Chapter 35
CHAPTER 35
MARIAM
I lay in my bed, sadder and more miserable than I had been in a long time as I stared at Gemma and Laurel’s faces on my screen. What can I say? Misery really does love company.
After propping my phone up against a pillow, I’d crawled under the covers and now my friends were staying up with me while I processed what had just happened. None of us spoke constantly, our conversation more of a companionable silence interspersed with the occasional thoughts we felt we wanted to share.
“I love him,” I murmured, screwing my eyes shut against the pain of making the admission out loud after learning what I had earlier. “I’ve loved him since he showed up in Austin just to have dinner with me.”
“That was pretty amazing,” Gemma said, swiping tears away from below her eyes as she sighed. “Why are men so messy?”
“They’re not messy,” Laurel replied in a tone that was almost completely devoid of emotion, as if she’d shut herself down from the mountains of hurt we’d been flung into this last week. “I think they’re just completely incapable of genuine feelings.”
Gemma frowned. “I don’t know about that. They do seem to have genuine feelings for other things. Like Noah and his damn guitar. He definitely has real feelings about that thing.”
A soft chuckle escaped me as I folded my hands under my tear-stained cheeks and burrowed into my pillow. “Arland for sure has real feelings about his ex. They’re not good feelings, but they’re feelings nonetheless.”
“Yeah, what’s up with that woman?” Laurel asked, grabbing the cushion from behind her on the couch and hugging it to her chest. “She cheated on him. Why on earth is she talking to him about damaging their family name? Running around with a teenager seems a lot more acceptable to me than sleeping with your brother-in-law.”
I shrugged. “Especially if said teenager hasn’t been an actual teenager for a decade, but hey. Apparently, I’m nothing more than the dirty little mistress anyway.”
Gemma gave her head a soft, slow shake. “I’m still not sure I believe that. I mean, when we spoke to him just a couple nights ago, he seemed so into you. He kept stealing these glances at you and he was so nice to us.”
“Maybe the ex just has some intense, left-over jealousy,” Laurel suggested, her eyes narrowing in thought. “Or maybe she’s just crazy.”
“She’s definitely crazy.” And not just because she cheated on a man like Arland with his slimy brother. “There is another possibility, though.”
Both of my friends fell silent as they waited for me to continue. I sighed, hating that I was even thinking this, but I couldn’t completely discount it as a possibility. “Maybe there’s still something going on between them. Maybe that’s why he denied being with me so vehemently, because they’re secretly still together, and who even knows how long it’s been that way?”
Laurel’s eyes widened as far as they could go. “Wow. Do you really think they would do that? Get divorced and then keep fooling around even after she married his brother? That would be… sick, actually.”
“Well, the Stones are one of those old, rich families,” Gemma said. “I’ve watched enough reality shows to know that there can be some weird stuff going on beneath the surface in those.”
“All those shows are scripted,” Laurel said to Gemma before bringing her gaze back to mine. “Look, Mimi. I understand that you have all these questions. Trust me, I really, really understand, but I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. Go and get the facts from him when you’re ready, or don’t.”
“A couple hours ago, I would’ve told you that I already had the facts.” I exhaled deeply through my nose, trying to stem the next flood of tears I felt coming on. “What the heck just happened, guys?”
“No clue,” Gemma said immediately. “Your guess is as good as mine, and that goes for all of us. I mean, a week ago, we were all happy with these guys and now look at us. It’s unbelievable.”
She paused before she glanced at Laurel. “Does that mean you’re going to follow your own advice? Are you going to get the facts from Leif?”
“I don’t know yet,” she mused. “At this point, I feel like I have them. I saw Leif with her, and I saw the lingerie. None of that was a mistake. The sight is burned into my retinas. I wasn’t imagining things.”
“He says there’s another explanation,” I argued lightly, not really knowing if I believed it anymore.
Both Leif and his brother, Jack, had been blowing up my phone ever since Laurel had been in Denver, but while I’d read their messages, I hadn’t taken any of their calls. We’d been too busy with the opening, but moreover, I just didn’t want to be in the middle.
A big part of me really didn’t believe that Leif would’ve been with this other woman when he’d had the opportunity to have a second chance with Laurel, but clearly, I wasn’t the best judge of character. My friend had seen what she’d seen, and while I had my doubts about whether what she’d seen had, in fact, been what she’d thought, it wasn’t my place to question her.
Laurel sighed. “Yeah, I know what he’s saying, but I’m really just trying to make it through the next few days until we’ll all be home for Christmas. Right now, my store is what matters. It has to be. I need to try and put Leif behind me. Obviously, he’s not the same guy he was in high school and I need to get over it.”
I bit my lip so I wouldn’t say anything that would push her when she was obviously still too angry and too heartbroken to consider hearing him out. Honestly, I didn’t even blame her for it. Leif and Laurel had picked up right where they’d left off, and she’d fallen back into love with him as if she’d always just been waiting to do it.
Seeing him like that…
Well, it had sure smashed her heart into millions of little pieces.
Not unlike how I’d felt when Arland had so ferociously denied that he and I could ever be together. I sighed and eventually nodded my agreement with her. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s what we all need to work on, putting them behind us.”
“Exactly,” she replied. “You need to say goodbye to any man who would deny being with you, and frankly, so does Gem. Noah didn’t claim her in public either and Leif and I never even made it that far because he was too busy diddling his damn secretary or whoever she is to put too much thought into where our relationship was going.”
“Except that in Mariam’s case, she asked Arland many times to agree to keep their relationship hidden.” Gemma was quick to remind us all, and it was a valid point. So was Laurel’s. Gemma peered up at me from the screen, evidently not quite done yet. “Questioning things is natural, but don’t do anything you might regret. The dude might seriously just have thought he was doing what you wanted.”
“Would anyone want to be denied like that?” I asked, but it was a rhetorical question because when I’d seen his ex-wife walk up to him with that calculating look in her eyes, I had known trouble was coming.
That was why I’d excused myself from my conversation with his mother to join them. I hadn’t been expecting the trouble to involve me, but as soon as she’d asked that question, I’d dreaded his answer.
In that moment, what could he really have said? Was it unfair of me to have expected him to tell the truth when we’d expressly agreed not to? What would I have done if he’d said yes, implying that I was some kind of teenage mistress?
My phone started buzzing and his name popped up on the screen. I shook my head. It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to call since I’d walked out of that dining room, but I needed a minute.
I was desperately trying to figure out if what we had was real or if I’d made it all up in my head. While I would speak to him again, and not only because he was my boss, I felt like I just really needed at least the night to sort out my thoughts.
Gemma, Laurel, and I stayed up into the early morning hours, going back and forth on each guy and every one of the situations we’d found ourselves in, but by the time we went to sleep, I didn’t think any of us were any closer to finding our own answers. Regardless, speaking to my friends had helped me get my mental ducks into the same room, even if they weren’t quite in a row just yet.
Early the next morning, the sun was still creeping up from behind the mountain my bed looked out on when I woke up. I groaned, rolling over and trying to go back to sleep, but it was useless. As soon as I became conscious again, Arland was back on my mind and not even the gorgeous view could distract me this time.
As much as the snowy mountains and the gorgeous Aspen trees still took my breath away, even they couldn’t erase the hurt that stabbed through my chest like a spear with every breath I took. I sat upright in my bed, tears in my eyes, looking out at the view that should’ve been what I remembered most about my time here.
This was what I’d come here for, after all, seeing all the amazing sights the country had to offer and getting to experience life outside of Austin. After meeting Arland though, all those priorities of mine had shifted and now what I would remember most would always be the time I’d spent with him—and the lies I’d told my brother in order to do it.
The tears pressed harder, welling on my lids. I buried my head in my hands and a sniffle escaped me. Just as my chest started tightening and my throat began to burn, a loud knock sounded from my front door. I frowned, looking up and wondering who might be interrupting my pity party.
“Coming!” I called, quickly dragging myself out of bed before I decided to just let them come back later. It would bug me all day if I didn’t know who had come this morning and I had enough on my mind.
Besides, I was sure it would simply be coffee or breakfast being delivered from either Gemma, Laurel, or both. Arland wouldn’t come here when I hadn’t even been taking his calls, and my parents were probably already halfway back to Austin.
My brother? Well, I doubted he was talking to me right then.
As I opened the door, my jaw dropped. I found myself staring up into Brian’s eyes, and my heart started pounding when I realized what this meant. My brother had come here to talk to me, and unlike Arland, I was going to be honest with him.
Even if I was completely convinced that he was going to kill me.
I swallowed hard, but then I gathered my courage and took a step aside, waving him in. I prayed to God that Brian would be able to find it within himself to forgive me.