“If it helps,” I say, “I did miss home. Even if don’t say it a lot.”
“It does help to hear that. I’m thrilled to have you in my kitchen and eating my food, even if I don’t know what’s on your mind.”
“Yeah . . .” I blow out a breath. Leaning against the counter, I watch her as I sip the drink.
Once I open up to my mom, it’s all over. I keep everything in a neat little box mentally when talking to Grace. I’m “New York” Neely with her—composed, professional, aggressive. But with Mom, I’m basically a fourteen-year-old girl standing in front of the woman who can read me like an open book. My stomach twists into a tight knot as I prepare to recount everything that happened.
“It’s not fair for me to come back here and not even tell you why.” I place my cup on the counter. “Thanks for giving me a little while to deal with it on my own.”
“This house is your home whether you actually live here or not. You don’t need a reason to be here, and you don’t owe me an explanation. I just want you to know that whatever it is, I’m on your side.”
“I know. I appreciate that.”
She bites her lip as if to keep herself from saying more.
My heart thumps wildly in my chest. Her support was never a question. She’d stand up for me even if I were wrong. What I don’t want to happen is for her to worry I’m going to starve to death or cast me a look of pity because of the decision I made.
I throw my shoulders back. “I quit my job.”
“Oh, Neely.” Mom’s eyes grow wide. “Are you okay?”
My sigh betrays the confidence I usually go out of my way to depict. The sound is filled with the pressure and stress I’ve been carrying around for a few days, and my mother picks up on it right away.
“Want some tea?” she asks.
“Tea isn’t going to fix this. Turn off your burner, though. The pan is starting to smoke.”
“Darn it.” She flips off the switch and gives the pan a final stir before scooting it to an unlit burner. It’s a few moments before she’s sitting at the table with two mugs of hot tea.
I don’t know if it’s the weight of the moment that sinks me into the chair across from her or the exhaustion I’m just starting to acknowledge deep in my bones. Regardless, there’s a mug in my hands before I know it.
“So . . .” Blowing out a breath, I watch the steam billow from the tea. “Remember a few months ago, I called and told you I thought I’d convinced my boss to start a new magazine focused solely on females in sports?”
“Yes,” she says. With a nod, she smiles brightly. “I believe you said you were ‘knocking down walls,’ or something similar. You were really excited.”
My heart burns in the center of my chest. I close my eyes briefly, swallowing the taste of betrayal. The bitterness makes my face sour.
“Neely?”
“So Mark, my boss, called me a couple of weeks ago,” I say past the lump in my throat. “We had lunch. He took my idea, the entire proposal he had me create from my vision of what this new monthly could be, and delivered it to his boss, Frank. It was really fantastic.” My hands fold in front of me. “I worked with one of Grace’s friends who does layout, and we created a visual of the website that would cater to mostly young girls and then one of the actual print version that would be for adults. I didn’t sleep for two weeks, Mom. Just busted my butt to get this together to really sell it, you know?”
“And when you get that fire in your eyes, the one you have right now, you get what you want. I’ve seen you do it too many times.”
Sitting back in my chair, I feel my spirits fade. “Mark said it was a go. Frank loved the idea. Said the market was wide open for something like this. Heck, Frank even sent me an email and told me he saw great things stemming from my proposal.”
“So why are you telling me with no enthusiasm?”
A half laugh, half snort gets her attention. Wisely, she refrains from saying anything more, and instead gives me a few moments to remember I’m in front of my mother and not Grace. Word selection is important.
“I needed to apply for a position there,” I tell her. “Put together a formal résumé as well as a sample six-month schedule of ideas.”
“Even though the entire thing was your idea?”
“Protocol.” I shrug, the anger I’ve been able to keep mostly buried shifting just below the surface. “I was talking to Lynne, another editor at the magazine—”
“We had lunch with her, didn’t we?” Mom leans forward, resting her elbows on the table. Her gray eyes, like mine, are clear as she absorbs my story. “Isn’t she the one who met us for paninis last year when I visited?”
“Yup.”
“Why do I get the feeling I won’t be having any more paninis with Lynne?”
“Because if justice is served, she’ll choke on the next one,” I say, shoving away from the table. Standing behind my chair, fingers wrapped around the top rung, I look at my mother. “She told me she wasn’t interested in the position and to use her as a sounding board. Then she took my ideas and submitted her own application.”
The words slip through my gritted teeth, coming out twisted and sharp. I bite down hard to avoid adding that I’m 99 percent sure she accessed my computer and found my mock-ups. Her layouts, her design ideas—things I didn’t show her—were too similar to be happenstance.
My blood pressure soars so high my head almost explodes. But at the same time, my heart sinks. This wasn’t just a coworker betrayal. That I could’ve handled. This was a betrayal of the worst kind—from a so-called friend.
Lynne was my friend. If she’d said she wanted the position, I would’ve cheered her on. I might’ve even ensured we went after different jobs. But to backstab me like she did? Over something she knew was so important to me? I can’t.
“Oh, Neely, honey. I’m so sorry.” Mom gets to her feet but doesn’t come toward me.
“I had to quit,” I tell her. “It felt like such a betrayal to have put so much work into this and then be overlooked. It was my idea. My brainchild. I just refuse to work there out of principle.” I turn away so she doesn’t see the wetness washing over my eyes. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“You can stay here as long as you want. Forever, if you feel like it.”
Laughing, I sniffle and turn back to her. “I just need a couple of days to breathe. But thanks for the offer.”
She comes around the table, and I almost fall into her arms. She holds me close, her hands around the small of my back as she sways gently back and forth.
“I’m so proud of you. You know that, right?” she asks, planting a kiss on my cheek as she lets me go. “I’ve done a lot of things wrong in my life, but every time I look at you, I know I got one right.”
“Stop it,” I tell her. “Don’t make me cry. If I cry, I’m going to be mad.”
“Well, it’s true,” she says, dabbing at her eyes with a napkin. “You’ve always been my little crusader. Remember when you sold lemonade that one summer because you saw the animal shelter didn’t have enough funds for food?”
“I raised three hundred dollars,” I remind her.
“You did.” She laughs. “I think I spent a hundred on supplies.”
“I’m sure the animals appreciated it.” I lean against the counter again, my load a little lighter. After a quick sweep of my mother’s face, I shake my head. “I’m going to be fine. I promise.”
“I know, sweetheart,” she says, lifting her tea. Her tone is soft. It’s the one she always used when she’d come into my bedroom late at night right after my father left us and whisper to me that everything would be all right. “I worry. You know that.”
“I’m not going to be homeless. There are people looking over my résumé as we speak. Besides, like Grace says, when is the last time I took a few days off? Maybe this is a good thing.”
“I’ll never argue with getting to spend more time with you.”
“Right.” Despite the resoluteness in
my voice, my spirit feels less convinced. My pride stings. “I put my life into that company,” I say before I can think twice. “I did everything right. I worked my butt off. I went out of my way to find gems of stories, the ones that resonate with readers. I had little girls sending me letters. Those things are . . .”
I don’t know how to summarize what those things are to me. Looking at my mom, I shrug.
“Those things are what make your world go ’round,” Mom whispers.
“It’s why I wanted to do this in the first place,” I say, my shoulders dropping. “That was my dream. Is my dream. To make a difference. To matter. To feel like I have a role in the world, and now . . .”
Mom sets her mug down, dabbing at her eyes with her fingertips. “This door closed, but another will open. It’s how life works. As much as you loved it there, it’s not where you are meant to be.”
With a half laugh, I pick up a napkin off the table and touch it to my cheeks. “I could just take a job today at some random magazine, but I don’t want just another job. I want to be needed. I want what I thought I had. The opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Give it time,” she says. “And who knows? Maybe a door will open here in Tennessee.”
I laugh. “I love your optimism, Mom, but I think that’s a stretch.”
“Never know.”
My growling stomach calls notice to the unattended pasta on the stove. Talk of work behind me for the time being, I want to move on. To anything. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”
She looks at the stovetop, then back at me. She takes in my cues, and a slow smile stretches across her pink-lined lips. “Let’s go for margaritas.”
“Really?” I laugh. “What’s happened to you? I come home, and you’re drinking decaf and tequila.”
“Oh, the tequila isn’t for me, sweetheart.” She leads me into the dining room, where our purses sit on a little table my grandfather made when Mom was a child.
“Who’s it for, then?” I ask, grabbing my purse.
“You.” She looks at me and grins. “I feel like it’ll help you tell me about seeing Dane at the café today.”
“Dane,” I whisper.
His name tastes like strawberry wine and balmy summer nights. As weird as it sounds coming out of my mouth, there’s something so familiar. His name just rolls off my tongue like I’ve practiced it a million times. Probably because I have. And my tongue probably wonders why this time isn’t followed by a curse word.
“I saw him in the bank last week. He’s so handsome, Neely.”
Rolling my eyes at the dreamy way she says it, like it’s the epitome of her life’s ambition to see the two of us together, I sigh dramatically.
“Well, I’m sure there’s some kind of scandal brewing under all that handsome,” I mutter, kind of hoping it’s true. I don’t want him to be nice. Or kind. Or anything reasonable that will make me not dislike him.
“I believe he lives a very boring life,” Mom says. “You know, he spends all of his time—”
“No.” I cut her off unapologetically. “I don’t want to know how he spends his time or what he looked like in the bank or what he’s doing with his life . . .”
I don’t want to know anything about him. Not because I’m not curious, because I am. I’ve wondered about his life a thousand times since I saw him today. It’s because I’m happier living with the little story I’ve created for him in my head than with any sort of reality that might be better.
“Let’s go for margaritas, but there will be no talk of Dane Madden,” I say firmly. “Deal?”
She laughs and almost dances toward the door. “Deal.”
“Since when did you become a decaf-loving socialite liar?”
She just laughs some more.
CHAPTER FIVE
NEELY
There are no organic strawberries.
A little petulant, I eye the produce in front of me. Graber’s is this town’s only grocery store, and their fresh produce section is lacking. I’m not entirely sure Graber’s even meets the definition of a true grocery store, but it’s all I have to work with. After two giant peach margaritas last night, I have no desire to drive to the next town over for anything.
“This will have to do,” I mutter, picking up a flat of blueberries.
“I thought you were allergic to blueberries.” The man’s tone behind me has a huskiness to it, like he hasn’t been awake long. I jump, not because I don’t recognize it but because I do.
My heart twists right along with my torso as I see Dane standing behind me. He’s fresh from a morning shower. A blue-and-black flannel, top button undone, sleeves rolled to his elbows, should not look this good.
He shouldn’t smell this good either. Dear Lord Almighty.
I must look like an idiot with my mouth agape because he takes a step back. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he rocks back on his heels like he might turn and go. The thought forces words from my mouth too quickly.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, shoving the cart between us like some kind of shield.
“Um, getting groceries.”
“Yeah. Of course.” Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I don’t know what else to say or if I should say anything at all. We just look at each other like two people who once knew each other so intimately and are now as much strangers as people can get. Two people who know the depths of love and pain too great to ignore.
He holds a hand to his chest in a move I’m not sure he realizes he makes. My heart tugs as I look at the spot where my head used to lie while we snuggled on the couch and watched movies.
Stop. It. Neely.
“So, blueberries?” He nods toward my cart.
“Not my favorite, but there aren’t any strawberries that look edible.”
“But I thought you were allergic?” He nods to the container again. “Don’t you blow up like that little girl on Willy Wonka when you eat those things?”
Laughing despite my insides collapsing that he remembered, I shrug. “How did you remember that?”
“Matt teased you about it for years.” He chuckles. “How could I not?”
“Well, Matt will be happy to know I outgrew that allergy and no longer plump up like a, well, a berry when I eat them.”
My laughter fades, but the smile remains. It doesn’t vanish even when my brain tells it to. Before I know it, his smile pulls mine right along with it.
“I didn’t know you could outgrow a fruit allergy,” he says.
“Guess you can. Or maybe it wasn’t the blueberries after all. I don’t know.”
“Did you wake up one day and decide to risk it? Seems pretty ballsy, if you ask me.”
“Actually,” I tell him, “I ordered a muffin at this little shop in New York that I love. I didn’t know it had blueberries in it until after I ate the whole thing, and I didn’t get sick.”
“But you still could’ve,” he counters. “Maybe that one muffin was an anomaly.”
“Maybe. But I’ve had blueberries about a million times since then, and . . . nothing.”
“You always were a gambler.” He winks.
“Were a gambler. Were. Past tense. Trust me,” I say. “Gambling is for the young and dumb, and I am not either anymore.”
He tosses me a soft, genuine smile that makes my insides melt. “I never would’ve called you dumb.”
I put the berries in my cart and consider how dumb I am right now to be talking to him like this. As I turn the corner, my phone buzzes in my bag. I don’t have to look to know it’s seven thirty and the call is from Grace. She’s walking to work, probably venting about the sidewalks being closed and how slow people are walking. Instead of being in the office, laughing at her antics, I’m . . . here.
I look at Dane. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Passing a swallow down my throat, I sigh. “I’m certainly not young anymore.”
“You’re not even thirty, Neely.”
“True. But when you’re close enough to thirty to say you�
�re ‘not even thirty,’ that means you’re basically thirty.”
“It’s just an age.”
“True, I guess,” I say. “But I’m old enough to need to be a little more sure-footed in things. I don’t have my twenties in front of me to take risks and recoup quickly.” I take in his somber expression and hear the buzz of my voice mail chirp in my purse. “I have to stop putting all my hopes on the line without some safety net. It’s too big of a gamble. I’ve fallen too hard, too many times.”
His chin drops and he looks away. My insides squeeze as if they’re chastising me for causing this reaction. Ignoring the tightening in my gut, I eke out a breath.
“You probably think I meant that about you—” I rush, but he cuts me off.
“Yeah, and you’re right. If you don’t pay attention, life gets all messed up. I’m not fucked up about it.”
The air is heavier than it was a few seconds ago, riding on our shoulders as we crawl past salad dressings. The force presses my sandals into the cheap linoleum floor, and I have to make an effort to pick them up and move them forward.
He chews on his bottom lip. “But you know, sometimes when things fall apart, you can learn something to help you the next time. Makes it less like gambling. You can still win.”
“Good to hear.”
“It’s life, Neely,” he says. “Live and learn.”
“I guess when some of us fall, and we were all in, it must hurt a little more. You probably don’t understand that,” I fire back.
Our gazes snap together. He bites his lip harder—to keep from saying something? I’m not sure.
“Fair enough,” he mutters.
The back of my neck tightens as his tone washes over me. I bite my lip, too, in the hope that it keeps me from saying anything else, but I succumb to guilt.
Despite whether that was deserved, why waste our time on it?
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair,” I say.
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