23. Darcy
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
darcy
Pilates, as it turns out, is a completely different experience when your body has recently been through something.
Something being gloriously dicked down by two two-hundred-pound firefighters.
I’m discovering this in real time while lying on the reformer staring at the ceiling and attempting to locate my core, which appears to have filed a formal complaint.
“Engage,” the instructor says.
I engage. Distantly.
I hold, barely and mostly mentally, while my body negotiates with me physically because I’ve spent the last few days in similar positions but for reasons that felt far more aligned with my personal goals.
“And breathe.”
I breathe and think about absolutely nothing. Definitely not the way Tyler’s lips felt on my neck, or the way Mack’s hands gripped me.
“From the top.”
Of course. Why wouldn’t we revisit the scene of the crime?
I do it from the top.
After class, I collapse onto a bench outside, my legs doing that pleasant kind of tremble that means something actually got accomplished. My water bottle sweats into my palm while I fish my phone out of my bag.
Bex
I need dates.
Darcy
For what?
Bex
You’ve sent me eleven “I’m fine ” texts in two weeks. The smile emoji, Darce.
Bex
You only use the smile emoji when you’re actively suppressing something.
Darcy
That’s because I AM fine…genuinely.
Bex
“Genuinely fine” is not a thing a fine person says.
Darcy
There’s just a lot going on.
Bex
Define a lot.
Bex
It’s the brothers, isn’t it?!
Darcy
Pilates is starting again…can’t have my phone out. Talk soon!
Bex
DARCY ELIZABETH REED you text me back right now or I’m calling your mother and telling her you’re in a throuple situationship.
Darcy
I’m not in a situationship!
Bex
SHE REPLIED
Darcy
Goodbye Bex.
Bex
I’m booking a flight. Don’t try to stop me.
I do want Bex here. That part’s easy.
The part that’s less easy is that Bex will show up, take one look at me, and have the whole thing figured out before she even gets in the car. And I’m not ready for that yet.
My phone buzzes four more times and I leave it face down and finish my water like a coward.
Later that afternoon, I’m sprawled across my couch with my laptop open and halfway through a branding deck when my screen lights up.
Mom appears first, composed as ever, like whatever she’s about to say has already been arranged into the right order. Dad materializes on the couch a second later with that gentle expression he gets whenever he’s preparing to play referee.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetheart. You look tired.”
“I just got back from Pilates, Mom.”
“You’re still doing that?”
“I like it.”
“How’s the apartment?”
“Still love it.”
“And work?”
“Busy. I have three contracts right now. One of them’s a six-month retainer.”
“That’s wonderful,” my dad says, and means it.
Mom smiles, small but genuine.
“I’m glad it’s keeping you busy.”
“It is.”
A quiet settles over the call.
“We haven’t heard from you much,” she says gently.
“That’s wonderful,” my dad says and means it.
“I’ve just been slammed.”
She nods, and I know by the look on her face that we’ve officially run out of small talk.
“We had dinner with Brett last week.”
My stomach drops.
“You…had dinner with Brett?”
“He reached out,” my dad says carefully.
“He wanted to check in,” Mom adds. “He asked how you were.”
Of course he did. To them, not me.
“He’s having a hard time,” Dad says softly.
“I’m sure he is.”
Mom watches my face.
“He still doesn’t understand why you left.”
“He understood.”
She waits.
“He just didn’t agree.”
Another silence.
“I think,” Mom says carefully, “we’re all still trying to understand.”
I look down at my hands.
“I know.”
“You spent three years building a life together.”
“Yes.”
“You loved each other.”
“Yes.”
“And from where we’re sitting…” She pauses, choosing her words. “It looked like a good life.”
A good life. Not a happy one.
“I know what it looked like.”
Mom’s expression softens.
“I think that’s the part we’re struggling with.”
I wanted to tell them that the part that I struggled with was feeling like my opinion carried less weight than his, like my needs were always the flexible ones. Like I was expected to rearrange my life around his, but the idea of him rearranging his around mine was somehow unreasonable.
That I’d started disappearing inside a perfectly nice life. But trying to explain that to people who still thought in terms of good and bad suddenly felt impossible.
“It just didn’t feel right,” I say instead.
“I just think—” Mom sighs. “By now, I expected you would have had time to think about what you actually want.”
“I did think about it. That’s why I’m here,” I say, a little more defensively than I’d intended.
Mom sighs.
“We know.”
“Do you? Because it doesn’t feel like you do.”
“We’re trying,” she tries gently. “It’s just…you left a very stable situation.”
“I’m not getting back together with Brett.”
“Darcy, nobody said—”
“You kind of are.”
I feel the heat burning my cheeks.
“We’re worried this is a reaction, Darcy. Not a plan. Relationships aren’t always happy all of the time.”
A reaction.
As if I moved to Boston on impulse because I couldn’t manage my feelings. Or like the last six months hadn’t been the most deliberate and clear-eyed and genuinely myself I’ve felt in years.
My dad shifts on the sofa arm.
“We just miss you,” he says. “That’s really all this is.”
I know he means it. That’s what makes it so hard. His gentleness next to her concern is the exact combination that’s been making me feel like I need permission to want things for myself since I was eight years old.
“I miss you too,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.
“But I’m good.”
I huff out a laugh that doesn’t sound much like one.
“I’m really good. I need you to trust that.”
Dad nods.
“Of course.”
Mom nods too, but her smile never quite reaches her eyes. They still look at me like they’re waiting for me to realize I’ve made a mistake.
We spend another ten minutes talking about absolutely nothing while my mother smiles too brightly the way she does when she’s pretending she hasn’t already analyzed every word I’ve said.
My jaw aches from clenching it by the time we hang up.
I leave the branding deck open on my laptop for a while, mostly because closing it would require admitting I haven’t actually done any work since my parents called.
I reread the same headline four times before it finally occurs to me I couldn’t tell you what it says if somebody offered me a thousand dollars.
The next thing I know, the kitchen is spotless. The counters shine. The mail is stacked into a neater pile than it was before. Even the dish towel hanging off the oven handle has somehow ended up folded neatly over itself.
I lean my hands against the counter and let out a slow breath.
I wasn’t asking them to agree with me.
I wasn’t asking them to stop loving Brett or erase three years of birthdays and holidays and Sunday dinners. I just wanted them to trust that I knew my own relationship better than the version everyone else got to see.
They saw anniversaries and an engagement.
They saw someone who offered to help with the dishes and fit so neatly into our family that nobody stopped to wonder what it looked like when it was just the two of us.
Never saw how easy it became to laugh off the things that mattered to me because arguing always took more energy than letting them go.
I always thought leaving would be the hard part.
But the hard part is this. Trusting myself enough to stop explaining why I left. Trusting that I don’t need everyone else to understand my decision before I’m allowed to believe it was the right one.
My throat tightens as I blink back the tears.
Maybe that’s the part nobody tells you about finally choosing yourself. The people who love you don’t always recognize the version that comes after. They keep looking for the girl who would’ve stayed.
Three sharp knocks break the silence.
I already know who’s standing on the other side before I reach the door, which is concerning because my body apparently developed a sixth sense for the MacAllister brothers somewhere along the way.
I pull it open.
Mack’s standing there in a dark leather jacket, keys loose in one hand, broad shoulders filling most of the hallway behind him.
“You gonna let me in,” he asks, one brow lifting, “or am I gonna have to start using my key again?”
I open my mouth, fully prepared to remind him that he permanently lost key privileges after the Great Bathroom Ambush of March, but the words never make it out.
His eyes meet mine, the hint of amusement disappearing so quickly I barely see it.
“Rough day?”
I shake my head automatically, like that’ll somehow erase whatever he’s already read off my face.
He studies me for another beat.
“Get your coat.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
There’s something deeply unfair about how good he is at sounding calm and authoritative at the same time. I stare at him for another second, still halfway caught between embarrassment and confusion.
“I’m fine,” I protest.
“Get your coat anyway.”
He holds my gaze just long enough for me to realize this isn’t a negotiation.
I disappear into my bedroom, muttering under my breath the whole way, which would probably be a much more convincing display of defiance if I weren’t, in fact, getting my coat.
Once outside, I make it three steps before the Buick stops me in my tracks.
Now, technically, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
I’ve seen it before. Sat beside it in the garage while Mack worked.
Watched him disappear underneath it for hours.
Listened to him talk about bushings and seals and a dozen other things I immediately forgot the names of because I was mostly watching him.
Parked beneath the streetlights, the black paint almost disappears until it catches the light, the whole car shifting as I move around it. It sits low and unapologetic against the curb, looking like the kind of thing people turn to watch after it’s already gone.
He opens the passenger door without commentary.
The interior smells like clean leather and cold air and something distinctly him underneath it. Mack turns the key and the engine answers with a deep, rolling rumble that I feel almost as much as I hear, the sound vibrating through the seat as he pulls away.
Pink Floyd spills softly through the speakers while Boston slips past outside in streaks of taillights and brick, and somewhere between the music, the engine, and the sight of Mack driving with one hand hooked over the top of the wheel, I realize I can breathe again.
It feels like progress, considering twenty minutes ago I was one passive-aggressive comment away from moving back to Pennsylvania out of spite.
My eyes catch on his hand for a second longer than they should.
What is it about guys driving one-handed that feels like metaphorical Viagra for ovaries?
It’s a dangerous train of thought when the guy behind the wheel comes with another half. A brother who, in hindsight, may have been a little too eager to give me a very hands-on firehouse tour while Mack was preoccupied.
My stomach knots, because that’s the part I keep trying not to think about.
Does Mack know about the other night?
Did Tyler tell him?
If he did, what does that make tonight? Am I getting in the middle of something that worked just fine before I showed up?
I’d hate to be the thing that came between them.
I let myself sit with that for maybe two seconds before shoving it back where it came from. Not tonight. Tonight I’m just sitting beside Mack while Boston slides past outside the windows, and somehow that’s already more than enough to deal with.