True Divide (28 page)

OK, not sure what's worse, the panic that he was about to propose and I'm not sure I'm ready for that, or the scene where he's seriously asking if I could live without trips to suites in paradise. I lean back in my chair and flop my magazine shut, then swallow my champagne in two gulps. I lock my eyes on his.

“Will you fix things?”

“Yes.”

“Will you come get me if my car won't start?”

“Absolutely.”

“Will you take me places in your plane? Even Aspen, if that's where I want to go?”

Jake growls through a smile. “Yes. I've told you that. Anywhere. Even the hellhole that is Aspen.”

I wait a beat and narrow my eyes. “Will you take care of me?”

Jake closes his eyes and nods his head, then opens them again. “Yes.”

“Then we're good.”

Craning forward, Jake pulls my face into his hands and lays a long kiss on me. When he stands and hitches his pants up a bit, I swipe open my magazine again and speak without looking up.

“By the way, don't do that again unless you mean it.”

Jake stops and turns back. “Do what?”

I flutter my hand toward the ground where he was just perched on one knee. “That.”

A few seconds pass, then Jake lets out a huge laugh. “That fucking explains the look on your face.” Striding away, he calls back over his shoulder, “Don't worry. Next time I land on one knee like that, I'm going to have the biggest cubic zirconia engagement ring stuffed in my pocket. You won't know what to do with yourself.”

18

A
t home, things feel less weighted, because for the first time since we came back into each other's lives, we know this isn't an ending. If there were hidden cameras in my house, though, we would look absolutely insane with the amount of following each other around we seem to do. This morning we woke up slowly, did a few other things sleepily, then lay there and stared at each other from our respective pillows. Finally, I headed off to shower, but before the water was even warm enough, Jake was in the bathroom with me. He didn't join in, simply sat on the floor next to the shower and talked to me. Then he handed me my towel before going down to the kitchen. He was gone approximately three minutes before I started to feel twitchy inside.

As I head downstairs, I try to calculate the minutes remaining but get distracted and pause on the last stair riser when I find him bent over at the waist, rifling through his bags next to the front door. Men might think they have a monopoly on blatantly gawking at a nice ass when the opportunity presents itself, but they're wrong. We, of the fairer sex, aren't immune to the diversion. And Jake is a whole heap of pleasant diversion.

“I'm going to walk over to the A&P real quick. I'm out of energy bars and stuff, and I'll starve on the way home if I don't get a few things to stash away.” Jake turns and straightens up, catching my ogle before I can properly pretend to inspect my fingernails or something.

A small grin twitches at his mouth. “What's up there?”

“Nothing. Go, I'll wait here for you to get back.”

He tilts his head, raising one brow as he does. “Were you just checking out my ass?”

It's impossible for him to leave well enough alone. I shake my head and huff a little. “I wasn't checking it out, I was admiring it. Men ‘check out' asses. Women take full appreciation. There's a difference.”

A sharp laugh sounds just as he opens the front door. “Call it what you want, I still feel a little dirty. I'll be right back.”

The door clicks shut. The urge to skip down the sidewalk after him is immediate and overwhelming. But those words, “I'll be right back,” and the way they make our worlds feel so perfectly, properly joined, make my heart hurt and swell until I can't worry anymore.

I start to get a teeny bit anxious after an hour or so. The grocer is a grand total of five blocks away. It's midday on a blustery Monday. Shouldn't be a run on the inventory that might be holding him up. I refuse to go looking for him because that seems completely over-the-top, the behavior of a woman who can't think rationally enough to let her boyfriend walk five blocks to the store on his own without worrying he was kidnapped, injured, or somehow otherwise negatively impacted on his stroll through Crowell.

Peeking out the window again, I catch a glimpse of him, head down and hands shoved deep in his pockets as he makes his way down my block. From this distance, he looks tense from the shoulders up, the heavy burden of a gray mood bunching up around him. When he reaches my walkway, he looks up at the house and pauses, taking inventory with his sweeping gaze. I let the soft curtain flutter back into place and step away from the window. If he catches me gawking at him again, I'll never hear the end of it.

The door opens and I try to make as if I've simply been puttering about while he was gone, instead of pacing like a lost dog and whimpering out for his return. I open the refrigerator and peek in.

“Do you want something to eat before we leave? I can make you a peanut butter sandwich or something equally basic.”

No response. Silence.

The refrigerator door drifts closed and I can feel him in the room now. I steady my body and stand up straight, dragging my hand down the length of my ponytail, capturing a few moments to get straight.

“We need to talk.”

Well, frack me. Four words. Four measly, uncomfortable, spring-loaded words. I consider walking away to avoid whatever this is. To escape those words, which sound like a preface to destroying my day. Or my entire reality. Not quite sure yet.

Turning on my heels, I pivot slowly and find Jake slumping into the opening of the kitchen area, not looking at me but simply staring at his shoes. I let my eyes go blank, force the panic trying to consume me to stay buried under an impassive façade right now.

“I'm listening.” I cross my arms over my chest and wait.

“What do you and Kate call it when you have a run-in with Dusty?”

No luck hiding the panic now. My throat closes and my jaw tightens. Jake still won't look at me. I take a breath. “A dust storm.” Jake nods at the ground, slowly. “Why do you ask?”

Jake looks up from the corners of his eyes. “Found myself in one helluva dust storm out there today.”

I refuse to take the bait; Jake can either tell me or continue to stand there and make cryptic statements. If I ask, Dusty wins. Whatever it is he's done to make Jake tense up like this, if I ask, he wins.

“When were you going to tell me?”

Posing the question seems to return Jake's backbone to his spine, because he rights his body and crosses his arms over his chest so we now mimic each other's postures.

Mind reeling, I keep my voice calm. “Tell you what?”

“That Ruth Ann gave title to you on The Beauty Barn and the building.”

Immediately, I try to shuffle through the reasonable rationale of how Dusty could know this. How Jake knows this. How my little wonderful secret got out. My eyes lock with Jake's and he shakes his head, a grimace growing across his features.

“I mean, can you imagine what an asshole I felt like, standing there while Dusty tells me this shit?” Jake adds a mocking parody to his tone. “ ‘Hey, Holt. You settling down here for good? Can't imagine Lacey's ever leaving Crowell now that she's a business proprietor. Maybe we can get a beer sometime.' ” Jake snorts and looks away, out the window of my breakfast nook.

“I stood there like a prick, no fucking clue what he's talking about. And he knew it, too. He watched my face, then acted like he gave a shit. ‘Oooh, sorry, buddy. When I saw Tom Dorsey from the city clerk's office at Deaton's and he mentioned to me that the new deed was recorded, I figured I was the last to know. Guess Lacey's been keeping us all in the dark, huh?' ”

“I was going to tell you. I've been trying to tell someone for weeks. I couldn't. No one knows.”

Jake's features twist up into another loathing expression. “Are you kidding me? Weeks? What do you mean you couldn't? Am I that goddam hard to talk to? This whole fucking time, I've been over here”—Jake squares an imaginary box around him—“like a chump, telling you we should get married and thinking about us being together for the long haul, while you've been not saying a damn thing about this huge-ass change in your life. Not. One. Damn. Thing.”

My voice nearly disappears. “I didn't know how to say it.”

“Here's a thought. Just say it. Just call me up and say, ‘Hey, Jake, this totally crazy thing happened, what do you think of that?' ”

Tears start to brim around the edges of my eyes. Tears about knowing he's right, knowing that all along, and sensing he's about to make this even worse. The second I feel the tears grow, I grind my jaw together and turn away to press my forehead against the closest flat surface. In this case, it's the cool of the freezer door on my refrigerator. I can feel the vibration of the motor humming under the delicate skin there, and all I want is to beat my head against it so I might distract myself from the panic trying to drown me.

“You're never going to leave Crowell, are you, Lacey?”

I shake my head but don't lift it up. “Probably not.”

After I say it, I know exactly what that utterance means. A tangible gloom starts to hover in the room, swelling up around our bodies in the silence.

“You know I can't live here, right? Aside from the obvious, which is I can't make a living here—more than that, I just can't live here. It would suffocate me.”

I turn and when I see him there, mouth gaping and waiting for me to respond, I can't find any words. He can't live here. I can't leave.

We had joking, yet weighted, exchanges about marriage and love. Even yesterday, when I asked him if he would take care of me and fix things, we didn't come up for air to talk about this stupidly basic relationship thing: where we would live. Instead, we toddled around like pair of teenagers again, avoiding the things that might make it clear we have as little future now as we did then.

Jake sighs, the sound choppy and broken. “Say something.”

Pressing my palms to my eyelids, I groan a little. “Sounds like we're at a hell of an impasse. You won't stay. I can't go.”

When Jake lets out his own groan, I peek through my fingers and see him start to pace, taking a few steps into the main hall, and hear him kick one of his bags a few times. He calls back into the kitchen, voice raised enough to be heard, but each word so tense it's obvious he's holding back.

“You could go. You could close the shop, sell the building, what-the-fuck-ever. You could leave here. You won't. Huge difference.”

I drop my hands and ball them into fists, digging my fingernails into my palms. “Screw you, Jake. You're making a choice, too. I'm not the only one digging my heels in here.”

Another round of kicking commences, Jake taking his anger out on an innocent duffel bag, then the sound of his hand slamming against something sturdy. The wall? The front door? Then the house turns quiet. Jake returns and comes to stand in front of me, close enough to grasp my face in his hands.

“Do you not understand what I'm saying? I'm worthless here, Lace. I spent years trying to make something of myself and I did. Living here would destroy that.” He closes his eyes for a beat. When he opens them, the fear and plea buried there make my eyes burn.

“My mom carted my ass out here and dumped me on Grandma's doorstep without a second thought. You know what she said when she left? Nothing. Not a goddam word. The woman never smiled much, but when she drove away, she was grinning like a fool. You know why? Because she finally got rid of me. That's what Crowell reminds me of. Every time I'm here, I remember how much my own mother couldn't wait to cut me loose.”

Jake pauses, then lets out a defeated exhale. “I'm asking you to choose me over this shithole town. Please. If you hate Santa Monica, we'll move. I will go anywhere else with you.”

I drop my gaze and try to think. Anger bubbles up through my chest at the way he acts as if this should be so easy for me. He whispers my name and I close my eyes, decide to let the tears start because what I'm about to say is the beginning of the end of this conversation.

“You're asking me to give up everything. This is my home. I don't know anything else but this place. And The Beauty Barn is the only thing I have, the only thing I've ever really done on my own. I can't give that up.”

Jake begins to breathe heavily, keeping his jaw clenched tight, nostrils flaring under the pressure. He doesn't look away, simply lets his gaze turn harsh, then impassive. “But you can give me up. No question about that, I guess. Good to know I'm near the fucking bottom of your priority list, right after clothes and shoes and animal crackers, right? What about Dusty? Where does he fall on your list? Before or after me?”

“Fuck. Off.”

His weight shifts, distancing from me, hands dropping from my face. Jake rises up from the floor and I can hear him start to say something else, then stop himself. The sound of his bags rustling in the hallway ceases as the front door opens.

“Lacey . . .”

The tears make it easier to get pissed, to know the pain of this entire thing crumbling and hurting so badly I want to scream. He showed up here, in my town, and did all of the things he could to make me love him. He said the right things, called me his, claimed my body and my heart, but he forgot to figure out how
not
to leave.