Page 121 of Seven Year Itch
“Oh, get over it. We all knew Randal was a pig, and we kept our mouths shut too,” Cozy snaps, her tone completely unapologetic.
“I resent that on behalf of Sir Reginald,” Trista chimes in to defend her potbelly pig.
“I like your pig more than I liked Randal.”
My jaw drops. “Cozy, you were my maid of honor!”
“I know! It sucked. Randal only cared about himself always. It was awful.”
“How could you not tell me how you felt about him?”
“Because you were my best friend, and I loved you too much to risk losing you.” Her anger morphs to one of tenderness as she leans against the counter. “It would kill me to lose you as a friend, just like it would have killed Calder to hurt you.”
My eyes sting as I shake my head, refusing to believe this about Calder. “You’re wrong. He’s not into me like that. Like I believe he cares about me, but not in the ways that matter. He cares about me like he cares about his cat. He likes me for company, but beyond that... I’m still just an expendable pet.”
“Spoken like someone who doesn’t have a pet.” Trista sputters out a laugh and slaps her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, but that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Why?”
“Just a petisn’t a phrase you can use with someone like me. Sayingjust a petis like saying Stevie isjust a baby. There are people who would kill for their pets, Dakota. And I’m telling you... Calder would kill for Milkshake. My God, he takes her for cat walks.”
“I know! That’s crazy!” I exclaim like somehow that makes my point.
“That’s love!” Cozy bellows, splaying her hands out on my counter. “And I’m not sure you can recognize it when you see it, because you never truly had it.”
I wince and shake my head, rejecting everything she’s implying. Randal loved me in the beginning. Otherwise, why would he have proposed and moved in with me and married me?
Although, when I think about it long and hard, his love was conditional. When my appearance changed, he changed. In the beginning, when I was thinner, I was this prize he liked to escort around town on his arm. And as I gained a little weight... hepulled away, and we started doing things separately more often. Was it because he didn’t like how I looked, and that’s why he didn’t want to have me with him? It certainly would track with all the comments he made about my body.
He really was a pig.
“None of this changes anything about me and Calder,” I argue, feeling bone-tired with my own thoughts. “If he loved me, I’d know it. All the nice things he did for me were probably because he felt guilty for not speaking up about something that could have changed the course of my entire life.”
“Is your life really that bad that you aren’t happy with exactly where you are?” Trista asks, her voice firm as her eyes pierce me with challenge. “You have a beautiful home, a successful business, great friends. I would have killed to have a fraction of this success just a year ago. Plus, you just won an award. All signs point to you being exactly where you are meant to be, Dakota. Life has a funny way of shoving us in directions we never would have expected to go. Hell, I never planned to have children. I was so certain of that, I thought I could be a surrogate and save some money. And if I was a surrogate for any other man, I would have been fine giving the baby up. But Wyatt changed all of that for me. He made me feel safe enough to begin a new journey with him and Stevie.”
“But I don’t feel safe,” I cry, tears running down my face as I say the most gut-wrenching words that I haven’t had the guts to say out loud. “I don’t feel safe with him. I feel terrified.”
“Of what, exactly?” Cozy asks, her eyes red-rimmed as she looks at me with so much sympathy, I feel myself crack down the middle.
“Of truly being in love for the first time in my life.” I cover my face as I admit the ugly truth. The truth that I’ve never even admitted to myself until now. “With Randal, it was simple. My heart wasn’t as deeply involved. I was in myfuck the patriarchyera when I met him, and I always kept him at a safe distance. So much so, the divorce didn’t really shake me. I was sort of excited to pick up the pieces of my life and take steps to find myself again. But withCalder...” My voice cracks as an ache blooms through my chest that feels like it could take my breath away. “If he breaks my heart, I don’t know if I’ll recover.”
Cozy reaches out and grabs my hand, her face bending in a way that’s so mothering and so nurturing, the tears just flow harder. “You will recover because you have us.”
I drop my forehead onto our clasped hands, desperately trying to soak up all the strength she’s sending me when she adds, “Just keep being the stunning woman I saw on stage Friday night, and continue fucking the patriarchy one mountain man at a time, okay?”
“What does that even mean?” An unexpected laugh escapes me and I sniff my running nose.
She giggles back. “You’ll figure it out.”
Chapter 42
Special Delivery
Calder
“Hold your fucking end up, Luke!” I growl at my brother as he helps me lift the giant shelving unit down from the bed of my pickup. “Goddammit! What’s wrong with you?”
“All right, fuck this,” Luke growls, dropping his end and letting it smack down onto the concrete. “I’m not going to help your moody ass move this shelf one more inch.”
