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“Dude, you’re not shit,” she sighed. “You’re just struggling, and you’re not asking anyone for help.”
“I have no one to ask for help,” I snapped.
She squinted at me and shook her head in disbelief, her hands gesturing toward herself. “Uh, me? Jack? Hell, I’ll let you sit down and pour your heart out to Cassie if you want. Can’t promise she’d actually help and not just giggle, but she’s an option.”
“My heart is fine. I don’t need to pour it out to a baby.”
“Well, you need something. Talk to me.” She looked at me, her eyes softening as she placed one petite hand on my knee. It was the same look of genuine concern she’d had when I moved to New York after the Emily situation. She’d always been the one I turned to when things got too hard to bear, but I’d pulled myself back from that when she got married and had Cassie. She had more important things to do, a family to take care of, a newborn and a husband needed her. Maybe I’d been wrong to think that adding another thing to that list was unmanageable for her.
“I don’t know how,” I admitted. “I don’t want to pile that on you.”
“I’d rather that than knowing you’re sitting here wasting away, that you could potentially lose everything you’ve worked so hard for if you don’t pull it together.” Her hand squeezed around my good knee. “Do you need me to ask you what happened? Would it make things easier to talk about it?”
I rolled my eyes and leaned back into the leather of my chair. The fire crackled in front of me, little sparks flying and hitting the metal gates, and I knew as I watched the logs settle that I couldn’t get out of this. She was right—I needed to talk about it, and she was willing to listen.
“Wade.”
“I don’t know what happened,” I sighed. “Things were great. Ray told me that she wanted it to be real, and I wanted that more than I was prepared to admit.”
Mandy’s gaze hardened, her head swinging in my direction. “Don’t tell me you choked.”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I told her I wanted that, too. And I fucking meant it. You know how I am with that stuff. I don’t let that happen.”
“I know.”
“But I did. I believed it was real enough to fall in fully. But then it was like she did a one-eighty, Mands. She was acting weird the whole night we were at the signing and then asked me to drive her home. And I did, because I’m not some fucking psycho. But as she got out of the car she said, ‘it’s done’ and gave me back a necklace I’d given to her literally hours before.” My nails dug into the exposed wood on the edge of the chair. Without talking to her, without asking, I’d never know why that had happened. “Now I can’t go two goddamn seconds without thinking about her. I can’t breathe without imagining her scent. Do you know what she smells like? She smells like strawberries and frost. Like a freak freeze icing over a fruit farm. Like chilled wine, like an unexpectedly cold spring day. I can’t stop seeing her everywhere, in everything.”
Mandy was right. She always was. It felt good to talk about it, like a weight had lifted off my shoulders. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
“Do you know how many girls have approached me since I came here weeks ago? Hundreds. Do you know how many I’ve slept with? Not a single one,” I continued. I stared at the crackling fire to keep me from looking elsewhere, to pretend like it was just me and Mandy and no one else. Speaking about it was hard enough, but knowing well-trained ears and nosy guests could listen in was too much. “None of them are her. I don’t want anyone else.”
“Fuck, Wade,” Mandy sighed, her fingers tightening around my knee again. “Have you tried to talk to her?”
“It’s pointless. I email with her every day, but it’s just work shit. I tried calling at the start of this and she just sent me to voicemail. She’s icing me out and I can’t do a goddamn thing about it.”
“So go to her.” She said it so plainly, as if it was something easy, something nonchalant. I tore my gaze from the fire to look at her, and she only shrugged in return. “What’s stopping you? You’re clearly in love with her, Wade, and if you’re not, you’re well on your way to it. You don’t have anything to lose.”
“I could lose her.”
“You already have. Fight to get her back, you dimwit.”
Chapter 31
Ray
Mom was in the hospital again. Dani called me earlier to let me know she was taking her in. The cough she’d developed a few days ago had gotten worse, and with the development of a fever, the doctor felt it best to have her stay for a few days to get rehydrated and treat the likely pneumonia.
I hadn’t told either of them about the pregnancy. Hadn’t fully admitted it to myself, either. I knew it was there, could feel it despite it being so small. The symptoms were all there too. Every toss and turn in bed, I was hyper-aware of my stomach and what was growing inside it.
If I chose to keep it, I’d have to tell Wade at some point. I couldn’t keep something that big from him, couldn’t exactly hide an entire child. But if I did keep the baby, I’d be looking at a life that Wade would always be a part of. I’d never get away from him, never get over him or be able to get him out of my mind. I’d be the one off to the side at my child’s wedding, hiding from the rest of the crowd, left alone and miserable like Wade’s dad.
The couch I sat on squeaked as I pulled my knees into my chest. I hadn’t expected any of this to happen nor had I wanted it when I’d agreed to the stupid fucking job. How had everything changed so dramatically? How had I gone from a solid, steadfast woman who wouldn’t take shit from my boss to a woman with broken down walls, a broken heart, and a baby growing in my uterus?
My only option was to find somewhere else to work. That would solve at least one problem. And the other option—the one that made my gut churn to think about and made me clutch the fabric that covered my stomach—I wasn’t sure I was the kind of person that could cope with that, could go through with it. I’d always told myself if it happened I could, but now, faced with that reality, it felt impossible.
I wished I was more like some of the girls I knew in high school. The ones who had shrugged it off. For them, it was easy, but for me, I knew it wouldn’t be.
A knock at the door made me pause. I wasn’t expecting anyone, not with Mom and Dani at the hospital. There was a chance Mom had ordered something to be delivered, but the clock was ticking close to nine in the evening, and I didn’t think delivery drivers came around that hour.
