Page 65 of My Favorite Lost Cause
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CHARLIE
Idrive Maren to Hilton Head early in the morning to catch her flight.
“You’re sure you don’t want to come?” she asks, consoling Echo and Narcy as she puts them in the dog carrier.
Why the fuck is she taking the dogs? I told her I’d watch them. It bothers me.
“There’s a lot going on here, Mare,” I reply. I can’t go. Elijah’s working seven days a week to get us ready for inspection. There are very few valid excuses for taking off, under the circumstances, andI’ve got to attend a party in the Hamptonsis not among them.
She forces a smile, kisses my cheek, and walks into the small outbuilding to check in.
I know it’s for the best if we spend a weekend apart. Last night, finding her in bed with that fucking look on her face when I walked out of the shower, nearly did me in. It took every ounce of restraint to walk out her door.
But the moment she’s out of view, the missing begins. It roars in my brain the whole way home, telling me I should have gone with her or convinced her to stay.
I pull up to the house. There’s normally this small electric charge in my gut when I approach. Now, though, I feel nothing. Even with the new porch, it still looks like it’s been abandoned. It still looks like no place I want to be.
I return to removing tiles in the upstairs hall bath and I’m still at it when Elijah finds me. “Is Maren around?” he asks. “I need to order the new appliances.”
I scrub a hand over my face. “She just left.”
He blinks. “Sheleft?”
“She’ll be back.” I hope. She’d better fucking come back. I need her here. “Her mom is throwing an engagement party for Maren’s sister, Kit.”
“You’re not going?”
I shrug. “There’s a lot going on here. I’m not going to ask you to work all weekend when I’m not doing the same.”
He frowns. “I just…that seems like it’ll be sort of hard on Maren.”
My jaw grinds. “Because of Miller?”
“Who’s Miller?” Elijah asks, leaning against the counter.
I was assuming Maren had told him because why else would she need me there? “Miller is Maren’s ex. He’s engaged to her sister now. Why were you thinking it would be hard on her?”
“Jesus, Charlie,” Elijah says. “She’s going through a divorce and seeing everyone for the first time since the news came out, and as if that’s not bad enough, it’s happening at a party celebrating her sister’s engagement to Maren’sex? That’s…” He shakes his head.
I guess it does sound like a lot. I’ve heard Maren say a million times that she doesn’t care and that she’s happy for Kit, but it’s still going to absolutely suck to have everyone watching her go through it.
“You’re right. I wish there was something I could do, but?—”
“Bro,” says Elijah with an incredulous laugh, “there is.Fucking go up there. Stand by her side. The same way she’s been standing by yours.”
It…never occurred to me that she’d want me there. It never occurred to me that I might help. But if our positions were reversed, she’d be the one person I’d want to lean on.
She shouldn’t have had to ask me.
And I sure as shit shouldn’t have saidno.
I glance at my watch. I can still catch a flight from Charleston to JFK, but it’s a Saturday, which means it’ll take three or four hours to get out to Ulrika’s house. If everything goes to plan, I might catchsomeof the party. If anything goes wrong, I’ll spend a whole day traveling, miss the party, and look like a whipped asshole to everyone who knows why I really did it—namely, myself.
But I already know I’m a whipped asshole, so I guess that’s not much of a loss.
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