Months Earlier

I’m a liar.

Or at least a truth-bender. Calling myself a flat-out liar would be a lie.

So maybe I am a liar.

Either way, I’ve been lying. Kind of. I have a boyfriend. A semi-decent boyfriend. Each time he says, “I love you,” I say it back.

But the truth is, I don’t love him in the way I should. So every time I say it, I lie a tiny bit.

I do love him, in more of a friendly way.

Tapping the voicemail icon on my screen, I listen to the latest message from said boyfriend. “Hey, babe. Sorry I missed your call. We’ve been doing test flights all day. Gonna head out with the guys for a bit, maybe do a flight. I’ll try back later. I love you.”

I try calling Tanner back but get sent directly to voicemail. Guess he’s still out.

Throwing myself down onto my bed, I sigh loudly. We’ve been playing phone tag for the last two days, only exchanging texts a few times. This being disconnected thing is grueling. Dating a soldier is harder than I assumed. It’s been eight months since Tanner and I first got together and two weeks since we’ve seen one another. And since he left seven months ago, we’ve only been face-to-face a total of four times. I mean, sure, we FaceTime, Skype, text and try to talk daily, but it’s not the same.

It’s so not the same.

There’s part of me—the one that wants to love him in that way—that misses him. I miss touching him. I miss his presence. I miss his smile. But mostly, the part of me that loves him as a friend misses our friendship, which has significantly changed over the past few months.

He’s been asking like crazy, but the last thing I’ll do is pick my life up and move out to North Carolina where he’s stationed. I have a life here in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Hell, I grew up here. My entire world—except Tanner—is here.

I grab the closest pillow I can find, place it over my mouth, and scream long and hard because I’m frustrated by all this. I’m frustrated over missing him, I’m frustrated over him pressuring me, and I’m frustrated because I know that I don’t miss him enough.

“Knock, knock!” my aunt Kassi hollers, tapping on my bedroom door and walking in.

I remove the pillow and huff out another breath.

“What’s going on, kiddo?” she asks, concern lacing her voice. Kiddo. Usually, I’d give her crap for calling me that, since she’s only five years older than me, but I’m too upset to do so now.

See, my aunt Kassi is the best aunt ever. Actually, she feels more like a sister than an aunt since we’re close in age. She’s my mother’s half-sister and came into play long after my mom was out of the house. My mother would never say so out loud, but she’s envious of my relationship with Kassi and just as equally jealous of her young age. To say it’s entertaining to witness those two in a room together is putting it mildly. Whenever they come within fifty feet of one another, the air shifts and threatens to boil over from Norah Doughers’ horrible distaste of Kassi Garrett.

“Life. It kinda sucks recently,” I finally tell her.

“Buck up, Maura. It can only get worse from here,” she jests, sitting down next to me and lying back, mirroring my pose.

“Yeah, yeah, but I’m all about the now. I haven’t talked to Tanner since yesterday morning, and I was half asleep the entire time. All I remember is him pestering me more to move. I know I shouldn’t complain, because there are plenty of people out there who don’t get to talk with their soldiers, but I can’t help it. I miss him and want to strangle him all at the same time.”

She sighs for me this time. “Ya know, at this point, I miss him because you’re so much happier when he’s around. Not sure what you would do if he were to dep—”

“Don’t you dare say the ‘D’ word!” I interrupt.

As much as I love my aunt Kassi, I will probably hit her if she finishes that word. I know deployment is almost inevitable in the military, but it’s still not something I like to dwell on, even if not all deployments equal dangerous situations. Whether we’re together or not, I don’t ever want Tanner deploying—stateside is safest. I couldn’t handle it on top of everything else.

“Fine, fine,” she says on a small laugh. “But just because I can’t say the word doesn’t make it any less possible.”

I groan and slant my eyes her way. “Why are you in here again?”

“Grocery run. You want anything special or your usual?”

“Ice cream. My two favorite men, please,” I tell her. “I have a feeling I’m going to need them.”

She laughs lightly. “You sound like such a hussy.”

“You still love me and my slutty ways,” I tease half-heartedly.

“Only because I’m obligated by blood,” she tosses back.

“Yeah, yeah,” I respond as she walks out of the room with a huge smile.

I’m alone again. I don’t want to be alone again. I don’t need to be alone again. I’m moody and irritable, but I still don’t think sitting alone in my room will help any of that.

My fingers itch to call Rae. I need my best friend, but she’s currently wrapped up in her incredible boyfriend, Hudson, and his kid, Joey. Can’t say I blame her for that, because it’s exactly where I would be if I had the two of them in my life.

I could call my other best friend and Rae’s cousin, Perry, but I’m not sure if I’m up to hearing about his latest sexcapade or guzzling down booze at Clyde’s. I love him to death, but that’s not what I need.

I need…comfort. I need Ben and Jerry and an extra-cheesy romantic comedy.

Maybe I’ll head down to Jane’s on Main—the best local boutique in all of Wakefield and possibly Boston—to do a little retail therapy. Atta girl, Maura. Go shop!

I drag myself off the bed and head to my closet, pulling out a pair of dark-wash skinny jeans and a blue floral-print blouse with pink flowers on it. Pair it with my light pink flats and I’m good to go.

My sudden decision to shop has me giddy until I glance in the mirror. Ugh. My platinum blonde hair is a mess. It can’t decide if it wants to be short or shoulder-length, straight or curly. It’s annoying the crap out of me. Maybe I need a new hair-do too.

I smile to myself. That sounds like a damn good idea to me.

* * *

“You want me to do what!”

“Pink tips all the way around. I think you need ‘em,” Becca, my hairdresser, says from behind me.

“Are you for real? My mother would kill me!” I hiss.

I watch in the mirror as Becca rolls her eyes. “Maura, you’re way too old to do what you mother tells you to do all the damn time. Live a little, girlie. Get the pink.”

She’s right. I’m twenty-two. There’s no reason I should still be afraid of my mother. But I have plenty of reason to be.

Taking a chapter out of my best friend Rae’s book and being as blunt as possible: my mom is a bitch. Yeah, I said it. She’s mean. Norah Doughers doesn’t smile. At all. In fact, I highly doubt she smiled when I was born. I’m sure she handed me off to a nurse and then a nanny. She’s cold.

Why am I sitting here debating whether or not I want to put artificial color in my perfectly shaded natural blonde hair to spite her? Because I’m angry. Because I’m a grownup. Because I desperately want to say “suck it” to my parents.

And I do. Albeit metaphorically, but it still counts.

“Fine,” I concede, closing my eyes and refusing to watch. “Let’s do it.”

She squeals and gets to work.

Becca is quiet at first, concentrating strictly on my hair. It doesn’t take long for her to start jabbering.

“So, Maura,” she says, moving a few items around on her rented counter space. “How’s the dating life going? How are things with your hunky soldier?”

I want to sigh at this. I want to tell Becca that things are great, but they’re not. However, being the liar I am, I tell her so anyway. Because why shatter that carefully crafted image I’ve constructed over the years?

“Oh, fantastic! We’re great! Tanner is the perfect boyfriend,” I tell her, making sure to put extra emphasis on perfect.

She squeals again, and I’m starting to realize why Rae hates it when I do it. “You’re so lucky! I’ve never seen him, but the last time you were in here you wouldn’t stop gushing over him! I bet he’s a total stud!”

Becca’s right—Tanner is a stud. He’s damn near flawless in the appearances department, but relationships aren’t built on beauty. Okay, some are, but not the type relationship I want.

I need…real…tangible. And as head over heels as I was for Tanner in the beginning, that’s faded. A lot. If a person were to ask, could I say I love Tanner? Sure. Would I mean it? Probably not. Dead giveaway for how much longer this “relationship” needs to last.

“How’s the how long-distance thing working out?” Becca asks, twisting my hair up into a clip a little too hard.

“Ouch.”

“Shit. Sorry, Maura.”

“It’s fine. I kinda expect your abuse by now,” I tease. I have a rather sensitive head, and Becca always ends up pulling my hair a little too hard.

“You should.” She winks at me in the mirror. “But don’t dodge my question. How is it?”

I hold back my sigh and respond with, “Awesome.”

But that’s a lie. Again.

The first month we were together was wonderful. Everything moved fast, and it was so storybook perfect that I let myself get lost in it. I didn’t pay attention to how genuine my feelings were. Or weren’t. It didn’t prepare me for the long-distance part of the relationship at all. I didn’t know how hard it would be. I didn’t know that when I saw him again, it would be different. I assumed it would all be the same, and that I would feel cheap when we met up for weekend visits.

“Babe,” Tanner says, grabbing at me as I close the door to the mediocre hotel room we got for the weekend.

His mouth is on mine before anything else can be said or I can even set my purse down. I kiss him back with equal fervor, hoping for a spark of something.

Tanner tugs at my cardigan, pulling it from my shoulders haphazardly. Annoyed by his lack of grace, I push him off and pull the garment down my arms. He rips it from my hands, tosses it to the bed, and reaches for the button on my jeans. They’re on the floor before I know it, and he’s pressed against me again.

“I need to fuck you.”

And I let him. Right there on the back of a motel door, I let him.

Because that’s how desperately I want to feel with him.

In the end, I don’t.

I assumed wrong because that’s exactly what they felt like after our last encounter—cheap. It wasn’t until then that I realized that it had been about the same all the times before that.

Not at all what I was hoping for when we first started all this.

We met unexpectedly when he came into Clyde’s, the sports bar where I work, with his younger brother and friends last year. It was a lust-at-first-sight type of thing, and after hitting it off so well, we plunged head first into a relationship and never looked back.

Or ahead, apparently.

I’m not saying Tanner is an awful boyfriend. He’s not the best, but he’s far from the worst. He may come off as this tough guy, asshole type to the world, but he’s not like that with me…most of the time. It’s like I hung the moon for him and him alone, and I don’t doubt for a second that when Tanner says he loves me, he means it in his special way. And when we’re together, we work.

Or at least we used to.

“I couldn’t imagine having a long-distance relationship myself,” Becca comments. “It all seems so difficult to keep up with. Easy to get separated from who you are.”

Bingo!

When we’re together, I tend to let Tanner take the wheel and drive my emotions instead of kicking it over into manual and driving myself. Without him, I’m on guard and always watching over my shoulder, expecting to find my parents there correcting me since that’s what they’ve done all my life.

I need to be one or the other. And so far, the version where I’m not checking over my shoulder constantly—the one where I feel as though I’m more capable of taking control of my own life like I was starting to do before—is the one I like the most.

I understand that finding a balance between the two different people we project is hard, but lingering in the middle like we have been isn’t working. It’s making everything much more difficult.

We started off as these different people and created a beautiful friendship in the short time we had together. Thinking that was who we truly were, it bloomed into this whirlwind affair. Shortly after he left, we reverted to who we were before. Because of this, we’ve stayed in this never-ending push and pull of pretending. I think we enjoy those impeccable versions of each other too much to break it off, but it’s becoming exhausting to keep up the charade.

“It’s hard, but someone has to do it, right?”

“Right,” Becca agrees distractedly. “Almost done. You’re gonna look so hot!”

“Can I turn around yet?” I ask Becca, who has me flipped around so I can’t see in the mirror.

“Almost…,” she starts. She walks around and stands in front of me. I watch as she reaches out and moves a few pieces of hair. Smiling, she proclaims, “Done!”

Closing my eyes as Becca takes off the zebra-print cape, my nerves reaching an all-time high. I only came in for a cut, not a color. She spins me around, but I’m still too nervous to look.

“Come on, come on. Look already, Maura. Tell me how wonderful I am!”

I peel one eye open and peek at the mirror. Huh. Not bad so far. I open the other just as slowly, and my mouth drops open.

When Becca said pink, I assumed a light, sweet pink and not the edgy, dark magenta she went with. And I love it.

“Holy wow,” I whisper.

“Right? It’s hot!”

She’s correct again. It is hot. The carefully dipped ends mixed with my now freshly trimmed swing bob looks fan-freakin’-tastic! “You. Are. Amazing! A genius! It’s awesome!”

She lifts a shoulder and smiles coyly. “You’re welcome.”

I make sure to give Becca an extra-big hug (and tip) as I leave.

My rule in life has always been: if you get a new hair-do, you get a new outfit to give yourself that extra boost of sass. So I decide to head toward Jane’s to get my shopping on.

“Maura?”

Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, I turn toward the familiar voice.

“Tucker,” I say carefully.

It’s been a week since Tucker caught me puffy-eyed at Clyde’s during my Wednesday shift. I had just gotten off the phone with Tanner and was crying after we had a small disagreement. It was nothing big—a mix up of dates for when Tanner was coming home next. He was supposed to attend a dinner event my overbearing parents are throwing next month but got slapped with duty for the weekend. I normally wouldn’t care or complain, but I think that with everything weird happening with our relationship, we need to be together. I need to see my favorite side of Tanner to validate why we keep it going.

Plus, he was the only reason I was attending, because spending more than two hours with my parents does something to me. Tanner was supposed to be my support through it.

Fifty questions later, Tucker wrangled the story out of me. I explained to him how important the dinner was to my family and how they had already paid for a plate for Tanner. So Tucker, the gentleman he is, volunteered to step in. I turned him down. And apparently hurt his ego, because he’s come in to Clyde’s each night since, trying to get me to talk to him. It hasn’t worked.

“How are you?” I ask, silently praying a giant black hole would appear and swallow me up so I wouldn’t have to face him.

He cocks his head sideways, narrowing his eyes at me, as he closes the distance between us. “Fine,” he drawls. The way he’s watching me makes my skin itch, and I’m not sure why. “You changed your hair.”

I shrug and push my hands into my back pockets, leaning back to peek up at him. “Yep.”

“It looks good. Fits you.”

My eyebrows shoot up at this. “Fits me? How?”

He screws his lips up, thinking about how to answer this. “It just does. You seem more…you, more relaxed. Carefree, even.”

I have to admit, I had no idea what I expected when Tucker said it “fits” me, but that was most definitely not it.

Narrowing my eyes, I carefully inspect the younger brother of my boyfriend. He’s tall with dirty blonde hair, and he’s built. He’s not as bulky as Tanner, who has free rein of a military gym, but he’s definitely carrying around extra muscle. Unlike Tanner, Tucker is always—and I mean always—laid back and relaxed. I don’t think the guy owns anything other than t-shirts, flannels, and jeans. He’s got this easy vibe to him that his brother is, well, lacking.

Other than the casual vibe he always gives off, the two things that make him so much different from Tanner are his tattoos and his eyes.

AKA, two reasons I’ve always avoided him because…damn.

Tucker has two full sleeves of all black tattoos. And they are brilliantly crafted. Incredible. Alluring. They suck you in. His right arm is one massive tree. It doesn’t need color for one to tell that it’s alive. The flowers are shaded so that his whole arm appears to have a life of its own. But his left arm? That one is my favorite. The tree is dead, and it’s absolutely breathtaking. Each arm has a story that a part of me wants to eventually coax out of him.

And the other thing…those eyes? Hand to all holy things, they’re gold, bordering on amber, reminding me of honey. Tanner’s are a deep, dark, flat brown.

I can thank my girl Rae for my eye obsession, I guess, because that’s the first thing I noticed about Tucker when I saw him up close.

The corners of his mouth tip down under my scrutiny. “Why are you avoiding me?”

This is annoying enough to take me out of the trance I was in. Because I am avoiding him. But I’m not telling him that.

“Why are you stalking me?” I throw back without thinking.

Tucker huffs. “Stalking you? I’m not stalking you, Maura. I’m trying to get you to talk to me. To let me go to that dinner with you in Tanner’s place.”

“I already cancelled on them, Tucker,” I lie. “You don’t have to be my pity date.”

“Pity date,” I barely hear him say as I turn back around and keep walking up the street.

I make it about ten feet before I realize I’m acting like a total bitch for no reason. Well, there is a reason. I’m a little angry at the world because my brain is all mucky over Tanner, but that’s no reason for me to take it out on his brother.

I sigh and turn around, deciding to try and smooth things over with him. Tucker is still standing where I left him, his shoulders slumped. I walk briskly back to him, not stopping until I’m about a foot away.

“Why do you care so much anyway?” I ask quietly.

He stares at me and steps closer to get out of the middle of the sidewalk. “Because I can see the toll it’s taking on you. Tanner being gone is hard. You need someone to be there for you who understands all this. You need a friend, Maura. Let me be that friend for you.”

But that’s the thing. He doesn’t understand any of this. He doesn’t get why I’m so upset about Tanner. He thinks it’s because my boyfriend is gone, when truthfully, it’s because I feel like we’re stuck, like we’re more friends with mediocre benefits than actual girlfriend-boyfriend.

“I have friends. Plenty of them.”

He narrows his eyes at me again and tilts his head sideways. “Yeah? And where are they when you’re clearly not okay? I can read you like a book, Maura. Don’t act like you’re the first girl Tanner’s left behind for months at a time. You’re just the only one who’s stuck around this long.”

If Tucker thinks he’s pulling one over on me, he’s wrong, because I already knew about Tanner’s previous girlfriend. They met on his last leave, started a relationship, and she cheated on him while he was gone. End of story. They had only been together for two months, so it didn’t result in major heartbreak for Tanner.

But now that I think about it, what if it was because she experienced that same thing I’m experiencing? Fuck.

“Screw you, Tucker,” I push out through gritted teeth as I try to step around him. He grabs my arm lightly and stops me from going any farther. “Let me go.”

“Are you gonna be okay or not?” he asks on a sigh.

A part of me wants to smooth out my ruffled feathers because of the sweetness I hear in Tucker’s voice. He’s genuinely concerned for me. While I’m thankful that someone cares, he’s not the person I want. He’s not who should be asking me if I’m okay.

I pull my arm from his grip. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for the concern.”

He allows me to walk away from him this time.