Chapter 21
Chapter twenty-one
Clay
Louisa nods, as if she knows what I’m about to tell her isn’t hypothetical.
I look down at our joined hands. “Let’s say a shitty man married a woman, but when she got sick, he didn’t want to be burdened by a dying wife. So he went off with a woman he’d been having an affair with to have a little fun, and his wife died alone.”
“What an asshole,” Louisa mutters.
“But the thing is, this shitty little man was making some very dangerous friends and handling their money, and sometimes he’d treat it like it was his own. One day—hypothetically—he lost a large amount of money that wasn’t his in an illegal poker game.”
A look passes over her face, too brief for me to catch. It’s almost an a-ha.
I narrow my eyes at her, but she doesn’t say anything. “He mysteriously fell from a high-rise balcony last week,” I add.
When she realizes I’m waiting for a reaction, she lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Oops.”
That’s her reaction? Oops? I want her disgust, her disapproval. Everything will be so much easier once she sees what I am. “He was murdered.”
“Or clumsy.” Her second careless shrug crawls under my skin and burns.
“Don’t try to absolve me,” I snap, dropping her hand. “I’m not a good person.”
Louisa looks at me for a long moment, and I’ve never felt more exposed. I sat down with her to commiserate over her lousy ex—how did we get here? How can we go back?
“It’s not me you need absolution from,” she says slowly. “It’s yourself.”
I scoff.
“Grace is gone,” she continues in that same steady voice. “She can’t give you what you need. You have to forgive yourself.”
Everything in me wants to scream that she’s wrong. That there can be no forgiveness—that I don’t deserve it anyway. “I manipulated a man into a situation that would lead to his death.”
“Sure, but he could’ve walked away at any time, and this isn’t really about him. It’s about your guilt over leaving Grace.” Her lips slip into a small, reluctant smile, as if she’s trying to soften the blow. Like it hurts her a little, too.
I scrub my hand over my face and try to push it all away—something that would’ve been easier two glasses of straight bourbon ago. “Can we discuss your ex again? We didn’t dig into that deep enough.”
Her smile tightens. “There’s something about a quiet, empty bar that feels a bit like a confessional. That and we’ve polished off half a bottle of bourbon.”
I glance at the bottle and fuck, she’s right. Still, exasperation leaks through my voice. “So confess.”
Louisa’s gaze goes unfocused, drifting over the bar like she’s looking for ghosts. “I’m letting them down.”
“Who?”
“Rita. My grandmother. My great-grandmother. They went through so much shit in their lives, but it never knocked them down. I’m not strong like them.”
“You’re strong.”
She shakes her head. “I pretend. All it took was one shitty ex and one opportunistic cousin, and I’m crumbling.”
“That’s all any of us ever do—pretend,” I say. “You don’t have to, you know. It’s okay if you need to fall apart. I’m here.”
Her eyes go wide.
Goddammit. I said that out loud. “For a little while longer,” I amend. It’s not enough. “I can help with the bar, I mean. I’m not a shoulder to cry on. I’m just”—fucking this up—“here.”
Louisa laughs, but the haunted look fades from her eyes. She takes a drink, sets her glass back on the table, and, because she’s the devil, she licks her lips. “So what would you do with a million dollars?”
I open my mouth to inform her that I wouldn’t be here, but I told her about Tristan. I told her about the poker game. She should be able to piece together that I have a life-ruining amount of cash stashed away.
Goddammit, I should’ve gone to bed instead of sitting down with her.
“Hypothetically?” I ask archly.
“Of course.” Her response is breezy and casual—no hint of suspicion. If she hasn’t put two and two together yet, I have only the booze and weed to thank.
How to answer her question?
There was a time when I would’ve spent this hypothetical million the same way I spent any money—on strategic purchases of luxury items to project a careful image of wealth, partly to attract more lucrative clients, and partly for my own comfort and vanity.
I had no purpose other than living for myself.
What would I spend a million on now?
The woman sitting across from me. I’d build her that house on the lake, buy her vintage clothing, and spend a little on improving the bar.
And what—stay and share a life with her?
It could never happen. I can’t be the person she needs. I’m not the kind of person who settles into a domestic life. Happy Ever After is a delusion, something that only happens in the books in her bookcase. We’d never last.
And I’d have to tell her about the will.
“If you had one million dollars—or ten million or one hundred million,” she says, almost contemplative, “you’d come all the way out here to the backwoods of northern Minnesota, where you don’t know anyone. You’d buy my bar. And you’d buy me sex toys and groceries and a phone—”
“That was a business expense,” I protest, heat creeping up my neck. She’s teasing. I’m mostly sure she can’t see through to the bleeding, rapidly beating heart in my chest.
“—and add so much drama to my life.”
“Ah, but you like it,” I raise my glass her way, trying to return to our comfortable banter. “You should thank me and my hypothetical millions for coming to this backwater and stirring things up.”
“Maybe. But you should thank me for bringing you back to life.”
I scoff. “You didn’t bring me back to life.”
She gives me a smug little smile. “Are you sure about that?”
“Absolutely.” Fuck.
I’ll admit to wanting her. I’ve come to accept that I care about her.
But the connection between us goes so much farther.
I hold a piece of her in my hands. She has a piece of me.
The idea of one day walking away from her feels like a crushing weight on my chest. I can fool myself, but only for so long.
She means something to me. Maybe everything. She did bring me back to life.
When she yawns, I get to my feet and shoot my resolve in the foot. “Sleep in my bed tonight. I’m too wasted to walk you to the camper in the dark, and you’re too wasted to be left alone.”
Louisa glances at the half-empty bottle of bourbon and yawns again. “Fine. But you’re keeping your hands to yourself.”
“I will. Scout’s honor,” I add at her dubious look.
She swipes the bottle and glasses, returning them to the bar. “You were never a Boy Scout.”
“How do you know?” I ask, following her drunken meander down the hall.
She laughs, stepping aside for me to unlock the door to the apartment. “You were a Boy Scout?”
I scoff as I hold the door open for her, locking it behind us as she starts up the stairs. “Of course not.”
“Fucking knew it,” she murmurs.
I’ve shared a bed with many people, but getting ready alongside Louisa is different.
More intimate. Terrifying and exhilarating and wretchedly comforting.
She borrows one of my T-shirts—again without asking—and I have to spend a few moments staring at the ceiling, thanks to what the sight of her in it does to me.
Louisa climbs into bed first, scooting over to make room. I flick off the lights and join her. The bed is big enough, but I’m uncomfortably aware of her as she rolls over, so we’re back to back.
Darkness and silence settle over us, but sleep doesn’t come, at least not for me. Even with Louisa next to me, I feel alone. Maybe alone isn’t the right word. Maybe it’s lonely.
Sleep doesn’t come for Louisa, either. After a few moments, she sighs and rolls onto her back. “I can’t believe he came back.”
Hayden.
I roll onto my back, and my arm touches hers from elbow to shoulder. She doesn’t move away, and neither do I. “I can arrange for him to fall off a balcony.”
She laughs, but there’s a hint of a sniffle. “I can’t believe I was stupid enough to fall for him.”
“You opened your heart, and he turned out to be an undeserving toad, but you tried. That’s more than I’ve ever done.”
She rolls onto her side, facing me, studying me in the dark. “I’m not sure I really tried with Hayden. I don’t know if I can…” Her voice trails off, suddenly small. “Maybe that’s the real curse.”
“Curses aren’t real.”
There’s a long moment of silence. I can almost hear her debating something in her head. There’s nothing to do but wait in the dark for her to come to some conclusion.
“Clay?”
My name is timid on her tongue in a way I’d never imagined from her. I frown up at the ceiling. “Yes?”
“Can you hold me?” There’s a waver in her voice. “Just for a little bit? Today sucked, and I need—”
Comfort. Someone to hold her because she still feels like her world is crumbling.
After pouring my pathetic history at her feet, I need it, too.
I’m already moving, and her rambling explanation trails off as I curl around her.
She turns in my arms until her back is against my chest, her butt pressed against my hips, and we fit together in a way that’s immediately cozy and infinitely good.
My limbs are heavy from the bourbon as she takes my hand between hers.
I bury my nose in her hair, breathing in her soft, sweet scent.
That lonely, isolated feeling disappears. Sleep tugs at my consciousness.
I need this. I need her.
“Thank you,” she murmurs drowsily.
“Don’t get used to it,” I murmur back, more to myself than to her.