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The hairs up the back of my neck tingled. She knew something, or at least she thought she did. Had Mack talked to her? It wouldn’t have been all that surprising if he did, but knowing she knew something made me desperate to ask. Even though I absolutely shouldn’t. Especially not when I was considering putting a stop to everything. Or pumping the brakes at the very least, although what good would that do at this point? Just delay the inevitable.
“Nothing in particular,” I said, doing my best to look aloof and like I wasn’t having my own crisis. “Just didn’t sleep well, you know?”
“Right now, yes, I do. You know, if there’s anything you wanted to talk about, I’m happy to listen.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that, but I’m good. Nothing exciting happening in my world.” I was over playing it, I could see the suspicion firing in her eyes. “I think it’s just everything at work. Things have been so chaotic since Dallas and Duke’s wedding … I figured it was just a phase, that it would settle down but that’s not happening. We were doing pretty well before, but there used to be slow nights where it was just me, Mack, and the regulars—those nights are well and truly gone and I guess I kind of miss them. Which I know sounds ridiculous, more customers are better than less customers. I just—it’s been an adjustment.” I bit into my slice of pizza. I hadn’t realized all that was floating around in my head. I’d been shoving it aside, convincing myself I was okay, but every time I went to work there was this anxious pang in my chest that the Rudi I loved was gone, and I still didn’t know if I could handle this new one.
She nodded. “Change can be daunting. It’s hard to know if we like it at first. Hard to know if it’s the right kind of change or the wrong kind. But it’s also inevitable, and you know that you and Mack will make it all work, whatever happens.”
I nodded as my voice failed me. She was right, I had always known that Mack and I could figure anything and everything out together. Mack was my constant. My rock. But we’d gone and messed with it now. Thrown out the well established balance of our friendship and I had no idea how to go back. Worse, part of me wasn’t sure I wanted to go back. Unease rippled through me. I wanted to believe that what we were doing was the right kind of change, but how could I ever be sure?
I wokeup with a splitting headache and a nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach. After sitting and talking to Pip until after midnight, I’d gone to bed and quietly cried myself to sleep because I didn’t know what the fuck to do. I was so mad at myself for that first kiss. If it hadn’t been for that, then none of this would have happened. But then, if it weren’t for that kiss, I wouldn’t have seen all these secret sides of Mack. The secret romantic. The secret house remodeller. The secret magician at making me come. How had I known him so long and not known these things? I certainly couldn’t unknow them now, and I didn’t want to. Well, maybe I did kind of want to unlearn just how devoted he was to my orgasm, because that was making what came next all the more difficult.
Pip had talked a little more about Tim, and I’d done my best to not interrupt and beg her to tell me that they’d work it out. The more she talked, the more clear it became that they probably wouldn’t and my heart broke a little more with each word.
I knew that it was ridiculous of me to put all of my relationship faith in just two people. But when all you’ve seen is things never working out, when all you’ve seen is the roller coaster of love and then crushing loss, the first time you see something that wasn’t that, it makes an impression. It shows you there is a different way. Now, though, I guess it just showed me how much worse it can be. Maybe Pip and Tim’s situation should make me grateful for all the times I didn’t get attached to Mom’s boyfriends, for all the times it was easy to hold the pity party and tell her she was better off without them. She was always better off without them, in my opinion.
But Pip, was she better off without Tim? I knew she’d get through it, she was one of the strongest women I knew, but they’d always seemed like such an incredible team, such a force of nature, how could you be better off without that? I didn’t know the answer, nor was I going to. And, right now, I had myself to think about.
I reached out blindly for the Tylenol I kept on the nightstand and threw two back to deal with the piercing pain in my skull, then dragged myself out of bed. My apartment was silent and empty, the only sign that Pip had ever been there was a note on the kitchen counter, sitting beside an empty bottle of whiskey. I didn’t remember it being empty when I went to bed.
Chase, thank you for being my Brooklyn hideaway, I appreciate it more than you know. Tim and I haven’t decided how best to break the news to the family yet, so if you could keep it to yourself a little longer, I’d really appreciate it.
Take care, P x
I reread the note three or four times, willing the words to change so I didn’t have to lie to Mack about this. Even if I hadn’t decided what needed to happen between us, lying to him was one of my least favorite things. Sending him that bullshit text last night had been hard enough. Actually backing up that nonchalant lie in person was going to be near impossible. I already knew he wasn’t going to let it go easily. I guess I just had to pray he’d be so thrilled to see me, he’d choose to look past the fact I was supposed to be sleeping next to him last night and instead sent him a blow off text that I couldn’t explain.
Today was going to suck.
30
MACK
I couldn't rememberthe last time I slept so badly. I’d been awake half the night, staring at the ceiling, with my stomach churning and my heart in my throat.
It wasn’t about Rudi, but it sure as shit didn’t help that it had been one of those nights where nothing went right. Too many customers were amped up and aggressive, one of our new bartenders nearly lost a finger on a shard of wayward glass, and I came very close to firing a security guard who failed to stop a fight because he was making out with someone in the fucking office. It was a straight up shitshow.
None of it ever seemed to happen when Chase was there. Okay, so I was sure it did, but maybe she handled it better than me. Who was I kidding, of course she handled it better than me. Every time something else went wrong, I could only think:fuck I wish she was here. Not because I needed her to deal with the madness, although that would have been nice, but because we were better together. We always had been. A team.The best team.
She hadn’t been there, though. She’d been at home, hers, not mine. Becausesomething came up. Those words had been running through my head on a loop since I finally collapsed into bed. I was no closer to believing it, no closer to understanding why she’d bailed. It didn’t matter how many times I tried to convince myself that everything was fine, the sneaking, sinking feeling of dread wouldn’t leave me.
History told me this was the way things went. It had happened enough times for me to recognise the pattern. I hadn’t always minded, some things weren’t meant to last more than a night, more than a few hours.
Chase and I, however, weweremeant to last. I knew it, felt it, believed it all the way to my core. It had always been the two of us. It would always be the two of us. And I had zero fucking intention of letting her go now we were finally here.
I ambled into the bathroom and straight under the frigid spray of the shower. I needed to decide if I sought her out, or waited to see her later on at Rudi. My gut reaction was to go to her and ask what happened after I left. Would it push her further away? Even so I just didn’t know if I could wait.
Fuck it.
I shut off the shower, dried off and threw myself into the first clothes I found that didn’t smell like stale beer. I needed to see her, and I needed to do it now.
Apparently I wasn’t alone, because as I opened the door Chase was there—with two coffees and a large brown bag. She’d been to Cream and Sugar, I’d know those cups anywhere. The sight of her sent my pulse pounding, but I refused to crush her into my chest and bury my face in her hair. Even though I desperately wanted to.
“Hey,” I said, leaning on the door-jamb, hoping for a look of casual aloofness.
She shuffled from one foot to the other, boots scuffing the polished concrete, eyes darting around before they landed on me. Tired. Nervous. “Hey.” She held up the bag. “I come bearing coffee and cinnamon buns.”
“I see that, why?” The aloofness was sliding into asshole territory.
