I shake my head and take a long gulp of the hot coffee. “No, I haven’t said anything to her.”
“Do you want me to do it?” he asks, and I shake my head.
“No, I’ll do it when I come back,” I say, putting down my coffee.
“Where the hell are you going?” he asks, his eyes almost glaring.
“I have to meet Beau in thirty minutes.” I avoid his eyes this time.
“You really going to leave her?” he asks. I don’t know if he’s asking about now or in general. Either way, I don’t have an answer for him. I have nothing.
“She’s with Kallie. She’ll be fine.” I finish the coffee, ignoring the burning in my stomach. “Let her know I’m going to be back.” I turn to walk out of the room.
“Don’t do this,” he whispers, and I turn around. “She needs.” I stop him before he says the words I don’t want to hear.
“She has everything she needs here. I’ll be back,” I say, walking to the front door and slipping on my Nike’s. I grab my keys and my baseball hat and walk out of the door. My heart and chest are hurting more and more the farther I get from the door. I get into the truck, and I turn off everything. Or at least I try, but nothing, nothing helps this time. I should be good at this; I should be able to do this.
When I turn off my property, the beating in my heart speeds up, and the pain hurts even more. Turning the radio on, I try to bury it deep, and when I park my truck in front of Beau’s stable, my whole body screams to go back.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Beau asks when I open the door and step out. I look over at him and see that he’s wearing his workout clothes and carrying a saddle. “Didn’t you just get back?”
“Yeah.” I ignore the first part of his question and follow him into the barn. Beau and I have become a lot closer in the past few years, especially with our businesses crossing paths.
“If you just got back, why the fuck are you here?” he asks, throwing the saddle on one of the mustangs that he bought from me six months ago.
“We have a meeting,” I say. “Did you forget?”
“I didn’t forget.” He looks over at me. “I assumed we would reschedule since your woman just went through hell.”
I look at him. “She isn’t my woman.” As soon as I say the words, I feel like I just swallowed a handful of nails.
“Wow.” He shakes his head. “You’re really that fucking stupid.” I glare at him.
“You are one to talk.” I put my hands on my hips. “How is Savannah?” I ask him, and it’s his turn to glare at me. “You can dish it, but can you take it?”
“It’s not even the same thing,” he says.
“Isn’t it? You’ve loved her your whole life. The whole town knows it. The only one who doesn’t know it is Savannah because you haven’t told her.” I point at him.
“You told Olivia you love her?” he asks, and I glare. “I mean, you do love her, right? You have to. There is no way you would have her in your house if you didn’t. That is your place, your ‘woman-free space’.” He uses quotations, and I want to throat punch him, but instead, all I can do is stand here and listen to him. “If you let her walk away without telling her how you feel, you are going to regret it for the rest of your life.”
“How would you know?” I say. “You are glued to Savannah’s side, yet you never told her.”
He looks at me. “She has a kid with my best friend.” He looks down, and I know that deep down it cuts him to the core. “Besides, there is no way she would ever feel the same about me. It would just make it awkward for everyone.”
“You never know until you tell her and hear what she has to say,” I say, and he walks toward me now.
“Are you going to take your own advice?” he asks, and I look down.
“Her whole life is in Los Angeles.” My heart skips a beat. “Her whole life is nothing like I can give her here.”
“Maybe all she wants is you, dumb ass,” he says, laughing. “By the way, I’m canceling our meeting right now.” He turns and walks back to his horse and gets on it. “Go home and take your head out of your ass,” he says as he nudges his horse to ride. I watch him longer than I want to, and the whole time, my head is going around and around.
When I finally open the front door and walk into my house, I stop when I walk past her room and hear her. I turn to walk to her and see her turning to the closet and grabbing her stuff. My feet are stuck to the floor. I watch her walk back and forth to the suitcase twice before I notice that her face looks like she’s been crying. I stand here not able to say anything, wondering if she heard about Dominic and that is the reason she is crying.
“What are you doing?” The words finally come out. She jumps at the sound of my voice, and I see right away that she has a shield up. Her eyes are clouded over, and her smile is fake as fuck.
“Well,” she says, trying to sound upbeat, “I figured that you needed me out of your hair.” She puts the clothes into the suitcase, and I want to walk up to it and take them out. But not replace it in the drawers in this room. I want it in my room and the thought of her leaving is too much to bear. “I’ve been cramping your style for far too long.” She avoids my eyes. “I’m going to go and stay at Kallie’s house for now until I figure it out.”
“Until you figure out what?” I ask her, stepping into the room, the whole time my hands itch to grab her.
She drops the clothes into the suitcase and then looks up at me. “Until I figure out where the next step is.” I look at her up and down and notice that she changed from her dress and is now wearing shorts and a sweater. “One thing I’ve decided is that it’s not LA.” It’s almost as if she kicks me in the balls with that last sentence, but then it’s nothing like the next part. “It’s not my home.” She turns and walks back to the closet and grabs a handful of hangers. “I want to find a home.” She smiles sadly. “With everything that happened around me, I figured one thing out. I’ve never had a home. I’ve never had roots. I want to build a home and then plant all the roots.”
“Darlin’.” I say her name softly, and she blinks and looks down, but I can’t stop staring at the lone tear that rolls down her cheek.
“I know you won’t get it because you’ve had a home your whole life,” she says, taking the shirt off the hanger and then looking up at me. “So you probably think it’s silly, but …” She shrugs. “I want a home.” Her eyes glisten with tears. “I want a family that is my own. I want to bake and cook for them.” She laughs now. “I mean, I have to learn, but still. I want to.”
“Stay,” I finally say, my tongue finally working, and she looks at me. “Stay here.”
“What?” she whispers, and I take a step closer to her. “And I know that I said I didn’t know what love was or that I didn’t deserve it or the fact that I don’t want to have kids but ...” She shrugs, looking at me almost in defeat. “But I am worthy of love. I’m worthy of loving someone, and I’m worthy of someone loving me. I want to be a mother and a wife. I want all those things and more. You said yourself that you’ll never get married.” She reminds me of the words I told her, and I suddenly want to go back to that day by the creek and take it back. But I can’t touch her yet. I need to get this off my chest before I touch her.