“That the two of you argued?” Bev said, finishing my sentence with a tone gentler than I deserved. I nodded, and she reached across the table and patted my hand. “He didn’t have to. I heard the back door slam. And my oldest doesn’t slam things unless his heart’s in pieces.”
I swallowed, my chest tightening. “It wasn’t just him, Bev. I lost my temper. Accused him of things he didn’t deserve to hear.”
“Because of her, right? His wife. My daughter-in-law.” She propped her elbows on the table and tilted her head to me, studying my face.
I nodded, staring at a shallow scratch in the table. I ran my finger over the mark, waiting for her to pass judgement.
“You told him exactly what he needed to hear.”
“What?” I said, almost getting whiplash from lifting my head so fast. “How can you think that?” She had to be leading me into some false sense of camaraderie before laying down the law. Maverick was right—I let my temper get away from me, spewing hateful words because I didn’t like how the conversation was going.
“It’s easy. We’ve been trying to get Maverick to see reason for years, but it took him falling in love again to realize how fragile this life is.”
“I don’t understand. How can what we have be love when we said such hateful things?”
“For the same reason why children are the worst behaved for their parents. The person you love is your safe space, and you can say those things because, deep down, you know their love is unconditional.”
I shook my head, setting the pup down on the floor. He ran to the water dish with his sister hot on his heels, paws desperate for traction on the slick floor. Even watching the puppies couldn’t help my mood, which had sunk somewhere past the deepest trench in the ocean.
“Unconditional?”
“Yes. He’s afraid. Because admitting that he loves you means admitting that life could take you away in the blink of an eye. And that’s something he has to come to terms with.”
“But what if he doesn’t? What if, instead, he realizes that it’s not worth it. That I’m not worth it.”
“Oh sweetheart,” she said, grasping my cold hand between her warm ones and smiling. “Then you don’t fight it. You stay right there, steady as a rock, until he gets it through his thick head that you’re not going anywhere. And if he doesn’t realize it, then you take comfort knowing it wasn’t because you weren’t enough.”
My eyes brimmed with tears, and I let them fall, dripping down my cheeks and cascading onto the table.
“My son has his faults, but losing you isn’t one of them.”
“What if we’re already lost?”
“I guess you’ll just have to trust that I’m right. Now, I have to go to the Twisted Stitchers to get more material. My grand kitten Phoebe needs a new winter sweater. So do Tito and Port. Why don’t you come with me, and I’ll show you how to knit afterward?”
“Oh. Um…”
“Come on. We can talk about mundane things like the incoming tropical depression, that great debate about margarine versus butter, or even your court date tomorrow. We could even spend the afternoon bashing your ex-husband. Petty vengefulness always makes me feel better.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, chuckling hard at how quickly my mood improved as we finished our drinks and said goodbye to the pups before braving the elements once more.
Chapter 34
My living roomwas chaos. Empty pizza boxes, a half-drained bottle of bourbon, and my idiot brothers were sprawled across my furniture like they owned the place. Malibu had given up trying to take her dog bed back from the six-pounddemonic black cat with the bent ear better known as Phoebe and instead had made herself at home on my recliner, forcing me to sit on the floor.
Why Mark had brought that beast over remained a mystery. The second he removed her harness, she hissed at me, swatted Malibu on her nose, and sat in the middle of the floor demanding treats. Mark, the whipped asshole, took a bag of salmon jerky from his pocket and fed her while I stared open-mouthed, wondering when I became the ringleader of this circus.
I shook my head and stood, swiping the bottle of bourbon from the table and taking a long swig. The liquor burned my throat and churned in my stomach, but I kept it in my hand, pacing the room like a caged lion and wishing they’d go the fuck home. They had to have better things to do on a Sunday night than sit there with me.
“Sit back down, Romeo,” Magnum called from where he was sprawled on the sofa, throwing his elbow over his face. “You’re making me dizzy.”
“I’ve been sitting enough, while the three of you invaded my house and my liquor cabinet. It’s bad enough you didn’t bother to order the pizza I like.”
“Yes, well, maybe we would have if you hadn’t insisted that you were fine and demanded that we leave,” Miller added, raising his head from the back of the couch and scowling. “Do you have any Tylenol around here? My head hurts.”
“Probably because you thought pouring half a bottle of vodka into a quart of orange juice and then drinking it was a good idea.”
“Shut up, Mark,” Miller huffed. “Just because you refused to have more than one drink doesn’t mean you get to shame the rest of us.”
