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I turned on my heel like a marine on patrol and marched to the ATV without looking back. I’d spent the last six years managing Blue Star. Not exactly the resume that attracts the sister of abillionaire. I’m the help in this story, not the leading man, and I know my place. Not that Wilson acted like a billionaire. I would know. I was related to one.
My pea brain wouldn’t leave it alone. Insidious thoughts of what could be filled my head. Ideas about how I could upset all her assumptions about me and change everything ate atthe wall,eroding bits of the foundation.
I started the ATV and set out on the rutted path toward the guest house. A college English professor I had once would have called the shitty road foreshadowing. A warning about the bumpy future for Rae and me. He wouldn’t have been wrong.
Chapter 4
Rae
Atley held the dooropen for me and Georgie when we arrived at the guest house. He’d already lined up a bunch of my luggage in the living room. The ridiculous assortment of suitcases was a kind of personal timeline. My parents’ old plaid ones, bought for a cruise when Wilson and I were kids. The red Swiss Army brand ones teenage Wilson got for a Christmas gift from one of our aunts and never used. My hot pink ones from an awful Barbie girl phase in high school. And a selection of very expensive silver-gray ballistic nylon ones from Matthew’s storage unit. I’d bet he didn’t even know I took them. Inside I smiled, hoping it really inconvenienced him when he figured out they were gone.
Stealing his luggage was pathetic. I even sucked at getting even with my cheating ex. I’d given him the suitcases for his birthday a few years ago when he started traveling more for work; they were practically mine.
I flopped on the threadbare Southwestern print aqua and peach sectional, and Georgie joined me. No worries that his sandy paws would damage the furniture. I was pretty sure the couch was old enough to have voted in the last two presidential elections.
The guest house had not had the extensive and awe-inspiring renovation that the main house had. It was very turn of the 21st century with a southwestern flare that extended to the cactus-shaped light switch plates and the desert sand colored and textured walls.
I understood why Wilson asked Mom and Dad to postpone their first visit until he could do some updating. Neutral paint and new furniture would do this farmhouse a world of good. Outside it was a basic white clapboard with a wraparound porch, complete with a swing. The contrast inside to out was jarring. 1890s meet 1990s.
It couldn’t be further from Matthew’s Gold Coast Chicago apartment with its Lake Michigan views and 24-hour doorman. I searched deep for some regrets about my change in living situation and found none. That apartment hadn’t been mine. Matthew and a decorator styled it, and he owned it. I was a renter. Yeah, I paid rent for ten years to my boyfriend. I was glad I had. It made walking away that much simpler.
I didn’t owe him anything.
Maybe three matched suitcases. Fuck him. If he wanted them, he could come to Texas and get them.
I petted Georgie, and he rolled over to show me his adorable pink belly. He seemed perfectly normal after his beer andbarfing. The second good thing to happen in Elmer. I mentally added the minor victory to a tally sheet.
“That’s the last one.” Atley put a black Samsonite at the end of the row. It was my preferred roller bag for weekend trips, not that I’d been on many lately.
“Thank you. I know it’s a lot.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
There were a lot of nuances in his yes, ma’ams, and I’d heard enough of them already to know that one was the same as a valley girl’swhatever,only missing the eye roll. He wasn’t a talker, but he also wasn’t normally an asshole.
“It’s everything I own. I didn’t want to leave anything back at my ex’s or at my parents’. So, I just took every suitcase I could find in either place, filled it up, and put it on a plane. This isn’t my final stop, and I don’t want to leave bits and pieces of my life strewn across the country.”
He nodded, and the muscles of his jaw bulged and hardened to granite.
He didn’t have any problems talking dirty last night. Maybe clothing affected his larynx. If I stripped him naked, shoved him on the couch, and straddled him, could I get him to talk about things other than sex? Could we have a fully naked conversation about projected yield per acre of grape vines or the organic reach of a social media campaign for the winery? Probably not. Because that would be a waste of an opportunity to have a mind-blowing orgasm.
Not a helpful thought.
But we were going to be working together, and frosty Atley would be an awful co-worker, so I kept running my mouth, hoping for a thaw.
“Is it strange that at my age, that is everything I own?” I pointed at the rainbow of luggage.
He rubbed his chin that way men did when they were having big thoughts. “Car?”
“No, I lived and worked downtown. In the city, a parking spot often costs more than the car parked in it.”
Matthew had a car that I’d used when I needed it. He always gave me shit for moving the mirrors, but there was no way I was getting on the fourteen-lane Dan Ryan Expressway without adjusting them so I could see. He may not have cared for my well-being, but I did.
Bam, that hurt. Ten years and I’d never considered how shitty it was that he cared more about pushing a button than my safety. At a cocktail party, I once overheard my mother’s friend say I was wasting the best years of my life on Matthew; she might have had a valid point.
“No car. No furniture. No pots and pans. Oh my God, I’m a 45-year-old college kid.” I leaned forward to put my head in my hands.
Laugh or cry? I laughed because crying never solved anything. It wasn’t a good choice. The sound I made was a choked imitation of a chuckle. It didn’t fool Atley.
