“Emery, it’s Patrick,” my ex says. My mood switches from pure anxiety to straight annoyance. “Please don’t hang up.”
“Seriously, Patrick,” I snap. “A fake number? I thought you’d take the hint when I blocked you.”
After some liquid courage and a lot of encouragement from Eve, I finally blocked him. The relief I felt from that small action confirmed that I didn’t owe this man anything. He could get his closure from between my ex-boss’s legs for all I cared.
“I know you need space, but I know how lonely you must be in that new town by yourself. I was thinking about visiting for a few?—”
I don’t hear the rest of his bizarre plan before Knox steals the phone from my hand.
“Hey, Patrick,” Knox says roughly, his hand white-knuckling my phone. “This is Emery’s boyfriend. She’s busy.”
The word boyfriend makes my stomach do a weird flip. I guess we were taking our charade nationwide.
I can hear Patrick sputtering on the other end of the phone. “Boyfriend? Emery doesn’t?—”
“Yes, she does,” Knox cuts him off. His jaw tenses and I watch in awe as he plays the part of my knight in shining armor. “And you’re going to stop calling her unless you want to find out how real Emery’s boyfriend is.”
I lean in closer to listen to Patrick’s reply, but the threat is enough to shut him up. And if he does have a retort, we’ll never know because Knox hangs up the phone and slides it back to me. “How long has he been harassing you like this?”
“I wouldn’t call it harassment. I?—”
“Emery,” Knox warns with a stern look. Except, it’s hard to take him seriously with his shirt off.
I swallow hard. “It comes in waves,” I admit, bowing my head. “He left me alone right after I broke up with him, but recently, he keeps finding ways to contact me. It’s my fault. I should’ve been firmer at the beginning. I wanted our break-up to be amicable because we’d been together for so long, but it’s hard to do that when the guy cheats on you.”
“Emery, it is not your fault,” Knox frowns. He walks over to switch off the stove and sets the boiling saucepan aside to cool. Then he grabs one of the stools beside me and sits down. “Is that who you were talking to that night at the Rustic Inn?”
I let out a long and much-needed sigh. “Yes. That was the first call. I’ve been ignoring all the rest. I even blocked his number, which I rarely do. But now he’s gone an extra step and is calling me from random numbers. I only picked up because I thought it might be about Eve or my brother Eli.”
He places his hand on my left thigh, making me feel an odd sense of comfort. It’s heavy and grounding. I hate how much I don’t want him to move it.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but I am curious what happened between you two. Is he the reason why you moved here?”
I let out an unhinged laugh that has no place in this conversation. Knox doesn’t falter, though, and remains firm, his eyes entirely focused on me. I take in a deep breath and push away my anxious giggles.
“We were actually supposed to move here together,” I admit, clicking my tongue. “At the time, I was working as an assistant to an interior designer in the city. We weren’t close or anything, but I considered us friends. Anyways, when I told her I was moving here and had to quit as her assistant, she broke down and told me that she and Patrick had a short-lived affair shortly after we started working together.”
I clutch the edge of the counter, feeling all the painfulmemories rush back in. Knox’s hand tightens on my thigh, sending a jolt of comfort across my body. “I was upset and dead set on confronting him, but every time I thought about making this huge move all by myself, I stopped myself. It took me longer than I’m willing to admit to confront him. I was going to ignore all the hurt and pain, so I didn’t have to be alone. How pathetic is that?”
“It’s not pathetic,” Knox says, hunched over close to me. His voice softens. “It just means you’re human. It’s normal to gravitate toward what’s comfortable and safe when you’re going through big life changes. There’s nothing weak about that.”
My jaw tightens. “I should’ve known something was up sooner. When I brought up the move, I expected him to talk me out of it. I’d like to think I’m a confident badass, but when it came to him, I made myself small to fit into his life. But he was very supportive and almost eager to move out of the city. But the only thing he was eager to do was to run away from his mistakes.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Knox says with a reassuring tilt of his lips.
“But when I did find out, I stayed,” I confess, feeling the familiar pull of my own self-deprivation. “I let him manipulate me because I was scared of moving forward on my own. That’s—ugh, I don’t know.”
Knox reaches up and tucks a strand of partially dry hair behind my ear. “You can’t keep beating yourself up for something that happened in the past. We all make mistakes, but it’s what you do afterward that really counts.”
I bow my head, but he catches my chin with his hand. “And if you ask me, I think you’re doing a great job. You make beautiful furniture, you’ve charmed the hell out of the people of Honey Grove, and you’re bringing back your grandma’s antique shop, which is important to this community.And you’re doing all of it by yourself. That’s pretty damn amazing.”
My heart betrays me, beating loudly like a very determined marching band. I press my lips together and try not to let Knox’s words feed the glowing feeling buzzing around in my ribcage.
Knox stares back at me with those deep blue eyes, and for a moment, I think he’s going to lean in and kiss me. But if he does, I know it won’t be just any kiss. This one might crush me in ways I’m not capable of coming back from.
Why does he have to be so damn nice? Why couldn’t he have been this person the first time around? He’s always been great, but now it feels like if I repeated those three words, he might actually say it back.
That thought alone is enough to sober me up. My laugh comes out shaky, but I force it out. “You’re sweet when you’re not annoying the shit out of me.”
