Red Zone Realizations (Houston Hurricanes #1)

Prologue

AUDREY

SIX MONTHS AGO

I read somewhere that you can bounce back from anything in a relationship except disgust. Once you’re disgusted by your partner, there is no coming back from that. It’s the end of the road.

I discovered that truth tonight at our engagement party. I’d gone into the kitchen to grab more chips to put out for the dip when I overheard Hunter, my fiancé, talking to his mom.

“We’ll probably wait a few years to start trying for kids,” he told her.

“Well, don’t wait too long. Time goes faster than you think. You’ll blink and the next thing you know, you’ll be thirty,” his mom replied.

“I don’t intend to wait that long. Audrey talks a big game, but I think she’ll have changed her mind before we’re thirty.

When all our friends are slowing down, she’ll see that this is what life is meant to be about—our purpose.

” He paused. “No one has their mind made up for that long. We all change as we grow older, it’s inevitable. ”

I heard his mother's earrings, always oversized, jingle as she shook her head at him. “I’m not sure you know that girl as well as you think you do. She isn't uninterested in children because that’s what everyone expects of her. She truly feels that way in her heart—that children aren’t in either of your future. ”

“That’s why she says she doesn’t want kids, but would she be willing to stand on those same principles if it meant losing me? Us? Family?” he said, gesturing at the party going on around us.

I’d reeled back as if I had been slapped and was unable to listen to his drivel any longer. I could feel the acid welling up into my throat, and it only took me a split second to realize what that was.

Disgust.

Absolute repulsion.

I knew in an instant that what he said about losing him over my long-held beliefs was true because yes, I could—and would—walk away from our relationship without blinking an eye.

Somehow, I kept it together until we got home, but I couldn’t fathom going to bed and lying next to this man for even one moment longer.

A few hours later, long after this sham of an engagement party ended, I set my marquise engagement ring on the kitchen table in front of Hunter.

It makes a quick click as it lands. I stare at it like it’s a snake in the grass ready to strike.

Then my gaze travels to the man in the chair across from me.

The man who had slipped that ring on my finger a year ago.

He had looked so handsome down on one knee in the restaurant we had our first date.

His brown eyes were confident but questioning.

His soft brown hair had been freshly cut and perfectly styled.

Looking at him now, though, I don’t see any of that man in him anymore. It’s like I had imagined him.

“I can’t do this.”

“Do what, Audrey?” Hunter’s voice is low, like he knows exactly what I’m talking about.

“Be with you anymore,” I say under my breath.

Hunter runs his hands over his face as if tired by my dramatics. “What is this really about?”

I gather all the courage I’ve ever had to speak my truth. “You know I don’t want kids.”

“I know you say that.” He pauses. “I didn’t think you meant it.”

“You never thought to ask me? Instead, you tell your mom you know me better than I know myself?”

“Eventually you’ll change your mind. Every woman does. We’re young right now.”

“I won’t, though.”

“You can’t possibly know that now.” At the very least, he’s consistent in his messaging.

“You know what? You’re right. We are too young.” I cross my arms over my chest, the weight comforting. “Too young to get married.”

He stands, leaning over the table. “You don’t mean that.”

My throat is too constricted with emotion to talk, so instead, I nod.

He drops back in the chair, all the fight gone out of him.

Silence falls between us. There’s nothing left to say.

I can’t magically become who he wants me to be.

I won’t. Kids are the one thing in my world that has no compromise. You can’t have half of a kid.

He’s unknowingly hit me where it hurts the most. He can’t understand how much I want to want what everyone else seems to know intuitively.

When I was made, there was a piece of me missing.

I have never had the desire for children.

I’ve never had baby fever. I see moms smiling, holding their baby, looking like the entire world is in their arms, and I feel…

nothing. Happy for them, of course, but there’s no tug in my gut, no swelling of my heart.

Just stillness. Now, I’ve come to understand that the stillness differentiates me.

It makes me part of the other. I will never willingly feel that way again.

I walk down the hallway, the click of my kitten heels resounding against the hardwood, as I enter our bedroom to pack a bag.

Panties, bras, pajamas, shorts, and T-shirts.

The rest I can come get later, right now I’d do anything to get out of this apartment.

To stop feeling the weight of this failed engagement hanging in the air like smoke after fireworks.

On my way out of our apartment, I walk right by Hunter.

Still where I left him at the kitchen table, staring at the glint coming off my ring.

I expected he would have more to say. He sure had an awful lot to say to his mother tonight about what I do and do not want, but he remains silent as I turn the door handle to leave.

The silence from him isn’t surprising considering the bomb I just dropped, but it’s certainly deafening as I close one chapter in my life.

I pull out my phone and dial Nicole’s number. She answers in two rings.

“I’m coming over. I’ll be there in ten.”

I don’t remember any of the drive to Nicole’s, but I’ve done it so many times I could probably do it with my eyes closed. They may as well be. My memories with Hunter roll in my mind's eye like a film.

Nicole wraps me in her arms when I arrive. Tears sting my eyes. “It’s over,” I whisper.

She holds me tight. “It’s going to be all right.”

She lets me go and I place my duffle on her couch. We sit close. “What happened? Do you want to talk about it?”

“You’ve known me since elementary school.”

She nods. “I was there through your whole tomboy phase. When you refused to wear anything pink.”

“Thank God that was a phase, but…” My breath hitches. “My not wanting kids wasn’t. That’s something I’m dead set on, Nicole.”

“I know.” She has never once judged me. Not when I told her the first time that I thought I might not want kids, even though we used to discuss name ideas. Not when I left the Catholic faith we had been raised in together.

“Apparently, Hunter didn’t.” I sniff a laugh, but it sounds liquid in my throat. “He thought I would change my mind. I overheard him telling his mom tonight.”

“Why didn’t you come find me at the party and tell me?”

My cheeks are hot, burning with second-hand embarrassment. “And ruin my engagement party in front of everyone? Be the hysterical crying bride?” I shake my head. “No way.”

“Well, you’re here now. We don’t have to handle everything tonight. You can stay here as long as you need.” I hug her, fully wrapping my arms around her. I smell her floral shampoo and feel the comfort that only a childhood friend can bring you.

She tucks me under her arm, leading me toward her bed.

Since elementary school, we’ve never slept in separate beds during sleepovers.

We always shared her bed. Tonight is no different.

Having the weight and warmth of her next to me helps keep me calm as the reality of what I’d done crashes around me.

My heartbeat plays an erratic tune, and I take deep breaths to try and slow it.

I pull out my phone, and open the notes app to start a list:

1. Get the rest of my stuff.

2 Find a place to live.

3. Swear off men.

4. Buy a vibrator.

At the ripe old age of twenty-nine, I’m going to have to start over.

Having the steps laid out in order makes the lizard part of my brain happy.

Nothing is impossible when broken down into attainable steps.

At least that’s what I tell myself as I review the list and listen to Nicole’s gentle breathing as she sleeps.

The heaviness of the argument and the exhaustion from socializing are apparently too much for me to fight.

What I assume would be a fitful night of regret and tangled emotions that prevent me from falling asleep turns into the opposite and I am somehow able to find sleep.

Maybe this is my subconscious telling me I’d made the right choice to leave?

In the morning, I check my phone and wake up to twenty texts.

Some from Hunter, others from my family.

None are supportive. The top one from my sister, Sarah, simply reads, What did you do?

! I knew Hunter was up my family’s ass, but I didn’t think he would immediately run to them and expose his belly like a scared puppy.

I guess it’s time to face the music.

But at least this time, the tune and the lyrics will be completely my own.