Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
MILLER
As soon as this mug of water’s heated up in the microwave, I’m taking tea up to Frankie and telling her everything.
Last night was fucking incredible. Falling asleep next to her and waking up to the sight of her serene face this morning makes me realize that spending my nights in any other way from now on would be a total waste of life.
Sleeping without the person who’s filled the donkey-shaped hole in my world, which I didn’t even know was there, would be a crime against humanity.
And that hole isn’t actually donkey-shaped—it’s Frankie-shaped.
Every part of her mirrors every part of me.
She’s fought for years to climb the corporate ladder to escape the working-all-hours-to-get-by life her parents have had, only to find she works just as hard and has no more free time than they’ve ever had—she just has fewer money worries.
And while I’ve never seen her in her Chicago setting, it’s hard to believe she could possibly fit in there better than she fits in here.
How could a social media campaign for tables possibly put a sparkle in her eyes the way the donkeys do?
How could dealing with corporate people in suits possibly bring her more joy than spending extra time with her beloved grandpa?
And how could a concrete and glass city fill her soul more than these rural surroundings that influenced so much of the woman she is today?
But that’s nothing compared to the way being around her has opened my eyes to my own life.
I got carried away on the development train, ended up employing more people than I ever imagined, chasing seven million dollars here and another ten million there, because that’s what’s expected in a business where success is measured in chauffeur-driven vehicles, designer watches, investments in the coolest companies, and the ownership of lavish properties around the world.
All I ever wanted was to make enough money to protect my family.
And now there’s enough to take care of all of us and set up any kids my brothers and I might have for life.
Well, after they’ve learned how to stand on their own two feet first—no child of mine is growing up with a free ride and no work ethic.
Maybe it’s taken Miller McSweeney to show Miller Malone how his driving desire to provide for his parents and brothers caused him to get swept along into taking everything way further than he ever intended. Or ever really wanted.
Of course, having money is great. But no one actually needs as much money as I have.
And there’s something else that being here has reopened my eyes to, something I haven’t done in more than a decade—pick up a piece of wood and shape it into something beautiful.
The missing panel in the shed has now been replaced by one that’s been lovingly smoothed and sanded, carved and routed, inlaid and burned with patterns.
I got totally carried away with practicing my old skills when I discovered the toys in the barn, carried down memory lane to my own grandad teaching me how to do it all, carried back to the memory of who I’d always intended to be.
Maybe Frankie and I have both lost sight of who we really are. Maybe we’ve brought each other back to our real selves. Maybe slotted together we become ten times the people we would ever be apart.
So, that’s it. I can’t go on like this any longer.
The guilt of deceiving her is killing me, crushing my soul every time I look into her eyes. It’s despicable.
And having sex with her—incredible, mind-blowing sex, with orgasms that last a week—when I haven’t been honest, makes me the highest order of despicable.
Yes, there’s an extremely good chance she’ll hate me and instantly throw me out.
But I want to be with her, to explore what we have here, to see if it really is that whole destiny thing that I think it might be. And that’s not possible unless she knows who I really am.
I gaze out of the window as the microwave whirs. The ground is still soaked from last night, but the sun is rising in a clear blue sky.
It’s a new dawn for the weather, for my life, for who I am, and what I want my future to look like.
Maybe it no longer consists of concrete pours, rebars, disputes over planning permissions, and crises over mismatched toilets. Maybe it looks more like a muddy field in the Hudson Valley and singing to scared donkeys.
Maybe you don’t know what you need until you find it.
Frankie has crawled under my skin and burrowed deep into my heart in a way no one else ever has. Would I have lain in soaking-wet muddy clothes, singing to a stressed-out farm animal for just anyone? No, I wouldn’t.
Though, to be honest, I would probably now do it for the sake of the donkey alone. Man, those creatures have gotten to me too. Or rather, Frankie has opened my heart enough for them to be able to get to me.
It’s not like I haven’t tried my damnedest to resist the draw to Frankie. I’ve resisted it with all my fucking might, as hard as a wet Doris resists coming inside during a storm.
But it’s impossible. Like it’s fate or some other sort of bullshit that I never would have believed a week ago.
The microwave beeps, and I jump to open the door to make it stop before it wakes Frankie. I want to be the one to do that.
As I dunk one of the Earl Grey tea bags, whose label I’ve seen dangling from her thermos mug when she’s walking around outside in the mornings, into the hot water, there’s a knock at the door.
From her position curled up on a chair, Thelma meows, disgruntled.
“Same,” I tell her. “Who the hell comes over this early?”
Maybe it’s finally the hay delivery and it’s the only time they could fit it in?
I’m wearing just the chain saw boxers that Frankie grabbed for me last night, but whatever, the guy won’t give a shit and I can just tell him to take the hay to the shed.
The old floor tiles are cold under my bare feet as I move toward the door.
I open it a crack, stick my head around it, and freeze—not only in terms of becoming completely motionless, but also in terms of my blood turning to ice crystals crunching through my veins.
At the same time, in a manner that would confound biological science, my heart thumps lava-hot blood to my brain.
My mind spins, whirls, performs feats previously only achieved by aerobatic aircraft, all in an attempt to search for a way to dodge the horror standing on the doorstep that’s now careering toward my life at the speed of light and is about to smash it to smithereens.
It can’t find one.
“Miller?” Wade Skinner could not look more shocked if the door had been opened by a penguin playing a banjo.
His brow furrows into deep, objectionable lines, like it’s a piece of rotten, shriveled fruit. “Miller Malone, what the fuck? Why the fuck…? What? What the fuck are you doing here?”
He scans my one naked shoulder that he can see—the rest of me is still behind the door. “And why the fuck are you naked?”
“Not naked.” For some unknown, godforsaken reason, I open the door wider to reveal the presence of my underwear.
“Well, fuck me. That’s not a whole lot better. I preferred it when you were behind the door.”
As my spinning brain catches up, the shock at seeing him is replaced by rabid fury at how he’s treated Frankie and her grandpa, combined with the wild panic that I need to get him out of here before Frankie sees him.
Or he sees Frankie. I cannot allow their paths to cross until I’ve come clean with her first.
This is going to be a hard enough situation to salvage when she hears the story from me. It’ll be dead on arrival if she hears it from him.
“I think the question is what the fuck are you doing here?” I say.
Needing to keep the noise down, I step out onto the bristly doormat and pull the door almost closed behind me.
“So now you’re coming out into the cold wearing just your nut coverers?” he sneers. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Clutching the door handle is the only thing stopping me from punching him on his wise-ass nose.
“You need to leave.” My blood pressure is rising so high and so fast it might just blow the top off my head. “Right now.”
“I need to speak to Miss Channing. Or Mr. Channing.” He puts his hands into his pockets and rocks back on his heels as if to demonstrate that, being fully clothed, he could cheerfully stand here all day. “Or just anyone who isn’t you.”
“Frankie told you to leave last time. So leave.”
“Frankie?” A slimy smirk spreads across his face. “Now, let me think…” He gazes up at the sky and taps his chin, feigning deep thought. “You’re on first-name terms and in her house wearing almost nothing. Now what could that possibly mean?”
“Fuck off, Wade.” Not the most professional or adult response, but I really need him to go right now. “Get lost. Come back later if you like. But for now, just fuck the hell off.”
“Why in such a hurry to get rid of me?” Wade drawls, like he has all the time in the world. “I can just wait if she’s not around. Or not, you know”—he gestures from the top of my head to my bare feet—“dressed.”
My simmering blood reaches boiling point and before I know it I’ve let go of the door and taken a step off the doormat toward him.
“Argh.” A sharp pain ricochets through the sole of my foot and up my leg.
I’ve stepped on a sharp fucking stone. Jesus shitting Christ, that hurts.
Wade’s caustic laugh rattles in my ears as I hop around, trying to pick it out of my flesh where it’s buried itself like a tick.
“What the hell’s going on?” Frankie’s voice is right behind me.
No. Fuck, no.
Anything but this. Literally anything. I’ll take a sinkhole opening up below my naked feet and dropping me into Earth’s fiery hot core before this.
She’s there in the doorway, zipping up a hoodie over a T-shirt and sweatpants.
The weight of the entire planet sinks in my stomach.
I can’t believe this is happening.
I have to get Skinner to leave before he opens his big, shitty mouth.