Breaking Even (26 page)

“Brin doesn’t know about this. And you need to back off of it. It’s not serious, it’s not going anywhere, and she and I are just having fun. That’s it. You of all people should understand that.”

He frowns as he glances at the grave, and I pull the last present out of my pocket. The tombstone was made with a locking frame and bulletproof glass—to keep someone from breaking it. I unlock it and change the picture out, just like I do every year.

This time it’s her sitting with me when I was five, reading me the Dr. Seuss story of the week.

“Just for fun?” he asks as I finish locking the case back up.

“Yep.”

He sighs out heavily, and he joins me as we walk away. The coffee cup sits proudly beside her grave, and I give my mother one last look before turning away.

“Is this because of your mom? Because it’s not healthy to—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” I warn.

He frowns, but wisely doesn’t say a word as we make it back to the road. “I’ll meet you there in ten,” I say, climbing inside the car.

As he drives off, I wipe away the stupid fucking tear that falls.

I really hate this day.

***

BRIN

“So he thinks you’re at Silk with me?” Maggie asks as I start sifting through the mail.

“Not yet. He thinks we’re going to Silk, though.”

“Should we really go?”

“Nope,” I say, finding an unusual letter that is from John’s address, but it’s not his handwriting.

Curious as to what shit he’s done now, I open it. When I start reading it, I get sick. That stupid son of a bitch! I’m going to kill him.

“What’s wrong?” Maggie asks.

“John. The bastard took out a loan against my car title, and now they’re threatening to come take it if I don’t pay the full amount within two weeks.”

Maggie stands and rips the letter out of my hand, and then she curses. “This can’t be legal. How did he get your title?”

I groan as I try to think, pulling the letter back from her hands. “I don’t know. I assumed it was still in some of my unpacked boxes in storage. My car title wasn’t high on the worry-about list. How can he do this to me? I’m still paying off his fucking credit cards.”

I could kill him right now. That bastard is determined to ruin my life.

Grabbing my keys, I head for the door.

“What are you going to do?”

I glance across the street, wishing I could use Rye to punch John right in the nose. He’d do so much more damage than I can. But I can’t do that. That’s not our relationship. And besides, this is a little humiliating. And knowing him, he’d pay the money without my knowledge.

My envelope with five-hundred dollars keeps magically appearing in my room no matter how many times I try to leave it in his house.

“If the police ask me for an alibi—”

“You were with me all night,” she says with a grin.

I won’t really kill him. Maybe.

***

BRIN

John curses from inside the apartment after I continue to bang on the door for a full five minutes. I can’t help but wonder who sent me that final notice, because it sure as hell wasn’t him.

How did he convince the pawn shop it was in his name? Because this was originally addressed to him.

The door swings open, and the asshole I once stupidly married is standing there with tight lips.

“Before you freak out, I’m just going to say I’m sorry,” he says, his dark hair in disarray and tossed around his head like he just woke up. Apparently he has knowledge that I got that final warning.

I barge into his small apartment, and he lets me through without protest. I don’t want his neighbors to witness his murder.

“That’s my car, John! You had no right. How did you even do it? The title was in my name.”

He frowns and then makes some unintelligible sound, telling me more with a grunt than he could have with words.

“You forged it and made it look like I signed the title over to you, didn’t you?” I bark, reading between the lines.

“I had no choice. The money went toward my new internet business. I was going to pay it back. It was just a thousand dollars to go with the other money I had scraped up.”

“Then why the hell do they want six-thousand in return?”

He curses as he drops to the worn sofa that sits off to the side. I look around, wondering where his shiny fiancée is.

“Because their interest rates are fucking ridiculous, and all the late fees—”

“I can’t get an apartment on my own because of the damn credit cards you got in my name—you’ve ruined my credit. All I can pay on them is the minimum. Twenty-thousand dollars you owe, and all I can pay is the minimum. That barely covers
their
interest rates. Now you’ve pawned the title on my car? You stupid, selfish son of a bitch!”

He jumps up from the sofa and glares at me. “I thought I had the right formula. The business was an internet launch, and I just needed a little funding. It crashed, though. I can’t help it.”

“It always crashes, John! Always! When will you just get it through your head that you’re not going to be rich? Just settle for the life you have and find a way to be happy. And quit ruining my life!”

I turn to leave. I don’t even know why I came here. I knew it was pointless. He’s broke, so he can’t pay to keep my car from getting swiped out from under me.

“Settle? Like you do? No thank you. I want to be happy.”

“Money won’t make you happy. Believe me, I know. I was born richer than most people, and I was pretty fucking miserable. Thanks to you, I still am.”

He laughs bitterly, and I turn to glare at him as I reach the door.

“I’m not trying to be rich. I just want to succeed, Brin. And you don’t know how to be happy. You settle. That’s all you do. You accept life and never fight back or even try to find real happiness. So don’t you dare try telling me how to be happy. Because God knows I’m not taking your advice.”

I pick up the closest thing, which happens to be a lamp, and I launch it at his head. It barely misses, unfortunately, and he ducks before I can throw the next thing—a shoe.

I wish I had better aim right now.

“You’d better hope I figure out a way to save my car. I swear, I’ll make your life as miserable as you’ve made mine if I can’t.”

I turn and walk away, battling back the depressing new reality I’m in. It’s sad to know I have a rich family that wouldn’t loan me six-thousand dollars even if I had the audacity to ask.

It wouldn’t matter if they would give it to me, because I won’t ask.

I’m going to lose my car.

***

BRIN

“What did he say?” Maggie asks.

If I tell her the truth, she’ll beg to loan me the money, but she’ll never let me pay her back. I can do this on my own.

“He said he’s going to give me the money tomorrow. So don’t worry about it.”

She gives me a look that swears she doesn’t believe me as she puts her purse on. “I’m going to meet Carmen. But we’re going to a restaurant outside of town—since she’s supposed to be out of town.”

I just nod, hating that I included her in on my lie. I just didn’t want Rye to know how pathetic I was, and I refused to let him think I’d be sitting at home and pining for him.

As she leaves, a tear tries from to escape from my eyes when they water. Not because of the fact that my life sucks, but because my bastard ex-husband said something I wish didn’t ring so true.

I settle. I don’t know real happiness.

I settled for him. I settled for our loveless marriage. I settled for living here with Maggie instead of fighting the credit card bills that he put in my name and destroyed my credit with, making it impossible to get my own place. And now I’m settling for what Rye
allows
me to have.

I settle for what he’ll give me. I allow him to call the shots and make the rules, because that’s the only way to keep him.

I want a real relationship. One where I can call him my boyfriend and spend the night with him without trying to keep my heart guarded. A relationship where I don’t stay in knots, worried about it ending at any second because he doesn’t want a commitment. A relationship where I can just breathe—the way I felt when we first started dating.

But he’ll never give that to me. Even though all of his actions say he’s falling for me, he keeps his walls very high. He only trusts me enough to tell me the things he wants me to know.

I’m tired of being everyone’s safe-zone. If he wants to be with me, he has to say it. He has to prove it. And this has to go deeper than it is right now. Or he has to tell me goodbye, because I can’t walk away from him.

It’s not his fault that I fell in love. He told me from the beginning this would never be a real relationship, but he made it impossible not to fall for him when he wouldn’t stop. He never stops.

When someone knocks at the door, I half expect to find him standing there, but instead I’m met by the pretty girl I once saw in the museum parking lot.

John’s fiancée. What the hell?

“Can I help you?” I ask through gritted teeth.

She gives me a tight smile. “I came by to make sure you received that final notice. John freaked out when I told him I mailed it to you. I was worried he’d try to intercept it.”

So it was her. Well, isn’t that just icing on the cake.

“Why did you send it?”

She frowns as she looks down to her ring, and I let my gaze fall to it as well.

“Because he’s an ass that wouldn’t have told you until after it was towed away.” Stunned, I keep silent, and she starts playing with her engagement ring before speaking again. “If I give this back to him, he’ll pawn it and keep the money. If I give it to you, then you can pawn it and get the money. I think it makes more sense to give it to the woman he has screwed over even more than me.”

Wasn’t expecting that.

She takes off her ring to hand it to me, and I accept it warily. “It’s only worth seven-hundred dollars, but you can put it toward some of the money owed to you. I made him appraise it because I wanted to know it was real. I should have known no one would buy such a small diamond unless it was real. He should come with a warning label: Douchebag Liar.”

I laugh and nod, and then I open the door wider. John apparently showed his true colors to her as well.

“Do you want to come in? I’m probably the only other person who completely understands what you’re going through right now.”

She looks around, and then she shakes her head. “I would, but I’m meeting my father. John is trying to borrow money from him to pay for a new startup business. I’m going to make sure Dad ruins him. He’ll never find anyone in this town to fall for his shit again.”

Good for her. I wish I could have done that. But if I could rewind time, the first thing I would do is get my frigging car title.

Before she walks away, Rye comes walking up the sidewalk in all his sexy glory, his short-sleeved shirt showing off his sleeved arm and half-sleeved arm of tattoos.

The pretty girl on my front porch grows wide eyes when she sees him, and I bite back a grin.

“Hey,” he says to me, coming close and pressing a kiss to my lips. I let him, because it might be one of the last times he kisses me.

“Hey,” is all I manage to say as he pulls back.

He looks to the girl still gawking at him, and he drops his arm around my shoulders.

“Rye Clanton,” he says while sticking out his free hand.

She shakes his hand, though she’s almost trembling. “Heidi Mills.”

“This is my ex-husband’s ex-fiancée,” I say to his questioning look.

His eyebrows raise in confusion, and he tilts his head, still wanting more. It’s too long of a story to go through. And he’d swoop in like a knight in shining armor.

“She came by to pay back some money he owes me,” I say as a vague explanation, pushing the ring into my pocket.

Her mouth finally closes, and she swallows hard while returning her attention back to me.

“It was nice meeting you. I didn’t really get to speak to you last time. I wish I had. You might could have talked some sense into me.”

I smile weakly, thinking back to that day in the parking lot when the rear of my car was smashed all to hell. It seems like so much longer ago than it actually was.

“It wouldn’t have mattered. Some things you have to learn for yourself.”

She nods slowly, probably agreeing, and then she turns and walks off, glancing over her shoulder one last time at the man who is leaning in to kiss me again. Is what I want really worth losing him if he says no?

Yes. I want more than he’s ever going to give if I don’t say anything.
No more settling, Brin.

“You didn’t go to Silk?” he asks, looking over my pink boxers and black tank top.

Sighing, I shut the door, and then I drop to the sofa. “No. Never planned to. I just didn’t want you thinking I was sitting ready whenever you felt like coming over and getting some.”

He grins, but he shouldn’t.

“That’s cute,” he says while sitting down beside me. “I was about to head over to Silk and find you.”

My heart beats a little faster, and I prepare myself.

“Why?”

He bends over and kisses my neck as his hand goes to my waist. “Because I wanted to see you. I saw you at the door, so you made this night much better by already being here.”

I push him back, and he tilts his head. “I don’t want to be the feel-good girl all the time. I’d like to be someone you want to see for more than sex.”

“Brin, I’m pretty sure we do a lot more than have sex, considering the vast knowledge you’ve accumulated about me over the past month. And don’t act like I treat you like shit or something.”

I groan in frustration while clutching my head in my hands. “You don’t treat me like shit. At all. I just feel like shit because you think this is something completely different than I do, even though I don’t understand how.”

When I look up, he’s already moving away from me, putting some distance between us.

“So you’re starting to want something. I told you this was for fun. You said you didn’t want anything serious.”

I laugh humorlessly while staring at the ceiling. “I lied. Just like I always do when it comes to trying to be with you, because I’m stupid like that.” When I bring my head back down, his jaw is tense, but that doesn’t stop me from continuing.