the question had fully escaped his lips. I don’t know what that says about me. That I just gave up so easily.”
My voice shook, but like a dam had been broken inside me, the words wouldn’t stop coming. “I kept my hair short for him. I wore clothes I thought he would like. I did yoga and Pilates to keep in shape for him. It was all for him. I’m disgusted at myself for letting him do that to me. It’s like he sculpted me into this little doll that fit his needs and I hate her and I don’t know how to shed all of that and find the real Rita Hartley. Greg is with me wherever I go, and I don’t want Rita Laughlin to be with Tanner Reese because I don’t want Greg to ruin us too.”
She stared back at me, stoic as ever. “Why haven’t you cut and dyed your hair?”
“I did! And it looked like crap, so I dyed it back.”
She nodded. “Last time I saw you, you were wearing new heels.”
“There was a sale.”
She nodded again. “You still going to yoga?”
“I can’t eat cheese and wine if I don’t.”
Then I entered the Twilight Zone, because a huge Porter Reese smile stretched across her mouth like there was some kind of Freaky Friday mix-up at the lab.
“I have a theory.” She sat on the edge of the couch, her knees turned toward me, bringing her closer than Charlotte had ever been by choice. “I’m about to blow your mind, so I really need you to be ready.”
I stared. My mind was already blown from the fact that she was so close to me, so I couldn’t imagine what she was going to say.
“What if”—her voice got low as she swayed closer, downright playful—“Rita Hartley spent the last seven years pretending to be Rita Laughlin?” Her eyebrows shot up and she quickly leaned away like I really was about to explode.
“What?”
She rolled her eyes.
Jesus. Who was this woman with humor and facial expressions?
“Come on, Rita. Think about it. You’re you. You like all of that stuff because you like it. Sure, Greg may have exposed you to some of that stuff. But you don’t like it because he did.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know if that’s true.”
“If Greg told you during the peak of your marriage that you weren’t allowed to eat your precious cheese anymore, what would you have said?”
“I’d have told him to shut his damn mouth with that sacrilege.”
“Exactly! And what if he told you he liked you better as a redhead?”
I sighed. “See, I probably would have tried it.”
“And when you hated it?”
“I’d have gone back to blond.”
“Right! Because you didn’t like it. Tell me something that Greg loved. Like, what was his favorite food?”
I blinked at her. Then blinked at her.
Then I blinked at her so many times that it was as though she’d become a character in a flipbook. My chest got tight, and my nose started to burn.
“Shrimp and grits,” I finally whispered. “He loved them. And I hated them so much.”
“So you didn’t eat them.”
I shook my head, not able to trust my voice. I’d never eaten grits. Not even when chef Kevin Story had offered them to me on my first date with Tanner. And sure as hell not just because Greg liked them.
Oh. My. God. Maybe she was right. Dear Lord, please let her be right.
“Rita, you married an asshole because you loved him. And you decided not to fight for medical school because it wasn’t your passion. Then you fell out of love with him and did the best you could to make an unhappy marriage work until he cheated on you. In case you missed it, Greg is an asshole. Of course he’s trying to take credit for the incredible woman you are. But that’s nothing more than his delusions of grandeur. He didn’t make you who you are today. So you’ve shed the only thing you needed to shed from that toxic relationship—him.” She grinned with pride.
I stared up at her in pure shock. “When did you learn how to smile?”
She pointed to her mouth. “Since…Porter.”
“I can see this,” I smarted, but my mind was still swirling.
Maybe all of my soul searching had been worthless effort. What if I couldn’t escape who I was—because there was nothing to escape?
God, Charlotte was good at this. It was like a hidden superpower.
“You’ve really been holding out on me all these years.” Chewing on my thumbnail, I stood up and started to pace. “Keep talking. What about Tanner?”
“What about him?”
I stopped and looked at her. “Do you think it’s too soon for us to be together?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
My shoulders fell.
“But it’s not my relationship, Rita. What do you think?”
I thought I missed him.
I thought I wanted to be with him.
I thought I loved him more than I’d ever even considered loving Greg.
“I’m scared,” I admitted. “Tanner’s different. He…”
“Makes the world stop?”
Touching my lips, I croaked, “Oh my God, that’s the corniest and most accurate thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
She laughed. “Does he make you happy?”
“So so so happy.”
“Then let him keep doing that. Happiness is hard. I understand the concept of loving yourself before you can love someone else. It’s important. But having regrets isn’t the same as hating yourself. This world is a dark and unforgiving place. If Tanner is your light, you have to stop being afraid and hold on to it. You deserve to be happy. And Greg has fucked with your head enough, but I bet you anything that Tanner would be willing to wade into that mess if it means he gets you.”
“He would. He so would.”
“Then there is your answer.”
I sucked in a ragged breath. “What if he doesn’t want me back?”
“Three million dollars is a lot of money to spend on a woman you don’t want a future with.”