Chapter 20
Emily cradled the hot chocolate between her fingers. The women talked around her, everyone spread out across Polly’s living room.
Nora. Maggie. Raven.
Somehow, Nora had convinced her to come to Polly’s house instead of going back to the inn. Maybe she’d agreed because she was tired. Or maybe she just wanted to be surrounded by strong women.
“I told him I was walking to the grocery store,” Raven started. “And he looked at me like I’d just said I was going to defuse a bomb in the gazebo.”
Polly laughed. “Sounds like Joel. I booked an appointment at a new hairdresser and he wanted to come. I said no, because…why? And he texted when I got there and asked if there was any ‘suspicious activity.’ I swear to God, those were his exact words, and I’m not sure if he was joking or not.”
The women laughed, and even though they were talking about their relationships and the men they loved, it was actually kind of nice. She hadn’t had a group of girlfriends since college, and all her friends since then didn’t joke like this.
“Well,” Nora started, lifting her hot chocolate, “your men sound completely unhinged, and I am happy to report that I don’t need to file a risk assessment just to buy milk or get a trim.
The only person questioning my life choices is me, and even I’m not that particular about them.
Well, the only person other than…” She stopped, her gaze finding Emily.
She offered a small smile. “It’s okay to say his name.”
There was a beat of silence before Polly asked the question everyone was probably thinking. “He really pulled the same stunt he pulled five years ago, again?”
“I actually felt like I was standing in my old apartment.” The women cringed. “I thought things would be different this time. I really thought he’d see it.”
“See what?” Maggie asked gently.
“That I don’t live this dream life that everyone thinks I do.”
The quiet that followed pressed in on the room, feeling thick and heavy.
Emily swallowed the lump in her throat before looking up. “I know how ungrateful that sounds. I’m very aware of how fortunate I am to have the job I have. The money I’ve made. I should be happy.”
“Sometimes we want something, but when we get it, it isn’t what we thought it would be,” Raven said quietly.
Emily nodded. “That’s true. If eight-year-old me could see herself right now, she’d be in awe.
Heck, most people would look at me and be in awe, because from the outside it looks amazing.
Travel and exotic locations and people saying my name like they know me.
But I have no friends. I’m never home. I live out of hotels and inns.
Everyone I come across wants something from me.
A signature. A photo. To star in their film and make it an overnight success.
Nothing’s felt real or genuine for years… until I got here.”
“Did you tell him that?” Nora asked.
“No. I made the decision to break my next contract and take a hiatus from acting all by myself. And I wanted to pick the right moment to tell him. A moment where I could explain how I was feeling and why I was making the decision for me. But my mother took that moment from me…again. And yet again, the two of them unknowingly worked together to try and unravel any plans I’d made. ”
Nora leaned forward. “My brother loves you, Emily. He just…he grew up having to make decisions he was too young to make. And that changed him.”
“Because of your mother?”
Pain flickered through her eyes. “Yeah. I don’t know how much he’s told you about her, but she suffered from schizophrenia.
And it was really bad. We never had clean clothes or stable lives or heck, even safe living conditions.
He pretends it doesn’t affect him. But I think he got really good at making very tough decisions to protect both of us, and that’s what he thinks he’s doing now. ”
“He doesn’t talk about that.”
“I know. But even if he did, you shouldn’t have to live with someone you love trying to take control of your life. I just hope he figures it all out before he loses you.”
Nora spoke as if tonight wasn’t final. As if they still had a chance. But it didn’t feel like that to Emily. It felt like she’d let him back in, forgiven him, and at the first true test, he’d broken them in exactly the same way he’d broken them the first time.
Over the next hour, the mood in the room lightened, the conversations moving to the locals of Deep River. A dysfunctional couple, Anika and Mark. A town recluse named David Collins. Then to a woman named Maureen who, apparently, was a self-proclaimed psychic.
When her phone vibrated with a text, Emily tensed, because it had to be her mother or Ryan. She wasn’t sure which would be better.
She pulled her cell from her pocket.
Ryan: How’s the cut?
Emily: I’m pain free.
Ryan: Are you with Nora?
Emily: Yes.
The three dots popped up then disappeared. When his next text came through, her breath stuttered.
Ryan: I’m an idiot.
She paused before typing the next words.
Emily: You are an idiot.
Ryan: I just…I can’t let go of this fear that you’ll wake up years from now and realize I cost you everything.
Emily: Your version of ‘everything’ is very different from mine.
Ryan: I don’t know where we go from here.
Emily: Even that hurts, Ryan. I want you to know. I want you to be so incredibly sure that the only future that’s right for either of us is one together. I need you to feel with absolute certainty that every version of tomorrow is unthinkable without me in it. Because that’s how I feel about you.
Ryan lifted his beer and downed a quarter of the bottle. He wasn’t even sure what the fuck he was doing here. He wasn’t the guy who, when things went to hell, tried to find an answer at the bottom of a bottle at the local bar.
Fuck no.
But after an hour of driving around in circles, not knowing where the hell he was going, he’d landed here.
His gaze shifted to his phone, the messages from Emily beating into his skull like a fucking bat. He hadn’t said the right things. He didn’t know what the right things were.
His phone vibrated with a text from the group chat.
Joel: Emily’s staying at Polly’s tonight. I’ll be here too.
Thank God. He’d been worried she’d go back to the inn. Knowing one of the guys was in the same house made him feel so much fucking better.
Ryan: Thanks.
Zac: Where are you? Need company?
Ryan: I’m at Trap. And no, I don’t want company. But thanks.
For the next twenty minutes he just sat there, letting every word that had been said between him and Emily run through his head. Basically, rewatching a trainwreck he couldn’t look away from. Then the text from her…
I need you to feel it as an absolute certainty—that every version of tomorrow is unthinkable without me in it. Because that’s how I feel about you.
“Are you okay?”
Ryan glanced up at Dusty behind the bar. “No.”
The older bar owner frowned as he shined a glass. “This about a woman?”
“This is about me making bad fucking decisions and having zero capacity to stop.”
“Being a bit hard on yourself, aren’t you?”
“Or not hard enough.”
Dusty glanced over Ryan’s shoulder. “Maybe some company will help.”
The chair beside him pushed back. “Ah. So this is where you go in this small town to drown your sorrows.”
Ryan looked at his sister. “What are you doing here, Nora?”
“Well, it’s good to see you too, big brother.” She smiled at Dusty. “Hi. I’m Nora, the better half of this sibling combination.”
“You gonna pull him out of this funk?” Dusty grumbled.
“I do consider myself a magic worker. But we’ll need two shots of whiskey first.”
“Nora—”
She held up a hand to stop Ryan’s next words. “Nope. You’ve had your turn. Pretty sure your bottle didn’t offer any answers. Now it’s my turn.”
“We’re gonna find answers at the bottom of a shot glass?”
“Here.” Dusty set the glasses in front of her. “Work your magic.”
As Dusty walked away, Ryan sipped his beer again. “How’d you know I was here?”
“I told Zac to text and ask. I knew you’d tell him and not me.”
“Because I knew you’d come.”
“Ouch.” She lifted both glasses and turned to face him. “Take this.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Nora—”
“You try to fight me right now and I will take you to the floor in a headlock.”
His lips twitched. “You know I used to let you take me down, right?”
“I know no such thing. I won fair and square just like I would right now. You wanna test it here in this bar?”
Jesus. Only Nora could make even a hint of a smile curve his lips at a time like this. He took the whiskey from her fingers.
“Cheers.” She hit her glass against his, and they both downed the shot at the same time, the liquid burning his eyes.
“Argh, that was disgusting.” Her glass hit the counter. “Now, I’m going to say something to you. You’re going to hate it. In fact, you’re probably going to get the urge to stop me mid-sentence. Don’t. I say this out of love.”
“If you’re going to call me an idiot, don’t waste your breath. It’s already been done tonight. Twice.”
“Nope, that’s not it. I’m going to say something that’s going to hit far harder. It’s why we needed the whiskey.”
“Because the whiskey’s going to make it hurt less?”
“Whiskey makes everything hurt less.” Her expression went serious as their eyes met. “You don’t have to make all the decisions for everyone anymore.”
“Nora—”
“I’m not finished. Our mother suffered from schizophrenia.”
Ryan’s fingers tightened around the glass.
“There were days we didn’t eat,” Nora continued quietly.
“Days she refused to let us out of the house. We moved twenty times in ten years because people were ‘watching’ us. You even stepped in front of thrown glasses to shield me when she thought we were the enemy. And you were just a kid. We survived those years because of you. Because you protected us. You made every decision that kept us alive and fed and safe.”
“That’s in the past, Nora.”
“No, Ryan. That will always be a part of us.” She tilted her head, a sheen of tears in her eyes. “I think you got really good at making decisions. With Mom. With your team.”
“Are you psychoanalyzing me like one of your students?”
“No. I’m talking to my brother.” She touched his knee. “And that brings me to the second part…no one tried to save us.”
“We moved around too much.”
“People saw.” There was pain in Nora’s eyes now.
“They saw that our mother was sick. No one stepped in. No one tried to take us anywhere we’d be safe.
And I think maybe that made you feel like you weren’t worth what it might cost someone to step in.
And now you think you’re not worth the risk for Emily. ”
Fuck. He dropped his gaze to the bar again.
“But Ryan…you are.” Her fingers tightened. “And you need to fight for her.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ll always hold on to the fucking trauma that our mother put us through. But…I might also be right. Emily might still regret this decision later.”
“She won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I have eyes. And a beating heart. I see and feel the way you love each other. It’s not a love you just wake up and stop feeling one day.”
Was she right? Was he letting his childhood dictate his judgment and decision-making?
“Yo, Dusty, can we get some cocktails?” Nora called.
Ryan frowned at his sister. “Cocktails?”
“Yeah. We’ve done the heavy whiskey shit. Now we lighten the mood with some pina coladas while we concoct a plan on how to earn Emily’s trust again.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible, Nora. She already gave me a second chance, and I royally fucked it up.”
She pinched his arm.
“Ow. What the hell was that for?”
“Being a pessimist. Only hopeful talk is allowed tonight. Now, shall we start brainstorming?”