Chapter Ten
Carly sat on the edge of her bed. Her bedroom door was open, and she stared out at the main apartment.
This place had seemed too good to be true. A steal of a rental price, the condition, the fact it was in a safe part of town. She felt like she hit the jackpot, which she had. Tears filled her eyes. Lies. All of it.
Her friends had been in on it as well. They had all known the truth, and while she’d been excited about this place, they had known it was all because of Nate.
She swiped at the tears, not wanting them to fall.
Dropping her hand into her lap, she tried to take a deep breath, and not to think about the pain. Her friends had to be paid to spend time with her. Sarah had to be paid to live with her. Mitch was paid to walk her home. Dalton and Reese were paid to come and talk to her at the bar.
Why? Was she that bad of a person? That boring?
She sniffled.
Nate had pushed her dates away, and in doing so, she had thought it was because of her.
Her job was a fake.
Everything was a complete and total lie.
To add to everything, she now might be pregnant with Nate’s baby. Was that all a lie as well?
She pressed her palms to her eyes and tried not to cry, but the tears wanted to fall.
The knock at the door forced her to lift her head. Getting to her feet, she made her way to the main door and looked out to see Mitch standing there.
“I know you’re in there,” Mitch said.
“Go away then and leave me alone.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Why? Did Nate pay you to come and say those words?”
“Nope,” Mitch said. “I came to see you because that’s what friends do, also to explain stuff to you. You can keep me out and I can talk to you through the door and then everyone can know your business. I don’t care.”
Carly didn’t want everyone to know the humiliation she was going through. She growled and pulled open the door. “Stop. Just stop. You have nothing to say that I want to hear, and you should just leave.”
She should have known it was pointless even trying to talk to Mitch. He was a force to be reckoned with, and he pushed his way into the apartment.
“You know, I could call the cops.”
“And after all this time, turn into a snitch?” he asked.
She did flinch at that term. Carly was no snitch. She prided herself on always having her friends’ backs, no matter what. And Mitch knew it.
Instead, she slammed the door closed. “Say what you want and get out.”
Carly brushed past him and moved to sit on the couch. She didn’t want to go back to her bedroom, as that now felt way too private. There would have been a time she didn’t care. It was Mitch, and he was like a brother to her. Just like Dalton and Reese, but that was never happening again. She didn’t have anyone. It was a sobering thought.
“I get that you’re pissed,” Mitch said.
This did make her look at him, and she wanted to scoff but remained silent. There was no point in getting into a conversation with him. She just wanted him to leave.
“Okay, I was hoping for you to scream and shout at me … it would have made this a whole lot easier.”
“How?” Carly asked, and then hated herself for giving in. “How would it make this easier?”
“Because then at least you would be talking to me,” he said. “Look, I get it. All of this makes us look bad.” Mitch grabbed the back of his head, grimacing as he did so. “None of us needed to be paid, Carly. You need to know that. I was already coming to keep an eye on you, but you know Nate. He has to take care of us all. You know what it’s been like for all of us. We’re not going to turn down an opportunity to make money. None of us are.”
“Nate didn’t even need to do that. You don’t get it. He lied to me, about everything. The dates. This place. You guys. What hasn’t he lied to me about?”
“He hasn’t lied to you about us, and what does it matter if he stopped you from being near a couple of rancid snakes? None of them put up a fight, Carly.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it? Because as far as I’m concerned, it pretty much fucking does. None of them cared to fight him. To tell him to fuck off. They were only interested in a good time, but then the others didn’t want to deal with him. None of them did. They were all a bunch of fucking cowards and the last time I checked, Carly, we all agreed you don’t deserve a goddamn coward.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?” she asked. “Why didn’t any of you tell me?”
Mitch shrugged. “Because we all knew Nate was in love with you and he needed to be ready to tell you. We couldn’t do that to him or you. I know it doesn’t sound like a great excuse but I’m being honest about this … about all of this.”
Carly couldn’t be angry at him, she wanted to be but knew deep in her heart it would be pointless.
“How can someone be in love with you and do that?” she asked.
“It’s Nate. Think about it. All that guy has known is disappointment. He doesn’t trust easily, but the only person he cares about is you.”
“That’s not true,” she said.
Mitch chuckled. “Look, I know he cares about us in his own way, and I don’t give a shit about what order of care or love or whatever, but you’re different. You always have been. Nate is in love with you. He cannot stand the thought of anything bad happening to you, and like an asshole, he did what he had to do. Just because he asked all of us to stop by, or paid us, doesn’t mean we wouldn’t have done it anyway.” He held his hands up. “That’s all I’ve got to say. You can be angry, you can be upset, but hopefully you’ll see it was all coming from a place of love.”
With that Mitch walked up to her and pulled her in for a hug. Carly didn’t fight him and instead wrapped her arms around him and held onto him tightly.
“I love you, Carly,” he said.
He kissed her on the head, and then he left.
****
Carly was tempted to not go to work. What was the point, Nate was the boss, and he was just going to manipulate everything, even though she’d never actually seen him inside the bar, ever, not as a manager or the owner.
So, she went to work rather than mope around the apartment, missing Sarah. She did miss Sarah, even though she was still angry and hurt by her. She’d already cried a lot and didn’t think the tears were going to come again.
Dalton walked into the bar, and for the first time in a long while he didn’t look ill or worn out. He looked calm, collected, and in control. He took a seat at the bar and locked his fingers together. “Are you going to spit in my drink?” he asked.
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t do that kind of nonsense.” She shook her head.
“I deserve it, so I wouldn’t hold it against you if you did do that,” he said.
Carly shook her head and poured him a beer, and made sure to slide it across to him without spitting in his drink. There was no way she would do that to him or anyone, not even to a rude customer.
“You paid to be here?” Carly asked.
Dalton chuckled. “Probably, but then I’m the kind of guy that has no problem taking a guy’s money. This isn’t a job to me, Carly,” he said.
“When you’re paid to do it, it’s a job.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, well, I came before, even when money wasn’t on the table. I always figured this was Nate’s way of taking care of us.”
Carly stopped and thought about it. She and Nate, together, had always taken care of them all. Even when she had to stay in the system for an additional year, she’d done everything to help them. Once she got out, they had all lived in a small, rundown apartment, a complete shithole, but they made it work. She couldn’t remember how it had all changed, but slowly they had moved on and moved out to where they were now.
But she and Nate had continued to take care of the whole unit.
“You can’t be angry or hurt at Nate forever.”
“You’re going to tell me how I feel now?” Carly asked.
Dalton shrugged. “I mean, I’m not trying to tell you how to feel, but if you think about it, it does make sense.” His brows went up, and she shook her head.
“None of this makes sense.”
“Nate’s crazy about you, and he didn’t want to ruin your friendship. You guys were young, now you’re not, and he cannot stand to see you with other men. It makes a lot of sense to me, and also he was building this shit up. He was making a name for himself, and until he was strong enough, he couldn’t run the risk of you getting hurt. It’s all kind of romantic, if you put a different perspective on it. You can hate us, Carly, but I know you, and you know our situations, none of us are going to turn down money, even when we don’t need it to do things for the people we love. Regardless of what you say, we do love you.”
Dalton picked up his beer and took a sip. He opened his wallet and took out a couple of bills, including plenty of money for the tip.
“If you think about it, we all take care of each other because that is what family does.” He winked at her, and then got to his feet. “And I just want to say that no point of me coming to see you was forced or paid for. I love you, Carly.”
She watched him go, and now she felt tears spring to her eyes for a whole different reason. Dalton had never told her he loved her. She knew it wasn’t love in the way she felt for Nate, but it was that of family, of a sibling. And she loved him as well.
****
Three Days Later
Carly heard the door opening as she stirred the tomato soup she had cooking for herself. There were not a lot of groceries left in the fridge, and she’d used them all up in her soup. She loved doing this, as she hated food waste of any kind.
Sarah had finally returned home. She had no doubt she’d irritated Mitch to the point that he had finally dropped off the other woman.
She didn’t know if she was ready to see her friend, but she heard her footsteps as she padded into the kitchen.
“I can totally understand if you don’t want me home,” Sarah said. “I can find another place to stay. Maybe rent a place until you can forgive me. Mitch can’t stand me. I apparently spray too much perfume, I don’t clean up after myself, and I’m a lousy cook. He also claims that I fart while I sleep, which I take great offense to.”
Carly finally took a deep breath and turned to look at Sarah. She expected to feel anger, maybe even hurt or hatred, but instead she looked at her friend and it felt good to see her.
“Do you want some of my leftover tomato soup?”
“Hell, yeah, you do a fridge raid?” Sarah asked, already pulling out a chair at their small table in the kitchen.
Carly nodded.
“Wait, you didn’t put fish in there again, did you?”
This time, she couldn’t help but laugh. She was once convinced that the best way to use up leftovers was to put them all into a soup. She did this with some leftover fish, tuna from a can, and some shrimp, and yeah, it was the nastiest soup Carly had ever made. She and Sarah did try to eat it, but in the end, they ordered pizza to make up for it.
“No, no fish. I don’t make the same mistake twice.” She served them some soup and placed it in front of Sarah. Carly served herself a bowl and took the seat opposite her.
She looked across the kitchen counter at Sarah, and it was good to see her friend. Although, she could tell Sarah did look a little worse for wear.
“Rough couple of days?” Carly asked.
“The worst. Mitch has a horrible mattress and it has made me feel like I was being stabbed repeatedly. I probably deserved it.” Sarah took a few sips. “This is pretty good.”
Carly smiled.
Silence fell between them.
It wasn’t a bad soup. The vegetables added a new dimension of flavor, and the herbs really rounded out the taste. She loved it.
“Okay, fine, I can’t do this. I love the soup, but I … I was trying to bring you and Nate together. That’s what I tried to do, and it backfired, big time. I didn’t want there to be any more secrets and I thought if you knew the truth, you would fall in love with him.”
“You thought that?” Carly asked.
“The guy is crazy about you. Like, super crazy. He loves you and would do anything for you.” Sarah licked her lips. “I thought if you knew everything he had done, from making sure the guys don’t treat you like crap, to taking care of you with this apartment, even your job, you’d see what kind of guy he was.” She stopped and sighed. “I … I never wanted you to storm out and be hurt. That’s the last thing I wanted.”
“You didn’t think it would hurt me to know I’ve been lied to?”
Sarah scrunched up her face, wrinkling her nose. “Lied to? I don’t feel like you’ve been lied to. Taken care of.”
“Manipulated?”
“Look, I see what you mean, but it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t done with malicious intent. It was all done in the spirit of love and taking care of you. Wanting the best for you.”
Carly laughed. “What about being paid?”
Her friend sighed. “I know that part looks bad, and yes, if you took money to stay with me, I’d be upset, but here’s the thing—it wasn’t about the money.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No, I wanted to stay with you, and then when Nate offered me cash, of course I was going to take it. I’ve been broke. I know what it’s like to go hungry, and even though it happened when I was a kid, before I met you, those feelings haven’t gone away, not once. They’re feelings you never forget, so yes, I work and I save money, and I have fun. The money Nate has given me is in a savings account for a rainy day, just in case everything goes … to shit.” Sarah shrugged. “I know I’m not the best person to plan or be prepared, but I don’t know, I don’t want to go cold and hungry again. You’re my best friend, Carly. I love you, and I want the best for you, and I know there is no man on earth better at taking care of you than Nate. He is the only one that deserves you.”
Carly felt close to tears.
“You know, it hurt thinking that you only hung around with me because of the money.”
“That’s not true. I was never here because of the money. I loved you, but I wasn’t going to tell Nate no. Besides, you know what he’s like when he gets an idea in his head. It wasn’t like I was going to take the money and run away. It was there in case of an emergency, or if you and I had to leave, or something bad happened. I was planning for all eventualities, but hopefully one where neither of us ended up bankrupt.” Sarah shrugged. “I was thinking of the future. Of both of us.”
Carly knew Sarah, and without a single doubt in her mind, her friend was telling her the truth, and she could believe in that.
“I love you, Carly,” Sarah said.
She put down her spoon, shoved out her chair, and then rounded the table to hug Sarah. “I love you too.”
This time, much to Carly’s guilt, Sarah burst into tears.
“I’ve been so afraid of you hating me. I just can’t stand it. I love you and I want what’s best for you and Nate. Please don’t be angry with him.”
She held onto her friend, and knew deep in her heart she couldn’t be angry with him.