Page 72 of My Favorite Lost Cause
“What makes you think Ididanything? She doesn’t fucking live here, and she’s got to deal with her divorce.” I’m way more defensive than I should be. Probably because he’s right.
“Maren loves it here,” he says. “And she wouldn’t justnot returnunless you’d really fucked up.”
Yeah.
“Fine,” I tell him. “I really fucked up.”
“Idiot,” he mumbles, abandoning his tools and the baseboard as he walks away.
Yeah.
I go to the second floor and return to popping out the tile in the hall bath. What the fuck am I going to do? I don’t want to be here without her, but I also don’t want to be in Manhattan without her. Which is why I should never have agreed to any ofthis. I should have stayed in New York, working long hours, silencing every miserable thought in any way available to me—if you’re empty long enough, you get used to it. You sort of forget what it’s like to be full.
I remember now. I don’t think I can go back to it.
But I still don’t want anything Maren does.
Early in the evening, Elijah shouts up to tell me he’s leaving, and I walk down to the porch. I’m still pissed that he asked me what I’d done to keep Maren away. Even if he was entirely correct.
He starts telling me the plan for tomorrow. Something about cloth-wrapped wire that didn’t pass inspection and leaking ducts.
“You’ve also got to decide if you want to expand the bathroom in the primary,” he adds. “I know it’s an additional cost, but if you’re thinking about flipping this place, no one’s going to want a bathroom that small.”
The scope of the job just gets bigger and bigger.Why am I dumping every penny I’ve got into this bullshit? I don’t want this house, and it’ll never sell for what I’ve put into it. I did the whole damn thing for?—
The gravel rumbles ahead of us—a car approaching. Elijah and I both glance to the road just as a black town car swerves into the drive.
Two squirming puppies leap from the back seat, followed by Maren, blushing as her eyes meet mine.
What does it mean—that look? The fact that she’s here at all?
“It appears,” Elijah says quietly, “that you didn’t fuck up as bad as we thought.”
Echo and Narcy run up the steps and jump at my feet. With a reluctant smile I squat and pet them both while Elijah greets Maren and heads to his truck. I rise, a puppy under each arm, just as she reaches me.
“I picked up Thai,” she says, holding a paper bag aloft, her gaze uncertain. “I assumed you hadn’t eaten.”
I don’t have a clue what it means that she’s here. And it’s stupid and selfish, but...I’m so fucking glad I was honest on the tarmac. All that matters is that she’s come back.
32
MAREN
Whatis happening right now?
I’m sitting across from Charlie at the small table on the back porch, politely eating my Thai food and drinking the chilled white wine he’s poured in a glass, and I have no clue what’s next.
He hasn’t referenced the kiss. He hasn’t tried to do it again. The air is heavy with hours of longing—and who am I kidding, it’s beenweeksof longing on my end—but maybe it’s all in my head.
Who knows why he did it? Maybe it was just a ploy to keep me from making some life-changing mistake with Andrew, though he hasn’t asked about him at all.
“Did you spend some time with Kit today?” he asks.
I draw a line through the condensation on my glass. “We got lunch before I left.”
His gaze darts to mine as the words register.
There. I’ve admitted, sort of, that I cancelled the lunch with Andrew, but I’m suddenly too nervous to let it hang there or to hear what he says in response.
