Page 101 of This Time Around
I would die a happy man if this was all I had to live for and carry not a single damn regret of walking away from dreams I’d had my entire life.I just hoped like hell when it was time for me to let Rebecca know, she’d want it just as much as I did.
I took a large, cooling swallow of the sweet drink and turned to Rebecca.
Her feet were propped on the edge of the rock fire pit we hadn’t lit.Her gaze was on the skyline, the setting sun lighting up the sky in pinks and purples mixed with brilliant orange hues.Her drink was still in her lap, her hands wrapped around it, but she hadn’t taken a single drink since we came outside.
“You’re quiet,” I said, noticing for the first time both of us had been.Were her thoughts as heavy as mine, as revealing as mine just were?Or was she able to enjoy the peace and quiet with a blank mind.
The tightening of her lips when I spoke told me her mind was anything but blank.
She brought her glass to her lips and sipped, licking her lips as she settled the glass back in her lap.“Joseph cheated on me.I’ve never told a single person.”
She twisted her head, met my gaze, and looked forward.There wasn’t a single emotion splayed over her features I could name.
Her words knocked the wind and my vocabulary right out of my chest.She loved him.She didn’t hide that.And over the last several weeks, she’d shared so much about her life with him, with me, I sometimes went to bed wondering how in the hell she’d ever move on from him, she loved him so much.
“What?”I shook my head.I had to have misunderstood.
“Ryan knows, but I don’t even think he’s ever told Kelly but if he has, she’s never brought it up to me.”
“Rebecca—”
She shook her head.“Let me get this out.”Her head twisted toward me again and back to the land before I could respond.“I have to get this out.”
I resisted the urge to haul her into my lap and hug her while rage boiled my blood.To Rebecca, Joseph walked on water.She made that clear.And the asshole had cheated on her?What in the fuck was wrong with him?
“We argued the night he died.That was when I found out.He said it had only happened once, but…”
My hand curled into a fist and I leaned forward, setting my drink glass on the fire pit edge before I shattered it.I shifted the chair, turned to face her so I could watch her even if she needed to stare off into the distance to talk to me.
I’d give her whatever she fucking needed.
“The year before that had been hard for us.My parents had died, we were learning how to work together as the ones running this place, not just helping out my dad, and we weren’t really seeing eye-to-eye.He wanted to change things, I wanted to keep everything the same.It was too much, too much stress and fighting after losing my parents.I didn’t know he’d gone to the bar one night and taken Jenni Akers out back, though.The night I found out, I was on his phone and she texted him, saying how much she missed the feel of him.”
God, what a dick.In my mind, the betrayal of seeing Camilla screwing another man flashed and I shook it away.
Rebecca had always said she and I had gone through similar circumstances, I just always took it to mean we both knew the pain of loss…not the sting of betrayal, too.
“I kicked him out that night and he went to Ryan’s.He told him everything, begged him asking how he could fix it with us and even though I’d told him not to come back, he had.He called me, left me a message that said he loved me and he was coming back home so we could talk—” She tripped over her words and I reached for her, settled my hand on her knee so she knew I was there.
She acted like she didn’t feel it, there wasn’t a single twitch of her skin to show she knew I was touching her.She was lost in a sea of horrific memories.I settled in to hear more even though what I’d already heard was enough.
Goddamn it.No fucking wonder she hadn’t been able to move on for so long.
“It’d been raining, and it was unseasonably cold.So damn cold the roads iced over.He hit a patch on a bridge and lost control.”A heavy breath fell from her and her shoulders sagged.She twisted, her gaze landing on me.“I never got answers and I never got closure.He died and the last thing I screamed at him was how much I hated him.”Her chin trembled and I squeezed her knee.God, I wanted to pull her into my arms.“I didn’t hate him.”
Her eyes filled with tears.I took her glass away and pulled her into my lap, cupping her cheeks with my palms.“It’s okay to hate him and be pissed, and it’s okay to still love him, too.No one would judge you for that, Rebecca.”
“I never wanted anyone to know.Not just because I was embarrassed and ashamed, but because I didn’t want that as everyone’s memory of him.”
“So you hid,” I concluded.
I hated that for her, hated she felt like she had to do it to preserve the memory of a dead man who didn’t end up being that great, or at least that faithful of a man, and I hated it more she didn’t feel like she could turn to anyone.
But mostly, I was really fucking honored she was telling me.She was giving me something of hers no one else had and she trusted me with it, trusted me to handle her with care through it.
I pulled her to my chest and hugged her, settling my hand at the back of her head, fingers tangled in her hair while she fought through tears and her memories.
Eventually, she pulled back and wiped beneath her eyes.“When I saw the picture of you last night, you were smiling at Camilla, and it was the same look you’d given me in the photo I saw of us at Down Home.”
