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She smirks. “Ooo-kay. Well, you’re still welcome either way.”
Housewarming parties usually suck and I’m not at the point in my life where I feel like oohing and ahhing over someone’s new sofa from Pottery Barn. But ifI’minvited, Caleb is. My crush on Beck notwithstanding, I need to take my openings when they arrive, and as Rachel unwittingly pointed out, I have taken my foot off the gas.
“I’d love to,” I tell her.
New Kate will be at that party, her most adult and charming self. She’ll shine so bright that Lucie shrinks a little under the glare.
* * *
Beck worksout in the yard the next morning, showers, and arrives at the counter fully dressed, to my chagrin. He got in late last night, but I heard him outside my door, hesitating as if he was considering walking in. I laid awake for hours after that, taut with desire for things he didn’t provide.
His hand flexes as he grabs the plate from me, and in my head, his hand is flexing on my inner thigh the way it did in the truck.
He lifted me on and off him like I was made of air.
“Rachel said something about a housewarming party Sunday. Are you going?”
He stills, his fork suspended in mid-air. “I hadn’t planned to. Are you?”
I hitch a shoulder before I pour the bacon grease into a can. “I might.”
“Since when do you attend housewarming parties?” he asks, his voice icy.
I turn toward him. Yes, I’ve slept with him twice, but he needs to understand that nothing has changed. He didn’t justfuckmy life goals away in his truck the other night. “She’s nice. Why wouldn’t I?”
His eyes are nearly black. They hold mine a moment too long. “I’ve gotta go,” he says, pushing away the plate of food he never ate and grabbing his helmet.
For fuck’s sake.He’s mad?
“I thought you wanted me to be nice to Rachel!” I shout as he slams the door behind him.
He didn’t hear me, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he did. We both know I’m not going there on Rachel’s behalf.
I’m off today, so I spend the next few hours looking at the same litany of boring jobs I’ve seen for months, full of euphemisms.Integration manager, operational restructure,employee efficiencies.
The jobs are dull, but the bigger problem is that these are companies I don’t care about. No one has ever described me as an altruist, but I still need to work on behalf of a product Ilike, doing work that actually interests me.
Maybe that’s been part of the issue all along, moving here. I agreed to let a part of myself die when I married Caleb—resigning myself to jobs I didn’t care about and a town I didn’t like—and there just wasn’t enough alive inside me when things fell apart.
There’s no word from Beck all day. I pick up my phone a hundred times wanting to fix this and put it back down, knowing I can’t without telling him a lie—without claiming I’m over Caleb, that I’m cool with just letting Lucie take my entire life. I sleep fitfully, waiting to hear him pull up outside. All night, it seems, I’m dreaming of Beck above me with his hair falling forward, his control gone...but that ends at four AM, when his heavy tread finally shakes the outside steps.
It doesn’t take two hours to close the bar, which means he went home with someone else. If it wasn’t one and done with us before—or two and done, I guess—it sure as fuck is now.
My jaw grinds as I listen to him walk past my room. There’s something underneath my irritation too, something like grief, but I’m ignoring that. I’ve spent enough time addicted to shit to recognize when I’m under the sway of something I don’t want any part of.
The two of us are not going to be able to go on like this forever. I should already have left.
I give up on sleep a few hours later and go straight to the bar—I’m too angry to make Beck a breakfast that isn’t poisoned. The front doors are still locked, but I’m able to get in through the kitchen, where they’ve already started prepping for lunch.
To the kitchen staff, I’m a curiosity.The woman who lives with Beck.They probably think I’m some pathetic bitch who doesn’t realize he’s sleeping with everything that moves, someone they quietly pity, which really sucks though it’s exactly what I’m trying to do to Lucie.
I close the office door behind me and sink into my desk chair, pressing my hands to my face.I can’t believe he came in at four. I can’t.
I don’t know why it matters, but I need to get the hell out of Beck’s bar and his house because I can’t keep feeling the way I do right now.
I open my laptop and start sending out resumes anywhere and everywhere. I’ll find something entry-level and start over, prove myself. It sounds plucky of me, but what other option do I have at this point?
It’s after ten when Beck strolls in, dumping his helmet on the desk with unnecessary carelessness.
