Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cody was in a bad mood, and everyone in his family had noticed. But when Lila slyly mentioned during dinner that an Aiden Davis was staying at the Painted Ridge resort, his eyes almost shot out of his head.
“Excuse me?”
“Yep. He’s on the registry. And I saw it and thought… Isn’t that the name of Marlowe’s husband?”
Cody glared pointy daggers at his sister. “You and your little steel trap memory.”
“Plus, you seem in a bad mood. She didn’t leave you for him, did she?”
Her words stabbed him straight through the gut. “No. She didn’t.”
“Then why aren’t you with her?” Walker asked.
“Because. She wanted more. She wanted more, and I’m not going to give her more. I don’t want to get married. I don’t want to have kids. I already raised kids.” He looked at his siblings, pointed.
“Yikes, right in front of my abandonment issues,” Lila said.
“Wow. Way to fling your emotional issues on us,” Walker said.
“I’m not trying to. I’m just explaining. And she knew that from the beginning.”
Except his words felt false and hollow now. They felt like they were wrong.
He felt like he was wrong.
Like it was a lie.
“When did he check in?”
“Two days ago,” said Lila. “I don’t really look at the guest registry all the time, but I was curious how full the hotel was, and I was scrolling through the bookings, and I just noticed.”
His eyes narrowed. “And you thought you would tell me.”
“I did. Because you’re miserable. And I assumed it had something to do with her. I also figured that you had done something bonehead to mess it up.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because, as long as I’ve known you, you have never had a girlfriend. Marlowe is the first one.”
“She wasn’t my girlfriend.” He sounded petulant saying it, but girlfriend sounded stupid. It sounded youthful and light. Like somebody that you went to the movies with, or the fair and got cotton candy, and they had never done that. Ever.
Suddenly, he hated that they hadn’t done that. They had sex, and he kept her inside, and he hadn’t showered her with any of the light and wonderful things that she ought to have had.
She was funny. And fun. She teased him, she gave him all these things he had never had before, and he had been… rigid and determined to keep things strictly in that lane he’d decided to put them back in the beginning.
No wonder she was going back to her husband.
But that guy, that guy deserved a really intense talking to. He deserved a punch in the face. Because what he did to Marlowe…
“I’m going to go over there,” he said.
“What the hell,” Lila exclaimed as Cody stood up.
“I just want to talk.”
“Cody… If you have a fist fight in the lobby of our nice hotel, and you get blood on the floor, and you make a viral video and…”
“I’m just going to talk,” he said, holding his hands up in a surrender pose.
Of course, he could easily make them into fists.
He didn’t listen to anything else that his brother or sister said as he walked out the door and headed to his truck.
Who knew where that motherfucker was, but he was probably dining in the Painted Ridge dining room, because that would be where he’d be at this hour.
Probably hanging out with Cara, maybe, if not Marlowe.
His hands were tight on the steering wheel, and he realized that he actually was jonesing for a fight. Which wasn’t the best.
He pulled up to the parking lot, which was full, guests and restaurant traffic, he assumed. And then he walked inside, not thinking at all.
Marlowe wasn’t behind the desk, but he walked into the lobby, and there she was, standing on the periphery of the restaurant. And he spotted a man walking out of the restaurant, who met Marlowe’s gaze, and he was sure that was him.
“Aiden?”
The man turned sharply, and so did Marlowe.
“Cody,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“Lila mentioned that Aiden was staying. I thought that we ought to have a talk.”
“Oh my God,” Marlowe said. “Cody… go home.”
“Who is this?” Aiden asked.
“I own this place,” Cody said. “I would’ve been your boss if you hadn’t abandoned your wife right before the cross-country move like the little bitch that you are.”
“Cody,” Marlowe said, smiling and talking carefully through her motionless mouth. “There are guests.”
“Then let’s move,” Cody said.
But Aiden just stood there, not moving.
Fine. Cody was fine doing this here. “If you’re going to get back with her, there are some things you need to know.
You didn’t treat her well enough. And you don’t have a job available here because I don’t need to pay two people to do a job that she does amazingly all on her own.
So what I know is you were dead weight. And I think you were that in the relationship, too.
I don’t think you understand what you have here,” he said.
The words scraped him raw, and it was suddenly like he was stabbing himself.
Slowly. Methodically, right in the gut. “She’s beautiful, she’s passionate.
She’s the smartest woman I’ve ever met. She has amazing insight into not only the things that have happened to her, but into all the people around her.
She’s forgiving, she’s kind, but not so kind that she can be run over.
Her capacity for love, for caring about people in spite of everything she’s been through, is amazing.
In spite of what you did to her. Any man who doesn’t appreciate that, who doesn’t treasure that, is a goddamn fool. ”
It hit him like a herd of horses running right over him.
It was him. He was the fool.
He’d wanted to yell at Aiden because he really wanted to yell at himself. Because what he really wanted was to go back and do things differently.
Go back and change things.
Because he was the one who needed to hear this.
“Cody,” Marlowe said. “I’m not getting back together with him. He knows that. He’s here to visit Cara. And to make the most out of the plane ticket that he bought.”
Cody looked at her, and he felt the walls inside of him crumble. There were diners milling around, walking past them, they all looked casual enough, he supposed, that no one was lingering, but he could feel all the intensity bleeding out of him. He could feel his heart about beat out of his chest.
“You’re not getting back together with him?”
“No. Because I love you. That didn’t change just because you said no.”
“You didn’t mention this,” Aiden said, looking wildly between them.
“Because it’s not your business,” Marlowe said. “You left me. My relationships are my business. And anyway, Cody and I aren’t together anymore, so I wasn’t hedging any bets. Unlike you. I would rather be alone than be with somebody who doesn’t love me the way that I deserve. And that is growth.”
Cody took Marlowe’s hand, and Aiden began to follow them. “No,” Cody barked, and the man obeyed him.
He dragged her out the side door, onto the back patio of the hotel. It was still warm outside, the June evening lovely and clear. “I do love you,” he said.
“Cody…”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m miserable.
I’ve been miserable ever since I told you that I couldn’t be with you.
I just… I couldn’t figure out how to accept it.
I just couldn’t. You were right about me.
Everything that you said was true. And I knew it the minute that you said the words, I just didn’t know how to make it not matter. ”
“You came over here because you heard Aiden was here. You just want me because you’re afraid that someone else is going to have me.
Cody shook his head. “That’s not true. It’s not.
I needed to say those things to him, but really I needed to hear them.
Because I’m the idiot who let you go, Marlowe.
You said all that to me, and I was scared.
I didn’t know how to fix myself fast enough to give you what you wanted. What you needed.”
Marlowe looked down, then back up at him, a tear slipping down her cheek.
“I don’t need you to be perfectly fixed.
Cody, the way that I feel about you, it’s different.
Different from anything I’ve ever felt before.
When I left you, I felt stronger. Not weaker.
And it’s because you built me up. It’s a testament to who you are.
You are the man that I want to be with. But you also made me into a strong enough woman that I feel like I can stand on my own.
You made me want more and better for myself.
Because I can see glimmers of that. Of what you can give.
Of what it would be like if you loved me. ”
“I do,” he said, gripping her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “God, I do. And if I have to fight that idiot to have you…”
“Like I said in there. You don’t. The only person you have to fight is me.”
“I don’t want to fight you. I surrender. To all of it. To this. I… Tell me that you love me.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “Oh, Cody. I love you.”
And it was like a dam of emotion burst inside of him.
“I love you too,” he said. And there was some sort of magical alchemy that happened inside.
The way that his heart beat differently.
Because when she said she loved him, he actually let it in.
So when he said it back, it meant something else altogether.
Like it was a spell, and Cody had never believed in magic.
He had never believed in anything but dirt, rocks, and hard work.
He had never believed in anything other than what he could see with his own two eyes and touch with his own two hands.
But there had been something more, something different from the first moment he had ever talked to Marlowe on the phone. There had been something more and different from the first moment he had seen her. The connection that transcended logic, that transcended anything he knew.
It had been this. The whole time. That she was the one who had the power to get past his walls. To show him they were even there.
To make him want to break them down.
“Today was so normal,” she whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“There was just nothing different about today. I woke up, and I missed you. I wished that we could be together, and I started work. Just like I have for the last week. But now… Everything has changed. On a Tuesday.”
“It’s not just a Tuesday,” he said. “It’s the best goddamn day of my life. I think… I want to marry you. I want to have kids with you.” That felt real. That felt true. Not like the other things he said.
“I want that too. Not because I think it’s going to save me. But because it sounds like the best life possible.”
Cody Grayson had lived for a whole slew of different things. For his siblings, for revenge, for the satisfaction of showing a whole town that they were wrong about him.
But this was the first time he had ever lived for himself. The first time he had ever lived for love.
He had a feeling that it was the beginning of that fairytale that Marlowe had been after.
And they would have the rest of their lives to enjoy it.