Chapter Two
Silas
PRESENT DAY
Eight Years After The Wedding
“Aundrea, please. Don’t do this,” I plead for the fifth time, feeling helpless and desperate as my fiancée packs her suitcase. She carefully removes a shirt from the hanger and folds it neatly before adding it to the others.
“It’s not workin’ out, Silas. It hasn’t for a while and neither of us have wanted to admit it, but if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll see I’m right.” She glances at me with pity in her brown eyes. “Better to realize it before the wedding than after.”
The wedding that’s scheduled to happen in two weeks.
I hear the words coming out of her mouth, but I can’t comprehend how she can say them so cold and emotionless as if they aren’t driving a dagger through my aching heart.
“You’ll thank me once you realize how wrong we were for each other. Once we spend some time apart, you’ll realize movin’ on was the right choice.”
She says it like she already has.
“How can you say that?” The anger building in my chest threatens to spill out.
“I’ve gone above and beyond to do everythin’ to make you happy.
Shit, I changed jobs to work with your dad since you said I didn’t make enough money.
I gave up my apartment to move into your fancy-ass house ’cause you said mine was too small. What more do you want?”
She zips up her Louis Vuitton bag before setting it on the floor with a thud. It’s the first time she’s using it since it was meant for our honeymoon. It took me six months to save up the money to buy it for our anniversary and now I’m wishing I hadn’t.
No matter what I bought her, it was never enough or something her father couldn’t buy her without having to max out a credit card. Though I tried to make her happy in other ways, I shouldn’t be surprised at her expensive taste when we met on a sugar daddy dating app.
Warren dared me to sign up when we were drunk one night, and after I dared him to pierce his dick, I couldn’t chicken out. But I never thought I’d match with someone and it’d turn into more.
She knew I wasn’t rich before our relationship progressed and she reassured me it wasn’t an issue.
We fell in love and that’s why I proposed.
I wanted to spend forever together. But maybe that’s why I was so blinded by how she treated me, always wanting more than I could give her and pushing me to be someone I’m not.
“I’m gonna stay at a hotel while you pack your things, but please be gone by Monday.”
“That’s it?” I throw up my arms still in disbelief. “You’re throwin’ away two years with no emotion?”
She wraps a dark strand of perfectly straight hair behind her ear and purses her red-stained lips. “We haven’t been intimate in six weeks and the last time you tried to be spontaneous, you took me out into the woods to have sex in the back of your truck. We’re not compatible.”
“It’s the busy season! Your dad has me workin’ overtime,” I explain, although she already knows since she’s the receptionist at his home construction company.
“And I made up for the woods incident, didn’t I?
Not much I can do when I don’t get home until after eight and then gotta be back to work at six.
Then you go out with your friends on the weekends, so… ”
“I always invite you to come with me and you rarely do.”
“That’s ’cause none of your friends can hold their liquor and I always end up babysittin’ ’em. Why the hell would I wanna do that every weekend? Especially since you ditch me most of the time and end up on the dance floor surrounded by other men.”
“God forbid I wanna let loose and hang out with my friends,” she says dramatically. “I’m not gonna apologize for havin’ a social life.”
“You know that’s not what I’m sayin’.” I fold my arms across my chest, staring down at the woman I asked to marry me only a year ago. Admittedly, things have shifted between us in the past few months, but I thought it was pre-wedding stress.
“It doesn’t matter anyway.” She shrugs mindlessly, lifting the suitcase handle and walking toward me. “I’m sorry for hurtin’ you, I truly am. You’re a great man, but not the right one for me and that’s why I can’t go through with it. I wish you the best.”
She leans up in her four-inch heels and presses a soft kiss to my cheek. “Bye, Silas.”
If she were truly apologetic, she wouldn’t be giving me a two-day notice to move out. On top of that, I’m going to have to find a new job. There’s no way I’m going to walk in each day and see her behind the reception desk, pretending we weren’t supposed to build a life together.
After a couple days of packing boxes and feeling sorry for myself, I finally load up my truck and drive away from the place I’ve called home for almost two years.
I haven’t had the energy to tell Warren or my family, but they’ll find out soon enough. From either a “change of address” text or showing up and begging them to let me stay with them.
Before I chicken out, I drive to Warren and Maisie’s house. I feel bad invading their Sunday together, but after what I dealt with when Maisie left, he owes me.
Thankfully, Warren put his energy into building his house and stopped drinking so much. He refused to date or move on from Maisie even after she sent him divorce papers several times.
She returned a few months ago, demanding he finally sign them so she could marry another man. He asked her to give him one week to prove they were still meant to be together and make her doubt getting divorced. I thought he was crazy for thinking she’d change her mind, but she did.
They’re in a much better place than they were seven years ago. Although they’re newly reunited after being estranged for so long, you couldn’t tell they spent time apart. Still madly in love and obsessed with each other.
I knock twice on the door and am greeted by Warren’s sleepy face.
“Silas?”
“Hey, sorry it’s so early. Can I come in?”
His rooster crows in the distance. He has half a dozen chickens in the fenced-in area next to his cabin. I’d usually say hi to them, but I’m not feeling it today.
“Yeah, of course.” He steps back so I can enter and then closes the door behind me. “Everythin’ okay?”
It’s been a couple weeks since we last saw each other but since my bachelor party is supposed to be next weekend, we’ve been making plans over text.
Two weekends ago, Maisie threw him a surprise birthday party and he was suspicious when Aundrea didn’t come with me.
I didn’t tell him we were going through a rough patch because I was hopeful it was only temporary.
“Not really,” I admit, following him into the kitchen where I smell bacon and sausage. “This wasn’t somethin’ I wanted to tell you over the phone.”
“Shit, that sounds serious.” Warren crosses his arms and leans against the counter while I sit at the breakfast bar. “What happened?”
“Aundrea called off the weddin’.”
Even saying the words aloud has my lungs burning and my chest aching. It still doesn’t feel real.
“Shit, dude. Do you know why?”
“Things have been rocky for a while. She says we’re not compatible and basically said it was better to end things before the weddin’ than after.
I have a feelin’ she wanted a wealthier version of me and not the me who worked ten plus hours a day.
I guess she had enough of me not being able to give her what she wanted—a sugar daddy. ”
Warren gives me a look that resembles the same look I used to give him: pity.
And I hate it.
“Yeah, so…now I’m out of a job and place to live.”
He cracks a few eggs and starts scrambling them.
Before he can respond, Maisie enters with a wide grin. “Two hot men in my kitchen and the delicious smell of food? Have I died and woken up in a romance novel?”
I’d laugh if my heart wasn’t shattered into a million pieces. She’s a literary agent and loves reading, so I’m used to her talking about books.
“Mornin’, baby.” Warren gives her a quick kiss before sharing the devastating news. “Aundrea and Silas broke up.”
She gasps, directing her gaze toward me. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” She wraps her arms around my shoulders, and although I appreciate the sentiment, it makes me feel like an even bigger loser.
“He needs a place to crash for a bit,” Warren tells her. “We could set up an air mattress in the library or living room until he finds his own place.”
“I don’t wanna be an inconvenience,” I argue, especially since I know they’re fucking every single chance they have. They’ve been making up for lost time, which is why I haven’t seen my best friend very much. “I can stay at a motel.”
“Absolutely not.” Warren shakes his head, handing Maisie and me a plate of food. He knows I can’t afford it either, but I’d rather go into debt than hear them having sex every night. “We’ll figure it out.”
“What about Posey?” Maisie asks, and I quickly shake my head, but she ignores it. “She has a spare bedroom, and did I hear you need a job? She was just tellin’ me she’s still lookin’ for extra help at the goat farm.”
“Maze…that’s not a good idea,” Warren warns.
“Why not? It’s perfect! He doesn’t wanna sleep on an air mattress anyway.”
Warren glances at me, and I sigh. “She’ll never agree to it.”
Maisie furrows her brows. “How come?”
“Posey’s not his biggest fan,” Warren tells her. “She crushed on him all through high school and teased her like a little sister. But when he never reciprocated those feelings, she refused to be ’round him.”
That’s not exactly the truth…but I don’t correct him.
“That was years ago. Surely she’s not still upset about it.” Maisie glances between us.
“Trust me, she is,” I say, stabbing a piece of my sausage. Posey and I rarely cross paths, but when we do, she avoids my gaze. “She hasn’t talked to me in years.”
“Years?” Maisie gasps. “That can’t be right.”
“It’s true,” Warren confirms, sitting next to her with his food. “Posey deemed him enemy number one. Anytime he’s with me, she leaves or blatantly ignores him.”