CHAPTER FOUR
Leo was gone when I came out, which was both a relief and an odd disappointment that dug at my midsection like a dull butter knife. I stopped myself from peering out the window for his bike.
It was friggin’ divine intervention, that’s what it was. In my current weakened state, I had no business being around anyone whose cocky, irritating presence I missed after knowing him for all of an hour or two. God knew what He was doing, sending him on his way. In fact, God was kind of busy with me on all fronts today. That’s probably all it was. In the crazy chaotic mess I’d kicked off today, Leo had been the only constant landmark I could keep looking back at to get my bearings.
Now, however, I was at a loss. I’d had one big mission—call my brother. Check. With that out of the way, I didn’t quite know my next step. I’d never been without a car or money or even identification, with only the clothes on my back to my name. It was a weird, isolating, and very vulnerable feeling. Plus, my landmark had pulled up anchor and moved on.
That was okay. I breathed in, long and deep. It would be okay.
Lanie and Gabi were chatting, and I half smiled at a couple of newbies who’d come in, gazing at me curiously. They’d missed the floor show, and I didn’t have the energy to catch them up, so I walked around to join the two women who were the closest thing to acquaintances I had at the moment.
“Hey,” Gabi said as I approached, transferring her bags to one arm to hold out her hand. “I’m Gabi Lar—” She took a breath. “I should start saying Graham.”
“So, you’re giving him the divorce?” Lanie asked.
Gabi let loose of a slow breath with a mini head shake. “God, yes. Eventually. After he suffers for a bit. But I should get used to the name.” She inhaled deeply with eyes closed and opened them back with a smile. “I’m Gabi Graham,” she said, shaking my hand with a grip that belied her softer appearance. “You’re one of the Cherrydale Flower Farm Romans?” Yep. One of them. At my nod, she continued. “Lanie said you might need a place to land for a bit. Are you thinking for a night? Or to stay in town a while? Because we now have these rooms over the shop.”
I laughed, a sound that felt as exhausted as I probably looked. Of course it would just be a night, maybe two, right? I mean, I had a job at home. Not that an hour commute was any big deal—and I did need to move out of Jeremy’s house—but what was I thinking? I’d just move in with Thatcher for a bit, regardless of the shiver that gave me. Don’t make life decisions on traumatic days. Move to Charmed? No!
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But until I can get to a bank that will give me a cash advance on just a handwritten credit card number and no license,” I said, waving the paper, “I have no money to make that decision with. No car. No—”
“No problem,” Lanie said with a shrug.
I blinked. “What?”
“I happen to be heading back to work,” she said, leaning over with a cocky expression. “At a bank.”
“Oh, my God, seriously?” I breathed. “Do you think they would—”
“Yes,” she said. “I can vouch for who you are and your family’s business. Plus, my husband hooked me up with a to-go lunch and an extra slice of molten lava chocolate cake. My boss will throw money at me for that.”
I closed my eyes, picturing freedom that included life’s simple pleasures. Like cash at my fingertips, and clothes that didn’t go on for miles or sparkle under fluorescent lighting.
And molten lava chocolate cake.
“Why don’t you ride with me back to my house first and I’ll lend you some clothes,” Gabi said, looking me over. “You’re a little taller, but I have some things that should work for you.” She shrugged at what was probably my jaw hitting the ground. “Just to get you by.”
“Oh, great idea!” Lanie said, shouldering her bag. “Then you’ll feel much more at ease.”
“The bank is walking distance from the shop,” Gabi said. “So go get set up and then come down there if you want.”
My eyes bounced between them. There are times when words just won’t reach, and this was one of them. It was more than just small-town hospitality. I lived in a small town, too. These women were just rock stars.
“Why?” I said, surprised when the word came out all breathy and toneless. “Why are y’all doing all this for me?”
Lanie linked an arm in mine, steering us toward the door, probably needing to get back to work while all I was doing was rambling.
“Girl—”
“You’re a hot mess,” Gabi interjected, pushing open the door as we all filed out.
I blinked two hot tears free and chuckled. “No truer words.”
“I’ve been there,” Lanie said. “Maybe not exactly this same mess, but I’ve had my own version not too long ago.”
“Paying it forward,” Gabi said, nodding. “I’m a hot mess now,” she said, making me laugh. “I’m just not wearing mine. So, let’s go get that neon sign off your back, too, shall we?”
“Can I have some of your pie?”
* * * *
Two pairs of denim capris and a T-shirt and tank top later, I felt like a new woman. Or at least a normal one. Some cute flip-flops on my feet and I was good to go.
Gabi curled into an oversized chair with a small bowl of apple pie while I tried them on in the bathroom and came out to model for her like I was Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. She’d smile and comment but I saw the sad that entered her eyes when she thought I wasn’t looking.
“So,” I began, watching her face as I folded my new temporary treasures into a plastic grocery bag, “can I ask what the story is with your husband?” Her eyes went wary and I held a hand up. “Or not. You don’t know me, I get it.”
Gabi shook her head. “No, it’s okay. Not like it’s some big secret. At least Bart’s making sure it isn’t.” She took a deep breath but then caught my eye. “But you first. Did you really just hitch a ride with a hot stranger? You didn’t know him?”
I chuckled, though the growing weight of the day made it sound heavy. Wearing another woman’s clothes as one of many direct consequences brought a sadness to the reality.
“Never seen him in my life,” I said, refolding a shirt for something to do with my hands.
My thoughts flashed back to that moment on the sidewalk, to running from the church, to feeling the front door pulling at me, to staring at myself in the mirror. Hair perfect. Makeup perfect. In a dress I would have never chosen, in the church I didn’t want, with flowers I hated, and bridesmaids I barely knew. No one there for me but the two people I called family. To hearing what sounded like a recorded message from my fiancé’s lips. Love you, Micah. We hadn’t said those words in probably six months.
It was like being a porcelain doll on a shelf or an actress playing a role in a movie I could never change the channel on. It wasn’t me. None of it was me.
“I wish I could say there’d been a plan,” I said. “One minute I was looking in the mirror at someone I didn’t know or like very much and the next thing I knew I was running down the street. I didn’t know this guy’s name till we got here. He said he was coming to Charmed for work so when he pulled up to the diner I thought he worked there.”
“Yeah, that was quite the show,” Gabi said. “I never knew Nick McKane had a brother—not that I would. He comes across as pretty private, but nothing really surprises me in this town.”
“Why?” I asked. “Because it’s small?”
She tucked a strand of light-brown hair behind her ear. “Because it’s weird.”
I chuckled, sinking onto her bed, pulling one ankle underneath me and reaching for my own little bowl of pie she’d dished up for me. “Okay.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I grew up here and I love Charmed. But there’s some bizarre shit that goes on here.”
“Like?” I asked.
“Bee stealing,” she said. “Carnival people who appear from nowhere. Lanie’s aunt was rumored to be psychic—I don’t know if that was true but I did see her whispering to a pie once at the Blue Banana. The Lucky Charm only operates in cash, no matter how big the event is, and there’s a really freaky old man who owns most of the town and lives in the woods like a hermit.”
I laughed around a mouthful of pie that was so damned good, so full of all the feels that come only from food cooked with love and immense talent.
“Wow. All of that?”
“And that’s just the highlights,” she said. “Stick around, you’ll see what I mean. Speaking of that,” she continued, tilting her head, “you climbed on with a hunky McKane instead of walking down the aisle—what did the groom say?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t talked to Jeremy.”
Gabi’s feet uncurled, hitting the floor. “Shut up.”
I looked away, focusing on the perfect apples, glistening with glaze and cinnamon in the world’s most perfect crust. I was almost unworthy of eating such a thing. I knew that what I was doing—how I was doing it—made me a horrible person. A heartless bitch. Evil troll. Unfeeling shrew. Or just a major cowardly puppet afraid of facing the puppeteer.
“Yep,” I said softly, looping the plastic grocery bag of clothing on my wrist.
“I thought that’s who you called,” she said.
“I called my brother,” I said. “We’re pretty close, and I knew he’d be freaking out.”
“Your brother? Holy shit, girl,” Gabi said. “How long were you and Jeremy together?”
That wasn’t going to make it better.
“Long enough to lose myself,” I said. “To know I can’t just call him and say I’m sorry. I need to do that in person.” I remembered Thatcher’s words. “The day I mortify him in front of a billion people isn’t the day to do it.”
Gabi’s mouth opened to speak, then clamped closed as if she remembered we were still basically strangers and she couldn’t tell me I was an idiot. Still, her eyes were kind.
“Did you love him?” she asked finally, in spite of the clamping, a hand coming up to cover her mouth that time. “I’m sorry.”
I looked away, hearing his words again. Did I love Jeremy? Did he really believe what he said? I thought I did. I had to at some point. You left him at the altar, then called Thatcher instead of him.
“Your turn,” I said, the smile I pasted on feeling like a picture I was holding up in front of my face.
Her gaze dropped to some spot on the floor.
“Have you ever been so blindly content that you just assumed everyone else felt that way?” she said finally, talking to the spot.
It struck me that most people would say yes. Most people would experience that at one time or another. I was with Jeremy for eight years; shouldn’t I have felt that?
“No,” I said.
Gabi’s gaze lifted to mine. “That’s good,” she said. “Because it makes you complacent.” She looked away, pulling her legs up in the chair with her again, linking her hands around her knees like a hug. “You might not notice while you bury yourself in fertility research and ways to get pregnant that your husband of ten years is way too fond of his new journalism intern at the paper. The one you recommended for the job.” When Gabi looked at me again, there was a deep and festering wound in there. “Because you used to babysit her when she was a toddler.”
I felt my jaw drop.
“Oh, fuck that,” I breathed.
“Yeah.”
“Gabi, I’m sorry,” I said.
She shook her head. “No need to be,” she said. “It is what it is. I learned a powerful lesson.” A smile curved her mouth but didn’t reach her eyes. “I always thought marriage was just automatically what my parents have. They are still stupid in love. Obnoxious, even. I was naïve to think that.” She put her feet back down, rising. “That’s a fluke that I’ll never trust in again. In fact, I’ll never even believe that they’re really that happy. I think she just tells him they are, and then they smoke happy cigarettes and pretend.”
I snorted. “Gabi.”
“Seriously!” she said. “It’s all bullshit. I don’t buy it. The only thing I’m buying into for the foreseeable future is sex,” she said holding up a hand. “Honestly, I can take care of that better myself, so to hell with men.”
I laughed harder and it felt awesome. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a good laugh. The kind where the tickle grows bigger and bigger, making your stomach hurt and your eyes water.
“I’m totally serious,” she continued, looking befuddled by my giggling but chuckling anyway because it’s contagious.
I held up a hand, as even that sent me off again.
“I know,” I managed finally through deep inhales of air. “I’m sorry. I’m—probably delusional right now. But I get it, believe me.”
She gave me a raised eyebrow. “I doubt it.”
I set my empty bowl aside, stopping just short of licking it clean.
“Why?”
“You were engaged, still in that sexy stage where you have orgasms every day,” she said.
“I wish,” I said. “I mean, he could have done the wild thing every day, but the he in that sentence is key.”
She frowned. “A self-server.”
I smiled sarcastically. “Unless you call two seconds of foreplay serving,” I said. “But that’s my own fault for making that easy for him.”
“Your fault?” she asked, getting to her feet, shaking her head. “Girl. You did the right thing today.”
Goose bumps covered my body. Those were the first vilifying words said to me since I’d run out of the church. Every question, every doubt, every stab of guilt or selfishness hitting me all day had done a job on my head. Thatcher’s words still rang in my head. Everyone’s looks today. Even Leo’s You sure? question made me wonder.
You did the right thing.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t really know me or Jeremy or anything about our situation other than the tidbits I was dropping. She hadn’t heard the good stuff. And there was good stuff. Just the farther I was away from him, the harder it was to see.
“You think?” I asked, hearing the catch in my throat.
“I’ve got issues, Micah,” she said. “I admit that. But I’ve never met a woman as twisted up in someone else’s agenda as you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. To feel insulted or relieved to finally have a diagnosis.
“You need untwisting,” she said. “You need to unbraid all that crap you don’t even know you’re tied up with, pull it up by the roots, and burn it.”