Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Work Song — Hozier
“ D o you want to talk about it?” Fiona asked.
“Talk about what?” I feigned ignorance, trailing my finger around the rim of my glass.
Fiona’s penetrating gaze was focused solely on me. June was with Kip, so I wouldn’t be saved by toddler antics.
She’d arrived on my doorstep about fifteen minutes before Elliot had left to get groceries. I didn’t know if it was a coordinated effort to ensure that I wasn’t left alone or if it was a coincidence. I didn’t care much since she’d been carrying a bottle of vodka and takeout from Avery’s restaurant.
Elliot had stayed to speak to Fiona in that easy way of his, eating with us, and I couldn’t help but notice the way his gaze darted to mine more often than usual, him watching to make sure that I was eating.
I’m sure Fiona noticed too. She was used to having an eagle eye on a toddler with a death wish, that latent energy needing to go somewhere.
Whether Elliot had sensed the need for girl talk or genuinely wanted to get groceries—the cupboards were bare—he kissed me on the head then left me with Fiona who didn’t fuck around with small talk, asking her question the moment the front door closed.
“Talk about whatever had my husband pacing the hall, muttering to himself, on the phone to Rowan every hour asking for ‘updates,’” she demanded.
“How do you know I had anything to do with that?” I hedged.
“Because the only word that was said more than ‘fuck’ was ‘Calliope.’” Her mouth was turned down, somehow knowing how grave the situation was.
Like her husband, the usually smiling Fiona was familiar with the underbelly of the world, true trauma and ugliness. Like recognized like, I guessed. As hard as I was trying to construct a facade that walked and talked like the Calliope I was before, I simply didn’t have the energy to commit to it.
And my best friend saw right through it.
She wasn’t doing well at hiding her concern from her face. I saw the crease between her eyebrows, the careful way she was holding her glass, the cautious way in which she spoke, as if her tone might shatter me.
And it felt like one wrong step would do it. Like there was a hairline fracture down the core of me, and one misstep, I’d be nothing but broken pieces.
“My past caught up with me,” I took a sip, pausing to look out the window.
“That’s a lie.” I released a heavy breath and looked back at Fiona.
“I went and caught up with it. Freed myself of former bad decisions. Freed myself from bad men. It was … messy but successful. And it affected me more than I’d expected it might. ”
I wasn’t about to give her more. Elliot knowing more was enough for me. And he was right; I wasn’t practiced at relying on people, showing them weakness. I thrived on being the capable older sister, the one everyone turned to, the one no one needed to take care of.
Elliot was right about that being a part of my identity, so I clutched on to it with a kind of mania that wasn’t healthy and made me blind to all the people who were willing to let me lean on them, willing to love any version of me.
And that’s what Fiona was doing. Sitting there, waiting, proverbial arms out, ready to catch me.
“I know a thing or two about bad men and the process it takes to rid them from your life. Or this earth.” She toyed with the stem of her own glass.
Yeah, Fiona knew a thing or two. She had endured an abusive marriage in the midst of multiple miscarriages, had run halfway across the world to escape her powerful abuser, married Kip in order to secure a visa, fell for him, and then almost died at the hands of her ex-husband. While pregnant.
Then her current husband had killed her ex right in front of her after she almost drowned.
Yeah, she knew a thing or two.
I’d been there. Throughout it all, unable to help beyond my presence, fucking furious at how powerless I was to actually fix anything. But I was there. For my friend. And I was so fucking proud of how she’d recovered.
“I’m definitely acquainted with keeping troubles close to the chest.” She took a sip. “Not wanting to weigh anyone down. Wanting to be a badass bitch who can handle her shit and not ask for help, especially from a man.” She quirked a brow at me. “Sound familiar?”
“Vaguely.” I grinned before taking a sip of my own drink.
“You’re better than most.” She grinned back. “Sounds like you’ve done it for half a lifetime.”
“Bitch, if you’re insinuating that I’m middle-aged, I will cut you,” I snapped good-naturedly.
Fiona laughed. “You are definitely not. You’ve got a whole life ahead of you. One where yes, you can do the unthinkable—like rely on a man. A good one. They exist. We have suspicious amounts of proof here in Jupiter.”
I laughed. She wasn’t wrong. The concentration of decent, if not a little overprotective, men here in Jupiter, Maine, was suspicious.
“Maybe it’s some government experiment to see if our ecosystem will collapse in the face of men who are decent, feminist and masculine all at the same time?” I mused.
She laughed. “Fuck no. Not our government. That’s a whole industry built on toxic men oppressing women.”
I shrugged. “I have faith that the system will topple.”
“I do too.” She resituated herself to look directly at me.
“Decent man notwithstanding, you also have a bunch of girlfriends who are chomping at the bit to catch you. Even if you refuse to fall or acknowledge that you need help, we’ve got our arms out, ready and waiting to ensure that you don’t hit the ground.
” She reached out and squeezed my hand. “Elliot is a great man. But he can’t be everything.
Don’t fuck this up by thinking he’s all you’ve got to rely on and then sabotage your own happiness because you refuse to be a burden or whatever the fuck you’ve got going on in your head.
You’ve got us too. A sisterhood. And we will all collectively scalp you if you do something as toxic and predictable as hurt Elliot for his own good. This isn’t fucking White Fang .”
“Impressive American reference.” I let my lips tip up although my chest heaved with emotion.
She flashed me a dazzling, white smile. “I’m practicing. I’ve got my citizenship test coming up.”
“I doubt they’ll ask about the origin and meaning of White Fanging someone.”
She shrugged. “I’m covering my bases.”
“Seriously, Calliope.” She gave my hand one more squeeze before she let it go.
“I love the shit out of you, and I’m here for you, whatever you need.
But I will kick your ass if you deny yourself happiness and use whatever happened with these bad men as evidence that you’re somehow bad too.
Women don’t define themselves by the actions bad men force them into.
We don’t judge ourselves by the actions of any man. Even Elliot.”
I looked at her. My fierce friend. A great mother. Someone who had experienced her own rock-bottom, who’d survived being in a stalemate with Kip about love and what it meant. Proof that something akin to a happy ending existed.
“Fine.” I let out a huff of breath. “But does that mean I’ve met my quota on deep and meaningful talks for a decade? I can’t handle it.”
She chuckled. “We’ll see.”
Though I was still playing the hardass bitch, I couldn’t deny that the talk did something. It took the weight off my shoulders. It opened my eyes that I did indeed have a whole bunch of women with arms extended, never expecting or rooting for me to fall but ready to catch me if I did.
It was a strange feeling.
I didn’t hate it.
Not one bit.
ONE MONTH LATER
Shaw Shack was bursting at the seams. Summer was gone.
Fall had colored the leaves, but the weather was unseasonably warm, one last breath of it before the bite of winter descended.
Tourists were squeezing the last out of their vacations.
Drinking, eating, basking in their temporary lack of responsibilities.
My laptop was open in front of me, doing work while listening to people around me laugh and complain about their jobs.
I loved my job. Although I wasn’t getting enough dirt to take down a Russian oligarch to save my life, I was back to doing what I loved: making a fuck load of money and ruining men who deserved it.
Just because I had accepted that I was in love with a good man and that I was going to live in a small town in Maine for perhaps the rest of my life, neither meant I had gone soft.
Part of my journey—or whatever one would call it—was discovering that I could feel and be soft.
But that didn’t mean I stopped loving control.
Luxury. Making money. Those were all still parts of my identity.
Just not cornerstones of them. I now managed Rowan and Kip’s construction company, the fishing business and the restaurant.
I’d expected a huge battle from Beau about that, considering he wasn’t my biggest fan, and he was the kind of man who would’ve hated even the idea of being bailed out by a woman.
There had been plenty of grumbling, but he hadn’t explicitly argued over my investment or my management of the business. A pleasant surprise.
My eyes flickered over to the wall of photos. A new one hung. From a couple of weeks ago. Dinner at Nora’s. Elliot’s father had been there. Beau. Clara. The blended family of our Jupiter crew.
Tiffany had managed to snap an image of Elliot and me after he’d tugged me onto his lap, against my protests of PDA, kissing my neck. I was smiling, my hair down. I looked extraordinarily happy.
She must’ve sent it to Elliot, and he hadn’t told me about having it printed, framed and mounted on the wall. He’d just done it.