But it wouldn’t change anything. She was mad enough to leave in the middle of the night, and even if he managed to tell her why he’d lied, it wouldn’t change the fact that her whole life was in Philadelphia, and his was here. He couldn’t leave Pine Mountain. He couldn’t leave Grady, and he damn sure wasn’t going to go back to work for his father.
He had to let it go. He had to let her go, no matter how badly it hurt.
The guy on the other end of the phone cleared his throat, jolting Shane back to the reality of the cabin and the finality of his next words.
“I’ll be done with it by Monday. We’re open from nine to five. Just call me when you’re on your way.”
28
“What do you think? Not enough oregano, right?” Bellamy bit bottom lip in concentration and eyeballed the stockpot of sauce on the stove. Yeah, it definitely needed more oregano.
“Are you kidding me right now? You need to sell this stuff and make a fortune. It’s amazing,” Holly said, swiping a hunk of crusty bread into the bubbling pot.
“Hrmph.” Bellamy frowned. She measured some oregano into her hand, crushing the dried herbs against her palm with a spoon before tossing them into the pot. “The meatballs should be done soon.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but can you please kiss and make up with Shane? You haven’t stopped cooking all afternoon, and I think I’ve already gained five pounds over your breakup,” Jenna said, giving Holly a gentle nudge to the ribs. “Quit hogging the pot, would you?”
Bellamy blanked her expression, giving the new version of the sauce a taste before bending down to the storage cabinet in her kitchen island. “First of all, you can’t break up with someone you were never really together with in the first place. And secondly, I’m not even going to see him again, much less make up with him.” Where the hell was the pasta attachment for her stand mixer? She knew she’d stashed it around here somewhere.
“So, you’re just going to let the dealership in the city go get your car and then what? You’ll Venmo Shane what you owe him and that’s that?” Holly’s look broadcast her doubt, but Bellamy refused to budge.
“That about sums it up, yeah. A-ha! I knew this thing was in here.” She gave the pasta attachment a yank to unearth it from beneath her waffle iron. Bellamy stood up just in time to catch the tail end of the eyebrow-lift Holly and Jenna had exchanged over her head.
“Don’t,” she warned without elaborating. She should’ve known better than to spill her guts to them. How was she supposed to forget about Shane if Holly and Jenna kept bringing him up?
“Don’t what?” they chorused.
“Don’t start.” Bellamy dragged the stand mixer from its perch on the granite countertop and started putting on the pasta attachment with a series of precise tugs for emphasis. “Everything out of Shane’s mouth is a lie, so talking to him would be a waste of time.”
Her chest tightened, but she took a steadying breath to ease the sensation. No way was she going to start crying again. The huge handful of Kleenex she’d gone through as she’d told Jenna and Holly everything the first time had been enough. She was done. Done with crying, and done with Shane Griffin.
Her chest hitched. Fucking traitor.
“You have every right to be mad at him.” Jenna punctuated her words with a nod. “But are you sure he’s not worth hearing out?”
Bellamy’s lips popped open in surprise. “Yes, I’m sure. Why would I want to do something as stupid as that?”
“Because I think you’re in love with him, and I’d hate to see you lose a chance to be with the guy if he loves you, too.”
“Whoa,” Holly whispered, giving Bellamy a chance to pick her jaw up off the floor.
“Clearly, he doesn’t love me, since he couldn’t even be bothered to tell me the truth about who he really is.” Bellamy’s voice was more wooden than she’d have liked, but at least she’d been able to speak.
Of course Shane didn’t love her. After all, he was the one who’d said they should just spend the week together. She’d been the one to jump in feet-first, following her foolish heart instead of facing facts.
“Come on, B. He spent all that time with you, and he even asked you to stay with him for the week when he could’ve kept his distance. Don’t you think that counts for something?” Holly asked with a sheepish glance.
The ridiculous tremor in Bellamy’s chest started up again, as if to agree. But she shook her head. She needed a clean break, and that meant no waffling.
“Another chance at what? Lying to me some more? Look, the reality is this. No matter how I feel about it, what Shane and I had is over. All the maybes in the world aren’t going to change that.”
As if on cue, Bellamy’s cell phone began to ring.
“You look like hell.” Shane’s father stood in the entryway to the tiny hospital waiting room, his perfectly pressed dress pants and cashmere sweater making him look only casually imposing instead of all-out intimidating.
Shane glanced down at his own attire, pushing aside the hollow thud in his chest. Funny, he’d heard that once already today, and that was before he’d taken a shower and changed into clean jeans.
“Thanks.” Shane’s tone suggested how little he meant it. The last thing he was in the mood for after being heartbroken by a girl who hated his guts enough to leave without saying goodbye was another tangle with his father.
“Is Grady settled in his new room?” His father tipped his dark head toward the hallway, and Shane noticed he was more gray at the temples than he had been last year.
He shrugged. “Yeah. They took him for another ECG, and the doctor’s in with him now. I figured I’d give them some privacy.” Shane crossed his arms over his chest, adrenaline perking at what was sure to become an argument.
“I see.” His father sat down across from him, leaning his forearms on his thighs. “You and I are long overdue for a conversation, don’t you think?”
The older man’s gray stare pierced Shane’s dark one, and for a moment, neither of them moved.
“If your version of a conversation involves telling me what to do with my own life, I’m not really interested. You’ll get your money soon enough. I never planned to skip out on my debt. But I’m not coming back to the city to work for you.”
His father’s mouth was drawn into a humorless smile, a network of worry lines creasing around his eyes. “You really think I care about the money?”
Shane pulled up in shock. “Uh, yeah.”
Wasn’t that kind of the point of his father trying to drag him back to Philadelphia in the first place? For fuck sake, he’d gone so far as to pay off Shane’s loan just to back him into a corner.
“You don’t even know what you don’t know,” his father muttered with a shake of his head.
“What did you just say?” Shock prickled through Shane, and he stared, wide-eyed, at his father. Boy, you don’t even know what you don’t know. Grady’s gravelly voice rumbled through Shane’s mind.
His father frowned, and he brushed off the question. “I don’t care about the money, Shane. I paid the loan off because I knew you were struggling. I thought…” He broke off for a breath, steepling his fingers together over his knees. “I thought it would be a wake-up call for you to come home. Clearly, you don’t want to leave.”