Chapter 18
Joshua
“Thank god, I found you,” I said, and held onto Eve’s arm. It was good to touch her again, good to see her, too. “Listen, I need to warn you about something.”
“Warn me,” she said and ripped from my grasp. “About what? About how you told Faith that I’m your lover? I told you – I told you how she was acting and that she was throwing her weight around in the restaurant. I told you that.”
“I didn’t say anything to Faith about you being my lover.” I kept my voice low. I hated drawing unnecessary attention to myself, and a public blowout ranked high on my list of nightmare scenarios.
“Then how did she find out?” Eve asked. “And what’s this about a restaurant? You trying to buy Cowboys n’ Cuts?”
“I didn’t try to buy it. I tried to get Lily Patrick to buy it back,” I said. Shit, this was exactly what I hadn’t wanted her to know. This had scared her. But it wasn’t fear that marred her usually smooth features; it was fury.
“What?” she uttered. “Why?”
“Because I knew Faith would make your life unpleasant if I didn’t. I wanted to help you.”
“Help me?” Eve’s voice rose. Already, a crowd had gathered, common folk. Shit, there was Pete from the gas station, Martha from the baker’s. “Help me?! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Calm down.”
“I will not calm down!” She positively vibrated with anger. “Faith fired Cassidy!”
“What?”
“She fired her. Cassidy, who has a sick child at home and a babysitter to pay, and bills, and fucking –” Eve cut off, choking on the words.
“I had no idea,” I said, and anger flushed through me to equal hers. Faith had taken one step too far. “I’ll fix this. I’ll speak to Faith.”
“No.” Eve pressed both her palms to my chest.
For a second, I couldn’t work out what she was doing, and then it hit me – she wanted to shove me. She was that angry with me.
Eve let out a guttural sound and dropped her arms. “Impossible,” she muttered.
“What do you mean?”
“This. Everything.”
“I can fix this, Eve. Let me help you.”
“You’ve done more than enough,” Eve uttered. “Too much. Stay out of it. Stay out of everything, do you hear me? I don’t need your help, and I don’t need your fucking protection. You’re not my guardian angel.”
“You’re making a scene.”
“So?” Eve threw up her hands. “That seems to be the hip thing to do around here.”
“I don’t know what to do,” I said, and it was true. It wasn’t a feeling I was comfortable with. I was the guy who came with the answers and business plans. I was the creator. The planner. Christ. “Eve –”
“This isn’t working out,” she said.
“Don’t say that.”
“You’re interfering in my life. Just knowing you has fucked up my plans. I wanted to find myself and peace, and all I’ve gotten is this chaos.”
“It wasn’t all chaos,” I said and took her wrist. I stroked its underside, the soft, tender skin I’d kissed the night before.
“No,” she said and dragged herself from me again. “It was all chaos. You’ve broken everything I wanted.”
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
“You’ve destroyed everything I tried to build up again,” she hissed.
“I’m not Bryan.”
I didn’t stop the slap. The thwack vibrated through my cheek and stung down to my soul. I’d deserved that one, but I could only hold back my own anger for so long. What did she expect from me? That I’d stand back and let her debase me like this in front of everyone? Just because I loved her. I loved her. My lover.
Fuck!
“You’re not Bryan,” she whispered. “No. You’re worse. You’re the one who looks perfect from the outside. I told you I couldn’t do this. I told you I wasn’t ready.”
I’d done my best not to pressure her. “I wasn’t the only one in that bedroom last night. I wasn’t the only one who –”
She raised her arm again and this time I caught it and held her back. “I wasn’t ready.”
Thunder rumbled overhead, the gray clouds that had threatened all afternoon rolled closer. A wind picked up and tossed her hair around her head, a halo.
“I didn’t force you into anything,” I grunted. “You felt what I did.”
“No.” Eve shook her head. “No. No more. I can’t do anything like this again. I can’t be near you again.”
We stood there, caught in the center of a brewing storm, gazes from strangers burning into us, immortalizing this moment forever.
“I won’t let you go, Eve.”
“You don’t have a choice,” she said. “I don’t love you.”
I let go of her and stepped back. She’d said it to hurt me, but it’d struck too close to home. “You don’t love me,” I said, glancing past her at the distant restaurant. Faith had come out into the street.
“No,” Eve replied. “I don’t.”
“You’re lying.” I looked her in the eye, imprinted my intent on her, my intent to be with her, to love her one last time. “You’re already mine, Eve. You just don’t want to admit it yet. You’ve been mine since you hit me with your truck.”
“You don’t know me,” she said, and then she brushed past me and ran down the road. Her heels clicked on the tar, and the sound burned into my memory. If I never saw her again, it would be the only thing I’d remember – that noise, that clicking that signified the end.
But I would see her again. I would fucking see her again.
The folks who’d gathered to witness the blowout hovered around, milling now, some of them cast concerned gazes upward at the darkening sky.
I clapped my hands. “Show’s over, folks,” I yelled.
A few of them jumped and scurried off. The rest pretended they hadn’t been paying attention all along, and Faith stood there, still as a statue, the wind whipping around her, the very epitome of the discord she’d sown.
I balled my hands into fists and bore down on her, grinding my boots into the concrete so hard it should’ve cracked.
Faith stumbled back a step and slapped into the open door of Cowboys n’ Cuts. She put up her palms. “Now, Joshua, there’s no need to get angry. She’s just a warm body, right? A slut. I know you only wanted her for that. We both know that. So, why get angry about it?”
I halted a few paces from her, eyes narrowed. I no longer cared about scenes or avoiding the public gaze. They’d already seen me broken down before their very fucking eyes. Eve’s rejection was paramount to social death, but it didn’t matter.
“If you talk about Eve like that again, I will make your life miserable,” I said.
“How?” Faith asked and pursed her lips. Even now, she was arrogant. “What are you going to do, Joshua? Huh? You’re the one who made this happen, you know that, right? If you’d just married me like you were supposed to, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“You’re delusional. You were the one who broke up with me, remember? You didn’t want to be with me in college, and all of a sudden I’m good enough for you again.”
“You made enough money,” Faith said, brazen as usual. “I told you that I wanted someone with a future.”
“You don’t deserve someone with a future when you’re devoid of your own. I deserve better than you.”
“And you think that – Eve is it?”
“Yes,” I said. “She’s more of a woman than you’ll ever be.” I wasn’t about to pitch a little bitch fit here in the middle of town. This was strictly business. “If you threaten Eve again, I’m going to make sure your father finds out all about your shenanigans at college.”
“What?” She went pale as a sheet. Finally, something had gotten past her thick skull.
“I’ll tell Lee-Roy about your wedding,” I said. Mr. Stone’s love was totally conditional, just as Faith’s had been for me. If he found out she’d done the unthinkable and married, then consequently annulled, some loser at college, a no-money loser for that matter, he’d flip his shit.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would,” I said. “You stay the fuck away from Eve.” I walked off before I could throw more insults at her. I walked around the corner and kicked over a trash can, sending litter sprawling. I couldn’t summon up the guilt to chase after it in the wind.
Fat drops of rain splatted down on the sidewalk. I kept walking. Walking, walking, turning it over in my mind. Eve. Eve. Eve. Had to make this better. Had to get her back.
I wouldn’t let the only woman I’d loved fall through my fingers.