Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
RORY
I’d like to say I’d lost track of how many days it’d been since Nash had last been at my house, but that’d be a bald-faced lie. I could probably count it down to the minute if someone pressed me on it.
Sure, I’d seen him several times while working on our current project. Our business partnership hadn’t changed much since our breakup. He still spoke to me in that voice that made my insides melt. Still met my gaze with desire he didn’t even try hiding. Still made my body flush in the way he caressed my skin with only his eyes. But he never pushed. Never overstepped.
And I both loved and hated it.
We might’ve only been seeing each other for a short time, but my heart still felt like it’d been ripped in two. And only a day had passed after he’d stepped off my front porch before I’d realized it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d ended it then or twenty years from now—I never would’ve escaped the pain.
Because I loved him.
Not the love I’d thought I had with Sean. The kind that just slipped into place because it was the easiest solution. Nope, what I felt for Nash was messy and inconvenient and mind-boggling. It was complicated and frustrating and tumultuous, and I wouldn’t change a second of our time together, even if it’d save me this heartbreak.
“Momma, can Mac drive me to Mimi and Papa’s in the cart tonight?” Ella yelled from the living room.
“Me too!” Ava called. “I wanna ride!”
Mac had been right—the girls loved that damn thing and begged to use it every chance they got. I was pretty sure I’d caught Mac giving secret driving lessons to Ava in it the other day, too.
“One of y’all bring me my phone, please, and I’ll ask her,” I said, changing out my hoop earrings for the pearl studs.
As was the way with children, it was five minutes before Ella came strolling into my bedroom, phone held up to her ear as she giggled. “Okay, I will. Here’s Momma.”
I grabbed the phone from Ella and called after her as she shot out of the room. “You need to get in the shower before we go over there, Ella Jane! You smell like a swamp.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Blowing out a sigh, I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder as I bent to grab her ankle boots. “Hey, the girls wanna ride with you on that godforsaken cart again. You mind swingin’ by and grabbin’ ’em before supper?”
“That might be a bit difficult, seein’ as I’m in Portland right now.”
I snapped upright, my boots clattering to the wood floor. With wide eyes, I pulled the phone away from my face and stared at the name shown at the top of the screen.
Nat.
I blinked a couple of times and shook my head, but nope. The three little letters never changed.
“All those messages, and I don’t even get a hello?” Nat said, her voice coming through even though I held the phone in front of me like it was a bomb.
I jerked it to my ear. “Nat. Um…hi. Did you mean to call me?” No other explanation made sense. The two of us hadn’t done more than acknowledge the other’s presence with a simple nod when Nat had visited for Gran’s party, so there was no reason she’d suddenly crave a long conversation.
“Unless someone else in town is responsible for breakin’ my best friend.”
“Breakin’ your…” I shook my head, my brow furrowed. I felt like I was underwater, trying to make sense of a conversation happening on land. “I’m not followin’.”
“Nash,” she snapped. “I get that you think you’re so high and mighty and that’s worked real well for you.”
“I do not think?—”
“But he doesn’t deserve that.”
I huffed. “I’m not suggestin’—”
“And I don’t know where you get off thinkin’ you’re so much better than him.”
“I don’t. I’m not?—”
“But you could do a hell of a lot worse. A hell of a lot worse.”
“You don’t have to tell?—”
“Which you’d know if you spent more than a blink out of Havenbrook.”
I ground my molars together. “I did go to college, you know.”
“Big fucking whoop, you came home every weekend! If you’d truly step outside our sad little town, you’d realize our name doesn’t mean shit anywhere else, and it shouldn’t mean shit there.”
“You’re right, and?—”
“I don’t care if you’re the Queen of fucking England, you’d be damn lucky to have him, because he’s one of the best men I know.”
“I know that!” I finally yelled, losing the cool I’d somehow managed to keep as Nat had talked over and ignored my every word. “You think I don’t know that? You think I didn’t realize every day how lucky I was to have him? Or that I haven’t cried myself to sleep every night now that I don’t?”
I had enough sense about me to slam my bedroom door closed and shut myself in my closet so my girls wouldn’t overhear, because I was done playing nice. “You might think you know so damn much because you’ve frolicked all over the world, but I’ve done a hell of a lot more livin’ right here in this town than you ever have, little girl, so don’t feed me your bullshit anymore. I don’t know if the point of your call was to kick me when I’m down or just to act like a bitch, but either way, mission fucking accomplished!”
The line was silent for long moments before Nat finally said, “You cussed . Like, a lot.”
“ So what ?” I snapped. “I’m an adult.”
“Um, apparently. Just…never heard it before is all. I’m… Well, I’m shocked as fuck, to be honest.”
I exhaled and slumped against my closet wall, pressing my thumb and forefinger to my closed eyes where a migraine was brewing. “Look, Nat, if the only reason you called was to make me feel bad about losing him, you don’t need to. Believe me, I’m makin’ myself feel bad enough for the both of us.”
“I wasn’t callin’ to make you feel bad.” She was quiet for a moment. “Okay, so that was definitely why I called.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“I’ve never pretended to be anything other than a bitch, and I’m fiercely loyal to my friends.”
“I know you are. On both counts.”
Nat breathed out a laugh. “And you didn’t lose him, Rory. You were the one who walked away.”
Tears pricked my eyes, my throat tight. I wasn’t going to cry right now. After that night Mac and Will had been over, I’d stuffed my emotions down into the deepest part of myself and forced myself to get through the day with that damn mask on again. At night, when I was alone in my bedroom, lying in sheets that no longer smelled like Nash, I let the tears flow.
When my voice was steady enough to speak, I said, “I had to.”
“That sounds like a load of bullshit to me.”
I swiped away a rogue tear. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“Why, so you can yell at me some more?”
“I’m not gonna yell at you again. Probably.”
I blew out a long breath, hung my head, and closed my eyes. “We don’t make sense, Nat.”
“Neither do the Baigong pipes or the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, but that doesn’t make them any less amazing.”
“I don’t even know what those are.”
“Doesn’t matter. Things don’t always have to make sense to make them right , Rory. So y’all don’t make sense. So fucking what! I’ve never seen him happier than I did when I was there. And when he was showin’ me around town and braggin’ about you and the work y’all’ve done… Well, it seemed to me like he thought y’all were pretty amazing together, too.”
He…talked about me? With Nat ? I’d been so focused on keeping it from my sisters, I hadn’t stopped to think that Nash might have shared it with his best friend. And the confirmation that he had…that he’d believed in us enough to do so spoke volumes.
Every bump in our relationship had been on me. He’d been open for more with me, despite his obstacles. Despite the fact that he’d needed our business partnership in order to buy out King Construction and take it where he wanted it to go. He’d risked that the very first time he’d slept with me. And yet I’d been the one holding us back, all because I was worried about how it’d look ?
I’d been concerned about everyone else, and he’d only been focused on me. On us. He’d been willing to jeopardize everything just to be with me.
“When did you get so smart?” I asked.
“Must’ve been while I was frolickin’ all over the damn world. When’d you get so…normal?”
“Must’ve been while I was livin’ in our sad little town.”
Nat laughed, and my lips tipped up in a smile.
“Momma?” Ava asked, knocking on the door. “What’re you doin’ in the closet?”
I cleared my throat. “Just talkin’ to Auntie Nat. I’ll be out in a minute, baby.”
“It’s almost five. Is Mac comin’ to get us to go to Mimi and Papa’s?”
“This is a discussion we can have once I’m off the phone, Ava.”
“Okay, jeez .”
I expelled a deep sigh and closed my eyes. “I don’t know how she got all your sass when she’s hardly been around you.”
“On the bright side, you’ve had a lot of practice dealin’ with bratty teenagers.”
“So much practice,” I said on a laugh. “You were a handful and a half.”
“You’re welcome for preppin’ you,” Nat said. “So…about Nash…”
“I know, he’s a better man than I deserve.”
“I admit I thought that. When he told me about y’all, I didn’t quite understand what the hell he saw in you.”
“Bless your heart, you’re so sweet to me.”
Nat laughed. “But that was on me, not you. If the Rory I’ve been talkin’ to is even a little bit of the one he’s head over heels for, then I’d say you’re a perfect match.”