Page 11 of Pipe Dreams
Thank God Lauren was away at the beach with her friends from high school. She’d said she wasn’t taking her work phone, either. So texting her wasn’t a temptation. But then, when he knew her vacation was finished (and he knew to the day—what did that mean?) he found himself avoiding the manager’s office. For a week he tinkered around his new place, rearranging the meager furnishings. And he let the guys get him drunk after practice. Beacon was the team captain then. His boys had all been very loyal.
“Crazy bitch! Didn’t know how good she had it.”
“The tennis pro? There’s a fucking cliché.”
His teammates were full of sympathetic grumblings, but not a single thing they said made him feel better. Each time they badmouthed Shelly, he felt uneasy.
Sure, he was pissed off at his soon-to-be-ex for taking down their marriage in such a sleazy fashion. But he also knew she never had it easy. While he was off living the life of a pro athlete, she’d gotten married at eighteen to a teenage boy who was obviously too stupid to use a condom correctly. He was the high school jock who’d knocked up the smartest girl in the class. She’d become a stay-at-home mom instead of going to college, because that’s what all their relatives expected them to do.
Beacon sure didn’t want to be married to her anymore. But he felt a ton of guilt at thereliefit brought him not to have to be.
“Twenty bucks says the tennis pro will drop her by the end of the month,” someone said.
Jesus, no. He hoped the dude in white tennis shorts made her insanely happy.
The night he finally went to see Lauren, he hadn’t even planned it. One moment he was driving around his new neighborhood thinking about where to buy another lonely dinner. The next thing he knew, he was on her side of town, and then on her street. Not once in the eight years they’d known each other had he ever stopped by her house. He onlyknew where it was because it was the manager’s house too. When he saw the light on in her tiny apartment over her father’s garage, he didn’t even hesitate. He parked his car in front of a neighbor’s house and jogged up the driveway.
He tapped on her door having no idea why he was there.
“Just a second!” she called, and the sound of her voice made his pulse quicken. The downside of avoiding her for a week was that he’d made this moment into something bigger than it needed to be. Two friends from work could commiserate about his shitty life, right? It didn’t have to be weird.
The door popped open and he got his first glimpse of Lauren in over a month. She wore a tiny tank top and cut-offs, her hair up in a knot on top of her head. She held an accounting textbook under one tanned arm, and a pair of reading glasses was perched on her nose.
If there was a sexier human on the planet, he’d never met her.
“Hi,” he managed.
Wordlessly, she opened the door wider and he walked in. But when she shut it, Lauren stayed right there, her back to the door, hugging her book. “You okay?”
He flinched. “Yeah. It is what it is.” Stupidest statement ever. They were staring at each other now. The moment stretched and grew heavier. “I, uh, if you’re studying, we can talk another time.”
She looked down at the book in her arms as if she’d never seen it before. “No. It’s okay.” Her blue eyes flew up to his. “Haven’t seen you around,” she said carefully. “Sorry for your troubles.”
“I suppose I’m this month’s gossip at the office.”
“Yeah.” She made a wry face. “They live for this stuff. But only until the next juicy disaster comes along. And there’s always something.”
He nodded. Grief picked that moment to hit him hard. He’d spent almost a decade playing house with Shelly,listening to her complain that she hadn’t gotten the life she’d planned. He’d told himself he was a good man for staying in a loveless marriage.
But what was he now? Just another asshole with a divorce lawyer at five hundo an hour and two houses to pay for. He was really fucking lonely, and there was nobody who knew how he felt. Not his teammates. And not even Lauren, because he couldn’t admit any of the ugly, desperate things in his heart.
He stood there, rooted to her rug, his throat tightening up and his eyes stinging. He needed to find his way back to casual conversation, but the words just couldn’t make it past his teeth.
“Michael,” she whispered. “Hey, now.”
Shit. He rubbed his temples and tried to breathe.
Lauren chewed her lip. “Want a beer?”
“Am I breathing?” he tried, but the joke came out sounding strangled.
She stepped around him, and he got a whiff of the lilac scent that always seemed to follow her. It must be her shampoo or body lotion, or something. He’d always been tortured by it. Tonight it was like an actual pain in the center of his chest.
“Have a seat,” she said over her shoulder.
His eyes tracked her across the room, but when he found his gaze attached to the slim, kissable line of her neck, he shook his head and looked around instead. Lauren lived in one big room, with a peaked ceiling overhead. It was cuter than a room over a garage really should be, and all because of her handiwork. The walls were painted wood, which lent the place a cottage feeling. She’d decorated with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and framed art prints.
On the coffee table sat a vase with a couple of cut hydrangeas arranged in it. Of course. “It’s that color of blue,” she’d said once. “I’ve never seen it anywhere but on a hydrangea.”
