And with that he vanished, leaving Jake feeling even lower than he had ten minutes before.
It got worse when Dave knocked on the door.
“Il Ducesaid you needed a box,” he said, handing one over. “Gotta say, this is a weird way to pack for the beach.”
Jake swallowed back the bile creeping up his throat. Dodging questions from Dave would be much harder. “I’m not going to make the trip after all.”
Dave tilted his head in a question. “Come again?”
“I’m headed back to Chicago.”
“For the weekend?”
“For good.”
At Jake’s terse explanation, Dave’s brows met over the bridge of his nose. “Wait, you’releaving?”
Christ, why was this so hard for people to understand? “That’s where my job is. What else am I supposed to do?”
Dave folded his arms over his chest and frowned. “Sure, and nothing changed between July and now. No reason to try to renegotiate your job terms or anything.”
Jake felt a welcome rush of anger at Dave’s sarcastic tone. “Ididtry. Believe me. But I’ve been working toward a partnership with BPS for years, and I’m not just walking away from it.”
“But you are just walking away from her,” Dave sneered. “Got it.”
He wasn’t doing this. He wasn’t going to argue with Dave about the thing that threatened to crush his heart. Haphazardly tossing the rest of the stack into the box, he slammed the lid closed. He’d go through the fucking paperwork in Chicago, where nobody there would hurt him.
He grabbed the box and turned to leave. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Convince yourself first, because you’re sure as fuck not convincing me.”
No way was he letting that be the last word. “She gave up onme!” he roared, wheeling around to face Dave. “I was already scheduling weekend trips. I was planning on wild phone sex and taking whatever vacation time we could steal together. But she just… she just rolled over and took it. Didn’t even try to fight for us. She all but helped me pack.”
Somehow, watching Dave’s anger morph into pity made him feel even worse.
“Whatever. It’s been great. See you round,” he muttered, storming down the hall and out the door before anybody else could rub more salt in his already painful wound. He threw the box into the back of his Jeep and slammed the door shut, anxious to get on the road. If he had to leave, he wanted to do it now before he lost the strength to uproot himself from Mabel’s life.
As he drove out of Beaucoeur, he called her, but it went straight to voicemail. So he left a message, not bothering to hide the pleading in his tone.
“I love you, Mabel. Stay with me on this. We’ll make it work, I promise.”
He didn’t know how though. He didn’t have a clue.
Thirty-Seven
Had anyone ever been this miserable on her way to paradise? Mabel pondered the question. Napoleon traveling to Elba maybe. Wait, was Elba considered a paradise? And wait, why was she thinking about Napoleon in the first place? She was in the middle of a rowdy group of travelers at the Beaucoeur airport, getting ready to board a plane to take them to Atlanta, where another plane would deposit them all in Montego Bay. She bet nobody else here was thinking about despotic French history.
“You look gloomy for someone trading Illinois in January for a beach for the next five days,” said Thea, straightened her Brick T-shirt as she scanned the sea of humanity milling around them. “I thought Jake was coming with you.”
Mabel reached deep for her big radio smile, but it was low on wattage that morning. “He got stuck at work. You know how he is.”
Thea’s “right” sounded skeptical, so Mabel excused herself to make the rounds with the fans, greeting them, thanking them for coming along, whooping excitedly along with them. Then she retreated to sit next to the Chiltons and Aiden, who’d decided at the last minute that the trip sounded too good to pass up. By the time they lined up to board the plane, she was exhausted from the forced cheerfulness. Yes, the Chiltons were lucky to be on an adult’s-only vacation. Yes, thiswasa great chance for Aiden to escape his work and family stresses. Yes, a week of sun and sand was exactly what she needed. Smile, laugh, keep your chin up.
And then she shuffled onto the plane, sat down next to the empty seat that was supposed to be Jake’s, and started to come unglued. The tears she’d been fighting all morning trembled along her eyelashes, and she was scrounging through her purse for a tissue when Thea plopped down next to her and handed her a drink napkin.
“Do you mind? I cannot sit next to Brick Babe Kimmie. She’s already drunk and suuuuper into hugging. And if the hugging’s botheringme, you know it’s bad.”
Mabel sniffled and shook her head, gratefully clutching the napkin in her fist. “Go ahead.”
