Page 52 of Still the One
Perhaps it was a touch cruel of me to tell Mac about Miss Carol and her proposition, but Sandra urged me to fight for her—and that’s what I was doing. It wouldn’t be the first time Miss Carol tried to set me up with someone, despite me repeating that I’m very happily single. At least, I was until I saw Mac again. Miss Carol knows me well, which is why she insisted more than usual.
“If that fancy lady off the TV doesn’t want to be with you, I’ll find you someone who’d be delighted to,” she said. “In fact, I know just the person.”
Things snowballed from there, and I might have ended up having dinner at Miss Carol’s one night, but I would never have said yes to an actual date with someone else. Not when my mind is so full of all things Mac. Even though, perhaps, it shouldn’t be. But something happened when I saw her again. That very first split second when I laid eyes on her again after twenty years. I was trying so hard to keep my cool around her, to give her a hug with just the right amount of strength. But in my head, I was already falling apart.
Because it’s always been her. Despite my other relationships, and the life I’ve lived since screwing things up with her. Despite learning to live with the fact that Mac would hate me forever. That I hurt the woman I loved more than anything so callously, so profoundly, that she never wanted to see me again.
Odd as it may sound, Mac and I had a clean, swift break the first time. She simply refused to see me again. She was too shell-shocked. Too stunned by what I had done. Our friends put up a shield around her and made it so Mac didn’t even have to talk to me. My father collected my belongings from the apartment Mac and I had shared for years. I will always remember him saying there was no work left for him to do when he arrived at our place. Mac had already packed up all my stuff. Every last little item, including all the things we’d bought together—so she wouldn’t have anything to remember me by.
I can’t blame Mac for wanting to pretend I never existed, even though we spent ten amazing years together. I took away the things that mattered to her. At the time, most of our friends naturally sided with her, and she had a job she loved, but she lost everything else when I left. When I burned down all our plans for the future.
As I approach Mac’s building, I’m hit with the memory of her face on that fateful day. How it went from disbelief to denial to glacial stoicism. How, in a matter of seconds, she built a wall around her heart, so that I could never get through—and hurt her—again.
As I stand in front of Mac’s building, I realize that I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve her. For her to let me back in, after I did the worst to her, makes her even more beautiful. Too beautiful for the likes of me. Yet, here I am. A chill runs along my spine, reminding me of how physical this whole thing has been. How, perhaps, our bodies have brought us back together before our minds could. But once we’re past this initial lust, this needing each other to the extent that we can’t wait to forget the past, we will have a lot to deal with. What I did to Mac is not something that can be swept under the rug. It’s not something we can ignore and live happily ever after with. Not for her, but also not for me.
I went through other breakups after Mac, but they were very different. Time always brought relief and a new sense of calm, whereas the years after Mac, long after Cherry and I had split, only brought regret. In my head, I fabricated grand plans to win Mac back, but as soon as I tried anything, be it sending a text message, or even just asking a mutual friend about her, I got shut down. Someone always told me off and put me in my place by reminding me what I had done. If not my own father, then Sandra, or Alan even, or someone else who’d seen Mac through the worst. All the people who were on my case when I chose Cherry. No one was on my side—only Cherry.
Because it was always so easy to see what Mac and I had. As though the strength of our relationship carried over onto our friends and family, as though the wholesomeness of our life made the lives of the people around us better through some magical transference. And, along with Mac, everyone else was shocked into detesting me as well.
It didn’t help that I failed to rationally explain to anyone, including myself, why I chose Cherry, whom I barely knew, over Mac, my future wife. When I did it, when I made the worst choice of my life, the reason was crystal clear to me, though. Falling madly in love with Cherry might not have been a good enough reason for anyone else, but it was for me.
Because my love for Mac had always been so present and pure, I didn’t know how else to deal with another woman encroaching on that. I didn’t know there was another option to deal with it. I didn’t know that falling in love with another person can happen when you’re already in a relationship. I didn’t know that it didn’t have to be the end of everything. How could I possibly get into bed with Mac when all I could think of was Cherry? How could I even look her in the eye again after Cherry and I had slept together? I might have been able to if being with Cherry hadn’t felt like I was being catapulted into the sky to spend some time among the stars. If she hadn’t shown me, made it vibrate in every cell of my body, that it wasn’t only Mac who could make me feel like that. At least I believed so at the time.
All my mistakes run through my head, but I let them. I’ve had twenty years to come to terms with what I did, and I may have needed every single day of them, but I’m ready to put the past behind me. I’m ready to find out if what we had can be reinvented as the people we are now.
Because I want Mac. We have so much unfinished business. And she’s finally willing to give me another chance. There’s no way I’m letting the past catch up with me. I’m ready for the future.
Chapter 29
Mac
I nearly trip over my feet stumbling out of the cab. I can’t waste one more second before I fall into Jamie’s arms. I might have had a week to change my mind, but I’ve done the opposite. By saying those words I thought I’d never say to her, by agreeing to try, I flipped a switch inside me. Instead of increasing, my doubts have shrunk. Because I can’t forget her and, this time around, I don’t have to. This time around, she’s choosing me. This time around, there’s no Cherry to take her away from me. Jamie is here, for me, in all her glory. She’s right there, chatting to the doorman, waiting for me.
Jamie grins from ear to ear when I bolt toward her. Neither one of us has changed her mind. Maybe this is the most foolish I’ve ever been in my life, but I don’t care, because it feels right.
When I fall into Jamie’s arms, it feels exactly as it should. Unquestionably, unequivocally right. I want to hurry upstairs so I can kiss her, tear those clothes from her and drag her into the shower with me, but it’s not the prevailing urge coursing through me. My physical desire for her is cut through with another kind of longing. I want to get to know her all over again. Now that my mind is finally giving me a chance to look beyond the ruins of our past, I have a million questions. All the questions I didn’t allow myself to ask because I didn’t want to get too attached. I made myself believe what we had between us was more physical than anything else, even though it clearly wasn’t. But I can forgive myself for my ignorance. Fear breeds shortsightedness and I simply couldn’t see. But standing in Jamie’s arms like this, out here on the sidewalk, I see and I know.
I know what I have to do. What Leila told me: open my heart to Jamie. To gorgeous, kind, sexy Jamie. I’d be a fool not to, because a love like this only comes along once in a lifetime—because there’s only one Jamie Sullivan.
“It’s so good to see you,” Jamie whispers in my ear. Her arms are locked around me, as though she doesn’t plan on letting go of me anytime soon.
“The elevator’s waiting for you, Miss Mackenzie,” the doorman says. “Your suitcase’s inside.”
“We should probably get out of the street.” I wriggle myself out of Jamie’s embrace. “Come on.” I take her hand and drag her into the elevator. As soon as the doors close, she comes for me again. My lips are stretched into a persistent grin, making it hard to kiss her—if ever there was a first-world problem.
Hand in hand, we ride the elevator. To be so free of doubts is a revelation, like a new light is being shed on everything. Jamie looks so much better in real life than on my tiny phone screen. Her touch is intoxicating. Her hair shinier. Her eyes dreamier.
We hurry into my apartment, abandoning our bags in the hallway.
“I have to shower,” I protest, but only meekly.
“We’ll shower together later,” Jamie says, “after this.” We don’t even make it into the bedroom. She pushes me against a wall and, with the corner of a picture frame pressing into my arm, she kisses me again. It’s a kiss full of pent-up lust, not just a week’s worth, but two decades’ worth. Because I finally said yes, and my yes shines through in this kiss. In how we touch each other, in our hunger for each other, and the intention behind it.
I hold Jamie close, luxuriating in the warmth of her body, the softness of her skin. Our kiss doesn’t stop. Her tongue keeps darting in and out of my mouth, her lips keep finding mine. Her hand starts to wander down, and she opens the button of my jeans.
Jamie groans into my mouth as her fingers slide inside my panties. She sounds as turned on as I feel. Maybe I should check for myself. I return the favor and unzip her pants. When I slip my hand inside, our kiss stalls. Jamie takes a moment to breathe, to look at me. Our eyes lock and it’s more intimate than any kiss. It’s hotter than her lips trailing along the sensitive skin of my neck.
We peer into each other’s eyes as our hands explore further. As our fingers dive deeper. As we mirror each other’s actions. My finger edges along Jamie’s clit, before sliding deeper into her wetness.
