Crushed (Crystal Brook Billionaires) (26 page)

I followed her. “There’s no such thing. Just give me a call later.”

She held the door open for me, and I stepped through it, my feet hitting the pavement and taking a left. “See you later,” I said over my shoulder.

“Bye.”

I walked and walked. Each street I went down I’d traversed hundreds of times before, but it didn’t matter. There was no place to go. Nothing to do. No way to be except the way I was right then.

And I didn’t even have a name for which way that was.

The book stayed cupped in my hand, a solid weight there.

First Owen with another woman, then Peter’s book. And it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

When the arches of my feet began to ache, I found myself at the river, going down the path that veered in the direction of the house. It was the one Owen and I had walked down that summer day. It was one of my favorite spots, a place I’d dreamed about taking Peter to when I finally got the chance to bring him home.

The bench beckoned me, and I sat down on it. It was cooler in the shade, and I pulled the ends of Dad’s sweater across my hands. The book sat there on the other end of the wooden slab, sharing the bench with me.

I looked at it, feeling a strange urge to speak to it. What I would say, though, I didn’t know. Even if it were a person and not a book, I would have still been lost for words.

Suddenly it hit me, crashing into me with its meteor-like force. Never before had I missed Peter as much as I did at that moment. The questions, the regrets, the sleepless nights, the heavy days. They all came back, raining down on me with double their original force.

But for the first time in my life, I didn’t fight the pain. I opened the door to my heart and let it in. I said hello to it and accepted that it was there. To do anything else was insanity, I realized. To fight something was to deny its existence, and to deny its existence was to cause more pain.

I picked up Peter’s book, holding it softly in my hands, and I cried. Tears scalded my cheeks and rolled down my neck. The river gurgled and the tree branches shook, everything a part of my suffering.

And as I suffered, space opened up around it all. Bit by bit, the pain became lighter. My vision became less blurry. The changing colors of the leaves seemed so much brighter than they had before, the sounds in the world around me more finely tuned.

I pulled my legs up and just sat there, hearing and being. The aching came in waves, pulling and tugging at me but never moving me. As long as I stayed still and watched and listened everything was fine.

So much time went by that it was impossible to tell just how long I sat there. Out of habit, I reached into my back pocket for my phone so I could check the time. It wasn’t there. I didn’t have my purse either.

I smiled. I was all alone. I couldn’t get in touch with anyone if I tried.

Somehow that was liberating.

I sucked in a breath and looked at the cover of the book, studying the streaks of light.

“It’s beautiful, Peter,” I whispered. “It’s a perfect cover.”

I cracked the book open at random and let my eyes fall halfway down the page.

Stay with it.

For light is in all things…

Owen

I
cut the power saw and pushed the safety goggles onto my forehead. Despite the coolness that had recently entered the air, working in the back yard could still get me heated up. I took a swig of water and then went to turn the tool back on but halted at the sound of knocking.

Taking my goggles off the rest of the way, I walked around the outside of the house, going slowly so as to be quiet. If it was someone selling or campaigning, then no way in hell was I answering the door. Also, if it was Mrs. Hardy from the next block over, complaining to me again about the sound of power tools interrupting her soap operas, she could knock until her knuckles fell off.

But it was Claire. I froze, nearly falling over and into a bush. Then I looked again.

No, it was Gwen, not Claire.

She raised her hand to knock again.

“Gwen,” I called.

She turned with wide eyes, searching around. When she saw me, she smiled. “Owen, hey.”

I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans. “Sorry you caught me like this. I’m working in the back.”

She waved her hand. “That’s all right. Is this an okay time? I can come back later if not.”

“It’s fine. Is everything all right?”

The way she shifted her weight back and forth, making it seem like she was nervous, clued me in to something being up.

“Yeah. Well… I don’t know. It’s nothing really serious but, can we talk?”

I nodded, slightly fearful. “Is anyone hurt?”

Claire. Was Claire all right?

“No,” she quickly said. “It’s nothing like that.”

“All right. Would you like to go out to the back patio?”

“That sounds nice.”

I showed her the way and then went inside to pour us both some mint water. She’d settled down in one of the new rocking chairs and had her hands folded like she was in church.

“Here you are.” I handed the glass to her and settled on the grass across from her.

“Thank you.”

“Your big day is coming up soon.”

“Next week.” She made an expression of jubilation mixed with terror.

“Yeah,” I laughed. “I bet.”

“I wanted to invite you.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” she smiled. “We would love to have you there.”

“Thank you. I’ll definitely come if I can.”

I thought briefly about how much organizing went into a wedding, and how many of them were planned for a very specific number of guests. It seemed a little late in the game to invite more people, but it was tacky for me to ask about that. Perhaps someone canceled and space had opened up.

“Great.” She looked down at the glass in her hands. “There’s another reason I came too.”

“Does it have anything to do with Claire?”

Gwen took a sip of water and nodded. “Yes. And… well…” She looked at the trees. “This is kind of embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry about it. What is it?”

“The, uh, other day, Claire and I were driving…”

“Okay,” I said, just to show I was listening and not judging.

“And we saw you.”

“Oh.”

“With a girl.”

My stomach cursed. “What day was that?”

“Monday.”

I tapped the tip of my tongue against my teeth, thinking back to that day. “A girl?”

“Yes.”

“I was only with one person that day. My mother. She came to visit for a couple days.”

Gwen’s mouth dropped open. “That was your mother?”

I laughed. “Yes.”

She slowly shook her head. “Damn… we only saw the back of her. She just looked so young though.”

“She does look extremely young for her age, yes.” I cringed. “One time when we were at a restaurant, she went to the bathroom, and the waiter came up and asked me if I knew what my girlfriend wanted to drink.”

Gwen laughed out loud. “Oh my God! I’m sorry.”

I inclined my head. “There are worse things than having a beautiful mother.”

“For sure.”

“Why are you asking about her?”

Her face grew serious. “We thought you were with… you know a girlfriend. And…” She blew out a breath. “Okay, can this conversation stay between you and me?”

I looked into the face that was so like Claire’s. Caring for Claire meant that I, by extension, cared for the rest of her family, despite barely knowing anyone other than the two sisters. “Yes,” I promised her. “We will keep it between you and me.”

“Okay. Claire really likes you. Like, big time. I just know she does. But it’s hard for her. If it were a year or two ago, she’d be all over you right now.”

I smiled wryly. “I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse about everything.”

“She’s trying. She really is. It’s just, with losing Peter…” She trailed off and shook her head. “It hit her like nothing else ever has. I’ve never seen her go through that kind of grief.”

“She loved him,” I murmured.

“Yes,” came her thick reply. “And she wants to love again. I know she does.”

I cocked my head. “Does this have anything to do with you inviting me to the wedding?” Realizing what a tasteless question that was, I held my hand up to halt any response. “Don’t answer that. I apologize for asking.”

“It’s fine.” She smiled a tiny bit. “And no… I wanted you to come to the wedding.”

“Do you think Claire will be okay with that?”

“Um… I don’t know.”

“It is your wedding, I suppose.”

Gwen spoke quickly. “I just had to find out if you felt the same way about her.”

“You wanted to know how I feel about her?” I rubbed my palm over my mouth, thinking the answer through. “Claire… is amazing. I would be lucky to even get a shot with her.”

Gwen smiled. “That’s what I thought.”

“But she’s going through a difficult time. It’s not right for her. She already told me that she can’t be intimate with anyone.”

“It won’t be that way forever.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I really hope not, for her sake.”

“I want to ask you to not give up on her. I have this feeling about you two.”

I stared at her. “What?”

She lifted a shoulder. “I know it’s stupid, maybe, but I have this feeling about the two of you. And, you know, when I look back at my life, it doesn’t seem like there were a lot of coincidences there. You know? So, Owen, I’m just asking you to… to think about it.”

I nodded slowly. “I wasn’t planning on giving up on her.” I laughed bitterly. “There have been a hundred times when I thought I should though. Waiting around just seems crazy, but I haven’t been able to do anything else.”

Gwen’s eyes sparkled. “You really are into her.”

I met her eyes. “Yes, I am.”

The smile fell off her face. “But you can’t wait around forever for her.”

I sighed. “I know that. I’d be a fool to. It’s been hard to do anything but that though.”

“So don’t wait forever. But come to my wedding. Give her one more shot.”

“She won’t be ready by then, Gwen.”

“You don’t know that.”

I studied her. “Why is it so important to you that we get together soon?”

She bit her lip. “Because I know how things go. No matter how you feel about Claire, sooner or later you’ll get tired of sitting around twiddling your thumbs. You’ll feel like life is passing you by.”

My lips pressed tightly together. I already often felt that way. I just did my best to push that uncomfortable feeling down and remind myself that Claire and I were meant to be in each other’s lives.

“Eventually, you’ll move on,” Gwen said. “You might just wake up one day and see that it’s happened. I don’t want to see either one of you miss out on each other.”

My gaze fell to the grass then. What she explained was unarguable. The options were already there for moving on. The vineyard in California, for one. That had been the whole reason behind my mother’s impromptu solo visit. She’d come to see if she could do a better job of swaying me without my father there. By the time she left, I had the same answer for her as before: I just needed to take some time to wait and see.

But what did that mean, exactly? And why did I say it?

Analyzing it more, I saw that the vineyard was my backup plan, the thing I would flee to if it turned out I’d been wrong about Claire all along. Because despite the deep feelings I had, there was still some fear in me. I couldn’t completely trust myself, couldn’t just go with the flow simply because my heart told me to.

I didn’t know just when the breaking point would come, but certainly, it was there — perhaps closer than I would guess.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll go to her again.” I let out a nervous whoosh of breath. “I don’t know what else I can say that I haven’t.”

“Have you told her everything? Like, the whole truth?”

I hesitated. “No… there’s definitely more that I could say.”

“People hardly ever share everything.”

“You’re right, they don’t.”

Gwen pulled her phone out and looked at it. “I have to go. Thank you for letting me talk.”

I stood up. “No, thank you. Really.”

She smiled up at me. “You’re awesome.”

I ducked my head, not sure what to say to that.

“Don’t worry,” Gwen said. “I know Claire thinks so too.”

Claire

G
wen leaned back in the limo, kicking her stilettos up. “Ugh. I don’t know how you wear these.”

“They kind of make me feel powerful in a way.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Huh?”

“Yeah, there’s something about a tight skirt and six-inch heels. Classy ones, I mean. When you walk into the boardroom dressed like that, everyone turns and looks at you. It kind of helps you feel like you’re in charge.”

Gwen laid down, stretching fully out on her seat. “You’re talking about using your sexuality to get your way. That’s not very feminist, Claire.”

“No, I’m talking about dressing for confidence. And men do it too. Everyone does it. You’re drunk, by the way.”

“It’s my bachelorette party,” she garbled.

“I wasn’t chastising you. I was giving you a compliment.”

“Oh,” she smiled, buying my bullshit. “Thanks.”

I scooted to the edge of my seat and opened the fridge. “Another bottle of champagne?”

“Ugh, I don’t want to be hungover at my wedding.”

“Makeup will cover that up.”

She sat up. “Okay. Open it. You only get married once.”

“Hello, have you seen the divorce rates in America? It’s up to like sixty percent now.”

She gasped and reached for the bottle.

“Relax,” I chided. “I’m being funny. That’s not going to be you. You and Jason are forever.”

She sighed in pleasure. “I know.”

I twisted the wire off the bottle’s top and then popped it. Gwen shrieked at the noise.

“Get me a glass!” I shouted, the bubbly foam spilling down the bottle’s side.

She passed one over. “What time is it?”

I shrugged. “Who cares? We’re drinking all night and sleeping in all morning.”