Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
LAUREL
C hristmas really was the most wonderful time of the year. Or at least, it had been before Leif had gone and ruined my all-time favorite holiday.
It was ironic that this was the same guy who had ruined my life all those years ago, and here he was, ruining the festive freaking season for me now. The weirdest part of it was that I hadn’t blamed him for what had happened between us before, but these last few days, I’d been thinking back to the finer details of our previous breakup and I’d realized that it’d been at least ninety percent him.
All his apologies after he’d come back into my life rang hollow now, meaningless words meant to draw me back in just because he could. Or maybe not. Maybe there was more to it.
I didn’t know anymore.
Sitting cross-legged on my bed back at my mother’s house in Austin, I stared at my dresser across the room and all the pictures of Leif and me still stuck into the ornate, white metal frame. My last tears had dried on my cheeks, but more welled in my eyes as I stared at our smiling faces, wondering why this kept happening to me.
As soon as I started believing I might have a shot at a happily ever after with a guy, he decided I wasn’t good enough. Leif had done it when we’d been teenagers. We’d spent years idly dreaming about our future together, and while no one would’ve been able to predict what had been coming our way, our future had been torn away from us on the same day as our fathers.
I hadn’t realized it at the time, of course, especially not after he’d done so much to try and help me, but our relationship had ended the day of the fire. Leif had made sure of it. He’d put so many miles of distance between us that, in the end, not even the best civil engineer in the world would’ve been able to build a road or a bridge that would cross it.
I sniffled, pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes. They were so swollen and sore from all the crying that my face felt like it’d been stung by hornets, but I wasn’t a quitter—I kept crying. Like the little engine that could.
After Leif had gone to such extraordinary lengths to shove me right out of his life, often even deliberately turning and walking the other way if he saw me coming, it had taken me years to recover. Truth be told, during that time, I’d dated some, but my heart had still been with him, my first love.
The guy I had dreamed I would be with all my life. At such a young age, nothing had been cut and dry, of course, but he had been the only person I had ever been with and the only one I had ever wanted to be with. It had been inconceivable to me that things had really been over, and as a result, I’d struggled to move on.
That had still been true when I’d met Neil, but I’d decided to change things up with him in the hopes that I might finally find someone to love who wasn’t Leif. I’d told Neil all about my relationship with him, including how and why we’d ended, and he’d had the patience of a saint trying to help me navigate the residual grief about my dad and my ex.
Or so I’d thought. There’s a definite theme here.
It had turned out that he hadn’t been patient at all. With me, he’d pretended to be, but I was only the birdie with the broken wing he was nursing back to health while simultaneously making promises about a future together to at least one other girl.
Fun. Fun. Fun.
That experience had only strengthened my belief that I had not been built for jumping around between relationships, going from one guy to the next trying to find the one. Deep down inside, I’d believed it had been because I’d already met the one.
All of which brought me back to Leif.
A cheater. How did I never see that one coming?
I’d known the guy most of my life and I’d never pegged him as the type to be unfaithful. I supposed no one ever did, though. As far as I knew, not many people could claim to have entered into a relationship certain that their significant other would cheat on them.
Perhaps it came as somewhat less of a shock sometimes, but for me? It had knocked the wind right out of my sails. Shaken the ground I stood on and irrevocably altered my hard-won ability to trust.
But even so, I needed to start putting it behind me. I had to look up, look forward, and take at least that precious first step toward my future.
A future I would be living in yet another after . This had definitely been a defining point in my life once again, a fracture that would divide everything into the before and the after, but as I had some experience with those, I decided to take that first step right now.
I’d moped around for long enough, and while I would undoubtedly keep moping, I had to at least feel like I had also done something productive to put in the getting through it category.
Nodding to myself, I wiped my eyes, rolled off the bed, and strode over to my wardrobe. There was no better time than now to try and get myself out of this funk, and the best way I could think of to do that was to check the last item off my naughty list.
I pulled the box out and went back to my bed, glad I’d brought it along despite serious misgivings about whether I should. Holding my breath, I stuck my hand in and pulled out the list, feeling a surge of excitement over finally getting to see what my last challenge would be.
Have sex in a public place.
I felt my stomach plummet. Really?
As I tried to process that my last item was going to be the reason I failed to complete my portion of the list, my bedroom door opened and Gemma’s face popped around it. She sent me a sympathetic smile before producing an overnight bag from behind her back and holding it up.
“Your mom invited us over for dinner,” she said. “We also took some initiative and decided to turn it into a sleepover. I’ve got face masks and nail polish for mani-pedis. I hope you’re ready, babe. We’ve got quite the night planned for you.”
She pushed open the door to reveal Mariam standing behind her, also holding an overnight bag. They marched into my room and plopped down on my bed. Mariam came to sit beside me, grabbing a pillow of her own to hug as she reclined against my headboard.
Gemma spread out across the foot of the bed. She swiped her tongue across her lips, reluctance in the lines around her eyes, but in true Gemma style, she blew right past it. “So, uh, Jack has been calling me.”
“Welcome to the club,” Mariam said. “Those boys are persistent with a capital P.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, guys. I’ll text them both and tell them to leave you alone.”
“Well, actually,” Gemma said quickly. “I’ve been thinking that maybe, if nothing else, you could hear Jack out. You already know he was with you when all this happened and I’ve read his texts. I’ve even spoken to him. He insists that it wasn’t what you thought.”
“Don’t they always?” I asked no one in particular. “It just seems to me that it’s kind of the done thing , isn’t it? To try to pretend there was something else going on.”
“Sure,” Mariam agreed, hesitating for just a moment before she shook her head and brought her gaze to mine. “The thing is that I’ve read Jack’s texts too and I believe him, Laurel. What he said to me makes a lot of sense.”
“Yeah, what’s that?” Gemma asked, happily taking the question right out of my mouth so I didn’t have to force myself to speak again. “All he told me was that it wasn’t what it looked like and that they could explain, but that Leif loves Laurel and he’d never do that to her.”
“I got that message too,” Mariam said softly. “I also got one saying that we have to remember that Leif has a past from the time when he and Laurel weren’t together, and that sometimes, the past catches up to a person when you least expect it, but that doesn’t mean you want it back.”
I frowned. “What the hell does that mean? And why is he being so cryptic?”
Gemma shrugged. “We could ask him. I could call him back right now, put him on speaker, and tell him to explain himself.”
My insides went ice cold. I desperately, truly didn’t want to be lied to, but at the same time, I’d been getting the feeling that there had been more to what I’d seen that day. If nothing else, hearing the full truth about whether it’d been a one-time thing or a relationship would help me move on.
Even if it would also tear apart the very last parts of me that remained intact. But I wanted to hear the story. Better than anyone else, I knew the importance of a story and seeing it through to the end.
I needed to know as much as I could if I had any hope of healing from this. I couldn’t be left with all these questions and what-ifs. As a reader, it would’ve driven me nuts. As a writer? My whole being insisted on every story getting its ending. And finally, as a person, I just wasn’t wired to live with the incomplete. And this thing between Leif and me definitely felt incomplete.
“Do it,” I said quickly before I could change my mind. “Call him back. I might not say anything, but put him on speaker.”
Gemma nodded, slid her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans, and placed it between us at the center of the bed. Opening her missed calls, she tapped on Jack’s name, then hit the speaker button straight after.
He answered fast. “Gemma? Look, I know you asked me to leave you alone, and I will, but we still can’t reach Laurel and we’re worried as hell about her. She didn’t see what she thought she saw, Gem. It might’ve looked like Leif was cozying up to that succubus, but he wasn’t. She needs to know that.”
I wasn’t sure what a succubus was but it didn’t sound like a compliment. My gaze flicked up to Gemma’s, but I wasn’t ready to speak just yet. Mariam glanced between the two of us before she leaned over a little, tucking her hair behind her ears and giving the phone a stern look.
“Stop being cryptic, Jack McIntosh. It’s not cute. Laurel is fine. She’s okay. In pain, but not physically hurt. She’s with us right now and she’s listening, but she doesn’t want to talk to you dirty dogs.”
Jack groaned, his voice suddenly softer and gentler than I’d probably ever heard it before. “Lulu? Thank God, you’re okay. We’ve been so worried.” He paused for a beat. “This isn’t my story to tell, but the truth is that the woman you saw in Leif’s office was there for a meeting with him and HR. Our human resources rep was on the phone, which is why you didn’t see him, and Leif has since fired that woman.”
“She worked for you?” I blurted out, my head spinning. “What the hell , Jack?”
“It’s a long story, but will you please just hear him out? He loves you and he’s not cheating on you. He’d never do something like that. It’s killing him that you think he did. It’s killing him not to be speaking to you, period. All of this is hurting the crap out of him and I’m willing to bet it’s the same for you, but it’s all a misunderstanding. Please just give him a chance to explain.”
“Well, it’s killing me too,” I said softly, the pain like a giant shadow that hung between me and the world these days. “He knows where I live, though. He could’ve shown up here if he really wanted to talk.”
“I’m sure he would’ve if we were already there, but we’re not. We’re still on the plane.”
Making a snap decision I knew I might live to regret, I squeezed my eyes shut and took the leap, my heart pounding against my ribs. “Fine. Tell him I’ll meet him at Plato Coffee tomorrow morning at nine.”
“I’ll pass on the message,” he said, sounding relieved. “Thanks, Laurel. I promise you won’t regret this. It really wasn’t anything close to what you think it was. We’ve exorcised that she-demon out of our lives.”
I sighed but leaned over and ended the call. My hands shook as I tried to process just the little bit of information Jack had given us. There was an HR rep on the phone? The woman worked for them and they’ve fired her?
“I’d ask for the call record to prove there really was someone on the phone,” Gemma volunteered.
Mariam grinned. “I like it. We could ask them to show us the receipts. To prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he’s not a low-life cheater.”
I shook my head, big, fat tears welling in my eyes as I sagged against the headboard. “If I can’t trust his word when I’m looking him in the eyes, there’s no point in even agreeing to hear him out.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to?” Gemma asked. “Trust him, I mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “All I know is that it hurt so much to lose him the first time, and losing him again really is killing me. I never got over him. I thought I did, but it turns out I was just fooling myself. If I don’t hear him out and I can’t look him in the eyes and trust what he’s telling me, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to move on. With or without him.”
“Maybe you don’t have to,” Mariam said. “Maybe it’s not what you think.”
“Or maybe it is,” I countered miserably. “Maybe fairy tale endings only belong in my bookshop. The jury’s still out on that one, but I need to do this. I can’t just sit around moping and crying and pining for the rest of my life. Just before you guys got here, I decided I had to start being proactive about healing, and getting the truth has just become the first real step.”
Gemma reached out and squeezed my hand, tears shimmering in her eyes. She nodded before she released me and sat up. “Right. Should we see if we can squeeze in a face mask before it’s time to go downstairs for dinner, or do you guys want to start with our toenails? I know it’s winter, but that’s no excuse for ugly toes, ladies. Whatever happens tomorrow morning, you’re going to look damn good.”