Chapter 32
Joss
I always get nervous in hardware stores.
It’s the way employees go out of their way to be helpful. Not that I don’t appreciate it, but I’m always on edge when I’m out in public, and I swear the employees pop up everywhere. It’s like they’re all watching the aisles from security cameras, prowling for women who look lost to pounce on.
I’m not lost. Not any more lost than usual. The only difference is most times I’m wandering the aisles, I’m looking to jury-rig something. Expanding shelves or repairing tables, the unending fight between filming equipment and necessary quilting space. This time, I don’t have anything I need to get done.
I stare at one of the display doors. It’s pretty. A nice shade of light green with a big oval window, etched with a floral pattern. Jeff just kicked me out of the apartment so he could get to work taking out that section of wall in my kitchen, so I’m betting there’s already a door for that spot, but I wonder if I could trade out the one at the bottom of the stairs with this. Or put this at the top of the stairs. I have no idea how doors are installed, but I bet Gabe could do this.
I just have to text him.
“Can I help you find something, ma’am?”
I nearly jump out of my skin, realizing my mistake of slowing down to consider this. It’s not even a good option; the door is almost $2000 and I didn’t bring dimensions with me.
I turn to shoo the employee off, but then I have a second thought. I’m expecting a geriatric or a pimply teen, what I’m used to at this particular store, but the man behind me isn’t much older than me, with enough gray in his dark hair to be intriguing, an inviting twinkle in his brown eyes, and lines cut in his face from smiling.
What a smile, too. He’s darker skinned, and his perfect white teeth glow.
Handsome. Aging well. In great shape, that’s clear from his snug gray sweater and slacks. No rings on meaningful fingers, no apron. He doesn’t work here, he was just offering to help because he’s kind or I looked desperate.
Or he likes how I look.
“I’m . . . just browsing,” I tell him, my voice uncertain. I don’t mean it to be a test, but I can’t deny that it isn’t.
He lifts an eyebrow. “I could help you.”
He is hitting on me.
I’m single.
I don’t need Gabe to come over and . . . do some undefined task. I don’t need Gabe at all. I’m just a hormone disaster, and any man can help with that. I’m not good at dating or casual stuff, but I bet if I showed this random guy who’s at the hardware store at 11 a.m. on the Monday after Super Bowl even the slightest interest, it would be next to no effort to convince him to take me to lunch and then have sex with me.
He could be a nice guy. He could be my casual stuff guy. I don’t need Gabe for that.
“If I’m not imposing,” he adds with a far more obvious look at my ring fingers than the glance I stole at his.
This could be so easy. I should do it. Worst case scenario, I’m misreading the situation and I never have to see him again or he’s a jerk but I get laid.
He’s not super tall or super big. I’m not super tall or super big, either, so that seems well matched. I don’t need super tall and super big. And he called me ma’am, so that’s a perk.
Except it isn’t. It didn’t hit right. It didn’t hit at all.
I rub my belly casually, like I’m not trying to draw his attention to the bump, and laugh politely, “Oh no, but thank you. I’m just figuring out some nonsense for my boyfriend to do because he’s in the dog house right now.”
I wink and continue down the aisle at a faster pace this time, making half a lap around the store before I cave and find a shelving unit that looks like a pain in the ass to put together. Visions of Gabe fighting it for a couple hours, working up a sweat and a mad before he burns off his frustration with some absolutely punishing sex that leaves me limping fills my head as I take a photo of the box once it’s loaded into my car. While an employee ties my lift gate down and sticks a plastic red flag to the shelf, I send it and a text to Gabe.
Joss
You need to come put this together.
I don’t know where it’s going, but he wasn’t on Jeff’s crew this morning, so I figure I’ve got time to find a home for it.
Gabe
i’ll let jeff know.
Joss
Let him know what?
Gabe
that you need it put together. he can do it.
Joss
So can you it’s just a shelf
Gabe
i can’t come over today.
I flop down in the front seat, debating how willing I am to push it. I don’t need sex. I’ll be fine. I was fine for years. I’ve got this. I’m not going to be pathetic.
Joss
Just come over tomorrow then
Gabe
Can’t
Gabe
jeff says come get him when you get home and he’ll put it together for you.
My sinuses prickle. This is dumb. I’m not going to be a whiny baby about this. But I don’t want Jeff to put it together.
Joss
You can do it next time you’re over it’s not a big deal
Gabe
idk when i’m going to be over next. just have jeff do it, ok?
My head fills with all these explanations for why Gabe isn’t going to come over, from silly inconsequential stuff, like a training camp or a quick trip, to him leaving Wilmington entirely.
Or staying right where he is but refusing to come to me.
Or like he’s over me and moving on.
My stomach churns in a way that’s absolutely not morning sickness, and the only thing I can do is tell myself this is good. Great. I don’t need him anymore. I’m over him.
Really, I am.
“I wonder if it would be easier if we set this up on the longarm,” I posit as casually as I can as Iris, Rose, and I wrangle the quilt back over the thickest cut of batting I sell. I’m about ready to suggest I do this entirely by myself because Iris and Rose are acting like they’ve never sandwiched a dang quilt before and this is taking about fifty times longer than it should. This is our fourth attempt at lining the backing up with the batting, each time dousing it in basting spray again. I’m starting to get concerned that it’s going to gum up a needle. Basting spray isn’t supposed to do that, but it’s also not supposed to be layered half a dozen times.
“No, no, I want to be able to work on this at home,” Rose insists. She smooths the tiniest bit of corner but doesn’t hold the fabric as she does it, so she ends up making a wrinkle. “Oopsie.”
I keep my feet planted so I don’t stomp over to her side in a huff. It’s not her fault I’ve been in a foul mood the last few days since Gabe’s started dodging me. I swear everything he’s done lately is calculated to mess me up as much as possible. “You have a longarm at home.”
She stares blankly at me like she’s completely forgotten the seven grand she wrangled out of her husband for the extravagant self-gifting two Christmases ago. Finally, with a blink, she says, “It’s broken.”
“Since when? Why didn’t you tell me? You have a five-year warranty on it!” Now I’m irritated with myself for recommending the machine to her. Two of the longarms in the barn are the same model, and I’ve never had an issue with them. I sell them to everyone I can because I trust them so much. If they’re breaking after two years, I need to know.
“Oh no, no, no,” Iris blurts out over top of whatever Rose is about to say. “She dropped it.”
“You dropped a longarm?” I repeat as Rose gives Iris a bug-eyed look. “I don’t—how did—? I don’t understand.”
“I . . . was . . . cleaning.” Rose glowers at Iris. “I tried . . . picking it up, and . . . oopsie?”
That’s clearly a lie. Not that Rose isn’t an obsessive cleaner to the point where I’ve had to lecture her about what should and shouldn’t be used on sewing machines and how she doesn’t need Carl to take them apart for her after every single project so she can remove every speck of lint out of them — I go into the chassis of my longarm once a season at most, and this is literally what I do for a living — but she’s a terrible liar.
I just can’t for the life of me figure out why she’d lie now. I drop my side of the backing, wanting to be dramatic but still laying it down as gently as possible so it doesn’t actually adhere and create more problems. Then I anchor my fists at my waist, thankful it still exists because the baby bloat is not easing up and I’m growing more concerned daily that the obstetrician is lying to me and I’m going to birth an actual monster baby. “Okay, you two. Fess up. I know for a fact you did not pick up your longarm and drop it.”
Rose looks relieved at this. Probably because I know these two well enough to know they would have actually dropped it, repeatedly if necessary, just to make the lie work.
“So there’s no reason on Earth that we’ve spent the last—” I glance up to the clock— “hour now sandwiching this and not made any progress on it unless you two were up to something. What is going on—oh god.”
“Are you okay?” Rose asks, startled, as Iris rushes to my side.
I shrug her off. “It’s Valentine’s Day! And you two are thick as thieves with Gabe. Is he plotting some ridiculous thing? Because I don’t care if it’s Valentine’s Day—”
I silence myself when the initial sheepish looks they get sink into pity. I bet they think Gabe has forgotten what day it is and I’m imagining a surprise plot. I haven’t told them we’ve broken up.
For a second there, this whole fantasy flashed through my mind that the reason he’s now blown me off several days in a row — because apparently I didn’t learn my lesson at the hardware store — is he’s planning something big for today. It makes so much sense. He’s such a manipulative jerk that of course he’d pull some gaslighting nonsense like this.
I hate him so much.
But I want chocolates and flowers and a giant fancy dinner. I want him to beg me to take him back. I need it.
“He’s not plotting anything, is he?” I ask, madder that he isn’t than when I thought he was. Completely ridiculous.
Iris takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “Honey, we know.”
At my peevish look, Rose clarifies. “That you and Gabe broke up. Rachel told us.”
“How does Rachel know?”
“She overheard you talking to that nice cheerleader lady.”
Keira. She’s stopped by a few times recently, checking in and offering me hand-me-down baby stuff, inviting me out for lunches with Cadence and Wren, but I haven’t been brave enough to accept the invitations yet. I’m warming up to Keira, I truly am, but I don’t know if it’s smart getting close to her when I don’t want to reconcile with Gabe.
But every one of her invites is more inviting than the last.
She’s been around a lot lately, but it must have been that first time Keira was here that Rachel overheard her. I haven’t seen Rachel much this past month, so I doubt her and Keira’s paths have crossed since then.
Everyone’s known for a month now that I ended things with Gabe. Everyone’s also seen how many times I’ve casually excused myself to get ‘something’ from my apartment and Gabe’s followed after me. Lord, give me strength.
“And between you and us,” Iris continues, “you’ve been a bit crabby this week—”
“I have not!”
Both ladies smirk, identical enough I’d think they were twins if not for the fact that visibly, they couldn’t be any more different than Jack Sprat and his wife.
“Okay fine, I’ve been crabby this week. I’m sure it’s second trimester hormones.” With a sigh, I take over the sandwiching, getting the backing on in a couple minutes. “You guys don’t need to be here if you don’t want to be. I’m fine, I promise.”
“We do want to be here,” Iris assures me.
“It’s Valentine’s,” I laugh. “Go be with your husbands!”
Rose snorts. “They’re at the grocery store fighting off all the other husbands for the last Russel Stover’s heart. We need to give them at least a couple hours to figure their messes out.”
The door chimes to let us know someone’s walking in, and I look up, expecting a customer or Barb. “What are you doing here?” I ask, surprised to see Blaise.
And also just how giant his afro is.
“He’s even cuter with off-season hair,” Iris says like they were fully aware that Blaise untwists his hair when the season ends. It’s one of those reminders that Gabe may be an entire chapter of my life, but it’s a short one. I have no idea what off-season is like.
I don’t even know if Gabe is going to be playing for the Jugs next year if it all. Part of me has quietly hoped that he’s getting transferred to another team. He’d be hundreds of miles away, I’d be here. Problem solved.
“It’s Gabe!” Blaise blurts out, his voice winded like he’s sprinted the three miles here from the Jugs House. “He’s been injured.”
The words I feared all season. Every single game, every time he lay on the field a second longer than he needed to, every time he was wobbly standing up. But the season is over. It doesn’t make sense.
Except I don’t know what off-season is like. He talked about having more time and that it was a good thing that my due date is in the summer because he’ll have a couple months to bond and care for the baby before things get crazy again. That doesn’t mean the off-season isn’t rough, though.
“How bad is it?” I ask, fighting the urge to vomit.
Blaise’s eyes are watery, his bottom lip quivering. “It’s bad. It’s really bad. He’s asking for you.”
“Oh god,” I whisper, unable to say anything else. My knees buckle, and poor Rose and Iris have to keep me upright until Blaise makes it to my side to take my weight off their hands. “What hospital is he at?”
Blaise shakes his head. “He’s at home . . . if you want to see him. You don’t—”
“Of course I do!”
We leave behind Rose and Iris, who are wringing their hands.