Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
TRICK
The last thing I wanted was to let Nona go so she could walk away from me, a-fucking-gain, but I knew I’d pushed as far as I should for today. Any more and I worried I’d spook her back into avoiding me again. And I couldn’t stand the thought of that.
So I let go of the woman I wanted and watched as she disappeared into the sea of cars in the parking lot before turning back to face the one I didn’t, silently berating myself for being such a goddamn idiot.
If I’d gotten my head out of my ass sooner, I could have had all that was Nona long before now.
But I’d been so hung up on the past, idealizing it, that I hadn’t seen what was standing right in front of me.
Looking at Emma now, the rose-colored glasses were long gone, and I’d finally come to realize that she wasn’t nearly as perfect as I’d built her up to be when we ended.
“What’s up, Em?” I looked across the field to where Shawn and Hannah were standing by Emma’s car. “Something up with the kids?”
“Oh, uh… no. The kids are fine, as you probably already know.”
My stomach began to churn, and I felt my brows pull into a distinct V. “Then there’s nothin’ for us to talk about,” I replied flatly. “And for future reference, Emma, unless it has to do with our kids, there’s never a reason for us to speak privately.”
“It’s just… I… well, the tub in the kids’ bathroom isn’t draining properly,” she finally blurted.
I clenched teeth and worked to calm my breathing. “Okay. And that has to do with me because?”
“I tried some of that drain cleaner stuff, but it didn’t work,” she continued in a fast clip, and I grew more and pissed with every word. “I was wondering, well, you were always so good at that kind of stuff, and I don’t have any clue what I’m doing—”
“Then call a plumber, Emma,” I replied in a flat tone. My patience was wearing thin when she first stopped me, but now that I knew exactly what kind of game she was playing, it was completely gone.
“I just thought—”
“That you could play me.”
“What?” She bugged her eyes in a show of surprise. “No, that’s not what I was trying to do, Patrick.”
Hearing my name on her lips was like nails on a chalkboard.
I’d gone by Trick almost my entire life.
Everyone from my parents to my teachers to my friends called me by my nickname.
Everyone but Emma. I hadn’t understood why until she threw it in my face when she ended us, and the reasons she had for refusing to use that name were just as fucked up and twisted as her reasons for ending our marriage.
“You let everyone call you by that stupid nickname and I just don’t get it! Patrick is such a strong, sophisticated name. When you let them call you Trick, it makes you sound like a country bumpkin.”
“You were,” I declared. “When we signed those papers, you made it clear the only communication we needed to have was in regard to the kids. Since then, you’ve instigated two conversations, and both times it was so you could make some fucked-up play.”
“That’s not true,” she whispered.
“It is. Your attempt to make me jealous by telling me you had a date was annoying, but this right here just pisses me off. You wanted this to be over, Emma. You ended a good marriage because you thought you deserved more than the life I was busting my ass to give you. That means, you got a clogged drain, you call a plumber. Your roof’s leakin’, they have guys for that.
I know you can afford it, ’cause you got a rich mommy and daddy who’re payin’ your way so you don’t have to do the respectable thing and earn a living on your own.
What you don’t do is attempt to play me to get what you want.
I let you get away with that shit for too long, stringin’ me along. But that’s done now.”
“That wasn’t what I was doing,” she defended. “We have two kids together, Patrick. We’re going to be in each other’s lives. We need to get along for the kids’ sake.”
She was so full of shit. I’d been blind to her bullshit for too goddamn long, but now I could see everything clearly. “You got pissed ’cause you thought another woman was playing with your favorite toy,” I stated bluntly, letting her know she was done pulling the wool over my eyes
“Are you…?” She fidgeted with her fingers. “Are you seeing her?”
Christ, this woman’s got some fucking nerve. “Whether I am or not’s none of your business,” I clipped. “Now, we’re done here.”
And with that, I turned and walked away without once feeling the desire to look back at the woman I was leaving behind. Emma was the past, and I was determined to only look forward from here on out.
Nona
I’d manage to chow through four cupcakes and was just about to draw myself a nice hot bath when someone started knocking incessantly on my front door.
Staring in that direction, I pursed my lips and blew out a heavy sigh as I contemplated ignoring whoever it was and adding a glass of wine to that bath.
However, that plan was thwarted when I heard my very loyal, very annoying best friend shout, “Open up, now! We know you’re in there. Your car’s in the driveway!”
The knocking started again and didn’t stop until I reached the door and yanked it open, nearly getting smacked in the forehead by Eden’s fist.
“Jeez, crazy!” I cried, leaning back to avoid the potential blow. “How about you drop the fist of fury, huh?”
She pierced me with a scowl, muttering, “You were taking too long,” before she and Temperance shoved their way past me and into my house.
“I brought sustenance,” Tempie called, lifting a grocery bag as she and Eden started for the kitchen.
Eden held up a bottle of wine. “And I got booze.”
With a long-suffering sigh, I followed my girls into the kitchen while they made themselves at home. Eden got wineglasses while Tempie grabbed my large cutting board from where I kept it tucked behind my pretty, distressed white bakery box.
I watched as she dumped the contents of the grocery bag onto my island, pulled a knife from my butcher block, and started cutting a block of cheddar cheese. “What are you doing?”
“Making a charcuterie board,” she chirped as she began arranging the slices on my cutting board.
“I’ve been making a lot of these lately.
” Next came a wedge of brie and a small jar of raspberry jam.
“They’re super easy but look so fancy that Hayes thinks I went all out.
” She opened a tube of crackers and lined them up in a pretty row.
“The man has a serious aversion to vegetables and pretty much anything healthy.” She added cucumber slices, cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, and a vegetable spread.
“I put some fruit and veggies on the board, he guilts himself into eating them because he thinks I put in all this effort, when in reality, it takes no time at all.” She finished with some assorted fruits and a small tub of yogurt.
The whole thing took a couple of minutes, but by the time she was done, it looked like something you’d spend a fortune on at a fancy restaurant.
“Wow, smart. Maybe I should try this on Tris and Blythe.”
Eden passed us each a glass of wine and hopped up on one of my barstools. “Enough about the boards. They’re awesome, we get it. Now start talking.”
I dipped a strawberry into the yogurt and popped it into my mouth, taking my time to chew and swallow before answering. “I slept with Trick.”
Tempie crunched into a baby carrot. “We know that part. What we want to know is how it happened.”
“And how it was,” Eden blurted before smacking a hand over her mouth and bugging out her eyes.
Tempie pointed at her. “Yeah! We definitely want to know that too.”
“Oh my god.” A laugh bubbled from my chest. “You guys are insane. You know that?”
Eden shot me a grin and sucked back some of her wine. “Yep. Now get to spilling.”
Grabbing a butter knife from my silverware drawer, I spread some brie and jam on a cracker and stuffed it into my mouth. “It was… the best I’ve ever had,” I admitted on a defeated sigh.
“You don’t sound happy about that,” Eden stated sympathetically.
I guzzled back half the wine in my glass, needing it as fortification. “Well, I had been. Hell, I’d been over the freaking moon. Until I woke up to him getting dressed in the dark in the middle of the night.”
“You’re shitting me.” Tempie’s voice came out in a feminine growl.
“I wish I was.” The cupcakes I’d binged on earlier turned to a lead ball in my stomach.
I told them everything, going through that entire night and the month and a half after while making a huge dent in Tempie’s charcuterie board.
I told them about the kiss and the subsequent argument as I finished my glass of wine.
The food was tasteless, and the wine tasted bitter on my tongue as I recounted everything from start to finish, ending on what happened at the soccer game earlier that day.
“I’m so sorry, babe.” At Eden’s softly spoken words, I finally lifted my gaze from the veins of gray in the marble countertop of my island, gray I couldn’t help but notice looked eerily similar to Trick’s eyes.
She was staring across the kitchen at the remaining cupcakes I had stacked beneath the glass dome of my cake stand. “Is that what the cupcakes are about?”
“What do you mean?” Temperance asked in curiosity.
“Nona stress bakes,” Eden announced gravely.
“You know what? I really wish people would quit saying that,” I declared in annoyance. “I just like baking!”
Eden shot me a look that said she knew I was full of crap. “Yeah? Well how many of those were there when you first made them?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I replied instead of giving her an answer that would prove her point.
“Then just how many sweets have you eaten in the past few weeks?”
My lips scrunched to the side and my nose crinkled but Eden wasn’t swayed by my ugly look.
She stared me down until I finally couldn’t take it anymore and declared, “Fine! A lot, okay? I’ve eaten a lot.
So much, in fact, that none of my jeans fit right.
” I sucked in a deep breath, then downed the rest of my wine, tapping the rim of the glass for a refill.
Eden obliged as I continued. “I’ve been going out of my mind.
I’m barely sleeping, I’ve spent a small fortune on baking ingredients at the grocery store, and I’ve had a constant stomachache from all the goddamn cakes and pies I’ve been scarfing down.
I don’t know what games he’s playing, but I don’t want any part of them,” I said in a hard voice.
“I spent too many years being jerked around by a man. I won’t do it again. ”
“I don’t think Trick’s meaning to jerk you around,” Tempie said, her face awash with pity.
“He might not mean to, but he is, and it fucking hurts.” On that last word, my vision began to blur and my sinuses burned as a wave of tears threatened to burst free.
I used to watch the way he looked at Emma and wish I was in her shoes.
“I’ve wanted him for so long that I think I started falling for him without even realizing it.
He was this unattainable fantasy, my ultimate dream man.
When he gave me that little piece, I let myself hope that we could be something, you know?
Really be something. Then he ripped it all away.
I can’t be someone’s second choice. Not even if he’s the man of my dreams.”
“I think maybe you should talk to him,” Eden said carefully, ever the voice of reason. “It seems like there’s a lot that needs to be said that neither of you is saying.”
“She has a point,” Temperance added. “From how you said he acted today, it sounds like he’s got some serious feelings for you.”
“Did you not hear the part where he brushed me off for his ex? It’s obvious he’s still got feelings for her.”
“Maybe,” she relented. “Or maybe he had a perfectly good reason you won’t know about until you talk to him.”
“And he didn’t exactly brush you off,” Eden chimed in. “He asked you to wait for him. I get why you didn’t want to,” she quickly added when I opened my mouth to argue. “I wouldn’t have stuck around either, but I have a feeling there’s a whole lot more there than you’re willing to admit.”
As much as I tried to fight it, their words made my heart swell. That little kernel of hope began to sprout, but the voice in the back of my head kept screaming that hoping would only lead to more heartache.
This whole conversation was exhausting. Propping my elbows on the counter, I pressed my fingertips into my forehead and massaged.
“Look, I love you guys for coming over and trying to be supportive, but none of it matters. Nothing’s ever gonna happen between me and Trick, so can we please, please just talk about something else? Anything else.”
“Fine,” Eden relented unhappily after several seconds of silence.
“We’ll let you off the hook for now, but I’m just gonna say one last thing.
” Of course she is. “I think you’re wrong about you and Trick.
And I’m gonna have a blast saying I told you so when it’s all said and done, and you’re living blissfully ever after. ”
My best friend could be an annoying pain in the ass sometimes, but I loved the hell out of her and the rest of my friends.
I might have been unlucky in love, but at least I had the best friends a woman could ever hope for.