Page 58 of His Hot Mess

There’d be no helping seeing him at the wedding, but I didn’t think I’d need to worry about crossing paths with him any other place.

I hoped.

I went to the door, took a breath, and unlocked it, pushing it open.

But it wasn’t Chris standing there. It was a man I’d never seen before, in a Grayscale Contracting cap.

“Hey,” said the man, smiling politely. He was handsome. Movie star handsome, with a cut jaw and dark stubble. Icy blue eyes. He was the type of guy I would have swooned over a few weeks ago. Today, his looks were a passing thing I barely noticed through my confusion and disappointment that it wasn’t Chris.

“I’m Dean,” the man said. “Chris has subbed me in to finish your job.”

CHRIS

It was chicken-shit of me to send Dean to do the job. I knew it was. But it would still turn out just as perfectly if I wasn’t doing it.

I knew pulling an all-nighter in the shop wasn’t the best idea. I knew it was a kind of self-flagellation. But the only way I could come out of this whole thing feeling like I hadn’t completely screwed myself—and Sadie—was to at least get the work done.

I always get the work done.

When I finally got into my truck, the sky was growing light, though appropriately, the sun was hidden behind thick cloud cover. My truck’s clock said it was coming up on five-thirty in the morning. Shit—I hadn’t meant to stay that late. In three hours, I was supposed to be back here, seeing Sadie again.

I’d tried to stay as quiet as I could, using a crowbar for the demo instead of a sledgehammer—as much as the hammer would have been a helluva lot more therapeutic. Laying scrap in piles instead of tossing it. Still, I wasn’t exactly being a church mouse.

I sighed, scrubbing my face with my hands before pulling down the truck’s visor to look at myself in the mirror. Dark circles ringed my eyes and there was a wedge between my brows from scowling all night. My body ached too—hands and feet and everything in between.

Slamming the visor back up, I started the engine and pulled out, away from Sadie’s shop and apartment.

As I drove down the deserted streets of Barkley Falls, I knew I couldn’t come back here. I couldn’t face Sadie in this raw, weary state. The chances I’d do something stupid were extremely high. If I’d jumped her bones after promising myself not to in a well-rested state, what the hell would I do like this? Probably act like an asshole. Clam up and be a terse taskmaster to get shit done with as little feeling as possible.

Or worse, much worse, I’d get down on my knees and beg her to forgive me for freaking out about the fucking album. Forgive me for messing up her fresh start on life. Forgive me for having feelings for her I promised myself I’d never have again.

She didn’t need that. She didn’t need to see the screws of my drilled-tight life coming loose. She didn’t need to see me falling apart.Icouldn’t let that happen. Because that’s what I was doing, wasn’t I? As I pulled onto the highway the thought struck me like a gut-punch, the thing I hadn’t been able to admit to myself since I watched Jess’s back, her dress fluttering behind her as she ran down that aisle, as far away from me and the life we’d made for each other as she could.

I’d tried being free-wheeling and relaxed. I’d gone on that trip to Europe after she left. After I sold our house and left our hometown. But all I felt then was lost. All I felt when I went home with those women then was empty. Jess had been the center of my life, and with her gone, I’d floundered. Nearly drowned.

So now I worked. I kept my head down. That’s what my whole life was. Keeping things organized at Grayscale and in my life. Planned. Working my ass off day in and out.

And I stayed far away from women.

If I didn’t, everything went to shit.

I thought back to the first woman I’d slept with after Jess. I’d been in London. I’d had to sneak out of her flat in the middle of the night because I thought I was going to puke from the confusion. That woman had been pretty and nice, but I knew I couldn’t wake up next to her. And I didn’t have any feelings for her besides the desperate need to feel something like closeness the night before.

With Sadie, it was more. So much more. I wanted to be around her. I wanted to talk to her, to hear all about what made her happy, and what was hard. I wanted to make her smile, to hear that excited laugh, to smell her in the air around me. To feel her next to me.

I couldn’t work Sadie’s job. I couldn’t be anywhere near her. If I didn’t keep myself shut down around her, I turned into fucking jelly.

Not even Jess had made me feel like this.

When I pulled into my driveway, the sun was fully up, but the morning felt dark, the sky layered in thick, slate-gray clouds. It felt like a reflection of the heaviness in my chest. The confusion in my brain.

I shot a text to Graydon asking him to call me when he was awake, then headed inside.

My phone buzzed while I was opening my front door.

Graydon.

“Hey man,” I said.

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