Page 70 of Hauling Ashe

“You’re beautiful. It doesn’t matter what you wear.”

She waves a dismissing hand at me. “You’re the father of the bride. You’ll be in a tux.”

“It’s a suit, actually.” Stating the details isn’t helping my case but Julia’s wedding is rather casual despite being at a winery rented in its entirety for her celebration. Her fiancé isn’t a fancy guy, she’d told me, and they’d opted for light gray suits for the men in varying styles.

“Well, it matters to me what I wear, and I don’t have anything.”

“Well,” I exaggerate. “You matter to me, and I want you there.”

Mae blinks at me from across the small table on the balcony.

“I can take you shopping for something if that’s what will convince you to attend this wedding with me.”

She breaks the hold my eyes have on her and peers out toward the ocean.

Somehow, I’ve said the wrong thing. While I watch her, I recall her telling me about her brother and his wife. He was almost fifty and had never been married when he met Dolores, Denton’s sister. I’d asked Mae yesterday for more about their relationship. If he owned a business here, how did it work for him to be in Georgia? The question felt silly after all that happened back in 2020. The world learned to work remotely from anywhere during a major pandemic.

Could I work somewhere other than Chicago and still give my all to Impact?

“I’ll drive you to Napa, though,” Mae states, interrupting my thought. I don’t miss how she isn’t agreeing to accept my invitation to the wedding, but this is a small step in getting her closer to attending. “But it’s going to cost you extra,” she teases, turning back to me.

“I’m good for the money.”

Mae will receive payment for driving me. I want to see her well compensated for her time and the gas, but the concept leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. This wasn’t only a business arrangement.

My response has Mae tipping up her head once and glancing back out at the view. I’ve said the wrong thing again.

With our conversation already open about driving, I decide to keep pressing. “How are you getting home?”

Mae laughs almost bitterly. “The road is my goddess. She’ll lead me where I need to go.”

That’s not the answer I want to hear. I don’t like her traveling alone. And I want to be with her.

“Come to the wedding,” I ask again. “We can drive back to Chicago together.”

Mae’s head lowers, and her fingers fiddle with the hem of her T-shirt. The one she wore last night before I stripped her naked and made love to her.

“It’s too much,” she whispers. “It’s too important of an event for me to barge in and meet your family. This should be family time,” she emphasizes.

Join my family. Mae is sad with hers. Her divorce. The behavior of her teenage sons. The separation from her sisters. She can be part of my family. We can be one together.

I have no idea where these thoughts come from, but I’ve been thinking so much about the band and how I might have let them down when I left. They were my family for a short while and they’d been important to me. How had I let those relationships slip away when I once cared so much for those guys?

I had all the answers, but the bottom line rested with me. I hadn’t looked back any more than they looked forward at me.

I won’t do the same thing with Mae.

“Mach will be there,” I try to assure her.

“I don’t know Mach.” She doesn’t. She knows of him, from what her sister tells her, and from what I’ve learned, that includes Jane having a major conflicting crush on my business partner.

“Let me introduce you to Jude and Julia.” I’m nearly begging, and I reach for her hand across the small space separating us. I want to take us wherever the road leads, and hopefully that’s meeting children and figuring out how to be together somehow.

“I’ll think about it.” Her quiet response isn’t a no but it’s also not a yes. It’s like her dismissive shrugs. It’s a way to end this conversation and I concede for the moment. But I’m going to convince her.

Something tells me I need her to be there with me.

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