There must be smoke in the air after all, because the corners of my eyes fill with fluid.
“I know you think that loving someone makes you vulnerable. And you’re right, it does. And I’ll tell you another secret—you will fuck up with Avery or whoever you fall in love with someday because you fuck up everything. We all do.”
I want to tell him the only person I’d ever fall in love with is Avery. That I’m not capable of being in love, but if I were, there’s not a chance it would be anyone else. She was tailor-made for me. I just can’t do it.
“You’ll forget your anniversary and maybe her birthday, and there will be nights you show up to Mucker’s and forget what she wants to order. It happens. Being in a relationship with someone doesn’t mean you promise to get it all right, Penn. It means you decided she’s worth you trying to get it right more times than not. It’s . . .” He searches for the words. “It’s a safety net, an agreement that you do your best and hope it works out.”
“But my best is shit.” I turn around and dry my eyes with the edge of my shirt. “My mom didn’t love me more than she loved my dad, who was, maybe, the worst person I’ve ever known. And my dad only loved me until I didn’t do what he wanted me to do, and look where that ended up.”
“Even with you doing the right thing.” He grins softly. “Don’t you see? You still loved your mom, even though you had every right to walk away from her for not protecting you from your dad. And you did the right thing with him too. You made the hardest choices a boy can make, choices most men fail at.” His smile grows wider. “You were the first one at the hospital when I broke my spleen—because I fell off a kiddie ladder, I know. You don’t have to say it.”
I can’t help but grin.
“And you gave up your vacation for Dane’s family. Who does that?”
“I didn’t really have a choice there, pal.”
“We all have a choice. We have choices every day. And what you do with Avery, or what you don’t do, is your choice too.”
I sit back down. My insides are calmer—more jittery than volatile like they were for the last twenty-four hours or so. I put my head in my hands and try to focus on breathing.
I miss her. I miss her laugh and her smile and trying to find ways to elicit those responses. I miss the way I feel because of her. Capable. Worthy.
Loved?
My bed was so cold last night. My heart even icier. It’s like there’s a gaping void I can’t fill and it’s threatening to suck me in.
“You need to trust yourself,” Matt says. “You need to trust her.”
“But why?” I look up at my best friend. “I heard her talking to Jake. She wants to get married someday. Have kids. Have this charmed little life—”
“And she wants those things, and she’s spending time with you. What does that tell you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe she sees so much good in you that she’d potentially hook herself to you for the rest of her life. She’s not dumb, Penn. She’s almost thirty. She knows what she wants, and if she couldn’t see having a life with you, she’d walk away.”
“She did,” I deadpan.
“No. You did.”
My chest feels like there’s a band stretching across it to keep me from breathing. I don’t want to think about what Matt is saying in case he’s right. He’s usually right, the cocksucker. And if he’s right this time, that makes me a bastard, and I don’t want to be that. Not to her. I don’t want her thinking that about me.
She told me what she wanted. She wants something long term, and I told her that wasn’t me. Yet . . . yet she held my hand and took the risk to follow me to the lake. She held my hand in public when other people saw us together, even though her life has always been about what people see and think of her.
She wasn’t afraid to be with me, despite my flaws. I dropped her hand. I called her my friend. I refused to stake a claim, as Matt said.
I did quit her. Even before she was mine to quit.
Fuckkk.
I get to my feet. “Is she at the old library?”
“No. The official line is that Harper needs her to cut hair during the day, so she’ll be painting at night. The real line is that she doesn’t want to see you.” He pauses. “And I’m not guessing. Harper told me at the café.”
I close my eyes and sigh.
I hate myself for this. I hate that my shit is causing her more work and is messing up her life. That’s the last thing I wanted.
“We better get over there then,” I say. “So we can be out of there before she gets there.”
Matt looks surprised for a brief second before it’s replaced with more disappointment. He heads toward the door. “You’re an idiot.”
“You’re going to be a good dad someday,” I tell him as he steps outside. “You can shame someone with the best of them.”
He rolls his eyes and shuts the door behind him.
I’m left alone in my all-too-quiet house. The only things I can hear are Matt’s words pummeling me.
I grab my wallet off the counter and head down the hallway. When I reach my bedroom, I peek in. The covers are still a mess from when Avery and I lay there the night before last. I couldn’t get in bed last night. I tried, but it was too cold and reminded me too much of her.
I close the door and start back down the hallway. Droplets of paint speckle the floor, and I’m reminded of Avery.
I might have to build that cabin . . . and leave this all behind.
CHAPTER THIRTY
PENN
I remember the days when pulling in here seemed fun.”
I sit in my truck and stare at the door to the old library. I have zero motivation to go in. If I didn’t need the money or care that Matt would have to finish it on his own, I’d just quit and be a hermit who lives in a tent by the lake.
There’s a lot that’s appealing about that.
Unfortunately for me, I kind of like Matt. And indoor plumbing. So I get out of my truck and start toward the building.
Every step feels like a mile. When I spot Jake’s car next to Matt’s in the parking lot, the march feels like the path to a painful and frustrating day.
Jake. I’m going to have to apologize to that motherfucker, and I don’t want to. Not just because this is technically Dane’s project and I don’t have the right, or desire, to do him any harm, but I was also out of line. All that bullshit yesterday was mine, and I handled it like a baby.
A baby who just lost its favorite pacifier, but a baby nonetheless.
I’m not proud as I walk inside. I wouldn’t say I’m enthusiastic about seeing Jake first or that heading his way is something I’m eager about doing. But if I do the hard stuff first, maybe I can wallow in self-pity the rest of the day. Dane taught me that: do the hard stuff first.
This is definitely hard.
I spot Jake in the corner with a hammer in his hand. He doesn’t look smug or mad as I approach him. Instead, he meets me in the middle with his hand out. I shake it tentatively and make sure I keep my right foot back in case I need to toss a spur-of-the-moment punch.
“Good to see you today,” he says. “I almost called you last night but decided you probably had your hands full.”