Chapter 13 All For One #3
“That may be the most psychologically accurate thing you’ve ever said,” Cassie muttered.
“I have hidden depths,” Katie defended. “Besides, I took two semesters of psychology and human emotions.”
“I’d say they are hidden very deeply,” Wendy replied immediately.
That earned the faintest crack of another smile from Carry before it disappeared again. She looked back down at her glass. “I just…” She shook her head slowly. “When Veronica kissed him…” Her voice tightened again. “It felt like I was losing something before I even understood what I actually had.”
Cassie felt that one herself. Because it had looked exactly like that from across the room. Not the ending of a relationship. The realization that maybe the relationship had never been fully defined at all.
Katie stretched her legs out across the carpet again. “Okay. Then maybe this is the real question.”
Carry closed her eyes briefly. “Give me a break. There’s MORE?”
“Oh definitely,” Katie confirmed. “Did you ever actually tell Greg what you wanted?”
Carry opened her mouth—paused—and stopped again.
Wendy let out a quiet groan. “Oh no.”
Cassie already knew the answer. “No,” Carry admitted quietly.
Katie threw both hands into the air dramatically. “THEN HOW IS THIS MAN SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHAT PLANET HE’S STANDING ON?”
“Katie,” Cassie warned with a restrained anger now not only in her voice but also in her eyes as she leaned forward hard and glared at Katie.
“No, seriously!” Katie insisted. “Everybody keeps acting like Greg should magically understand what Carry feels while the poor guy’s getting emotionally tackled by Veronica, haunted by his past, nearly proposing to random women—”
“Wait,” Wendy interrupted sharply. “Back up. Random women?”
Katie froze. Cassie immediately closed her eyes. “Oh, for the love of God…”
Carry slowly looked up now. “Katie.” Her voice had become dangerously calm. “What do you know?”
Katie realized instantly she had stepped directly onto a landmine. “...Nothing?” she attempted weakly.
“Katie,” Carry repeated. “What DO you know?”
Wendy sat upright fully now, suddenly alert. “What random women?”
Katie pointed accusingly toward Cassie. “Why am I always the one that slips first?!”
“Because you have the impulse control of a caffeinated squirrel,” Cassie shot back. “You lack the discipline to keep your mouth shut.”
Carry sat forward slowly now, pillow forgotten entirely. “Katie!”
Katie swallowed hard. “Billy mentioned something.”
Cassie’s eyes widened immediately. “BILLY told you that?”
“He didn’t MEAN to,” Katie defended quickly. “He just said Greg’s emotional life is a complete disaster right now and that Veronica isn’t the only complication.”
The room changed instantly again. Carry looked like someone had just pulled the floor out from under her. Wendy noticed it too and immediately shifted closer on the loveseat. “Carry—”
“No,” Carry interrupted quietly. “It’s fine.” But her voice sounded thin now. “Actually… no. Maybe it isn’t fine.”
Cassie leaned forward carefully. “Carry…” she began, searching for the right words that would comfort her or reassure her in this difficult moment. She knew this revelation would be a bombshell on her that she didn’t need right now.
Carry stared down at the untouched margarita in her hands again.
“I think,” she said slowly, “I kept assuming Greg would still be there waiting whenever I finally figured myself out.” Nobody spoke.
Because all of them understood that feeling and all of them knew life rarely worked that way.
Carry pulled the drink to her mouth and swallowed back two big guzzles.
Finally Wendy reached over and squeezed Carry’s arm gently.
“Then maybe,” she said quietly, “the question isn’t whether Veronica’s trying to take Greg.
” Carry looked over at her. Wendy’s expression softened.
“Maybe the question is whether you’re finally ready to stop standing still while everybody else keeps moving. ”
That one landed hard. Cassie saw it immediately in Carry’s eyes.
Because for the first time all night—Carry looked afraid.
Her breath shuddered like it had in Houston right after the kiss, as she remembered how Erica Stamson had been with Greg in the hospital after the shooting and then again at Five Guys.
‘Greg defended her as a wonderful woman if I really knew her,’ she thought and her body began to tremble as soft sobs started to come out from deep within her.
“DON’T YOU DARE TELL ME THAT ERICA STAMSON HAS GREG CHASING HER AGAIN!
” Carry screamed in frustration and anger and pain all at the same time.
A single memory penetrated her mind at that very moment; Greg confessing to her about the intimacy with Erica - ‘We were trying to have a baby so her father would accept me.’ She closed her eyes tight as if it would block out the picture of Greg and Erica making love, the one thing she’s held back from him this entire time.
Suddenly another memory pushed in - ‘I slapped that little slut for hurting my brother,’ Tessa had confessed to her in Greg’s house.
“THAT BITCH DOESN’T DESERVE A MAN LIKE GREG GARRELSON!
” she shuddered as she tried to catch her breath.
Cassie realized this had just significantly changed the entire game and her exit strategy.
It was quite possible that Greg would no longer be a viable option.
She watched now as Carry flung her drink across the room, exploding against the wall as it struck. “I WON’T LET THAT TRAMP HAVE MY MAN!”
The stunned silence filled the apartment, lingering suspended in the air until trembling hands finally lost their grip, sending the drinks shattering across the apartment floor.