Chapter Seven
Chapter Seve n
Thayne
T he thing about small towns is that you’re always seeing those you’re determined to avoid.
I’ve seen more of Emberli than I’d anticipated these past few days and now, as if I’m not already late enough, she holds up the queue in Laceys’ general store as she rummages through her handbag.
“I know I had it! I swear I… I swear I just had it,” I hear.
I can get eggs another time. I could just walk away. But what I should and could do are two very different things.
“I’m so sorry. I think I’ve lost my purse.”
I sigh, leaving my place in the queue and snatch the eggs off of the conveyor belt before jumping ahead a few spaces, standing over Emberli, who is so deep in her bag she doesn’t even notice those around her who are starting to get annoyed with the prolonged wait, or me as I reach the eggs over her shoulder.
“These too please, Doris.” I show her my card and feel Emberli’s gaze peering up at me from under her eyelashes. “You don’t have to.”
“Just take the help, trouble. ”
She stands silently, pursing her lips together as I pack her shopping away for her. And then she follows me out and to my truck as I toss the bags into the back.
“Get in. I’ll take you wherever you want. Just hurry up. I’m late.”
It seems she doesn’t get the memo, because she just stands there with a thumb over her shoulder, gesturing to my sister’s bicycle.
“I rode here.”
I move past her, grabbing it before tossing it onto the truck bed. “Christ. Is there anything else you want to borrow?” I freeze as soon as the words leave my mouth. That was a low blow, a lot different to our usual fleeting comments.
“Wow.” She laughs and before I know it, she’s next to me, dragging out the heavy two wheeler.
“What are you doing?” I clamp my hands down on it and she too holds a firm grip, but I don’t budge.
We stand there for a few seconds like we’re engaging in a tug of war.
“What are you doing?” I ask again.
“I’m not getting in the truck with you.” She says.
“I said I’ll drive you back.”
“No.”
My jaw clenches. “Why do you have to make things so hard? Just get in the fucking truck.”
“What? So you can shame me some more? This may be a joke to you, Thayne. But this is my life right now and I don’t need you to humiliate me when I already feel humiliated enough.”
I swallow down the guilt that attempts to drown me as she stands in front of me, her chest heaving with the same anger that presents itself on her face.
“It wasn’t my intention to.”
“Bullshit.” She yanks again at the bicycle. Only this time she pulls harder and leaves my hands empty. “I don’t need your help, Thayne. Especially if it comes with a price.”
Her breathing is shallow yet quick paced as she straightens the bicycle, it’s only then that I see the chain has snapped. “You can’t ride that.”
“I’m getting really sick of you telling me what I should, shouldn’t and can’t do.” She snaps, rage flashing in those green eyes of hers, her cheeks are reddened into a crimson color and it’s clear as day that I’ve upset her.
Instead of the usual kick of satisfaction I’d get out of annoying her, it’s replaced with regret.
I didn’t mean to upset her. And I sure as fuck didn’t like seeing her upset either.
“No I mean, you really can’t ride that home. The chains snapped.” Her eyes divert to where mine are and she sighs.
“I can fix it.”
“You can’t fix it. It’ll need replacing.”
“I can do it. Just go.” Her cold tone slices through me as she lowers herself to get a better look of the chain. And as a sigh leaves her, I know she’s seen what I have.
“I’ll drop you.” I stop speaking immediately when I watch a tear run down her cheek, darting my thumb out but she dodges it, wiping it away herself as she holds her flat palm out at me, stopping me from getting any closer to her.
“I’m fine.” She tells me. But her icy demeanor doesn’t push me away like it’s supposed to. It does the opposite. “It’s the hormones.”
And even if it was, one thing is clear. I hated seeing Emberli cry.
“I’m sorry.” Her eyes dart up to mine and she shakes her head before she inhales a long breath, letting it leave her lips a few moments later.
“Don’t. I’m not even crying because of you. It’s the hormones. Know that if this was me, I would have punched you in the face.”
I try to hide the smile that attempts to make an appearance on my face.
There she is.
“And look, I get it okay? I get you’re mad at Elijah. But that is no reason to be mad at me. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for whatever he did to you or took from you that makes you hate me so much. But he took a lot of things from me too, you don’t see me being an asshole about it.”
The sternness in her voice shakes as she wipes at her eyes, the make-up she wears is smudged all across her face but yet she somehow manages to pull it off.
“I’ll drop you back.”
“No. I’ll walk.”
“Emberli, will you let me drop you back? Please.”
She hesitates. “Fine. But you don’t talk to me and I don’t talk to you. Got it? We can’t even have a normal conversation.” I open the passenger door for her in response, biting down the small objection that tells me she’s wrong.
That perhaps in another reality, where she wasn’t the ex-girlfriend of the only man who managed to hurt me on par with my dad and where she wasn’t my employee, or my little sister's new friend… maybe things could be different with Emberli and me.