Chapter Twenty-Four
I bit back a groan as I stared at the spreadsheet on the computer screen. The numbers were running together, losing their meaning as I blinked at them.
Lifting a hand, I rubbed my forehead tiredly. It was nearly lunchtime and I hadn’t accomplished a damn thing today. I felt like I had been staring at this damn file for hours.
Which I had.
The sound of someone clearing their throat grabbed my attention and I looked up to find Chris standing on the other side of my desk with his arms crossed over his chest.
I straightened and met his gaze. Apparently, he’d been talking to me and I hadn’t heard a single word. “I’m sorry, I was distracted. What do you need?”
He cocked his head and studied me. “I think you need to go home.”
My back went rigid. “What?”
“You look like shit and you’re obviously upset about something. Whatever it is, you need to take the day and get a handle on it.”
I winced at his words because I knew they were true. Though I’d managed to leave Landen’s house this morning with dry eyes, they hadn’t remained that way once I got to work. Since I left a full half hour earlier than I planned, I spent thirty minutes in the women’s restroom trying to stem the flow of my tears. It had been a losing battle.
As a result, my eyes were red and swollen and no amount of make-up would hide it.
“I’m fine.” I hated lying, but I also hated bringing my personal problems to work with me.
“Well, I’m not,” Chris replied. “If it were anyone else, I would expect them to suck it up and do their job, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen you ruffled and I’m concerned. I want you to go home, get some rest, and call Lucy if you need to unload on someone. She’s taking the week off so she’s free if you need her.”
I opened my mouth to argue but snapped it closed when Chris lifted an imperious hand.
“I know you could probably make it through the day, Chelsea, but you don’t have to. We’re not that busy and you need to take care of yourself. Take the afternoon off and come back tomorrow.”
With a sigh, I slumped down in my chair. I wasn’t getting anything done anyway. “Okay,” I agreed softly.
Chris stared at me, his mouth pressed in a thin line before he spoke again. “Whatever it is, it’ll work out.”
I was certain then that he knew what was bothering me. For a wild moment, I nearly asked him why he never mentioned Landen’s ex-wife, but I shoved the urge away. Chris was my boss and the husband of my friend. He wasn’t obligated to tell me any damn thing. It wasn’t his job to interfere in my relationship with Landen and it would be unfair for me to expect that from him.
“Maybe,” I replied as I turned my eyes back to the computer screen and saved the file before I shut it down.
As I gathered my things, I heard Chris walk back toward his office. His steps paused.
“Landen cares very deeply for you.” My head shot up at his words and I found him staring at me, his jaw flexing as though he wanted to keep his mouth shut but was unable to. “He’s never been very good at relationships, and this is the first time I think I’ve ever seen him truly happy.”
Without another word, Chris disappeared into his office, shutting the door quietly behind him. I blinked at the heavy door, unsure what to think.
Chris stayed out of my private life, even when Landen and I started dating. When I brought it up, he only waved me away and told me who I saw outside of office hours was my own business as long as it didn’t interfere with my ability to do my job.
Yet he’d said something. I wondered if Landen had called him before he left for Oregon.
I picked up my things and headed out the door to the elevator. I was grateful it was empty as I rode down to the lobby. Once I was in my car with the engine running and the air conditioner blasting, I picked up my phone and called Lucy.
“Hey, Chelsea,” she chirped, sounding happy and relaxed.
Some of the tightness in my chest eased at the sound of her voice. “Hey,” I replied, my voice catching as I spoke. I knew it sounded rough and a little hoarse.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” she asked.
“Not physically,” I replied. I sighed, the air leaving my lungs in a rush. “Can you meet me at my apartment? I—” My throat convulsed and I swallowed hard. “I need to talk.”
“Are you at home or at work?”
“I’m at work but I’m about to go home.”
“Do you need me to pick you up?” she asked.
“No. I’m okay to drive. I’m in my car now.”
“I’ll be at your apartment in twenty minutes,” she replied without hesitation.
My eyes filled with tears. “Don’t rush. I don’t want you to have a wreck or something on the way.”
“I was just thinking the same thing about you but I’m not far from there anyway,” she responded. “I was out running errands.” Lucy paused before she asked, “Should I bring wine or extra tissues?”
I laughed, the sound escaping my tight throat. “Wine would be good.”
“I’ll see you soon,” she promised.
After she disconnected, I set my phone in the console and sighed again. The urge to cry had faded for now. I took one more fortifying breath and buckled my seatbelt before I put the car in gear.
Once I got home, I could release all the emotions roiling inside. But first I had to get there in one piece.
I’d just gotten home and changed into a pair of shorts and a faded, soft grey tee when the doorbell rang. I checked the peephole and nearly smiled when I saw Lucy standing in the hall, a bottle of wine in each hand.
When I threw open the door, she took one look at me and said, “Landen fucked up, didn’t he?”
I couldn’t suppress the laugh that bubbled up in my throat. The outraged expression on her face was both cute and a little scary.
“Definitely,” I replied.
She came inside and put her arms around me in a hug, the bottles bumping my back as she did. “Then we’ll drink wine and talk about what idiot assholes men are.”
I laughed again. “Says the woman who’s still glowing from her honeymoon.”
Lucy pulled back and kicked the door shut. “Hey, just because I’m happily married now doesn’t mean that Chris suddenly became smart.”
Gratitude toward my friend and her husband, my boss, filled me. “He’s the one who told me to take the afternoon off and call you, so I’d say that makes him pretty smart.”
Lucy scowled at me. “Stop talking sense. I need to know you’ll listen the next time Chris does something that annoys me and I need to bitch about him.”
“Duly noted.”
She lifted the bottles. “Now, let’s get some glasses and you can tell me what happened.”
I took the wine from her, a smile curving my mouth when I saw the lids. “Screw top. We’re going high-class today.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “Good wine comes in all kinds of bottles,” she groused, following me into the kitchen. I didn’t argue because she was right. I liked giving her a hard time.
As I put one bottle in the fridge and twisted the top off the other, she got two glasses out of the cabinet.
Once we each had a glass of wine and were settled on my couch, she asked, “So what happened that made your eyes so sad?”
I took a deep drink of the sweet white wine before I answered her question with another. “Did you know Landen was married before?”
Lucy’s eyes widened and I knew she hadn’t. “What?”
I took another sip and nodded. “Yeah, I found out this morning. He was married before.”
“When?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. We didn’t get that far.”
Lucy drank half her wine before she queried, “Didn’t get that far? Did you fight about it?”
“Sort of.” I took a deep breath and drained my glass before grabbing the wine bottle from the coffee table and refilling it. “His ex-wife stopped by the house this morning while I was getting ready for work.”
She gaped at me then tossed back the rest of the wine before topping off her own glass. “Details please,” she demanded.
I told her everything. About how warm and nice Maris had been when I answered the door. About how betrayed I’d felt when I found out that not only had Landen been married but he was still in business with his ex. And all the reasons he gave me for not telling me.
By the time I was done telling the story, the ache in my chest had faded somewhat, as though sharing the problem lifted part of the burden from my conscience.
Lucy was on her third glass of wine and shaking her head when I finally fell silent. “Holy shit. Chris is always talking about how smart Landen is but now I’m beginning to think he’s the biggest fucking idiot on the planet.”
Also on my third glass of wine, I snorted, feeling a little tipsy and a bit better than I had earlier. “Yeah, I just don’t understand what in the hell he was thinking. I mean, we’re both direct people. He knows I prefer honesty to white lies, even if they spare my feelings.” Lucy studied me and bit her bottom lip. I could tell she wanted to say something. “Spit it out. You know I’d rather hear the truth.” Hell, I’d just said as much.
Her voice was quiet when she asked, “Could he have been right, though? That you would have used his ex-wife as an excuse to keep him at arm’s length?”
I stared down into my wine glass, noticing the little bubbles popping just below the surface of the liquid. “Maybe at the very beginning after he ghosted me. But after that picnic in the park? Probably not.” I lifted my gaze back to Lucy. “I probably would have been a little more cautious knowing that he was still around his ex every day. But I wouldn’t have broken things off, only slowed down a bit.”
Lucy lifted an eyebrow at me and I refrained from rolling my eyes. I hated it when she did that. She must have picked that look up from Chris because he and Landen were the only people I knew who were able to do it and not look ridiculous.
“And it’s not the fact that he works so closely with his ex that bothers me. It’s the lying. He knew he should tell me yet he jumped into bed with me and started asking me to move in with him without giving me the truth.”
She sighed. “Yeah, that is pretty shitty behavior.” Her gaze sharpened. “So what are you gonna do? End things?”
The ache returned to my chest, sharp and deep, twisting and roiling until it reached my belly. “I don’t know. I mean…it boils down to whether or not I can trust him. I don’t know if I can.”
“Do you think he’s lied to you about anything else?” Lucy asked pointedly.
I shook my head. I didn’t think he had, but how could I trust my own judgment now? I was falling in love with him.
The breath caught in my chest. No, I’d already fallen. If not, I wouldn’t have been so hurt when Maris told me who she was.
“Then you have a decision to make,” Lucy stated in a gentle voice. “Either you can forgive him or you can tell him to take a hike.” She cleared her throat. “Well, I’m sure there are other options too, but it all boils down to that. He apologized, right?”
I nodded miserably. He had apologized, but that didn’t negate my feelings in the least. Years ago, when I’d said something cruel to another kid at school and gotten in trouble, my father came to pick me up. One look at his disappointed face had made the regret already filling me double in volume. He took me home and told me to come outside with him.
We sat on the porch swing behind our house in silence for a good long while.
Finally, he asked, “If you knocked a glass on the floor and it broke, would an apology fix it?” I frowned at him, not entirely sure I understood the question. Instead I just shook my head. His blue eyes, the same color as my own, had peered at me with sorrow and compassion. “You already know that words have the power to hurt. They can break a person’s heart just as surely as a baseball bat can break their arm. And once something is broken, an apology won’t fix it. But it’s a start. Once you apologize, you have to follow it with actions. Harmful words, once spoken or written, can’t be taken back. They live in the other person’s memory forever. It’s the same with harmful deeds. They can’t be erased.”
As he spoke, tears of shame filled my eyes. He was right and I knew it.
He put an arm around me and hugged me into his side. “You can’t take back what you did or said in the past, Chelsea. But if you’re truly sorry for what you did, you can change how you behave in the future. Only you can control what you do from here on out. If you regret what you said, then you should apologize and remember this lesson in the future when someone else makes you angry or hurts your feelings. That you have to decide how you want to respond—by breaking a piece of the person who hurt you or by showing them compassion. Or at the very least walking away.”
That lesson was one I had never forgotten. I still made mistakes, still spoke out of anger once in a while, but not as often as I had before. That was one reason why I told Landen I needed space when I was angry. I’d found it was best if I gave myself time to cool down before I continued discussing something that upset me.
“Chelsea?” Lucy’s voice broke through the memory.
“Apologies don’t fix everything, Lucy,” I stated sadly.
“I didn’t say they do,” she retorted, her voice firm. “But I’ve known Landen for a couple of years now and he could probably play games with the best of them, but he doesn’t. I think he enjoys being blunt and throwing people off balance. If he said he was sorry, he probably is.”
I leaned my head against the back of the couch. This conversation was exhausting me. Lucy was right. I had to decide if I could forgive Landen and move forward or if I wanted to end things over this. But I didn’t want to make the decision right now.
“I know he’s sorry,” I replied, closing my eyes for a moment. “But that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t hurt like hell.”
Her hand closed over mine and squeezed. “I know, sweetie.”
I straightened and looked over at her. “I don’t know what to do.”
She gave me a small smile. “I think you’ll figure it out soon enough.”
“Maybe.”
She gave my hand one more squeeze before she released me and reached for the wine bottle. “But in the meantime, let’s get drunk, order some lunch, and watch movies full of hot guys.”
Despite the heaviness of my heart, I grinned. “That sounds like a perfect afternoon to me.”
Lucy topped off my glass and her own before lifting it in a toast. “To the men in our lives. If we can’t live without ’em, at least we can make their lives hell.”
I laughed and tapped her glass with mine. “Cheers.”
Chris had to pick Lucy up after our afternoon of wine, Thai food, and Netflix. We ended up watching The Kissing Booth. Surprisingly, the romantic comedy made me laugh and eased the heaviness in my heart.
When he arrived at my door, his eyes flicked over me, taking in my tipsy appearance and he’d nodded. Just once.
Lucy decided she needed to use the bathroom before she left, leaving me alone with Chris in the living room.
I looked up at him. “Thank you,” I said.
The corner of his mouth tipped up. “You’re welcome.”
“I’ll be in tomorrow morning,” I stated firmly.
“Of course.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced at the carpet before he spoke again. “I told myself I was going to stay out of this, but I am going to say one thing before I leave here and hopefully never speak of this again.”
The uncomfortable expression on his face made me smile. “Okay.”
“Landen told me what happened and I don’t blame you for being angry. I couldn’t even blame you if you told him to go fuck himself.” He sucked in a deep breath and released it. “But I hope you don’t. You are his match in every way that matters. When a man finds a woman like that, he will do anything to keep her because she makes him better than he would be without her.”
I cocked my head to the side and realized that Chris wasn’t just talking about Landen. He was talking about himself. Lucy was his match in all the ways that mattered too.
“Whatever you decide is your choice and it won’t affect what happens in the office.”
I smiled at him again and repeated, “Thank you.”
Lucy came back into the living room and Chris’ eyes moved to her. My heart skipped a beat at the way he looked at her. Like she was the sun, the center of his universe.
But that look was familiar and I knew why.
It was the way that Landen looked at me.