Chapter 31 Your Answer #2
He would have done it that day, but he’d asked her when she was going to winterize her truck, something he discovered an LA-then-Orlando girl knew nothing about. He then told her he’d do it for her while she was at the shop.
Though, yesterday he’d taken her to Mrs. Matthews.
Mabel had shared what Mark explained, and more about Mrs. Matthews was revealed when they went to her house.
She clearly loved family, because the place was full of heirlooms she’d protected when times got tight, just like she protected her son and herself.
Mabel had been in heaven.
He headed into town to get to Stormy’s tire shop to have snow tires put on her vehicle and fill her truck bed with puzzle weights so that bitch didn’t fishtail on snow or ice when they got it (and that would happen soon) and land his woman in a ditch.
While he was waiting for the men to install the tires, he went to his friend’s office and knocked on the doorframe.
Stormy looked up from his computer, appearing irritable, a way Stormy looked a lot after Angelica got hold of him.
He’d been mellowing out lately since Stormy’s son, Viggo’s mom, who also happened to be Ledger’s mom, skipped town to find her next victim. But he still wasn’t back to the Stormy he was, and maybe he never would be.
Hutch had known Stormy a long time.
But this was the first Hutch felt this in his gut.
Storm used to be a fun guy.
Not the asshole kind who got drunk and catcalled women.
But he’d have a laugh. Have a drink. Get laid. Up for a road trip, a fishing trip or a shooting trip.
He still was that, just less of it.
It wasn’t just that he was a single dad.
It was how bad he got played by a woman, and not one he even liked.
“Hey, Hutch,” he called.
“Getting Mabel’s snow tires put on. Thought I’d pop in. You busy?”
As answer, Stormy swung a hand to the chairs opposite him at his desk.
Hutch strolled in, sat down and gestured to the computer. “Problems?”
“Other than I need an assistant? No. I just fuckin’ hate office work.”
“I thought you found someone,” Hutch replied.
“Yeah. Told you that this weekend. Fired her yesterday after the fourth time I explained she’s here to do the fucking filing and not flirt with my guys. So now I’m hiring again.”
“Sorry, man,” Hutch replied, and meant it, not for the first time thankful he had one employee: himself.
“Me too.” Stormy blew out a breath before he asked, “All good? I heard you had some commotion up there on Stony Bluff.”
He told Stormy the story of Mabel, Paisley and The Lion and The Lamb.
Stormy was silent and looked stormy, while Hutch spoke.
And when he was done, Stormy asked, “Your woman okay?”
“She’s more okay than I am.”
“I hear you, man,” Stormy said with commiseration. “Since that happened, been avoiding my phone and the news. Don’t want to see our town spread all over that shit again.”
Hutch wasn’t a hermit or a philistine. He kept abreast of local headlines on the Tri-Lake Chronicle and the Misted Pines Herald, and he read The New York Times newsletter every morning, and had a subscription to The Atlantic.
They’d been all over the Chronicle and the Herald, and when he checked, he saw they got some play in Seattle and Spokane papers, but although it was reported, it was barely a blip beyond that.
No guns fired, blood spilled, dead bodies or towering infernos, just fentanyl and religious fanatics. Therefore, this time, they hadn’t gone viral.
A rare break.
“Got something to talk to you about,” Hutch said.
“Shoot,” Stormy replied.
“It’s personal.”
Storm smiled a rare smile, and it wasn’t lost that was the way Hutch used to be.
Before Mabel.
“Cleaned a lot of fish next to you, brother. I know you’ve been through more intense bonding rituals, but that’s what works in Misted Pines.”
Hutch returned his smile.
Then he got up, went to the door, closed it and came back.
“Shit, this is personal,” Stormy said, eyeing him closely.
“You been serious with a woman since Angelica?” Hutch asked.
Stormy’s face got hard. “I wasn’t serious with Angelica.”
“You know what I mean. You seen anyone you started to give a shit about?”
“Is this about Mabel?”
“Is that you avoiding my question?” After he said that, Hutch realized how edgy he was about all this, and that question was taking it out on Stormy, so he lifted a hand and shook his head. “Sorry. Not my business. You don’t have to—”
“It’s not that it isn’t your business. It’s just…yeah.” Now Stormy was shaking his head. “I saw Lillian.”
Christ.
Of course.
How could he forget?
They’d been together awhile.
It was just that now Lillian and Harry were so much a couple, it was like they always had been.
Stormy kept talking.
“Angelica screwed me. I screwed the pooch with Lillian. But other than Lillian, no.”
“What screwed the pooch with Lillian?”
Storm had a ready answer.
One that Hutch also felt in his gut.
“Me being pissed at Angelica. Me holding on to being pissed at Angelica. Me letting what Angelica did to me color how I saw Lillian. Allowing it to hold me back when I had genuine feelings for her that were growing, and it tripped my shit, so I blew it.”
Hutch looked beyond him at the grimy window behind Stormy’s desk, consciously letting every word Stormy said sink in and do it deep.
“My turn, so I’ll repeat the question. This have to do with Mabel?” Stormy asked.
Hutch looked back to him. “Yeah.”
“And Bree,” Stormy surmised.
“As well as a couple before her,” Hutch told him.
“Right, then. I haven’t met her. I can’t give you advice about her specifically.
What I can say is, if you feel it, don’t bury it.
Don’t ignore it. Don’t try to shove her into some version of someone she’s not.
Trust me, brother, when she gets shot of you and moves along to the next guy who doesn’t have his shit twisted, and he makes her happy, they get married and get into Halloween decoration contests with their neighbors, you’ll kick yourself.
Only time I ever thought of leaving here to hit the big city and disappear, being in a small town where it’s practically impossible to avoid seeing them together. ”
Hutch was both processing all of that and feeling Stormy’s pain as Stormy sat back in his chair and continued.
“You know what’s weird?” He didn’t wait for Hutch to answer, he got into it.
“I got Viggo out of that play of Angelica’s.
That means I got no complaints. Did it change my life in a way I wasn’t expecting?
Yes. Do I give a shit about that now? No.
Now, I’m pissed at Angelica not just because she scarred me, but because I let her.
And I let that fester. It’s not that I didn’t have a right to be pissed.
It’s that I held on to it too long.” His lips tipped up.
“But I blame Angelica for that.” His lips tipped down.
“Seriously though, I feel she bears some responsibility for me losing Lillian.”
More to process.
Hutch already knew Mabel wasn’t Bree.
But was he holding onto some invisible thread that made him think she might have Molly or Danielle in her?
Or his mom?
Storm kept speaking.
“Make no mistake, I’m happy for Lillian.
I’m happy for Harry. Anyone can see they’re good together.
And deep down, I can tell, he’s better for her than me, and not just because my shit was twisted.
Took some time, but I realized he was the man for her, I wasn’t, and it worked out the way it should.
So it’s gotten better. But it hurt like a motherfucker when the light dawned on what I let slip through my fingers.
This Mabel does it for you, don’t put yourself through that.
There’s some good ones. Doc found Nadia.
I lost Lillian, but Harry’d been grieving for a long time, and he found love again. It happens.”
In the expanse of one night, that night being Saturday, Hutch had gone from having convinced himself he could let Mabel cut ties, move on, and be in her life even if she was with another guy, to thinking he’d rip the throat out of any other guy she might be with.
So yeah.
The problem he knew was going to be a big problem had become a much bigger problem.
With one solution.
“Bree isn’t worth you not being happy,” Stormy said.
Hutch focused on him.
“And I don’t know the ones before her,” Stormy went on. “But I do know, they fucked it up with a smart, steady, loyal, hardworking guy like you, so they aren’t either.”
“I’m fallin’ for her.”
A slow smile spread on Storm’s face. “Well, that’s good. Can’t wait to meet her.”
“She wants us to be friends with benefits. Which we are. We have a deal.”
The smile ran away from his face. “Really?”
“Rule is, if one of us starts feeling something deeper, we talk about it, back off.”
Stormy’s brows knit, he looked to the door and back at Hutch.
“Aren’t you here putting snow tires on her truck and puzzle weights in the back?”
“Yeah.”
“A woman’s man does that for her, Hutch. You sure about where she’s at?”
“I’m sure her ex fucked her over more than Bree did me.”
“We’ve all been fucked over. That doesn’t mean we give up.”
“I broach this with her, I risk her ending what we got.”
“So…what? In the meantime, you fall harder for her, she gets her orgasms, finds another guy she doesn’t have some fucked-up deal with and hooks up with him?”
Hutch had to stretch his neck at the thought of it.
Storm didn’t miss his actions. “Listen, Hutch. Again, I don’t know her, but I know you.
I knew why you were with Bree. Until she pulled that with you, I wouldn’t have minded sloppy seconds.
She’s gorgeous, she’s got attitude, she likes to have fun.
It wasn’t that. You knew what it was. This, I can tell, is different.
This, I can tell, is not something you’re gonna wanna fuck up.
And if she isn’t there with you, cut her loose so she doesn’t fuck you up. ”
“Mabel would never fuck me up,” Hutch said low.
To which, Stormy jabbed a finger at him and said, “There’s your answer, brother. So don’t blow it.”
“When she called me after she saw Paisley, Stormy…fuck.” Hutch swallowed and carried on.
“The drive to her house was torture. Scared as shit they’d come after her.
Unknown entity, didn’t know if they had weapons.
Did know they didn’t give much of a shit about women.
She had a husky and her wits, and until I got to her, that’s all she had. ”
“This is a different discussion, Hutch,” Stormy said.
“And I don’t suggest you go to Harry and ask him if he’d take back what limited time he had with Winnie knowing he was going to lose her so fast. But I bet I could answer for him.
He wouldn’t. It fucks me that Mabel went through what she did with those people, and you went through what you went through having to take the time it took to get to her.
But I’ll point out, your reaction to that is your answer too. ”
Hutch stretched his neck again.
“Just talk to her, man,” Stormy advised quietly.
Storm was right.
It was time.
He already knew it was before he knocked on Stormy’s doorframe.
He had to talk this through with Mabel, tell her where he was at.
And he hated it.
Because she could end them.
And he hated that.