Chapter 18
I stepped back and admired the piece I was almost finished with for Albert. It was coming along perfectly, and I only had a few more tweaks to make. After Lainey’s date with Damian and my desperate attempt to woo her in a coat closet, I’d been spending all my time off in my workshop. Some would call it hiding, but I had nothing to hide from. The things that used to excite me and get me out on the town no longer did.
Now that I knew sex was so much more than just the physical, I didn’t want anything else. It was a total mind fuck for me.
“Did you make that?”
The unexpected voice jolted me. I was so lost in my own world I didn’t hear the door open or Chardonnay’s heels clacking across the floor.
I scratched the back of my sweaty neck. “Uh, yeah,” I admitted. For as long as I’d been doing metalwork, I’d never talked to my family about it. We usually had get-togethers at the winery, Mom and Dad’s house, or Franc’s place, since it was equipped for Gio. Not to mention the few times my siblings did stop by and they were greeted by a one-night stand in my kitchen wearing nothing more than their underwear.
“I didn’t know you could do that.” Her eyes drifted up the root structure to the twisting branches.
“It’s not a big deal. Just a hobby I picked up.”
Char turned to me, arms crossed over her chest. Her dark brown eyes narrowed in on me. “Shut up.”
“This is my house.”
“Exactly why you should be boasting yourself. You are quick to take credit for fucking some tourist, but here.” She opened her arms out to the piece. “You actually do something amazing, and you try to dismiss it. And it’s amazing. Take the compliment and own it.”
“Thank you, I think.”
“You’re welcome.” She walked around the tree, appearing as if she was admiring the details. My chest puffed up a little and my heart warmed. It wasn’t every day Chardonnay gave out compliments.
I picked up a glass of pinot I’d been nursing for the last hour and took a sip. “You want a glass?” I asked.
Her head tilted, eyes narrowing onto a particularly complicated twist. “Sure. Why the hell not?”
I headed to the back of my shop, where I had a small high-rise table with two stools. The bottle of pinot was already on the table, and I grabbed a glass from the cabinet that was filled with a million different samples of tasting glasses.
The sound of Char’s heels stopped clacking as she slid onto one of the stools. I poured a little into the glass and held it up. “Want to taste it first?”
“If I don’t know what that wine tastes like, we have problems, and I also know you wouldn’t dare drink a bad glass. Just fill ‘er up.”
A laugh muffled in my throat, and I did as she requested, placing the filled glass on the table and pushing it toward her.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” I asked.
She took a small sip and before placing the glass down. “It’s Friday night, and you’re not in the tasting room, so I thought I’d stop by and make sure you’re okay.”
“Sutton asked for another shift. She’s trying to pay off her credit cards.”
“Still doesn’t explain why you’re not there.” Char ran her fingers across the tabletop as if she was wiping away invisible crumbs. “Even when you’re not working, you’re there.”
My hand swept through my hair, and I inhaled. I was sure at this point Char knew about everything, but she was being coy. Not something she typically did. “I guess I’m sick of the game.”
Her eyebrows shot wide. The right one getting lost beneath the side part of her hair before falling into place. “Since when?”
“You never beat around the bush. What gives?”
“People complain when I’m blunt, and they complain when I’m not. I can’t win.”
“Just be you, Char. Please.”
“Fine. After our meeting with Damian, Laurent brought me up to speed on what happened between you and Lainey, though Sherry had already given me an earful. Then Phoebe might have filled me in, but she had gotten the information from Laurent, so there was a bit of telephone going on there, and I knew I didn’t have all the facts.”
“If you have a point, can you make it before Halloween?”
“Don’t be a smartass.”
I leaned on the stool, waiting for my usually direct sister to be direct.
“Damian said he was going to take Lainey out and—”
“He did. He brought her to Don’s. Couldn’t even bring her to the resort.”
“You and I both know Lainey would much rather go to Don’s than the resort.”
I shrugged. “So what then? You’re here to tell me to leave Lainey alone. Is that it? Because I get it, Char. Lainey’s too good for me. I don’t need the lecture from you.”
Chardonnay had a tendency to kick when I was already down. It was just in her nature.
“I wasn’t planning on lecturing you.”
“Then what the hell do you want?”
“I’m not going to lecture you because I don’t think you’re not good enough for her. I think you could be perfect for her if you just got out of your own way.”
My eyebrow quirked, and my eyes locked on my sister. “Excuse me?” She was always quick to point out people’s flaws. For my sister to be on my side—when my siblings often weren’t—didn’t make sense. “Are you fucking with me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not. You of all people, I thought, would be leading the charge to keep me from Lainey, and now you’re telling me you think I am good enough for her? So I ask again, what gives?”
“Do you remember when Paulie Jones broke up with me?”
What the hell was she talking about? “Yeah, you were like twelve.”
“I was fourteen. You were twelve, and you rode your bike into town and bought me—”
“A pint of moose tracks ice cream. By the time I got it home, it was a melted mess.”
“Oh, it was an absolute disaster.” Char’s laugh was rare, but when she let it out, it was joyful.
“Mom yelled at me for dripping chocolate on the carpet. I thought she was going to ground me, but she never did.”
“Because I told her what you did. Not only did you get me ice cream, you sat with me as I cried over some stupid boy.”
“I would have threatened to kick his ass, but he would have killed me.” Brady had handled that, anyway. The guy never talked to her again.
“No, you did exactly what I needed. And that wasn’t the only time, and not just for me either, for all of us, including Lainey. Especially Lainey. You’re an asshole on most days, but when it comes down to it. You have a good heart. You just hide it well.”
Emotions, I wasn’t even sure what they were, slammed into me. I knew my family loved me, but sometimes I wondered if they liked me. I was the town player, heartbreaker, man slut, and whatever other iteration people came up with.
But with Lainey. It was more than my last name. She saw deeper than anyone else, straight down to my very soul. She saw me. Then I fucked it up. I should have stayed. I never should have left her in that hotel room. The only person who ever truly saw me, and I pulled the curtains on her, letting her believe everything everyone else already had.
I didn’t know how to fix it.
I had left Lainey for a reason, but the more time that had passed, the more I questioned my own reasons. Was it because Lainey deserved better than me, or was it because I was scared shitless that a woman with her sexy as sin curves had the power to take me to my knees? It was a power no other woman had ever held over me before, and I had no idea what to do about it.
My eyes lifted to Char, and her dark eyes softened.
“How do I get Lainey to see that?” I asked.
“She already does.”
“She pushed me away.” That night in the coat closet, she made it as clear as day she was done with me.
Char dropped her gaze to the stem of her glass. She drew invisible lines around the base with her finger. “I’m disappointed in you.”
“After all the nice things you just said to me?” I joked.
She shook her head and laughed. “You’re a fighter. Always have been. Kind of need to be when you’re smack dab in the middle of seven. Yet you’re giving up before you’ve truly fought. If you want people to believe, if you want Lainey to believe you’re good enough for her, then fight for her.”
“What if…?”
“You fail miserably? She throws a spatula at your head?”
“Something like that.”
“I’m almost counting on it, but if you let a spatula stop you from the woman you love, then she does deserve better than you.”
Chardonnay slid off the stool, wrapped her arms around me, pulling my head down to kiss the crown, before walking off without another word.
And in her own way, she’d never been more direct.
I took her glass and dumped it in mine. It would be a shame to waste it. But as I sat there, sipping the wine, the conversation with Char running through my mind, I realized it was Friday night.
I had somewhere to be.
It took me fifteen minutes to get to the distillery. The parking lot was packed. Word must have gotten out to the tourists about Brady’s horror movie showings. It didn’t help that Sonya’s food truck was stationed on the far-left side of the lot. The line trailed down the sidewalk.
Luckily, I took the Jeep and was able to drive up on the curb. I threw the truck in park and headed inside.
The air was crisp, but it felt good against my heated skin. I should have showered or at least changed. I looked like I was in a heat box welding for the last three hours. But that would waste time, and I didn’t have time to waste.
I stepped inside the distillery and was immediately greeted by Jack and his wagging tail. He plopped at my feet and rolled onto his back. Brady was helping a handful of people, so I gave Jack a quick belly rub before bypassing the crowd and making my way out the rear door.
The Shining projected onto the sheet, and Danny appeared on his tricycle in the hallway. The first time Lainey saw this movie, she had slept over our house. She was thirteen and scared shitless. Rhone and Austin snuck outside with hockey sticks and tapped Sherry’s window. I can still hear the screams that billowed out of the room right before Lanes burst through the door and into my arms.
I never thought it was because I was special. She would have run to any familiar face in the hallway that night. It just happened to be me. But it’s a memory that has stuck all these years. The fact that it was playing now… maybe the universe was on my side.
My eyes scanned the crowd. Michael and Kenneth were next to Bill and Silvia, all four enjoying tacos from Sonya’s truck.
Sonya’s tacos were great, but I only craved one thing. I continued to search the familiar faces, bypassing Steve, Cindy, and Addy, making a mental note to ask Cindy and Addy about their alpaca farm.
Where was Lanes, though? She never missed a horror movie night. After her scare all those years ago, she set out to watch as many horror movies as possible. She’d deny it, but she did it because she never wanted to be that scared again. She watched so many movies she became desensitized to the horror on screen and was able to enjoy the storytelling. Though, I knew for a fact this particular movie still got under her skin.
The dead bodies of the twins flashed on the screen and gasps filled the approaching fall air. One gasp was undeniable. My body turned in the direction before my eyes even found her, but when they did, everything came to a stop. Lainey sat on the very bench we shared only last week, but this time she wasn’t alone, holding a blanket for me to join her.
Damian wrapped his arm around her and pulled her toward him. A smile tilted her lips, and she snuggled into his side. My heart had always been a muscle doing its job behind the scenes, but now I could physically feel it.
And it ached.
I dug the palm of my hand into my chest, attempting to rub the pain away. But this pain was undeterred.
Chardonnay told me I had to fight for Lainey, but what if fighting for her meant something else entirely? What if fighting for her was completely selfless? All I wanted, all anyone wanted, was for Lanes to be happy. Even if that meant I had to walk away and let her be happy without me.
I laid my invisible sword at my feet and left with nothing more than a vision of Lainey in the arms of another man.