Page 47 of Still Yours
“But you did. You left this town behind and completely ignored us.”
I’m using plurals, but with the way my voice cracks and the sudden hoarseness coming on, my subconscious wants me to use the singular. To talk aboutme.My hurt. My years of loneliness when he wasn’t with me. When I didn’t come up in any of his public interviews, like I had no effect on him.
“I was trying to protect you!” he shouts, then snaps his mouth shut like he didn’t mean for his outburst to be so vehement. “I don’t talk about this town, or my mother, or you, in the press or anywhere else, because I don’t want anyone but me to fucking know about it. No stranger deserves personalknowledge of my past or how I became the man that I am. That’s not what they want, anyway. They want the brilliant strategist, the guy who will make the hard calls, the man who doesn’t give a shit about the employees he fires and the lives he ruins. They want the businessman, the profit, the confident swindler. You think they love the small-town boy with a deadbeat father and a single mother who worked double shifts just so she could have the bail money ready for when I inevitably landed in an overnight stay in the sheriff’s cell? You think they want to know about the boy who ran with the White Tigers for a minute to see if he liked the idea of that kind of family more than his own? You think they fucking want that?”
Each of Stone’s points brings him closer to where I’ve glued my feet. My hands ache from clenching the top of my towel. My jaw muscles tremble from how my teeth lock together. His argument hits me like the bullet that missed us this afternoon, zinging by my ear with too-close accuracy.
“That is who youare,Stone,” I say. “I was never ashamed of you. I loved you exactly as that boy. If you can’t handle the choices you’ve made, then you need to look deep inside and ask yourself why.” I muster up the courage to say what I do next, not because I mean it, but because he needs to hear it. “But I’m not your girlfriend anymore and I’m certainly not your therapist. Unload your anger on someone else.”
Stone stares at me in disbelief. Then shuts down.
I stare over his shoulder, though my heart beats a million times harder than normal. “Maybe I’m not the person I used to be, either.”
Stone nods. “Message received. I won’t interrupt you again.”
He exits the room, shutting the bedroom door firmly behind him.
I collapse onto the side of the bed, allowing the towel to fall in a damp tangle around my form. Facing off with Stonetook the remaining courage I had after the day we endured. I hate that I share another traumatic moment involving him, another memory to belatedly delete from my Stone archives. The disastrous ripple effect he causes comes back with a vengeance, and I cover my mouth, trying not to sob.
Moo jumps up beside me, brushing against my arm as he rubs up against me.
“Thanks Moo-boo,” I murmur, picking him up and burying my face in his side.
He endures it, sensing my distress.
Tears build in my eyes when I smell Stone’s cologne in his soft fur.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Stone
Ibarrel through the next several weeks with my head down and mouth shut.
My lawyers kept busy sending cease and desist letters and taking down all mentions of my scuffle at the Merc online, and I pulled extra hours on Rome’s ranch to prove to the town, and maybe to myself, that I could go weeks straight without ending up front page news. Fully apprised of the situation with my mother, the board agreed to my hiatus in Falcon Haven, so long as I kept up with emails and necessary reviews. Millspace Pharmaceuticalsis another matter, the board threatening to replace me if I don’t return in three weeks’ time.
Work isn’t overtaking my thoughts, however. Noa’s cool dismissal during a weak moment where I let my heart bleed in front of her affected me more than I let on as I politely greeted her in the mornings and acknowledged her in the evenings before bunking on the living room couch.
There’s an overtly raw feeling in Noa’s disapproval of my choices. Almost like I harbor the need to impress her and prove my success has made me a good man, despite all the evidenceto the contrary. That I’m so much better than the immature boy who flew to the other side of the states on a hell-bent dream.
That I’m sorry.
I finish drying the breakfast dishes, staring out through the window above the sink and into the forest beyond. A fawn pokes her head out, sniffing cautiously, then darts back into the protective brush after she senses danger.
“Good plan,” I say to her.
“Hi, honeybear.” Ma’s voice comes from behind me. I turn.
She strides into the kitchen with a healthy glow to her cheeks. “You’re looking well.”
“It’s those pancakes Noa left for us. They’ve given me the kind of sugar rush that needs an outlet. Come with me?”
Noa’s preparation of homemade pancakes this morning, burn free and delicious, before she left could mean she’s more calculated and cutthroat than I am.
I set the last dish on the drying rack and hold out my elbow. “Where may I escort you, madam?”
Ma smiles. “So cheeky and handsome. It’s such a lovely fall day. Let’s bike around the neighborhood and see what kind of Halloween decorations the neighbors are trying to pass for Thanksgiving, so they don’t have to take them down.”
Concern lifts my brow. “Are you sure you’re up for physical activity?”
