She lets out a huge, irritated breath. “Why?”
“Because.”
Silence.
“Please?”
“I’ll tell you, but if you tell her I told you, I swear….”
Jesus. “Okay. Okay. I promise I’ll keep it to myself.”
“It belonged to her grandfather.”
“And?”
“What do you mean,and?”
“What does the fact that it was her grandfather’s coat have to do with her unnatural attachment to the thing? Have you seen it? It’s on its last leg.”
I could hear a smile in her voice. “Yes. I’m well aware the coat is… unsightly. I’ve tried to get her to give it up, but when we talk about it, she tears up.”
“So, okay. What’s the significance of the coat? And about him—her grandfather, I mean?” I keep hearing MacKenzie’s voice saying that word:relationship.
“She didn’t tell you about him?”
“No, she didn’t. I asked her about the coat on our first date—for the story behind it. She said, ‘There is no story.’”
“Well, no, there’s no story, per se. Frank Parker—MacKenzie’s Pops—was a cool dude, and he was everything to Mac. Mac was everything to Pops. Pops lost his wife and daughter and Mac lost her grandmother and mom on the same day, in the same car accident. That sealed their bond. The man would have died for her, literally. Shit, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and didn’t tell her because he didn’t want to make her sad. He refused treatment and kept the diagnosis to himself. She didn’t even know he was sick—he just up and died one day.”
Jesus, my poor MacKenzie.
“It’s still hard for her to talk about him. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t told you yet. Either that, or you’re an asshole who says things like ‘you eat like a man,’ or ‘you look okay,’ and my personal favorite, ‘you don’t look fat in that dress.’ Shit like that.”
Shit, Lauren already knows about my most recent foot-in-mouth exercise. MacKenzie must have called her before I even drove away. I groan aloud. “I don’t know what it is about her, but I stick my foot in my mouth at every turn.”
“It’s not just your stupid mouth. What the hell is with you ghosting her all week? You ghosted her on fucking Valentine’s Day, you ass.”
Ghosting? “I know. I woke up one day last week and started thinking about… things.”
“Things?”
“Yeah. Things about us. Like relationship things. Cohabitating things.”
“And you freaked out?”
“In a word, yes.”
“You’re what, forty years old?”
“Thirty-nine.”
“A thirty-nine-year-old adolescent, apparently. A thirty-nine-year-old acting like a twentysomething who doesn’t have two clues to rub together.”
She’s mixing her metaphors, but I stay quiet so she’ll finish her thought.
“You’re supposed to be a grown-ass man, Sam Stone. A real man doesn’t treat any woman that way. Let alone my best friend, who is the kindest, sweetest, most loyal person I’ve ever known. You’re treating her like crap, Stone. She’s a person who would literally give you the shirt off her back if you needed it.But she won’t give up the coat.Nobody should ever ask her to give up that coat. But you did—you asked her to give up the coat, Sam. You didn’t have a clue about her feelings, and honestly, I don’t think you gave a crap about them. Then, on top of that crap, you told her she wasn’t good enough to be seen with you.”
“I said no such thing.” That’s just a bald-faced lie. “I told her that, uh, she couldn’t wear that old thing when we go out. I didn’t tell her she wasn’t good enough to be seen with me. It’s not the same thing—at all.”
