Chapter 14 That Tense Afternoon in Spring
That Tense Afternoon in Spring
Callan
Getting ice cream with Jeremy tagging along was a strange experience.
It certainly wasn’t what I’d had in mind when I’d invited the girls to town. The plan had been, well… a date…of sorts. I wanted to test the water and see how Erin and I got along outside the comfort of the house and our familiar patterns of friendship.
Too many hours alone with too much time to think had me questioning why her finger had played with the top button of my shirt. Her quick breaths had whispered too close to my neck. Maybe…she liked me, too?
Delusional.
I expected Erin’s rejection when I finally spat out the truth about my feelings, but her friendship was just as important to me as wanting more.
I didn’t want to lose her. I couldn’t. The bone-deep panic of never seeing another smile—or even getting one of those cursed Unscrambles—stopped me from speaking up.
But the longer I forced myself to stay away from Erin, the more my heart knotted in my chest. My body operated on autopilot, and the only path programmed into me was hiking down the hill to the cottage.
I almost knocked on the door yesterday to ask her if she’d go to dinner with me.
Almost. A moment of sanity had stalled me, and I’d turned around and gone home before I’d made a complete ass of myself.
And now he was here.
As smug as ever, wearing his posh clothes and designer sunglasses, Jeremy swaggered around town as if he were a movie star.
He couldn’t get his shirt wrinkled, of course, so Matilda was propped on my hip after she’d wailed and stomped her feet because she refused to take another step if she was wearing her clear jelly sandals.
“But you love your jellies,” Erin said.
The little girl stuck her nose in the air and folded her arms. “Matilda love pink boots!”
This was a kid after my own heart. Sturdy boots would never do her wrong in these parts. “We can go stomping in the mud later,” I whispered to her.
“To forest?” She smiled sweetly, running a tiny finger down the scar on my cheek.
“Sure.”
Matilda was happy and bouncing around again by the time we got to the ice cream shop. The customers loved her. Grinning at anyone who’d look at her, she twirled to show off her dress and the pink unicorn charms dangling from her new bracelet.
Erin hadn’t smiled once.
She was putting on a brave face, keeping her head held high and glaring at Jeremy every time he dared to open his mouth, but underneath, she was rattled.
He was so close. Her fingers knotted in her cardigan, and she clung to my side as Matilda hopped along the freezer choosing ice cream flavors for her cup.
“Matilda have choc—”
“No, princess,” Jeremy interrupted. “You say, ‘I want,’ when you choose something.”
She nodded, jabbing her stubby finger at the glass. “Matilda want choc chip and strawberry and—”
Erin bent down and whispered, “Just one scoop, okay?”
“Two.” Matilda’s bottom lip popped out.
“It’s a special treat,” Jeremy urged Erin. “Let her have two.”
I took a step forward, ready to bark at him for overruling her like that, but Erin stood tall. He hadn’t shaken her.
“One,” she repeated to Matilda, ignoring the moron next to her. “But you can choose a topping or some candies to sprinkle on top.”
Matilda bounced up and down. “Marshmallows?”
“Sure.” Erin grinned at me. “Even though I know we’re absolutely going to regret her having all this sugar later.”
Grinning back, I was about to tap my card to pay for everything, but I slid a reluctant glance at Jeremy. “You getting one?” I asked him.
“I’m watching my macros…” he muttered.
My eyebrow lifted. His…what?
He tossed back his hair and leaned his hip against the counter. “I’ll grab a flat white,” he purred to the barista. “With almond milk.”
He winked at her as he flashed his platinum card, and my head just about snapped off because I whipped around so fast to see if Erin had caught his obnoxious flirting. Nope. She was too busy hustling Matilda to the booth in the corner.
“Here to win back your wife, huh?” I mumbled under my breath as I headed over. “What a load of shit.”
There was no room left beside Erin for Jeremy to squeeze in.
She’d boxed herself into a corner, Matilda next to her, and furry critters were appearing out of Erin’s bag for Matilda to play with.
The only spot left for Jeremy was next to me.
The prospect of his ass next to mine for however long this shitshow lasted thrilled him to no end.
He glowered at me as he sipped his coffee. “Isn’t this nice?”
Erin’s spoon stabbed into her ice cream. “No.”
Jeremy sighed.
She put down the spoon, folded her arms, and stared at him. “What? Let me guess,” she said. “Everything’s different now? You’ve changed? It’ll never happen again?”
Jeremy didn’t respond with words, but he shifted his weight and tried to mask his discomfort by propping his ankle on his knee.
“Sorry,” Erin added. “Was that not what you wanted to talk about?”
He reached over the table to cover her hand with his. “I love you.”
I grunted.
Jeremy’s lips twisted in an ugly sneer. “Is there something you’d like to add, Cal?”
I could stand on the table and recite a whole speech about what I thought about his bullshit “I love you.” If he cared about Erin, he would’ve hauled his sorry ass on a plane the day she left.
He’d be down on his knees now begging her to take him back in front of everyone sitting in the shop—at the bare minimum.
“You couldn’t keep it in your pants for two minutes,” I snapped. “You just flirted with the barista.”
“I ordered a coffee.”
What the hell was this liar playing at? “You winked at her.”
Erin screwed her eyes shut and slumped against the back of the booth. Her hand shook when she dragged the heel of her palm over her forehead.
“Erin—” I was an asshole. I’d made this about me and made her so uncomfortable in the process. “I’m sorry—fuck—”
Matilda gasped, and the baby rabbit in her hand clattered onto the table. “That a no-no word!”
“Sorry, little buccaneer.” My guilty eyes found Erin next. “Sorry… It’s just… Sorry.” I sighed. “I’ll go for a walk.” I rose to my feet, waiting for Jeremy to move out of my way so I could leave. He was more than happy to get rid of me. “I’ll give you guys some space.”
And give myself some bloody space.
I was ready to punch Jeremy in the face.
He’d rocked up uninvited, pretending he gave a shit about how much he’d hurt Erin—well, fuck him.
I could see through the gifts and the paper-thin apology.
He hadn’t changed one bit. If she took him back, I’d give him a week—two, tops—before he strayed again.
I strode out of the ice cream shop, and, ashamed and so utterly frustrated with myself for not holding it together, I growled so loud at the sky that a woman walking down the street jolted, her eyes wide.
Bloody hell. I was scaring the tourists.
I raked my hair off my forehead and fell against the brick wall in the alley. What the hell was wrong with me? I was better than this. I was a grown damn man. My mother would clip me around the back of the head if she saw me acting like that. I’d never acted so damn stupid over a woman.
But Erin wasn’t just any woman, was she?
I was crazy about her.
She never complained once about how sore her back was from sitting in a rigid plastic chair for days beside me at the hospital.
I caught her rubbing it when she didn’t think anyone was looking, but when I asked about it, she waved me off with a laugh and asked what game we should play next. It had been the same with Lila.
She was everything. The girl always in my corner. The only person who ever really saw me and not the mangled, second-born son of a farmer. A true friend.
Erin was the woman… and I was doing everything to sabotage myself.
I got out my phone.
Callan
I’m screwing this up.
Cole
You told Erin yet?
I’m trying. Jeremy’s here. What the hell do I do?
Deck him.
My laugh bounced off the brick walls of the alley.
Whatever streak of hot temper ran through the other Wolcotts hadn’t made it to me.
I could throw a decent punch, but it took a lot to get me to that point, and I was usually dead cold rational when I did.
Jeremy tipped me closer to the edge than anyone. I loathed him, but…
He wasn’t going anywhere.
Once the divorce was finalized, that stuck-up bastard would still be Erin’s ex-husband and Matilda’s father.
What if my wildest dreams came true? If Erin were mine, she’d want to know I could handle her ex being around like a grown-up and not a baby tossing his toys out of the pram every time our egos collided.
Callan
I’m tempted. Not an option. Any other suggestions?
Cole
Just one, runt. Quit waiting for the perfect time. There isn’t one. Tell her.
I took a deep breath. He was right. It was time to stop stuffing around.
But as my palm landed on the ice cream shop door, and I spotted Erin at the booth in the corner, I knew that time wasn’t now.
Jeremy and Erin both laughed as Matilda spun one of her fantastical toddler tales about the ginger bear clutched tight in her tiny fist. Just like that box of critters Matilda loved to play with, they were a family, too.
The last thing I wanted to admit to myself was that they wouldn’t get a divorce, but it was a possibility.
I shook my head and turned back, letting one of the old-timers stop me in a long conversation about “this rain we’re havin’” and “how’s your mother gettin’ on?” And what about “Cole, heard from him yet?”
And I didn’t mind.
I’d be waiting for Erin when she was ready. Outside now, to drive her home. Back at the cottage, maybe tonight, possibly in a month or two, when I dragged up enough courage to finally admit to her that I was in love with her.