Chapter 56
Fifty-Six
Louise
“Ijust… I don’t get it?” Willow mutters from where she’s sitting at the head of my bed.
Liv nods, sinking onto the edge of the bed.
I’m lying in the center of it, tucked in the fetal position. My head is pounding, my eyes feel like sandpaper, and still I haven’t stopped crying.
“He just… I’m so fucking confused,” Willow continues, her tone one of disbelief.
I’m still feeling that same confusion. None of it makes sense.
“How do you go from ‘Missing you’ and ‘Can’t wait to kiss you’, to blocked in such a short amount of time?” I whisper, like I haven’t asked the same question a dozen times already. I still don’t have an answer. “How was I so wrong you guys? How was I so stupid—”
“You did nothing wrong and you weren’t stupid,” Liv says gently, laying down to face me. She tucks my hair back away from my cheek. “I still think something happened at that court hearing.”
“But why wouldn’t he talk to me? If something happened, why did he push me away after promising he wouldn’t…”
“I don’t know, babe,” Willow says, rubbing my back as fresh tears start again.
God, I’m so tired of crying. I’ve been crying for days. Fucking days, goddammit. He’s not worth all these tears!
There’s a knock on the front door, but before any of us can move, the sound of the door opening and closing meets us. I groan. Only one person would come in unannounced—
She harrumphs when she gets to the bedroom doorway, bracing her hands on her hips. “Let’s go, Louise. Get out of bed. We’re not wallowing away pining after any man.”
“Grandma Jude—”
“Nope, I don’t want to hear it,” she grouses, stepping over to the edge of the bed.
She snaps her fingers at me. “No granddaughter of mine is going to let a man break her like this. He wanted to walk away, we’re gonna let him, but we’re not going to lay in this bed one more day.
You’re going to get up, take a shower, brush through that tangled mess of hair. When was the last time you ate?”
“At least two days ago,” Liv whispers, and I kick at her while remaining where I lay. Traitor.
Grandma Jude tsks, wandering around my bedroom, gathering dirty clothes in a basket tucked under her arm. “Come on. Shower. Then we’re going for lunch.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” I whine, letting my body hang like deadweight when Willow tries to sit me up. “My head hurts.”
“Well, that’s what you get for crying and carrying on. Take some Tylenol and put your granny panties on.”
“I think the saying is ‘put your big girl panties on’, Grandma Jude,” Liv giggles.
Grandma Jude just waves her hand dismissively before disappearing out of the room. I hear my washer lid clang open, and then the water as it starts pouring into the drum. A minute later, the lid closes with another metallic clang, and then Grandma is back.
“Louise Nicole Miller,” she barks, and for the first time, I heed the warning in her voice. Oh shit. Hands on her hips, she glares down at me as I scramble to sit up. “Don’t make me count to three, young lady. I said get up; I mean it.”
I scoot to the edge of the bed and stand, my legs wobbling. My grandma steps in front of me and cups my cheeks in her weathered, wrinkled hands, her thumbs smoothing over my tear swollen cheeks.
“My sweet, tender-hearted girl,” she whispers, her eyes softer than before.
“I know your heart is hurting, and your pride is bruised.” I nod in her hands, fighting another wave of tears.
I blink at them, but several slip down my cheeks, and she swipes them away gently.
“You have a courage in you, my darling girl, that so many lack. The courage to love, really love with your whole being… even when there’s a risk of having your heart broken…
it’s going to find its way back to you. You keep loving with that big heart of yours, Lou, because that love is going to be returned to you tenfold. You hear me?”
I nod, more tears sliding down my cheeks unchecked. A sob cracks my chest. “I really loved him. And the girls.” My grandma pulls me into her arms, letting me cry. “I miss them so much.”
“I know,” she whispers. “So, we’re going to have one last cry, then we’re going to wash our face, yes, and then we’re going to let the hurt go.”
“Okay,” I whisper, nodding again. I take a deep breath and straighten, swiping my palms under my eyes. “I’m going to take a shower.”
I leave my grandma and my two best friends in the bedroom, closing the bathroom door behind me. I turn the shower on, find a towel, and then grab a eucalyptus shower steamer from the drawer.
I hope Abigail got to pack all the steamers I gave her.
Unwrapping it, I toss it into the bottom of the shower and then step in. I don’t let myself sit. I don’t let myself cry.
It’s a small, small win.
After my shower, I brush through my hair for the first time in days, detangling the mess as I go. There’s honestly not much I can do for the puffiness beneath my eyes from crying, but a little concealer helps combat most of it, at least.
When I exit the bathroom wrapped in a towel, I hear the three women in the living room, so I pad across the hall and get dressed. It’s cold again today, November coming in with a vengeance after the mild fall we enjoyed.
I pretend not to notice that the last day of real sunshine was the day of Zach’s court hearing. Like somehow the sky even knows all the light has gone.
I drag on a pair of wide legged jeans and a warm, comfortable sweater in a deep merlot color before twisting my hair into a braid. I finally step out of the bedroom, feeling slightly more human than before.
My stomach growls, and I hate to admit just how hungry I am.
“Lunch,” Grandma Jude says, and I agree. Pulling a jacket on, I slip my feet into low heeled booties, and then the four of us are out the door. “Anything specific sound good?”
I glance at the clock on the dashboard, then look at Willow. “We could go bug Luck.”
“Excellent,” Willow chuckles, nodding. Grandma Jude tucks herself into the front passenger seat.
Twenty minutes later, the four of us are bellied up to the bar of The Pub, Willow’s boyfriend’s Irish bar, and I have a giant jalapeno and cream cheese stuffed soft pretzel and a tequila sunrise in front of me.
Reeve Luck is the kind of grumpy that even Zach couldn’t match, but somehow Willow softens him. He still calls us trouble when we walk in, but now it’s laced with affection instead of disdain.
A vast improvement.
Luck pushes a water in front of me when I get to the bottom of the tequila sunrise quicker than I should have, the straw slurping against the ice cubes. I wrinkle my face at him, but he taps the glass with his finger before heading down the long bar to another group that had just sat down.
“He’s bossy without even saying a single word,” I grumble at Liv, who snickers behind a bite of her nachos.
Grandma Jude has a vodka tonic and a heaping bowl of white chicken chili. I steal a tortilla chip off her plate and she slaps the back of my hand. “Get your own.”
Willow slides her basket of deep-fried cheese curds over to me. “I won’t be able to eat them all.”
Two hours later, we’re rolling with laughter, probably one too many drinks in, and for a little while, I feel better. The ache doesn’t seem to be suffocating, at least for a little while. Luck stands in front of us, drying a glass with a microfiber towel.
With golden brown eyes the color of whisky, dark auburn hair, and freckles for days, he genuinely looks the part of an Irish pub owner.
I’m pleasantly buzzed, and I eye him up and down, using the straw from my third tequila sunrise like a baton, I wave it at him.
Sucking down my fourth drink, I mutter across the bar at him, “You know, you’re too tall to be a lep–” hiccup, “–leprechan.”
Willow chokes on her drink, and Luck just rolls his lips in between his teeth. “Thank you for letting me know, Lou.”
Liv cackles from beside me, then drapes her arm over my shoulder. “Maybe we’re ready to be done, yeah?”
“We haven’t even done shots yet.”
“Oh no,” Willow laughs, shaking her head. “Absolutely not. We had lunch and drinks. No shots. Do you want to wait outside while we pay the bill?”
“You guys are babying me,” I mutter, but nod. Liv is driving, having agreed to be our DD for the afternoon after my second drink. Probably a good idea. “I’ll go sit on the bench outside.”
“I’m going to use the little girls’ room,” Grandma says, then slides off her barstool. Liv goes with her while Willow pays and says bye to Luck, and I head outside.
I lean against one of the brick pillars outside, letting my head rest against it so that I can stare up at the evening sky. The sun is setting behind another gloomy, cloud filled horizon.
I hear footsteps on the pavement and turn my head, a jogger is coming down the sidewalk, sneakers slapping against the cold concrete. A pair of dark glasses sit on his face, and a set of headphones are on his head as he runs.
I’m just buzzed enough to hope and pray that it’s my consumption tricking my eyeballs, but no such luck.
Joel spots me and I stand a little straighter, my eyes tracking around him like Zach might pop up at any moment. Oh fuck.
He slows, pulling the headphones off his head and draping them around his neck as he nears. His breathing is labored from the pace, and when he stops next to me, he grins while catching his breath.
“Hey, Peach,” he says, then those dark, kind eyes meet mine, and I hate the pity I see in them. He rubs at the back of his neck awkwardly, and I realize he and Zach do the same thing. “I’m sorry. For how Zach’s handling this. He’s uh… he’s struggling.”
I shrug my shoulders, swallowing hard. Good. I hope he is. I hope he’s hurting just as bad as I am.
Guilt swamps me then, and I take it all back. That’s not the kind of person I am, and I don’t want to wish ill on him…
“It’s not my story to tell, and I don’t agree with how he’s going about this,” he mutters, looking at me again. “It was worse than we thought, Lou. And that’s not an excuse… Anyway. He’s an idiot, and he’s gonna figure that out. I just hope it’s not too late. Don’t… don’t give up on him, okay?”
I nod, tears stinging my nose. Digging into the purse strung across my body, I pull out a small manilla envelope and hold it out to him.
“Umm, I don’t know if he’ll still use them, but I promised I’d give him tickets for the girls to come to the Princess Dinner in a few weeks.
They just gave us the tickets a few days ago, but I didn’t know how to get them to him and honestly even if he does bring them it might just kill me to see them and not be able to… to…”
Joel takes the narrow envelope and taps the corner of it into his other palm, his gaze steady on me. I blink back tears, then swipe at them angrily when they track down my cheeks. Goddammit.
“Grandma Jude is going to yell at me,” I mutter brokenly, forcing a laugh. “I’m not supposed to be crying anymore.”
I can sense Joel wants to say something more, but the door behind us opens and my three compadres exit the bar.
He pulls me into his chest—sweaty from his run—and then chuffs me under the chin. Such a brotherly act and it makes me laugh again, and then he’s off.