Just My Type (34 page)
191
Erin Nicholas
“You’ve always been the one to help me solve my problems,” she said. “Now that you are my problem, what do you suggest?”
“You’ve been okay with the missionary position,” he pointed out.
She felt the tears building. “That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“You’re only seeing me as you want to see me. Pretty much how you’ve always seen me. Me being the damsel in distress, needing you to save and protect me, was something you needed as much as I did.” She took a deep shaky breath. “You and my brother and the guys, are heroes. You take care of people.
Thinking of me as someone you needed to worry about was easy, it’s what you do. Thinking about me differently will take some effort, might make you uncomfortable, might be a little confusing for a while.
Guys like you like to be in charge. You don’t like to be uncomfortable and confused.”
“You’re doing it again…” he said in warning.
“I’m a grown woman. I have needs and ideas that are bigger than any of you can imagine. I need a partner, a lover, a friend…not a guardian.”
“Maybe I’ve had too many years of seeing you only one way.” She nodded as her throat tightened. Maybe. Maybe some ideas just couldn’t be undone.
“I want you to love who I really am, Mac.”
“I do love you.”
“Part of me,” she agreed. Which wasn’t enough. That she was sure of.
There was a long silence between them.
Then quietly he asked, “Now what?”
She took a deep breath. Her stomach hurt. Her heart hurt. But her thoughts were very clear. “I think it’s time for me to do what you’ve been wanting me to do since St. Croix. I’m going home to Omaha.” He stared at her, as if letting the idea sink in. For a moment she thought he was going to protest. Then he nodded. “I’ll take you.”
“
No
!” God, he’d agreed with her. Her head had expected it. Her heart rejected it. She shook her head vehemently. “Absolutely not. I’m not going to be cooped up in a car with you for the next hour.” He raised an eyebrow. “Fine. You can take the car.”
Apparently he wasn’t going to try to talk her into staying.
Sara shook her head again. “You need it for work tomorrow. I’ll take Sully.”
“He won’t make it all the way to Omaha.”
She shrugged. “If not, I’ll call Jess or Sam.”
He accepted that, because he couldn’t argue they would come in a heartbeat. She’d be fine. It was the middle of the day.
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Just My Type
She had to get away from him and headed for the closet, praying her tears would hold off. She thought of other things instead. At home she could go to the Cheesecake Factory and get four pieces to go, swing through Starbucks, then get into her Jacuzzi bathtub, turn on the Home and Garden network and then crawl into bed under her down comforter…and stay there for the next week or so.
Of course, as soon as Kevin heard her footsteps on the floor above his head, he’d be at her door with a pizza and the rest of the gang on their way.
Which also sounded really great.
She emerged in the stupid baggy sweatpants Mac had bought her because they were the first things she grabbed. Not caring a bit how she looked, she also put on the first shirt and shoes she grabbed.
Mac was not in the bedroom—thank God—when she came out. She didn’t see him again at all as she headed for the barn with only her purse and car keys.
The sob that had been building since she realized her marriage was falling apart finally broke free.
She angrily wiped the tears away as she climbed into Sully’s passenger seat and slid over behind the wheel.
He started right up, bless his heart, but he died before she cleared the barn doors. She gave him the love words he needed, then clutched, shifted and started forward again.
Things were good until the end of the driveway.
It was going to be a long trip to Omaha.
By the time she pulled into the Gas and Gulp to fill up, she was over the worst of the crying and was feeling pretty proud of keeping Sully running without incident at the stop sign on the outside of town.
She started the pump and decided to list all of the reasons Mac was an idiot to let her go instead of crying.
She made it to
great dancer
when she heard, “Sara? Are you okay?” Sara turned to find Angie heading for the car parked on the other side of the gas island.
“Sure, why would you ask?” she said in as cheerful a voice as she could muster.
“Um, because of that,” Angie said, indicating Sara’s clothes. “I’ve never seen you look like…that.” Sara glanced down. The too-big sweatpants were gray, the flip-flops on her feet were bright green and the fitted tank she wore was purple. With sequins. She also knew her hair was coming down from the twist she’d put it in, she had no makeup on, her eyes were probably red from crying and her toenails desperately needed the polish touched up.
And she didn’t care.
A true sign things were definitely not okay.
“I’m on my way to Omaha.”
“Oh.”
Of course, that didn’t answer Angie’s question about if she was all right and didn’t address the unspoken question of why she looked like she was wearing bad hand-me-downs.
193
Erin Nicholas
“Somebody sick?” Angie asked.
“No.” Unless she counted the horrible nausea she couldn’t get rid of. And the death of her marriage, of course.
“Just going to visit?”
“Kind of.” She got busy unhooking the gas nozzle and recapping the tank.
“Mac going with you?” Angie leaned a shoulder against the post between the gas tanks, obviously not planning for this to be simple small talk.
Sara choked, then tried to cover it up. “Um, no.”
“So what’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“You sure this truck can make it that far?”
Sara glanced at Sully. “No.”
“You need anything?”
Sara leaned in through the truck window and grabbed her purse. “No, I’m fi…” Her wallet wasn’t there. Of course. She rested her forehead against Sully for a moment. Then she sighed.
A few weeks ago, Sara would have never believed she would ask Angie for anything. She would have never believed Angie would ask to give her anything for that matter. Sara felt like an idiot but she was a distressed idiot. Now that her mind and heart had settled on going home to Omaha, she was feeling a little desperate to get there. “Can I borrow twenty bucks?”
“Yes,” Angie said without hesitation. She reached for her wallet.
“Thanks.”
“But after you pay for the gas, I’ll take you to Omaha.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll take you to Omaha. You shouldn’t drive when you’re upset.”
“I’m not upset.”
Angie pushed away from the post. “Sara, I’ve been married long enough to recognize the signs of a big fight.”
Sara started to protest, then decided there was no point. “Okay. Thanks.” Driving away from Oscar, away from Mac, seemed like a monumental task she wasn’t sure she was up to.
All she needed was to get to Omaha where she could fall into her bed, spray her cinnamon
Good
Night
pillow mist and sleep for the next sixteen hours.
“Don’t you have to be at the shop today?” Sara asked after she’d paid for the gas, parked Sully around the side of the Gas and Gulp and climbed into Angie’s car.
“Yeah, but we’ll just reschedule. No one dies without a haircut.”
“No one will be mad?”
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Just My Type
“They’ll understand when they find out a friend was in need.” Sara felt her surprise melt into a smile. “We’re friends?”
“You’ve massaged my hands and wrists, neck and feet. You brought me an aromatherapy candle. You gave me that article about how to boost my serotonin. If I had money, power or fame I’d think you were just kissing up, but since I don’t, I’m thinking maybe you did it because you’re a nice person who found out I have fibromyalgia and is trying to help. I’m smart enough to be friends with someone like that.” Sara didn’t care that Angie was not an overly warm and fuzzy person. She leaned in and awkwardly hugged the other woman. “I made a friend, all on my own.” Angie didn’t answer and Sara could almost feel the eye roll. She smiled anyway.
They drove for nearly fifteen minutes in a relatively comfortable silence.
But Sara slowly felt the desire to talk build until she said, “I got a snake out of the house the other day.”
Angie looked genuinely surprised. “Good for you.”
“And I had to clean out the fridge the other day.”
“Good.”
“There was some nasty stuff in there.”
“You’ve never done that before?”
Sara shuddered. “No way. I rarely eat at home and I hate leftovers so nothing stays in my fridge more than a day or two.”
“But you survived.”
“Yeah.” Sara got quiet again for a while. Then she said, “I didn’t tell Mac about either of those things.”
“Why not?”
“I suppose for the same reason Mac can’t see me in nipple clamps. Force of habit.” Angie coughed in surprise. “Well, that’s fixable,” she announced as she recovered.
Sara wiped away the one tear she’d let fall. “I don’t know. I think once you decide that cheesecake is best with raspberries and you really, really like it that way, then there’s not much motivation to change the perception.”
Angie didn’t say anything at first. Then she asked, “Are you the cheesecake or the raspberries?” Sara snorted.
Angie grinned. “I assume that you’re worried that Mac really, really likes his perception of you and doesn’t really want to change it? But I’m not clear if he really, really likes your cheesecake…or your berries.”
Sara couldn’t believe it but she laughed. “I guess I’m the cheesecake. Our relationship is the raspberries. He likes the raspberries, has liked them for years, so doesn’t want to try anything else.”
195
Erin Nicholas
“Raspberries are really good on cheesecake,” Angie offered.
“Sure they are. But the Cheesecake Factory has made a fortune on the fact that there are lots of things just as good or better.”
“Good point.”
Sara sighed. “Do you think you can change someone’s perception of something even if they don’t want to change it?”
Angie looked at her in disbelief. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.”
Angie laughed out loud. “Sara, you
forced
me to change my perception of you. You refused to let me see you only as the girl who wore killer heels, body glitter and was only interested in manicures. You brought us cinnamon rolls, talked my ear off, cleaned the shop.”
“I won you over?” Sara asked, somewhat teasing.
“You did.” Angie sighed heavily. “In spite of myself. And
I
wasn’t madly in love with you. I’m sure you can change how he sees you.”
“How?”
“Tell him about the snake, for instance.”
“Um…”
“Come on, Sara. Show him who you are. Don’t let him get away with just seeing the heels and body glitter. Show him that you can scrub sinks and rub someone’s shoulders and paint someone else’s toenails.
Show him what you’re made of.”
“More than raspberries?” Sara asked with a smile. Regardless of what Mac thought, Angie liked her.
That had to count for something.
“You’re obviously more than raspberries,” Angie said.
“Obviously?” Sara repeated. Then laughed. “Yeah, obviously,” she said with sarcasm.
“You’ve been out of your element for almost two months and you’re doing great,” Angie said.
“You’ve figured out how to get around not having Internet access, not having a car, not having any friends.
You’ve even figured out how not to starve.”
Sara thought about that. “I did make spaghetti the other night.”
“Sauce in a jar?”
“Yeah. It was great.”
Angie laughed and shook her head. “There are all kinds of amazing things that come in jars and boxes and mixes.”
Sara smiled and settled back into her seat. Was Angie right? Was this fixable?
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Just My Type
She wasn’t sure if things were fixable with Mac. He might not ever see her as anything other than the little girl he’d always taken care of. But
she
could see her as more than that. And maybe that was the most important thing.
197
Chapter Thirteen
Mac had never been in as bad a mood as he was in the weeks after Sara left.
Oh, he knew exactly where she was and he wanted to go to her. Badly.
But he also knew he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t have gone after her in St. Croix. This was his second chance to
not
follow her and mess up both their lives. So he was going to do it right this time.
“Of all my friends, I thought you were the bright one.” Sam crossed to the coffeepot without even looking at Mac.
“Nope. That would be Ben.” Mac kept his eyes resolutely on the TV screen in front of him. He’d seen the movie at least twice before but there was lots of shooting and swearing and things blowing up, which fit his mood perfectly. As it had for the past ten weeks.
“Well, sure. Ben can save my life if I’m impaled with a sharp object. But you’re the one who knows stuff about
stuff
.”
“That’s stupid,” Mac told him.
He wasn’t in the mood for whatever this was. Why couldn’t his friends just leave him the fuck alone?
Every one of them had tried to talk to him about Sara in the days right after their breakup. Since being told, explicitly, where they could each put their opinions they’d backed off a little. Not completely of course.
That wasn’t their style. But it had been only one of them spouting off every two to three days versus all of them hitting him every day.
Another explosion, taking out three cars and a warehouse.
That
was what he wanted to pay attention to. Shit being destroyed.
“You helped me realize how I felt about Danika.”