Chapter 29
Mace
For the first few days, it was easy to keep myself occupied. I wanted Lily to be certain before she decided to be my forever person. I’d given it my best shot of scaring her off, and I took it as a good sign that she didn’t immediately jump off my lap and demand I leave.
I’d stayed until the doctor arrived. She was impressed with Lily’s recovery, and assured me there were no lasting effects. That meant Lily would have understood everything I shared about myself – the good and the bad.
It’s the bad that worries me, and as the weekend approaches, I regret not making a better case for the good.
But what good can come of her involvement with me?
I’d promised to protect her, but I’d set it out in a way that would make any reasonable person feel smothered.
And smothering is exactly what I’m doing as I pace the floor of my apartment on Saturday evening, earbuds in as I listen to the activity in Lily’s living room.
She’s home alone, and when she starts watching Titanic, I pull up the film on my widescreen TV.
I keep it on mute so I can sync it with the audio playing on Lily’s TV.
I pretend we’re watching it together. Is this my life from now on?
“Mace, this is not how you should be spending your Saturday night,” Reid says, stepping in front of the screen to get my attention. “You’ve been miserable all week, and I don’t want to spoil the movie, but this film doesn’t end well. You should come to the club with me.”
“No.”
My brother’s dressed in a deep blue button-down and suit pants. I should have known he was nearby from the stench of his cologne. Meanwhile, I’m in sweats and a t-shirt that I’m minded to plant in Lily’s apartment just to remind her I exist.
“How about I bring the party back here?”
I have to look around Reid to see the TV. “Do, and I’ll kill you.”
He puffs out his cheeks and blows air through pursed lips. “Don’t tell me she’s dumped you. I thought girls got turned on by men killing for them.”
Everyone knows what happened to Lily, and I can’t blame Ash or Jake.
We’d had a mid-week dinner over at the house, and Connie had innocently asked if my girlfriend was feeling better.
The questions had started to fly, and the only way to shut Reid and Maddie up, had been to tell them about the spiked drink.
“I haven’t been dumped because she isn’t my girlfriend,” I say. I don’t know what Lily is, but if there was spyware out there that could tell me what was going on inside her head, I’d be using it right now.
“You’ve lived in the same sweats for three days and you haven’t left the apartment. Something’s wrong.”
“Go get laid, Reid. I’m busy.”
“Fine, I’m going,” he says with an exasperated sigh. “But next week is Thanksgiving, and you’d better be out of this funk by then. And if you want to watch a movie, watch a fucking comedy, not some tear-fest.”
Reid is right about the film, and when Lily switches off her TV, her sobs scratch against my soul.
I think she’s crying over more than the film, and that fills me with dread.
I stare at my phone, not sure if I should send her a message.
What harm would it do to let her know that I’m thinking of her?
Instead, I open up one of the dating apps she uses.
In an act of pure masochism, I’d restored all of her accounts yesterday.
I want to see who I’m up against in Lily’s dating pool.
What if she prefers some dude who’d stand to the side with a fire extinguisher while I burned down the world for her?
If he’s out there, I don’t see him, but what I do see has my stomach hollowing.
Lily’s been active on the site. Swiping left, but still. She’s looking for a Mr. Swipe Right.
It looks like I have my answer, and my life is officially over.
Reid finds me where he left me on the couch when he staggers into the apartment in the early hours of Sunday morning, thankfully alone. This time last week, I’d been sitting at Lily’s bedside, praying I wouldn’t lose her. I hadn’t dared imagine what that felt like. Now I know.
“You scared the shit out of me,” Reid exclaims when he turns the lights on over the kitchen island. “What are you doing in the dark, man?”
“Thinking.”
My brother comes over and hands me a bottle of water. “Always overrated. Go to bed.”
“You go to bed.”
Reid stands firm, even if he does sway a little. His eyes are slightly glazed, and while it appears he didn’t strike lucky with a girl tonight, he’s clearly enjoyed the chase. I used to enjoy that too. How the fuck do I move on from Lily?
“You could try one of Mom’s guided relaxations to help you switch off.”
Lisa was a yoga teacher and had used her relaxation techniques to get us to sleep when we were little. But hearing her voice right now would only tip me over the edge. “No.”
My annoying, little brother huffs out a sigh. “If you don’t go to bed, Mace, I’m calling in reinforcements.”
I tilt my head. Reid is the only one I’ve been able to pull the big brother card on. I’m screwed if I can’t stand up to him anymore. “You wouldn’t dare be saying that if you weren’t so drunk,” I growl.
“Probably not, but I am,” he says smugly. “Now, do as you’re told.”
“Did I ever tell you how much I hated you when I was a kid?”
The idiot just gives me an inane grin. “That wasn’t hate, Mace. It was trapped love. A bit like trapped wind. You still suffer from it. Do you want me to rub your back?”
“Fuck off, Reid,” I say, but I get up. “And I’m only leaving because I don’t want to smash up that pretty face of yours.”
Reid makes a stupid martial arts pose. “I dare you to try.”
I pull back my arm and send the water bottle flying. It hits my brother right in the face. He staggers back and lands on his ass, expletives falling from his lips.
“I’ve told you before,” I say. “Don’t get into a fight when you’re drunk.”
“This isn’t over!” he yells back as I close my bedroom door.
I should have taken Reid’s threat more seriously because I’m lying in bed the next day when I hear doors slam and footsteps in the entrance hall.
Lots of footsteps. It’s three in the afternoon and I had every intention of staying in bed all day, but my door opens and one of my brothers sticks his head into my room.
It’s Ash, although I’m under no illusion that he’s alone.
“Get up, or I’ll drag you out of bed myself.”
He doesn’t wait for a response. Whatever I’d say would only escalate the situation. I don’t want to face them all, and I’m not in the mood to comply with my big brother’s commands without some kind of fuckery. I don’t move, and it takes thirty-two minutes for Ash’s patience to snap.
I wait until I hear his approaching footsteps, and I’m through the door before the first expletive is out of his mouth. When I reach the open concept living room, there are containers of Chinese take-out littering the kitchen island. Hunter hands me a plate loaded with egg rolls and chow mein.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Eat.”
I hold Hunter’s glare as I set the plate down on the kitchen island.
“I could make you some breakfast,” Maddie suggests. “Connie showed me how to make oatmeal the way you like it.”
I turn in her direction, but don’t give her the same withering look. She’s trying to mother me. I should hate it, but I don’t. What the hell has happened to me? I could fucking cry. “Sure.”
Forced to sit around the island with my family, I wait for the inevitable cross-examination.
“I’ve had a cease-and-desist email from Barrett,” says Ash. “It looks like he’s figured out we’ve screwed up his project plans. Nothing specific, obviously. He can’t pin anything on us, and he isn’t stupid enough to put his accusations in writing.”
“Good work, Mace,” Reid says, shooting me a smile. There’s no trace of the hangover he deserves, just a good dose of guilt. He staged this intervention.
I shrug. “All I did was change a few measurements on the architect’s drawings.”
“You’ve delayed the completion of the works at Poulton Springs by at least a month,” Ash says. “We’re not going to see any activity this side of Christmas. And more importantly, you did it without us having to put boots on the ground. No one got hurt. That’s a good result.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that we’re heading into a bloodbath at some point,” I say morosely. “If Barrett knows it’s us, he’ll be squealing to the Russians.”
Hunter stops shoving noodles into his mouth. “By which time, we’ll be better prepared. Take the win, Mace.”
I say nothing, and the discussion moves on to an even less agreeable topic.
“It’s Alice’s memorial on Tuesday,” Ash says. “Who thinks we should go?”
“And do what?” Hunter asks. “Sit at the back like the pariahs we are?”
Reid sucks hoisin sauce from his fingers. “Did Barrett mention the memorial in his letter?”
“Yeah, it was part of the whole cease and desist tirade. He doesn’t want us there, which is why I’m asking,” Ash says, looking at me. “I know how you love being told what to do.”
“And Alice did tell you to play nice,” Reid says, as if I need reminding.
I look around the island at my brothers. “You think going to Alice’s memorial will put me in a better mood? How messed up do you think I am?”
No one answers.
“Seriously guys, I appreciate the effort, but I have to work through whatever this shit is on my own. I don’t need my hand holding.”
Maddie sets down a bowl of oatmeal in front of me. I don’t know what Connie’s been teaching her, but this brown sludge isn’t what I was expecting. And then the steam rises and the aroma makes my breath stutter. It’s dark and sweet.
“I saw the chocolate in the refrigerator, so I added some.”
Dropping my head, I blink to clear my vision. I know all eyes are on me, so I try to act like my insides haven’t just spilled out onto the floor. I pick up the spoon and take a mouthful. Synapses in my brain go off like a fourth of July parade. Salted caramel. Chocolate. Lily.
I try to swallow, but as the oatmeal hits the back of my throat it meets a sob. I swallow both as silently as I can, but my shaking shoulders give me away. Maddie puts a hand on my back and rubs circles.
“Aren’t you all missing the game?” she asks sharply.
Chairs scrape against the floor, and the pressure on my chest eases as my brothers disperse. I act oblivious to the coordinated retreat, and eat more oatmeal. The reminder of Lily is devastating, but this might just be the next best thing to tasting her lips.
The TV turns on and a commentator’s voice echoes through the apartment as someone raises the volume.
Maddie slides onto the seat next to me. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“I wish I fucking knew,” I reply, stirring the oatmeal.
My sister-in-law leans her elbows on the island so I can see she’s looking straight ahead, and not directly at me. She doesn’t speak. She just waits.
“Why can’t I just be normal?”
Maddie’s face scrunches in pain. “The thought of you being anything but the deep and sensitive person you pretend not to be, would be a travesty.” She chances a side glance. “Don’t settle for anyone who doesn’t see that.”
“She can’t see what I can’t show her,” I say. “All she knows is that I’m the freak who hacks her phone, listens to her personal voicemails and killed the last man who touched her. Would you swipe right?”
“Did you meet on a dating app?”
“No, she came at me in the middle of the expressway when I impressed her with my driving skills.” I smile at the memory of wiping chocolate from her lips, and swallow another spoonful of oatmeal. It sours in my stomach when I add, “And now she’s back on the dating apps.”
Maddie scowls. “You saved her from that creep in the club, and she dumped you?”
“No,” I say, leaping to her defense. “I gave her a choice. Just like Hunter gave you a choice. We can’t offer normal lives, but with Lily, she wouldn’t just be taking on the usual Griffin hang-ups.
She’d be taking on mine. I tried to respect her privacy.
I took the tracker off her phone, and look what happened.
I’m not going to be able to do that again. And she knows it.”
“What did she say?”
I push the bowl away, my stomach churning. “Nothing. I left it in her hands, told her to phone me if she wanted to take me on, and not speak to me again if she doesn’t. She hasn’t.”
“Mace, it’s been a week. She might just need time.”
“I restored her dating apps, and she’s been looking. That feels like a decision to me.”
Maddie’s quiet for a moment. “Has she messaged anyone? Set up any dates?”
“Not yet, just lots of swipes left. But it’s inevitable.”
“Maybe,” Maddie says, which is the last thing I want to hear.
“Or perhaps it’s just a way for her to express some autonomy.
If she knows you’ve been messing with her apps, she knows you’ll be monitoring her activity.
Is she the kind of person that would let you take control of her life without some pushback? ”
A shudder runs down my spine. “Please don’t, Maddie,” I say, choking the words out. “Don’t give me hope.”