“Micah, please?” he asks, his voice sounding weak and desperate.
“Only for an hour or two,” I say. “My grandmother isn’t doing well, so I don’t want to be gone long.”
“That’s totally fine. Thank you, Micah. I miss you.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”
* * *
Nana is tired, so I put her to bed and tell her I’m going out to meet friends. I put on a low-cut lavender shirt with long sleeves to hide my arms, thankful it’s finally getting cooler outside and I can cover up without sweating to death. Rhodes calls on the drive, but instead of lying to him, I ignore the call completely.
When I get to Montgomery, I check my makeup in the rearview mirror and head up to Garrett’s apartment. He’s in running shorts and a plain white t-shirt, and gives me a big hug when he sees me.
“God, I’m so happy you’re here,” he says. “It’s been a shit week, and you’re the only one I’ve wanted to talk to.”
“Tell me what happened,” I say.
We sit on his couch. I have to move a pile of dirty clothes and his video game controllers to clear a spot, but I figure he’s been too stressed to worry about the state of his apartment. He relays a whole story about how some of his employees got together and decided they’d make more money from a lawsuit than actually working, so they purposely started performing poorly to bait him into firing them. He did, and they sued.
“There’s some other money-grab schemes going on too, but I don’t want to get into it. I guess when you’re this successful, everyone wants to try to take it away. It sucks, because I worked so hard to build this company from the ground up all by myself. I don’t deserve this.”
The lines his face are tense and I can tell he hasn’t been sleeping. I put my arm around him and he rubs my jeans-clad leg.
“It’ll be okay,” I say. “If you haven’t done anything wrong, they won’t win.”
“What do you mean,ifI haven’t done anything wrong?” He’s suddenly defensive and pulls away. “Of course I haven’t.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I say, taken aback by his combativeness. “I was only trying to say you have nothing to worry about. The truth will out, as they say.”
“The truth will out? I’ve never heard that before in my life.”
“It’s from Shakespeare.”
He shakes his head in a dismissive way. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he says. “Let’s go lay down.”
We go to the bedroom and, for a little while at least, he’s able to push his troubles aside and focus on being with me. It makes me happy to feel needed and wanted in a way I’ve never felt with him, and I feel closer to him now than ever before. I close my eyes and push away all my worries about Nana and the enormous guilt when I think of Rhodes.
* * *
Ileave after a few hours. When I finally get home, Nana is snoring in bed and seems to be doing fine. I collapse in my room and my head spins. During the entire drive, all I could think about was how I’ve complicated everything with Rhodes. It makes me feel gross. I shouldn’t have gone to Montgomery. It wasn’t fair to Rhodes…or myself.
Reluctantly, I listen to a voicemail Rhodes left earlier. At the sound of his voice, I close my eyes and shake my head. He simply wanted to tell me to have a good night and he can’t wait to see me again. I know we’re not official, but it would hurt him to know what I’ve done tonight. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.
I delete his voicemail, crawl under the covers, and close my eyes. When I dream, it’s of Rhodes.
RHODES
The next few weeks fly by as I travel from Memphis to Louisville to Atlanta and Nashville. I even have a trip to New Orleans the week before Thanksgiving. Each of these projects is so unique and I’m absolutely loving getting to see these old buildings and dreaming about how we can bring each one back to life. It’s exhilarating, not to mention validating every business decision I’ve made since I left my corporate job. Professionally, I’m having the time of my life.
Still, I miss Micah. This travel has taken me away from her, and I can’t help but feel like she’s slipping away. When we text, it takes her a while to reply. She usually answers when I call, but she seems distant and distracted. Part of me thinks she still may be seeing that other guy, which wouldn’t technically be a betrayal since we haven’t defined what it is we’re doing. I really have no right to expect anything from her.
I just cannot stop thinking about our kiss. It was nuclear. That has to be a sign, right?
But what do I know? I’ve been out of the dating game for decades, and even before I was married, I had very little experience. This is all brand new for me.
I finally have a break while I’m waiting for responses to all the proposals I’ve sent out, so I decide to drive to Magnolia Row for the weekend. We’re finally into October, so the heat isn’t as oppressive as it was when I first started traveling there. In addition to seeing Micah, I’ll finally get a chance to see the progress on the hotel. Jaxon found some great local contractors to work with and all our permits and plans were approved, so we’re full speed ahead.
I call Micah the weekend before to see if she’ll be able to see me.
