Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Paisley
“Cool it, my dude.” Greyson lectured the television screen as Cal skated over to the penalty box.
I didn’t remember Cal being a hotheaded player, but as a defenseman he did get into more fights than, say, Myles, who was the goalie.
It was the final game of the Calder Cup Finals, and the Chargers were up 2–1 at the end of the second period. Tensions and excitement were high, since the Chargers had lost game seven last year. This was their shot at redemption, and they were gunning for it.
To avoid destroying my last two unpicked fingernails, I kept my hands busy with a piece of embroidery—a quotation from Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo. “Until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words,—‘Wait and hope.’”
Easier said than done, my friend.
In the three days since I’d come home from the hospital, I’d learned a few things.
Greyson wasn’t messy. Seriously, I saw the way he folded the corners of his sheets with forty-five-degree angular precision and the noticeable absence of socks on the floor when I peeked into his room.
Either you could take the man out of the military but not the military out of the man .
. . or Mama D definitely raised him right.
But I’d seen Cal’s place in Seattle when we were in college, and he was the furthest thing from tidy. So . . . military it was.
Greyson muttered something at the TV, leaning forward, arms on his knees. It was sweet how much he was invested in his brother’s success.
With Greyson distracted and Rosie snoozing on the rug, now was the perfect time to do some well overdue snooping. I could social media stalk. Discreetly.
But every search for Jared Nichols came up empty. Until one profile popped up, and there was no mistaking the face—it was him. And it hadn’t been updated in over six years.
Unease I couldn’t explain slithered down my spine. If my head thought I was married to him, why did my stomach stay otherwise?
I’m not a coward, Jared.
Maybe we weren’t as happy as I’d remembered. I tossed my phone down in frustration and resumed stabbing my embroidery project. So much for answers.
When the second period ended and eased into intermission, I set the hoop down and asked, “Can we talk?”
Greyson blinked at me and muted the TV. “Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
“Yes but no. I mean, I have questions I’d like answers for. I can’t keep living on hold.” Apparently I wasn’t doing too well with this wait and hope business. But could you blame me when nearly a quarter of my life was missing?
He nodded slowly, then sipped his coffee. “Okay.”
Wow, man of few words. I propped my good elbow on the sofa arm and wiggled to face him. “I’m having a hard time understanding why you’re here. In Serenity Springs. Juliet told me she set us up because she thought I’d tame your wild side and be the only thing to make you put down roots.”
Greyson cleared his throat. “She was right.”
The words were oddly sweet with an undercurrent of . . . something. “I only know you as the lost, lone Satterfield brother. Why did you decide to stay?” My heart squeezed, and I mindlessly twisted the afghan tassel around my finger. “Was it my fault? Did I make you choose?”
“No. Nothing like that.” He shifted in his seat. “I was honourably discharged for medical reasons after we’d been dating for about a year and a half.”
“What happened?” I asked softly.
“It was a training mission gone wrong. There was an ambush. A misfire. I was airlifted to a hospital in Germany, and you flew out to see me. I asked you to marry my sorry hide, it was decided I leave the service, and the rest was history.”
This was the most words I’d heard him string together about the past, but also . . . it was history. My history. Our history. That I couldn’t remember. Ugh.
“And you gave up your life of adventure for . . . this?” I waved my hand around me vaguely. The muted TV screen, Rosie snoring at our feet, my arm in a sling with a collection of embroidery threads exploding over my lap.
“There’s nothing wrong with this from where I’m sitting, Pais.” His stormy eyes were so earnest I almost believed him. “I’m happy with where I landed. With you.”
He had a life of adventure and chose the most boring woman on the planet. How?
A flicker of something in his expression niggled me. He was a military man, good at hiding his feelings and thoughts. But I saw it, fleeting though it was. There was still something he wasn’t telling me.
But I wasn’t brave enough to press. Just picked up my needle and resumed stabbing the fabric in rhythmic strokes, the repetitive movements silencing my brain’s unending loop of thoughts.
Greyson’s scrutiny lingered for a few long moments, then he shifted and hit the unmute button, and commentary filled the quiet room.
“Did you see that last save? It was glorious!” Juliet effused over video chat when she called me the next morning. From the pride lacing her voice, you’d think she’d won the game herself.
“Go Chargers,” I teased, running a finger over the book spines on the shelves in my library.
The Chargers had won the Calder Cup 3–2 in overtime, and the whole Satterfield clan was bursting their buttons at having two of their own fellas bring home the cup.
It might have been their win, but it was all of ours, too.
She sighed heavily. “I’m so relieved it’s over. Playoffs are a beast. At least the baby is due in December.”
“Does Myles get paternity leave?”
Juliet nodded. “He negotiated it in his CBA. It’s not a ton, but the team is very family orientated. It’s part of our brand, so they accommodate the family guys. It’s partly why Cal could switch down to the minors and keep playing while still raising Khia after Izzy passed.”
So many bits of information to keep straight. The Cal I knew was still twenty-four and single. Not thirty-one and a single dad.
“Now tell me how you are,” Juliet insisted, settling back against the hotel headboard.
I scoffed and absently strummed the guitar propped up in the corner. The dissonant twang cut through the room. “I’m beginning to hate the question.”
“Don’t be difficult. You know it’s because we love you.”
“Yeah.” And I did know it. “Let’s see. I left the gas burner on after I boiled the kettle for, oh, probably fifteen minutes.
Luckily I didn’t kill us with gas poisoning.
Then I put on a load of laundry. Turned one of Greyson’s white tees pink.
Classic. And, of course, I turned on an empty dryer for an hour. All in one day.”
Juliet grimaced. “Short-term stuff is a killer, huh?”
I blew out a breath. “It’s been deemed in everyone’s best interest that I not be left alone. So I’ll be going to work with Greyson in a few minutes.” Which wasn’t too terrible since I hated being alone in the first place.
“Hey, when I get back, I can spend time with you, too.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
“The stove and the dryer say otherwise.”
I growled. “I hate being treated like an invalid. I’m not a child.”
Juliet was quiet. “Is that really how you feel? Or is your history of ‘accepting help makes me uncomfortable’ getting in the way?”
Darn you, best friends, who knew me better than I knew myself.
“Both?” Way to be convincing, Paisley Grace.
Juliet hummed. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll stop hovering if you agree to ask for help when you need it. And I mean when you actually need it, not at the last possible moment before you collapse because you’re stubborn beyond belief.”
“Pot meet kettle.”
“We’re not talking about me.”
I groaned, flopping onto the padded window seat. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
We locked gazes over the screen for a minute, then burst out laughing.
“You’re a terrible patient,” Juliet said at last.
“And you’re an almost great negotiator.”
She cackled. “Don’t tell the guys. They’re all convinced I’m scarier than I am.”
Greyson poked his head into the library. “Pais, you about ready—oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were on the phone.”
I waved off the apology. We were on day five of acting like roommates, and it was a learning curve. “Just debriefing with Jules. You ready to go?”
“We’re flying in tonight,” Juliet cut in. “I’ll let you go. See you at the barbecue tomorrow!” And she hung up.
“Guess that’s that.” I slipped the phone in my skirt pocket. “Ready when you are.”
My satchel slung over his shoulder, Greyson snapped the leash on Rosie before ushering us out to the truck.
The drive was quiet but comfortable. Low country music crooned in the background—I was almost certain it was a Hailey Bishop song—and Greyson hummed along, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.
Is your history of ‘accepting help makes me uncomfortable’ getting in the way? Juliet’s words looped in my brain like a broken record. She wasn’t far off base. That was the problem with best friends—they knew you all too well.
I’d spent the first eighteen years of my life doing things for myself and trying to hide my mom’s flaws in hopes that downplaying them would help me find stability. That if I got the perfect grade, kept the house clean, and worked to put food on the table, maybe she’d love me enough to change.
I wanted to believe my mom had tried her best because there were times she’d call me over to the couch after she woke up from a drinking binge, and she’d promise to do better with an “I’m so sorry, baby.”
But sorry only went so far. Especially when the actions never changed.
It was just a never-ending cycle of trying to find a man, drinking, and ending up heartbroken. All the while forgetting she had a little girl who needed her.
Promises from Lisa McBride were fragile as butterfly wings—easily crushed and broken.
After I met the girls and later Jared, I had reluctantly opened myself up to letting them help me. And I’d needed it because, hello, the dumpster fire of life.
“You good?” Greyson asked, parking in the front of the mechanic shop.