Chapter Twenty-Eight
Maverick
John Fucking Nash. I pour four fingers of whiskey and slam it down. Nashhole gets her. I don’t know why I’m so surprised. I throw the glass into a wall and watch it shatter. I take the whole bottle and go outside. I need to breathe. I haven’t had a drink in weeks. I was trying to get sober for work and for Morganna. If I don’t have one, or a whole bottle right now, I’ll do something really stupid. I want to kill him. For taking what I couldn’t. For taking what is irrevocably mine. Windsor can pretend all she wants. I saw her eyes when she looked at me.
I knew walking away from her would be hard. Keeping her away is proving more challenging than I planned. I know what the asshole is capable of and she deserves so much more than that. I swallow down more alcohol and savor the burn as it eases down my throat. I don’t deserve her either. Maybe I can deserve her. I can clean up my act and turn this shit train around. For her, maybe I can.
I amble down my long driveway to my automatic gate and punch in the code to open it, and walk out into the main road. The security lights flick on and my yard shines like it’s fucking day light. It’s a façade—the perfect house and cars, and then me with my almighty career. None of it means anything. I’m a fucking puppet controlled by addiction and guilt. The road tonight is deserted, not a car in sight. Taking another huge sip from the bottle, I sit down in the middle of the fucking road.
“What the fuck now?” I scream to the damn stars. The whiskey warms my stomach and the familiar drunk sensations start coursing through my numbing body. It’s the feeling I’m after. It erases. “What the hell do I do now, Stone?” I whisper. I speak to everything and nothing at the same time.
Leaning back, I let gravity pull me down until I’m lying, shirtless, on the cold rough pavement. One hand on the bottle, I shut my eyes praying for a huge, heavy truck to come barreling down the road. I’m so sick of the pain. I’m sick of forgetting he’s gone. I’m sick of reliving his death over and over like fucking Groundhog Day. Tonight I add I’m sick of seeing Windsor from afar, but mostly I’m sick of everyone saying how lucky I am.
I tip the bottle to my lips without spilling a drop. “When does my fucking luck get to run out?” I shut my eyes when a pair of headlights register and tighten my hold on the bottle. It’ll break it any second…the whiskey bottle…and me.
A car door slams. Someone approaches. “Get out of the freaking street right now!” Windsor yells. I’ve never heard her so angry, lethal. I open my eyes. She’s standing over me, eyes wide like some sort of rabid angel.
With the headlights beaming I can’t see the blue of her eyes and I wish I could. It’s the only thing that chases away the bad. She came after me. Windsor is here. I’m not looking at her from afar, or spying on her when she has no fucking clue I’m around. She’s here.
“I said get out of the fucking street, Maverick!” She’s also furious.
With great fucking effort I sit up. The alcohol owns the gravity. It wants me down. Windsor reaches down and helps me to stand and hobble over to her car, and then into the passenger seat. I lean against the leather seat and close my eyes.
“How is it possible you got that drunk since you left my condo? What the fuck is wrong with you? I came straight here. Did you drink a few bottles on your jog home? Jesus, Maverick. Seriously, what’s wrong with you?” I hear her tears coming. I’m scaring her.
I let my head roll to face her and open my eyes. “You,” I say.
She slams the brake pedal and I jerk forward, slamming my face on her dash. Bitch move. “Bullshit,” she whispers, a smile gently playing on her lips. “You do this to yourself. I’m sick of you blaming everyone else for it.” She pulls into my driveway and stops in the parking spot she always used to park in. I don’t even try to get out. She opens my door a few seconds later. “Your face is bleeding. Fabulous.”
I ignore the blood—I can’t feel it. “I can’t believe you’re with him,” I say, because it’s the only lucid thought I have. Thankfully I can see her blue eyes now. A little of the pain in my chest diminishes. She’s not yours. I take a deep breath to calm my nerves and my stomach.
“I’m not with him,” she replies, pulling me out of her car and helping me into the house. Her hands are all over me so I take my time, relishing in being this close to her. It surely won’t last long. “I told you I forgave him and I’m merely giving him a second chance for a friendship…or possibly more, depending,” Windsor stutters, pushing me down into a leather chair.
I catch onto her hesitance immediately. Even drunk Maverick wants her confessions. It’s uncanny how quickly I can sober up enough to hear what she has to say. I can’t believe this is how it’s going down. I finally get her back in my fucking house and it’s nothing I consider ideal. I never pictured this scenario. Her coming to me. I wrote it off because I thought she wrote me off. I should have known better. She’s too good.
“Depending on what?” I slur.
Her gaze slides all over my body. Her pupils dilate as she forces her lips into a firm line. I throw my arms out to the side, propping them on the arms of chair. May as well give her the view she wants. I smile the big fucking smile.
She pulls off my sweaty running shoes and tosses them across the room. She says, “I’m offering you friendship—if you want it.”
“Depending on what?” I ask again. She rolls her eyes. It’s infuriating because I see how much she’s hiding even in my piss drunk state. “This again? I thought you got over this. If you want it, say you want it. You know what? Just fucking take it, Windsor. Take it. Take it all,” I hiss. Windsor shakes her head, still not speaking. “You want my body? My mouth? Just fucking take them, will you? You already have the one thing that I give a shit about.” I thump my fist on my chest, right on my tattoo. “But you’re too damn naïve to see that. Aren’t you? God forbid you see anything other than what you want to see.”
She looks unaffected by my words. I’m not sure whether that’s good or bad. She leaves for the kitchen and comes back holding a glass of water and a damp cloth.
She presses the cloth against my bleeding forehead. “Actually I see perfectly clear. Any ounce of naïveté I had fled the second you left me. It’s friendship or nothing. It doesn’t matter what I want or what you’re trying to offer. That’s it,” she exclaims. “Take it or leave it?” She shoves the glass into my hand. I drain it quickly.
Why did I drink? Why can’t I be completely sober right now? I’m a fuck-up. I swallow down the bitterness and narrow my eyes at her.
“I can’t be your friend, Windsor. I’m supposed to watch you date…fall in love? Then what? Get married? I can be your best man? It’s not in my nature to stand by and watch other people take what’s mine. I look at you and I want you. I wake up and I want you. I breathe and I want you. How do you suppose I go about being friends with the only person I’ve ever wanted?”
Windsor’s eyes widen and her pink bottom lip drops down. “You said you…were done. That you didn’t feel that way about me anymore.”
I shake my head. “No I said blow me. You never asked if I still loved you. I never stopped. You’re giving him another chance. Give me one, too.”
She springs at me, finger pressed into my chest, face so close to mine I can smell her hair. “No. You don’t get to say stuff like that anymore. I know you’ve been through hell, but you get to make the decisions in your life. You’re making bad ones.” Windsor breaks her gaze and looks to the glass spread on the floor from my earlier outburst. Shaking her head, she whispers, “I can’t watch you destroy yourself. It’s not fair to ask me to,” she says, voice breaking the second her anger dissipates.
She’s breaking down. Her mother. She watches her mother do this same thing to herself, and I’m the asshole serving her second helpings. I stand up, pulling every ounce of sober Maverick from his hiding place. Her breathing speeds up.
“Do you still love me?” I’ll change. I’ll pull it together if she picks me. If she says yes, I’ll do anything.
“If I say yes, will you let me go?”
Anything except that. Her eyes are sad. I cup her face in my hand. It’s so soft compared to the hardness in her eyes. She’s asking me to let her go. Like I haven’t been trying for four entire months.
I lean down, buzzing my lips around her ear, and I whisper, “If that’s what you want. Is that what you want?” I meet her gaze. She swallows. The air changes and I know she’s about to say something that will rock me to my core or bring me to my fucking knees.
Her lips brush mine when she whispers, “Love doesn’t die, Maverick. I love you.” She shakes her head. “But I can’t be with you. We’re too different. You’re toxic.” My heart thumps unevenly and my stomach tightens. We may be toxic for each other, but I’m lethal without her. Windsor leans away.
“We’ll be friends who are in love with each other, then. Brilliant.” I sneer. One way or another, I will get her back. Right now I have absolutely no idea how that is even possible. Love isn’t enough. She looks unimpressed with my solution. With a hard shove, she pushes me back into the plush leather chair. I won’t be able to get up again.
Spreading a blanket over me, she shakes her head. “I’m not going to leave you by yourself.”
I watch her move around my living room scouting pillows and blankets for the couch. My eyes get heavy, but I keep them open because I know when they open again it will be morning and she’ll be gone. Her hair fans over the pillow when she turns to look at me from her bed on the large sofa. It looks like it’s swallowing her.
“It didn’t have to be like this,” she says.
Instead of responding I close my eyes to black. I want to fall asleep with her face in my mind. That way I can dream about the way her lips brushed mine when she told me she loved me. And also so I can spin a fictional tale for my subconscious about how different my relationship with Windsor would be if Stone didn’t die.
*****
The vomit rises from my stomach through my chest and finally out onto the floor, mingling with shards of glass from the night before. “Fuck,” I whisper. I never vomit after drinking. My stomach is like a steel trap. I can’t even force myself to puke. My mouth tastes like bitter beer and stomach acid. I wince.
A towel hits me in the face. Morganna and Windsor stand over me.
Morganna sneers. “Clean that shit up. God, you are despicable.”
Windsor turns away. I’m so fucking embarrassed.
“You were doing good, too. Which is the only reason I sent him over last night, Win. You have to know I didn’t think this is what he’d do. When I spoke with Gretchen earlier yesterday, she told me things were progressing…in your relationship and I needed to intervene.”
Great. “Jesus Morganna is nothing sacred? My head is pounding. Can I just talk to Windsor…alone?” She didn’t leave. She’s still here. That has to be a good sign.
“You should probably brush your teeth first. I’m going to work in the office,” Morg responds before answering her shrill blue tooth, walking away to one of my back rooms she’s set up as a small office. Windsor crosses her arms over her chest, averting her gaze completely.
“I’m sorry for last night. Fuck, you know…I’m just sorry in general,” I say.
She clears her throat. “I’m so sick of hearing apologies. I wish the people in my life would just stop fucking up.” She glances at me, but then quickly away.
I start cleaning up my disgusting mess. Windsor holds out a bottle of cleaner and sits on the coffee table while I work. My head feels like it’s going to explode.
“That said, of course I forgive you. I forgive everybody. Maybe that’s my problem. I told you not to lie to me…remember what happened? I ended up verbally accosted by your wife, Mav. You were…are married. I’ve tried to concoct a lie worse than that—I can’t.”
I freeze. “Never say that. The fact that you’re so forgiving is what makes you different, Win. It’s you. It’s one of the reasons why I lo—” I look at her.
Her sad forlorn face is broken. I’m not even sure what else to say. I can’t finish what I was going to say. She smiles. It’s a weak attempt at I’m okay. I see through it because her eyes say I’m broken.
“Monica was never my wife in the true sense of the word. She was my last ditch effort to do the right thing by my family.” I tell her everything. Sitting on the floor, next to my mess I let the horrible story pour from my mouth in its entirety. I tell her things I’ve never told anyone else because she deserves the full truth. I admit the only reason I kept it from her was because I was scared to lose her. She points out I did that all on my own without Monica’s help and that I made a promise not to lie. “I omitted a half truth. That’s all it was. I’m sorry for that. I am. I can’t imagine what you faced in the hospital with her. She’s always been a little…catty.”
“Thank you for explaining. Consider yourself absolved of all wrongdoing when it comes to her. It’s already in the past. I’m sorry, too. You know? I can’t take back the things I never said,” she continues, but her eyes are focused on the floor. I nod even though she can’t see me. It’s all I can do. I don’t trust my words. “I have to get going. I have plans today. Goose is probably wondering where I’m at, too. I didn’t want you to wake up alone.”
She has plans…plans that probably include John Nash. I’m still wrapping my mind around the fact that she’s giving him another chance. She wouldn’t be Windsor if she didn’t though. That’s the catch twenty-two with someone like her.
“We should have plans. What about our plans?” I ask, desperate. I need her. She has to see how much I need her. I’ve never truly needed anyone the way I need her in my life right now. In this moment, as she looks at me with a face full of remorse and eyes full of love, I know she will be the person to bring me back to life. “He has plans with you today so give me plans tomorrow. I want tomorrow.” I’m sharing her. That’s what this fucked up situation has deteriorated to and I have no one to blame but myself.
She shakes her head. “I had years to get over my failed relationship with Nash, Mav. That’s why it’s easy to begin a friendship with him. With you…I’m still raw and confused. I need some time to figure out how to be your friend. I’m here for you. If you truly need me, then call. I’ll see you later, okay? I have to go talk to Morganna.” She looks down at me, still on the floor cleaning my mess. “Stay sober, Maverick. And don’t do it for anyone except yourself,” she demands. Windsor looks like she wants to say something else, but she doesn’t. Disappearing into the same room as Morganna, she closes the door behind her, leaving me alone with a disaster.
After I finish cleaning and shove leftovers down my protesting throat, I shower and get ready, actually giving a shit about my appearance for the first time in months. When I exit my bedroom to head out to the garage, I hear hushed whispers coming from the office down the hall. Then a small, very recognizable sob—Windsor’s crying. A few seconds later Windsor runs from the room. She heads to the front door barely looking at me as she rushes away, some sort of paper in her hand. The horrified look on her face freezes me to my spot. “What’s the matter Windsor?”
She shakes her head, wipes her eyes, and runs out of my front door. A guilty looking Morganna appears a few seconds later. “She just needs a push in the right direction,” she admits, swallowing hard. She’s said something. She’s done something.
“What did you tell her? Why is she so upset?”
Morganna fidgets, pushing her black dress down as Steve barrels in the front door.
“Whoa, angry bitch alert. Windsor almost ran me over on her way out. What the fuck did you do now, Mav?” Steve asks, eyes darting directly to Morganna when he realizes I’m not alone in the room. He smiles.
Windsor wasn’t angry. That’s the thing with Steve. If a girl isn’t horny or telling him “yes, do me”, she’s angry. He needs some lessons. That shit isn’t my job.
“I don’t know,” I rasp, glaring fucking daggers at Morganna. But she’s not looking at me. She’s looking at Steve through narrowed eyes and scrunched brows. Like she’s trying to see something else…or someone else. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
She looks directly at me and murmurs, “You’ll thank me later.” To Steve she says, “Hey, what are you up to?” Raising her eyebrows she waits for a response.
Steve replies, “Making my daily rounds at the psych ward, you know?” He warily glances at me. I force a smile to my face and slowly nod. One friend has handed guard duty over to the other. This is my sick new norm. I don’t want it anymore. I want to be alone.
“You guys should go grab something to eat. I know Morg is hungry and I have some stuff to get done,” I say.
Steve throws his hands out in an offer. Morganna shrugs and says, “Maverick doesn’t have any food in his house and I am starving. I want to go to Captains.” It was entirely too easy. For a second I wonder if that was their plan all along.
They leave without another word. Cold prickles my skin and I swear to God that he’s in the room right now. Telling the whole world to move the fuck on already.
So I do. I make a plan to move on with my life and get my fucking girl back because Stone, with his obscene wisdom, once told me something. He said sometimes you have to make snap decisions and do things that seem irrational to make sense of the bigger picture. You have to trust your instincts and just go with it. That something or someone else is out there swaying in the atmosphere, looking out for you. It made perfect sense when it came to work, but not life decisions. I thought it was bullshit. But there is no going back on the plan I just decided upon. Like everything in my life, it’s all or nothing. Unlike most decisions I make, I have no fucking clue how it will end.
The only thing I know for certain is that I’ve never been surer about anything in my entire life.