14. Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
Now
“Where did you take poor Nina to work for free?” Randi asks when we’ve settled around the kitchen table, eating tuna salad on toast and sipping iced tea.
Theo reclines lazily in a chair and cocks a brow at his mother. “Poor? Did you see that thing she’s lugging around on her hand?”
Randi gives him a sharp look. “Theo.”
Determined as Theo seems to get under my skin, Randi has not brought up my engagement—which I assume is intentional, and it’s also the way I would prefer it. I jump in to answer her question. “We were at Mrs. Wilson’s.”
“Oh, how is Bonnie?” Randi asks. “I worry about her.”
“She seems fine, Mom.” Theo lifts his toast to his mouth. “Especially when she saw who I brought with me.”
“I’m sure.” Randi smiles at me, rolling her glass gently between her palms. “She still asks about you.”
“Really?” I ask, surprised.
“Of course,” she says, as if it should be obvious. “She was so worried about you when your family left. We all were.”
Even as Randi takes a casual sip of tea, I go still, taken aback by the mention of our departure. “Don’t they know what happened?”
Theo and Randi exchange a quick look. I expect Theo to answer, but it’s Randi who does, her voice soft. “Of course not.”
I sit back in my chair, absorbing that. Aside from Theo, the other reason I never planned to return to Amity was that I assumed everyone knew what my mother had done. Even when I was a kid and our families were running the business together, it was the Hoyts that people liked. Randi and Cecil could have aired all our dirty laundry for the whole town to see and nobody would have taken my family’s side—and I wouldn’t blame them.
“I’m sure people have asked,” I say.
“They have, but it’s none of their business.” Randi gives me a soft smile. “I hate the way things ended between us and your parents, Nina, but Cecil and I wouldn’t dream of making it worse by contributing to the gossip mill. We’ve missed you so much.” At that, she casts Theo a meaningful look, and he ducks his head to grab another bite of toast. “You won’t find a person in town who isn’t thrilled to see you.”
It's at odds with every assumption I’ve ever held, but today I’ve been swept into hugs from both her and Mrs. Wilson, each of them acting as if no time had passed at all. And Theo—even as he’s regarded with me with a bit more skepticism, he’s taken me back into the fold, too. He let me see him at work. He brought me back to his childhood home. He’s sitting across from me right now, eating the same tuna salad he used to trade away whenever it was packed in his school lunches.
I walked away, and when nobody followed, I thought that meant they didn’t care.
But maybe they’ve just been waiting for me to turn around.
I clear my throat, ensuring my voice is free of emotion before I respond. “I didn’t plan to come back.”
Randi’s face turns soft, her gaze tinged with sadness. “I know, Nina. Believe me.” She reaches both hands out, laying one on Theo’s arm and the other on mine. It’s the kind of maternal gesture that has always come naturally to her—unlike my mom, whose actions seemed stiff and forced on the rare occasions she attempted to be comforting. “Losing the business was hard, but my biggest regret has always been what happened with you two. It devastated Cecil and me. And Theo—”
Abruptly, he pushes his chair back from the table and gets to his feet. “I’m full. I’m gonna throw my dirty clothes in the truck. Sass, I’ll be outside whenever you’re ready.” He drops a kiss on top of Randi’s head and walks out of the kitchen, never once looking at me.
Randi sighs and gives me a sad smile. “He had a very, very hard time after your family left,” she tells me quietly. “As much as we missed you, I know that it was a thousand times worse for him. I can’t imagine his pain.”
We hear the front door open and close. I glance toward the front window in time to catch of glimpse of Theo’s back as he jogs down the porch steps, and I remember what it was like to be seventeen, constantly peeking outside, full of desperate hope.
Unable to meet her eyes, I’m still looking outside when I admit, “I can.”
***
By the time we go to a couple of other job sites and solve a mulch emergency, afternoon is turning to evening. When we pull into the parking lot of Theo's office, the sun is just beginning to descend in the sky, and the businesses look like they’ve closed for the day. Theo drives his truck toward where my mom’s car was parked earlier, slowing when we pass a sleek black sedan idling near the grass.
Theo leans over to look out my window, his warmth hovering at my shoulder. “Who the hell is that?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
The car’s taillights turn off, and the driver’s door opens. We watch as a man steps out, unfurling his long limbs from the cramped space of the car. When he turns, I let out a loud gasp. “Oh, fuck.”
“What?” Theo demands.
Daniel’s eyes meet mine and immediately go stormy. He’s dressed like he came straight from work, which doesn’t make sense. As he stalks toward the truck, I’m completely frozen, unable to comprehend how he could possibly be here.
He steps up to my side of the truck and gives two hard raps on the window. Theo rolls my window down a couple of inches, and his fingers graze my shoulder as he stretches across my lap. “Hey, man. What can I help you with?”
I surreptitiously shrug off Theo’s hand, but Daniel has already noticed him touching me. His gaze goes even darker, and my stomach twists into a knot. Daniel presses his face up against the window and glares down at me, completely ignoring Theo. “Nina. Get out.”
“Excuse me?” Theo snaps.
Daniel flicks a quick glance at Theo, as if he’s nothing more than a fly on his sandwich. Then he turns his attention back to me. “Come on,” he says, and startles me by yanking open my door. “Now.”
My mind is lagging, trying to catch up with what is happening—how Daniel is here , in a car with Wyoming license plates, standing next to Theo’s truck.
Theo doesn’t seem to be suffering from any shock. He crowds in even closer to me. “Who are you?”
“I'm Nina's fiancé,” he practically spits, “and I had to leave work and fly down here because you’re running around with her.”
“I’ve been running around with her my whole life,” Theo says, which only renews the vigor in Daniel’s glare.
Finally, I find my voice. “How did you know where I was?”
“Your mom can track her car from her phone,” Daniel says, and I close my eyes. Stupid. “She said you were here earlier this week, and she looked today and saw you’d come back.”
“This is Theo,” I say. “We grew up together. We—”
“Yeah. Kelly told me.”
“Nice to meet you,” Theo says with faux cheer. “How was your flight?”
Daniel rolls his eyes before turning his ire back on me. “We can talk about this later, Nina. I don’t have time for this bullshit right now. Let’s go .”
I look at my fiancé. I don’t move, and I don’t say anything because I have nothing to say. I could try to convince him that this isn’t what it looks like, smooth things over like I always do…but I’m simply not interested. Today has drained my already limited reserve of emotional energy. I don’t have anything left.
With Theo’s firm, tense presence behind me, I cross my arms over my chest. “Why didn’t you just call me?”
“I did. You didn’t answer.”
“So you jumped on a plane and came down here?” I ask doubtfully. “You rented a car instead of asking me to pick you up from the airport?”
Daniel’s jaw clenches. “Your mom seemed to think I was going to catch you doing something.”
“Doingwhat? I’ve been here planning our wedding, Daniel.”
He snorts. “Yeah, when you’re not hanging out with a guy who fucked you.”
Before I can react, Theo is out of the car, storming around to my side of the truck. He roughly pushes against Daniel’s shoulder, forcing him to step back from me, and then grabs the collar of his starched shirt. Daniel is taller by several inches, but that doesn’t stop Theo from yanking Daniel close and snarling right in his face: “You aren’t going to talk to her that way.”
"Theo—" I say, but Daniel holds up his hand, and I clamp my mouth shut.
“This isn’t any of your business," he says to Theo.
“Your ass is on my property, so it seems like my business.” He turns his attention to me and says, “You’ve got a real winner here.”
Daniel yanks himself out of Theo’s grip. He runs his hand over his now-rumpled shirt collar, trying to smooth it out. His glare intensifies. “Nina. Let’s. Go.”
I knew I shouldn’t have come to see Theo, and I did it anyway, and here’s the consequence. You’re engaged, I tell myself, staring at Daniel. This is your fiancé. This is your life . Go.
But even as I unbuckle my seat belt and pull my purse over my arm, hesitation saturates my every move. I keep my gaze directed toward the ground, avoiding the two pairs of eyes boring into me. We are cloaked in tense silence as I plant one heel, then the other, carefully into the gravel.
Then Daniel’s patience seems to run out. In two quick strides, he closes the distance between us. He grabs me roughly by the elbow, his fingers digging into my skin as he yanks me forward. Legitimate fear strikes my chest, and then I feel Theo at my side.
“Get your fucking hands off her,” comes his sharp demand, and in the next second, I’m released from Daniel’s grasp. Theo shoves him back but doesn’t follow. Instead, he plants himself in front of me. “She’s not going with you, dickhead. Leave.”
Daniel’s face is beet-red. Over Theo’s shoulder, he fixes me with his steely glare. “He speaks for you now?”
Theo glances back at me before shifting almost imperceptibly to the right. He’s still guarding me, but I know the message he’s sending with the movement: if I want him to let me through, he will.
I can still feel the phantom press of Daniel’s fingertips in the skin of my arm. I search his face for a hint of regret, but every feature is locked into that hard, impenetrable expression. He’s never grabbed me like that before. Maybe he never would again. But the residual adrenaline from split second of fear is still pounding through my veins, and in that moment, I make a decision.
I step out from behind Theo. He inhales sharply, his hand still partially extended, ready to get between me and Daniel. We happen to glance at each other at the same time, and the moment our eyes meet, the tension ebbs out of Theo’s body. He nods, I relax minutely, and I turn back to Daniel.
“No,” I respond to Daniel’s question. “He doesn’t. But neither do you.”
And I tug off my engagement ring.
Daniel blanches, his lips moving soundlessly for several moments. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
I look down at the ring, held between my thumb and forefinger. It glints in the fading sunlight, its center jewel downright gaudy in a way I’ve never noticed before.
“I’m not kidding,” I say. “This isn’t going to work out.”
Daniel’s face contorts, somehow grows even redder, and then he’s screaming at me: “You’re white fucking trash, Nina Sullivan. You come from nothing and if you leave me, that’s right back where you’re headed.”
He continues on, cursing, waving his arms, as my conscious mind lifts from my body and watches the surreal scene from above. Buttoned-up Daniel standing in a dusty parking lot with a mussed suit, completely flying off the handle. Theo nudging me in the side, murmuring, “Get back in the truck,” under his breath. Me ambling into the passenger seat as he hurries back to his side.
The truck is still running, and Theo shifts it into drive. Before he takes his foot off the brake, though, he pauses. “You sure about this?”
“Yes.”
We begin to move, and I belatedly realize that I’m still grasping the ring. I stick my hand through the narrow space at the top of the window and let it fall to the ground.
“Nina!” Daniel shouts again, but his voice is already fading. I look in the mirror and find him standing there with one hand on his hip, the other clutching his phone, as if he’s about to call my mother and tattle on me. “I’m not taking you back if you don’t get out of that truck right fucking now!”
I roll the window up, and his voice disappears. Theo pulls out onto the road, and I let out a breath that’s louder than the blasting air conditioner. Feeling numb, I stare out the windshield at the asphalt rolling beneath us. “I just ruined my life."
“Nah," Theo says. "You just got it back."