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I was surprised by his honesty, but not insensitive to his admission. I held my hand out for him to shake. “Thank you, Jamie. I mean it. I accept your apology,” I said before bending to pick up the cooler.
He touched my shoulder to hold me up, so I stood straight, lifting my eyebrows in question. “One last thing I need to admit to you, Bo, and I promise it will be the last thing.”
“Okay.”
“You need to know that I never deserved you, Bo. I loved you, but I never really deserved you. You’re too good for people like me. I just wanted to tell you that,” he said, his eyes welling up.
I picked the cooler from the ground and stepped around my teenage love. I couldn’t have spoken had I tried. Jamie hit me hard where pain lives and yet, he softened the negative memories of our time together with his words.
I didn’t look back as I made my way to the dock. Looking back wouldn’t have helped anyways because tear-filled eyes lack focus.
The boat trip home was a reflective time. Hayes had texted me a message about not deserving me, mirroring what Jamie had just told me. If I loved both of them so much, why would they think that way? I felt fairly confident that I expressed my love for both Jamie and Hayes because I was the sort of person who enjoyed reminding them constantly. Had Jamie made the mistake of running away out of fear of what our love meant in these parts of the country? Would letting me love him have been so awful that he ran away from the commitment I’d wanted? And what about Hayes? I bet he hadn’t known he was putting me second until I’d ran out on him. And why did I run if I knew how much being left behind hurt?
My time in Hayes’ world hadn’t been pleasant. I didn’t fit in no matter how hard I tried, and I knew better than to blame others. I found city living to be stifling and sectioned off, like so many of the elite communities with their gates and high walls. Truthfully, I didn’t want to fit in and not because I felt I was above or better than them.
Living in a busy city is one thing, but when you add in a family that is uber-wealthy life gets even busier. Hayes’ family had the lifestyle down pat and seemed to enjoy the fast pace. Unfortunately, they barely tolerated one another. If that was the Crawford family, I would never flourish inside theirs.
When Hayes asked me to butt out of hisfamilybusiness, I knew I had one choice and that was to leave. Not my most heroic moment but the time to exit his world was obvious. In my humble opinion, things weren’t going to improve in Charleston because of one billion reasons: money. Money ruled that family, not love.
It wasn’t all bad though, and I held a piece of my time with Hayes close to my heart. I’d seen his loving, generous, and carefree side. Based on what he’d shared with me about his relationships with both his folks and Phillip during our time together, I was fairly confident those closest to him didn’t truly know Hayes. I wondered if he remembered those five weeks when he lived without the constraints of extreme wealth and people trying to manipulate him nonstop. I knew I could never live in his world, but still wished he would live in mine.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO: Hayes
Each day rolled into the next while every call and email I received weren’t getting the attention they deserved, but I simply couldn’t focus on tasks that required more than a cursory yes or no. Bo had walked out on us and I’d been too busy arguing with people who didn’t have my best interests at heart to even notice until long after he’d left.
During the two weeks while Bo was in Charleston, I had fallen back into my bad habit of working too much. I assumed that five or six weeks was plenty of time for a relationship to be on solid footing. I was seriously mistaken. How could Bo have settled into anything, let alone a new relationship where he was dumped into the middle of a shit show in a city he didn’t know? I’d dropped the ball when I had finally found a truly loving and supportive man, and because of my inability to focus on anything of importance, he’d bailed.
I was a mess and I knew it. I couldn’t eat, sleep, or concentrate on my business. Fear had paralyzed me completely and that was not a nice place to find myself with all the additional pressures of trying to manage several companies without help from my father. The sad reality was that I’d need to run a company-wide audit to see just how many of their tentacles had invaded my business. My own father and ex had tried to rip me off. Where did an anxiety ridden worry wart like me go from there?
Because of the overwhelming nature of those stresses, I’d managed to push Bo aside and expected he’d fit in somehow, but how could he have fit in when he was always alone? Every time he’d asked me to set time aside for us, I’d complain I was too busy, too tired, too everything. I was all those things and more, but I should never have beentoo anythingif being overrun with business shit interfered in my fledgling relationship. Being the understanding man that Bo was, he’d accepted my excuses because he worried about me.
And now I was running on fumes and sinking further and further into denial about the fact I allowed my own fear of failure to cause me to fail at love. Phillip, as it turned out, never planned on being my husband. Bo wanted all the same things that I wanted from love and I’d put us on the back burner until he left. I’d ignored him and our new love, and currently my health was paying a serious price.
A knock on the door and a quick glance at my watch reminded me momma was stopping by. I imagined daddy had sent her forth to plead his case.
I made my way down the hall and opened the door. The look on her face verified everything I’d seen in the mirror.
“Honey! You look positively ghastly,” Momma said, holding my face and examining me closely. She was definitely in shock. She stood on the front landing shaking her head. “You’re so gaunt and these circles around your eyes are . . ..” She couldn’t finish her sentence when her throat closed. Apparently the sight of me had overwhelmed her.
I couldn’t remember when she’d told me she was stopping by. The hours, days, and weeks were one giant blur of regret and pain. I stood waiting for instruction from her but she was emotional at seeing my condition. There was something about the role my mother played in my life where I immediately became a boy in her presence. “Was I expecting you, Momma?”
Her eyes were teary and I guessed maybe I was a sight after two weeks of not shaving or showering. “From the looks of you, I’d say it slipped your mind, son,” she answered. “I should have known after no response to my calls that you were holed up in your office.” She dug through her purse looking for a Kleenex.
“Do I look that bad?” I whispered.
She nodded and dabbed at her eyes.
“I’m a mess, Momma,” I admitted.
She quickly ushered me inside and closed the door, immediately holding her nose. “Hayes!Oh my Lord, son.” She stepped into the hall and immediately headed for the kitchen with me in tow. It was too late for me to warn her. “Where on earth is your housekeeper, Hayes?” She hurriedly opened the kitchen window and went back to the front entry, opening the wooden door and leaving the screen door open for cross flow ventilation.
I pulled out a barstool and sat at the kitchen island waiting for the wrath that I knew was coming. The island was covered in dirty dishes, not that I was eating. I’d tried to cook a couple of times and failed miserably. Meal planning was hard when your fridge held pickles, protein powder, and two cans of tuna I couldn’t open because I couldn’t find the can opener. I wasn’t sure if you stored tuna and powder in the fridge but that’s where I put them after failing to fix a meal.
“Where is Boregard?” Momma asked, catching me off guard. “Did you ask him to leave?”
“He left on his own.”
“I was under the impression you boys were serious, Hayes. He was a fine young man. I liked him,” she admitted, causing shock waves to roll over me. “What did you do to him, son?”
