Chapter 11 Everett
EVERETT
Ifeel fucking hungover. I kind of wish I was.
Being drunk would be a much better excuse for kissing Mary than whatever idiocy I can come up with.
I haven’t kissed another woman since I met Laura.
It’s been so long that I damn near forgot what it was like to have someone else’s mouth on mine.
The only thing I can think of to explain my behavior is exhaustion and the weird mood we were both in last night.
If I’d slept at all, I would try to convince myself that it was just a dream, but I didn’t get a single wink.
I spent half an hour after getting into my own room just sitting on the edge of the bed and staring mindlessly at the wall. Then I paced for a while, then sat back down, and repeated the whole process over and over. My head’s even more of a mess than it usually is.
Usually, it’s just exhaustion and upcoming bills rattling around up there.
Now, I’m trying to figure out how the hell I can ever show my face to Mary again.
I’m not the type to do things like that, especially with someone I hardly know.
Laura and I were high school sweethearts.
She was my first, and once she passed, I fully expected her to be my last. We had our ups and downs through the years, but even on those days when we were talking about ending things, our respect for each other never waivered.
We loved each other, even when it was hard to like each other.
And then she got sick, and every fight we ever had was forgotten about overnight.
As soon as she came home with a cancer diagnosis, I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of our time together as happily as we could manage.
Petty disagreements didn’t matter after that.
But with Mary, I feel like a teenager all over again. I can never keep my head on straight when I talk to her I blush around her, for fuck’s sake. Everything with her is so different than it ever was with Laura, and I have no idea what I’m doing.
She’s not shy, and she’s not meek. She doesn’t beat around the bush, and she fully expects me to buck up and do what I need to do, even when I don’t want to.
Even so, there’s something so soft about her.
I think it has something to do with the way she looks at me, because every time I meet her eyes, something catches in my chest. It’s goddamn exhausting, is what it is, but for some reason I just can’t get her off my mind.
She doesn’t quite remind me of Laura, although there are plenty of things she does that no one but Laura has ever done for me. Sure, ordering me a burger at the diner isn’t the same as the everyday lunches Laura made for me, but the thought behind it is the same.
Put some food in your belly, Everett. Real food, not those damn chips.
I can still hear Laura’s voice in my head, see the way her eyes would crinkle at the corners when she laughed.
Laura was always the prettiest girl I ever saw, and part of me feels guilty for thinking of Mary as beautiful.
I’m scared to disrespect the memories I have of Laura by even considering something with Mary—and what that something would look like, I have no idea.
She wouldn’t have wanted me to close myself off, though. On long nights when I can’t sleep, sometimes I think of how disappointed she’d be if she could see just how much I’ve shut the world out.
There was always an upside to every situation, as far as she was concerned, and she tried her best to drill that into my thick skull.
She even treated her cancer as a blessing instead of the curse I thought of it as.
She told me every day how glad she was to have me there taking care of her, to wake up to my face and fall asleep to my hands in her hair.
While she still had hair, at least. When I learned how to cook, she told me we should’ve opened a restaurant, and when I picked food up, she told me it was exactly what she was craving.
I may have been doing the more obvious work, but she was taking care of me, too, the whole way through.
‘Promise me you’ll find happiness, Everett. Don’t live your life alone when I’m gone. Promise me, you won’t give up on love.’
Those were the last words she spoke to me, and they still ring loud and clear in my mind to this day. Back then, I’d promised. I’d held her hand tight and agreed to every demand, even as I watched the life fade from her eyes.
I’d wanted so badly to give her some small amount of relief before she left me, even if I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. I never planned to make any attempts to live up to those promises.
Call them empty words, call them lies, call them one final comfort.
It doesn’t matter. The wounds were too fresh to even think about someone else for so long.
By the time I could walk through my own house without breaking down in tears, I just didn’t have anything left to give.
I’ve been wrung so dry for so long that I just don’t even think about it these days.
But now that Mary is here, I can’t stop thinking about that promise I made so many years ago.
I can’t stop thinking about Mary.
I don’t know what to do about any of this, but I at least know that I need to get us home. Back to the ranch. Whatever.
The sun has been up for a few hours, and the clock on the wall says it’s nearly nine.
The mechanic should be open, and maybe I can get some answers on how long this will take to fix.
I’ll probably have to call one of the boys at the ranch to come pick us up, and I’d prefer to get back sooner rather than earlier.
The walk over is quick, and there’s almost no traffic on the road. I’m glad to see the door to the shop propped open as I round the corner, music drifting out from the speakers inside.
I step in to find the man from yesterday, significantly less covered in grease, standing behind the desk.
He looks like he’s only just starting for the day, and he nods at me in greeting, but doesn’t say anything for a long moment.
I take that as a request to wait while he finishes jotting down the note he’s writing, and I glance around the shop.
It’s a pretty standard place. There are license plates from all over hung up on the walls, a few old black and white photos framed. There’s a pile of mismatched tools on one of the shelves, and a pegboard that holds a few sets of keys.
Mary’s keychain is among them, a bright yellow strap embroidered with sunflowers hanging from it. She’d handed them over last night when we stopped by to pay him and get the car towed to the shop.
“Axle’s on backorder,” the mechanic says without preamble as he tosses the pen down on the desk. “It’ll take about two weeks to get here, but I can get it finished in a couple days once I get the parts in. You live around these parts?”
I frown, sighing deeply. That was the last thing I wanted to hear, and I have no doubt that Mary will also be less than thrilled with the news.
“Windy River,” I say.
He hums under his breath, cracking his knuckles absentmindedly.
“What’s that, twenty minutes?”
“Sounds about right,” I say with a shrug. “I’ll leave my number if you’ll call when it’s ready.”
“I can get one of the guys to drop it off when it’s done,” the mechanic offers. “He lives out that way. Save us both some trouble.”
I wait for him to mention a delivery fee or a convenience charge, but he just looks at me, waiting for an answer. Well, if he wants to save me some time out of the goodness of his own heart, I won’t argue with him. I nod, holding my hand out to him.
“Appreciate it,” I say.
He waves off my gratitude, uncapping his pen so he can scrawl my number down next to Mary’s name on the messy sheet of paper in front of him.
“Got a phone I could borrow?” I ask as he straightens.
He turns to grab the landline off the counter behind him and passes it to me.
“Just leave it on the desk when you’re done, man,” he says. “I need to get started for the day.”
I nod in agreement and wave my thanks to him as he trudges toward the back.
The sound of tools clacking against each other sounds before I even finish dialing the number for the ranch’s office.
It’s Al who picks up, thank fuck, because I don’t have the energy to deal with any of the younger boys right now.
They’re all good kids, but they’ve got too much damn spunk.
A few minutes later, Al is sending Tony on his way to pick the two of us up, and I’m heading back out onto the sidewalk.
The diner across the street smells heavenly, but I know we won’t have time for breakfast. The thought of sitting across from Mary and eating has my stomach in knots anyway, so it’s probably for the best. I shove my hands in my pockets and start down the road toward Mary’s hotel, mentally preparing myself to face the music.
I don’t know if it’s a good idea to apologize in a situation like this, but I’m smart enough to know that ignoring it is definitely not a good idea.
Unfortunately, I don’t get a chance to rehearse what I want to say. Just as I step off the crosswalk and onto the sidewalk in front of Mary’s hotel, she slips out the front door, giving her thanks to the old woman behind the desk.
“Mary,” I say.
It slips out before I can catch it, and she whips her head around in surprise. Her eyes go wide when she sees me, and I rush to clear my throat and amend my words.
“Ms. Bryce,” I correct myself. “Good morning.”
She blinks at me for several long seconds before responding.
“Everett. Morning.”
Her voice is clipped and chilly in the morning air. Part of me wants to flinch away from it.
“I called the ranch from the mechanic’s phone,” I say, unused to being the one filling the quiet. “Tony’s on his way to pick us up. Said he’d meet us in front of the diner.”
She nods slowly, adjusting her purse on her shoulder. Her hair is a little messier than usual, and it looks like she got about as much sleep as I did. A pang of guilt twinges in my chest. I should probably apologize.