“This is okay,” he continued. “Us talking and being somewhat normal together. We have to be. My friends are your friends. My town is your town. We’re going to see each other. It’s inevitable. And with Jordan and Maysie getting married, we’re going to be in each other’s lives in one way or another for the foreseeable future. But that’s it. We’ll be old friends that used to be close but have drifted apart.”
“If that’s what you need, Mitch. I understand,” I told him, my voice rough and crushed.
Mitch’s shoulders sagged and he gave me a look that broke my heart all over again. Because I had done this.
I had ruined so much more than I had ever realized.
“It’s the only way it can be, Gracie.” He let out a breath and turned toward Garrett’s house. “I’ll see you later.”
And then he was gone.
“I’ll see ya,” I murmured after he had left.
Day one of my new life.
Wake up.
Get a shower.
Get dressed.
Eat breakfast.
Sit at the kitchen table and try not bang my head against the wood over and over and over again.
It was really fucking boring.
“You’ve been staring at that newspaper for over an hour. Do the words change if you look at it long enough?” Garrett asked, pouring a cup of coffee. He was already dressed, which was surprising considering the guy typically didn’t get out of bed until midday.
“What are you doing up already?” I asked him.
“I’m heading up to see Riley, remember. I’ll be gone until next week.” He dumped three spoonfuls of sugar into his cup and stirred. “No crazy parties until I get back. You can’t have that shit going on unless I’m here to enjoy it.”
“Yes, Dad,” I said, pushing the paper away from me.
“What’s with all the early morning angst? Girl trouble? I saw you out by the bonfire with Gracie last night. Is that what’s gotten your panties all in a bunch? I sincerely hope you two ironed out all your shit. It’s been going on long enough, don’t you think?” Garrett sat down across from me and grabbed a donut from the box Maysie had brought over earlier. She had already been by with groceries. I think she thought that we were going to either starve or resort to cannibalism if she didn’t take care of us. Though I wasn’t going to say anything to the contrary, because I really hated going grocery shopping.
“No, this has nothing to do with Gracie,” I told him, proud of myself for saying her name without wanting to vomit.
Garrett raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing me.
“So I just imagined all that unresolved tension between the two of you last night?”
“Dude, I have a girlfriend,” I reminded him.
Maybe I needed the reminder too.
I really hated that stupid inner voice.
“Yeah, well perhaps that’s the problem,” Garrett remarked dryly. I did not want to talk about Gracie. I had dealt with that shit last night. I had been proud of how I handled things. I had laid it all out there. I had told Gracie that I didn’t want to ignore her. That I wasn’t going to avoid her the way I knew she had been avoiding me. I wanted to be civil. Mature even.
We’ll be old friends that used to be close but have drifted apart.
Just maybe I could force myself to believe it.
Because hell if I could face her apologies from here to freaking eternity. I’d had enough of those.
It’s what was best. For everyone. There was no future with Gracie.
Was there a future with Sophie?
I was trying to figure out the answer to that.
I was pretty sure I already knew.
“Are you going to be back in time for our call with Pirate on Friday? Or are you just going to conference in?” I asked him, ignoring his barb.
“No, I’ll be back for that,” he said grimly.
Neal had called yesterday as we were on our way back to Bakersville. He had already spoken with Tate and Danvers and they wanted to set up a conference call next week.
“They want to get everything out on the table. They’ve made some decisions that they want to talk to you about,” Neal had said. We pressed him about what those decisions were but he claimed he didn’t know.
I didn’t like being left hanging. None of us did.
“All of this is exhausting. I used to think there would be nothing better than landing a record deal and playing shows all the time. Now I realize how naïve I was. How naïve we all were. We were living in la-la land,” Garrett said, finishing off the donut.
“Yeah, well the real world sucks. I wanted to live a little while longer in la-la land,” I muttered, pulling the newspaper back towards me. I wasn’t sure what even the hell I was looking for. I poured over the want ads until my eyes hurt. There wasn’t really a job out there that was perfect for an “almost rock star.”
“I don’t know, man. Maybe it’s time we all grow up,” Garrett remarked off handedly.
I gave him a wry look. “You sound like your girlfriend.”
Garrett laughed. “Yeah, I guess I do. But it’s something to think about.”
I folded the paper and carried it over to the recycling bin, shoving it in. Garrett was right. We all had some thinking to do.
“Mitch!”
My mother held open the screen door and pulled me into a hug.
“Hey, Ma,” I said, my voice muffled by her shoulder.
Mom pulled back and gave me the maternal once over. “You need to shave. And a good haircut. Come sit down and I’ll grab my scissors. Your dad just stepped out to pick up some firewood. He’ll be back soon. Your sister isn’t here yet. She ran into traffic on 64.”
She ushered me into the kitchen and pushed me down into a chair. My mother wasn’t the sort to waste time on pleasantries. She’d have you in a chair with a plate full of food while sewing the hole in your shirt before you could even say hello.
For my entire life, my mother had been larger than life. She was the kind of woman that took her role as matriarch very seriously. “I was born to be a mother,” she liked to say and damned if she didn’t mean it.
And she didn’t think twice about welcoming anyone who needed a mother figure with open arms.
After Garrett’s parents’ died, he spent most evenings here, in this kitchen, as my mother fussed over him and made sure he was eating enough vegetables. Garrett loved my mother. She was one of the few people, aside from Riley, who could make the guy smile.
And when Cole’s parents had all but abandoned him, my mom picked up the slack, taking him care packages after he moved into his apartment and making sure he had warm socks and pillows for his bed. She took the man shopping for curtains, for Christ’s sake!
She was a sucker for an abandoned puppy. And Cole and Garrett were her favorite abandoned puppies.
“You should have invited the boys to come with you! I haven’t seen Cole, Garrett, or Jordan in so long! Is Jordan still with that lovely girl, Maysie?” she asked, wrapping a towel around my neck and picking up the scissors.
“He is. They’re getting married in August. So be on the look out for an invitation,” I told her, holding perfectly still as she snipped the long pieces of hair around my ears.
“Oh, a wedding! I can’t wait! I love weddings! I keep hoping your sister will finally find someone to settle down with, but I won’t hold my breath.” My thirty-year-old sister had incredibly bad luck when it came to men. Her high school boyfriend had turned out to be gay and her daughter’s dad, who she had been with for almost three years, had taken off the minute he found out she was pregnant. So now Charlotte was doing the single mom thing and I was pretty sure she wasn’t looking to put on a white dress and walk down the aisle any time soon.