“Yeah, like fucking a gorgeous, sexy, incredibly talented, and perfectly endowed man is the typical definition for a meltdown,” I muttered, shoving the pod into the coffee maker and then waiting as my mug filled. And maybe me being interested in Garret, me sleeping with him couldn’t be considered a meltdown. But, running off afterward could be, and breaking down into sobs in his arms then sharing the sordid details of my past definitely should be.

  Sigh.

  Coffee first.

  Berating could continue afterward.

  Once my mug was full, I carried it over to the table and set about the arduous task of syncing my paper and digital calendars.

  Most of my business was set up through Yelp and my website, customers scheduling or requesting appointments and then those times dropping right into my phone’s calendar, complete with address information and reminders.

  But I also preferred to have something tangible on my wall.

  A printout of my week posted just inside my door, so I knew what was coming.

  And just looking down at Monday of the next week, I knew I’d already taken on too much. Back-to-back appointments, several new job bids scheduled for the evening, and the rest of the week wasn’t much better. I’d barely be able to make it to all the jobs on time, let alone have any sort of padding if things didn’t go to plan.

  Or if I planned to eat lunch.

  Or if I wanted to work less than fourteen-hour days.

  “Too much,” I muttered, writing everything down and starring those that I definitely needed to shift around. Normally, I loved hiding in my job, getting lost running from appointment to appointment—I was saving up for that new apartment after all.

  But . . . did I really want the apartment?

  Did I really need something larger when I didn’t fill the space I was in now?

  A sigh as I set down my pen. I knew the answer was no, just as I knew that I shouldn’t be working the long days for weeks on end. But also, what else did I have to do? I had Tig and Delia, but they had their own life. I had Dave, but he was just as busy. I had—

  No one.

  No one in my sad, empty apartment. No one who gave a shit if I worked long-ass days.

  I’d set the goal of purchasing the apartment because it was in the neighborhood I’d grown up in . . . but that utopia didn’t exist any longer, did it? My parents were gone, my childhood wasn’t coming back, and I was working toward something I wasn’t sure I even wanted.

  And my current apartment was fine.

  It was safe, had enough space for one person, and I barely spent any time in it as it was. So, what was the rush to move on to bigger and better things? Why didn’t I put the money toward traveling? Why was I holding on to the rest of my trust fund instead of spending it? I had a job and could cover my expenses if something came up. I was twenty-eight years old and had never been out of the country, never even been further than New Jersey.

  What was I waiting for?

  Why didn’t I just throw caution to the wind and live my life?

  I didn’t know.

  “No,” I muttered, taking my mug to the coffee pot and making another cup. “I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  Because it always did.

  My eyes fell to the envelope shoved into the corner of the counter. I’d opened the flap, read through as much of the legalese as I could manage, and had come to the conclusion that the end was near for my grandmother based on the language, but I hadn’t torn open the smaller envelope inside it.

  The one with Charlotte scrawled on the outside.

  Charlotte, not Charlie, and just seeing the name that no one ever referred to me by, had me instinctively understanding that what was inside wasn’t anything legal.

  It was personal.

  So I’d left it alone.

  Now I had to wonder if this was the proverbial shoe I was waiting for.

  “I’ve already had inappropriate sex with an inappropriate man,” I muttered, blowing on the hot coffee before grabbing the envelope and taking both with me back to the table. “So, fuck it all, let’s do this.”

  Mug down.

  Envelope flap torn open.

  Paper extracted from inside.

  I never would have been able to predict what was folded in that sheet of crisp, white paper.

  A tumble of photographs fell to my table, a chaotic flash of colors and shapes, and immediately my eyes filled with tears. I jerked the paper open, saw what was written inside, and felt my heart pulse.

  I thought you might want these as I don’t need them anymore.

  I ran my finger over one of the large swirling curves of the single sentence. No signature, but I knew it was from my grandmother. The elegant handwriting fit right in with the woman who’d worn that navy suit with its pumps, who’d put on a pearl necklace to come and meet her grandchild, who’d been so frosty cold and detached that she then had left without a backward glance.

  “I don’t need—” I sighed.

  I’d thought that the only reason she might have made me heir was because she was dying, and the end was imminent. As far as I knew, we were still each other’s only living biological relative.

  But—and this was supremely stupid of me—because I’d also hoped that I wasn’t right.

  I’d been idiotically holding on to this little slice of hope that somehow it had all been a horrible mistake that she felt guilty about and this letter would be begging me to absolve her of her sins, to forgive her. Or maybe it would be her prayer that the two of us might be able to be a real family after all.

  And that was not to be.

  I sighed.

  Of course, it wasn’t.

  First, I didn’t think I could ever forgive her for what she’d done.

  Second, I didn’t think I could ever forgive her for waiting seventeen years before reaching out—and no, I also didn’t consider her providing me with the legal paperwork for the trust or for this inheritance as reaching out. For all I knew, she hadn’t been involved.

  That was all the lawyers.

  Nothing to do with her or me.

  With another sigh, I carefully shut those doors in my heart and my mind and then set the paper aside to focus on the photographs.

  My mother at various ages. My throat went tight as I carefully spread them out on the table in front of me, oddly touched. I didn’t have this. I’d been allowed to pack up one suitcase when I’d gone into care, and an eleven-year-old didn’t think to bring a lot of pictures. I’d been coaxed by the social worker into bringing clothes and toiletries alongside the stuffed animals I’d crammed into my bag. The kind woman had also put in a family photo, something I’d been incredibly grateful for over the years.

  But I didn’t know where the rest of the apartment’s contents had gone.

  Sold?

  Left behind and trashed?

  Put into storage somewhere?

  I’d given up on the last when the trust paperwork had come. The assets listed weren’t physical, just the monetary lump sum I’d used to get set up where I was now.

  So, sold or trashed.

  But now I had these.

  Swallowing hard, I studied each of the pictures carefully. They were a study in age—my mother as a baby; as a toddler in braided pigtails posing next to a large wooden block with the letter A painted on it; in a navy sweater and plaid skirt, her hair perfectly straight, teeth covered in braces; in a stunning black prom dress; and then in the final one, holding a bouquet of orchids while wearing a poufy wedding dress that was decidedly nineties, albeit without any extraneous headbands or hair-crimping.

  I glanced at my arm, to the formerly unmarked skin on my left forearm.

  Orchids.

  Well, the outline of them anyway.

  My breath caught, the tears I’d been holding back slipped free.

  Precious.

  These were absolutely precious.

  I studied the photos through my tears, memorizing every detail I could manage through the watery lens, trying to commit them to memory, wanting to be able to recall them whenever I missed my mother.

  Then I carefully tucked them back into the smaller envelope, folded the paper back into thirds, put it into the bigger one, and wiped my eyes.

  Standing, I grabbed both and carefully brought them to my file cabinet, tucking them safely away before pulling out a card I’d only used once, at twenty-five. I brought it back to the table, called the number on the front, and scheduled an appointment into my already over-filled calendar.

  Only this one was with my lawyer.

  So, I’d make sure not to be late.

  Fourteen

  Garret

  “I don’t know why you keep insisting on doing this, Garret.”

  I shouldn’t have answered the phone.

  I knew that approximately a heartbeat after I’d swiped my finger across the screen, right before I’d put it up to my ear and heard Lorna’s voice. Sharp edges, tearing syllables, harshness in every word.

  As though, I’d been the one to ruin our relationship.

  “I’m hanging up now, Lorna,” I said, wiping the sleep from my eyes, knowing the fact that I’d answered the phone at all at such an ungodly hour was some old instinct in knowing the only person who’d ever called so early was my ex-fiancée. Trained to heel, wanting a relationship to work so badly that I’d been willing to accept something that only made me miserable.

  “Wait!”

  I sighed, finger hovering over the red dot to end the call.

  “I made a mistake.”

  My lids closed, knowing a year ago I might have believed the words. Now, I knew too much. “I thought you’d moved on,” I pointed out, “to bigger and better things.”

  Named Charlie. Sigh.

  Silence.

  “No one was better than you.”

  “Lie.” A beat, probably because she was reeling from the fact that my tone had gone sharp. I didn’t use sharp with Lorna. I tiptoed, went easy, tried to placate her as much as possible so I’d keep Nice Lorna around and Raging Bitch Lorna safely stowed. Well, fuck it. I was done with tiptoeing, done with catering to her ever-changing moods and motivations. I kept my tone sharp. “If you really thought I was so great, you wouldn’t have tried to fuck anyone in the vicinity. Now, I’m hanging up—”

  “I was messed up.” A sob. Oh, great. She’d skipped Raging Bitch for the moment and had gone to Sad and Troubled. “My mom—”

  “I know all about your mom,” I said. “And I’m sorry your childhood sucked. But I did everything I could to make you happy—”

  “You did not!” she screeched, and as was typical Lorna, the Raging Bitch switch had flipped. Of course, she’d gone from sweet to crazy so many times in our relationship that I wasn’t fazed. Once I would have tried to draw out the sweet, keep going with that placating and tiptoeing, but today . . . no more.

  “You were always like ‘Lorna, you shouldn’t do that. Lorna, you should change jobs—'”

  “You said your job made you miserable,” I pointed out.

  “You made me miserable,” she snapped then began crying. Ah. Now here was Sob-Story Lorna, using her tears to get her way. Except, my will didn’t melt, like it used to against her attempts to manipulate me.

  “You always make me say these horrible things. You bring out the w-worst in people, Garret Thompson. All I ever wanted was to make it work between us, but you were like a toxin, poisoning everything you touched.”

  And yet, why didn’t I hang up?

  Why was I still listening to this?

  It didn’t make any sense, but there was a part of me that wanted to hear this. Maybe it was self-punishing. Maybe it was a desire to understand why something I’d thought had been so perfect in the beginning had morphed into something so horrible.

  Maybe I finally was cluing into the fact that Lorna was fucked up and trying to drag me down with her.

  Maybe, I had finally realized I’d had enough.

  “You know that I’m right, Garret,” Lorna continued, spitting vitriol. “You know you’re bad.”

  My finger started to descend.

  “You know that because not even your family wants anything to do with you.”

  That wasn’t the hit that knocked me for a loop, though it did ding that protective shell. I’d almost imploded my family because I’d trusted someone else over them, over myself, and I still felt guilty and idiotic for not having put my trust in the right person. I should have known better.

  “You know that you’re toxic because as soon as you were on this planet, your dad knew he’d had enough of you.” Her voice was cold now, calculating and slicing. “He couldn’t even wait until you were done sucking at your mother’s tit.”

  Lorna and I had been together for a long time, since middle school.

  Long enough for her to know that me not having my dad around had seriously hurt, that I’d always wondered why and if his leaving was my fault, and when I’d discovered the truth, had all my fears confirmed . . .

  And that was when I realized this was about more than a woman.

  This was about me.

  I was the youngest child, the surprise, and the harbinger of all the clichés—the straw who broke the camel’s back, the final nail in the coffin, the knock-out punch. I’d been the one to bring that all about. I was the child they’d never wanted, and I was the one to break everything apart.

  I was the toxin.

  Me.

  My finger finished falling. It collided with that red circle, ending the call, cutting off those sharp words.

  But though the noise stopped, the sentiment continued to bounce around in my head.

  Toxic.

  Me.

  I’d thought that Charlie needed the healing. Now, I thought that maybe she’d dodged a bullet when she’d run away.

  “No,” I muttered, hitting the reject button when my cell immediately began ringing again and then tossing it to the side. “This is more Lorna poison, more fucking gaslighting, making me think it was all my fault,” I said, stronger now, pushing the words to the side. “This is not you, so stop with the bullshit.”

  It was almost a mantra for how many times I’d repeated the sentiment over the last year.

  But this time, just like all the other times, I wasn’t sure it took.

  “Enough,” I growled and yanked the covers up and over my head. I forced my eyes to close and sleep to take me back under. “No more Lorna. No more bullshit. Just keep your head down and keep moving forward.”

  I glanced around, looking for the long brown tail of Charlie’s hair, listening for the banging of pipes coming from the hallway.

  “She’s not here.”

  Quickly, I jerked my head back, saw that Tig was staring down at me knowingly. “You didn’t stay away from her, did you? I told you—”

  “Leave it, Tig.”

  I was in full Lorna-hangover mode, and looking for Charlie was my Bloody Mary in the morning equivalent of a cure. I wanted to reassure myself that I wasn’t what Lorna said, that all the crap she’d been spouting was just that, crap. Sighing, I started searching through my drawers, pulling things out that I didn’t need for my client but would keep me busy anyway.

  “She called in sick.”

  My hands froze for a few seconds. “What?”

  “You’re looking all guilty and forlorn,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re not the reason she’s out sick today.” He rolled his eyes. “She’s got Delia convinced because she refused a delivery of her favorite artisan grilled cheese—or whatever that was—but I know better. Something’s up, and it has your M.O. written all over it.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  Except, it didn’t sound convincing, even to me.

  I knew exactly why Charlie wasn’t here.

  Me.

  “Dude,” he said. “I think you forget that I saw you with your ex. That shit was fucked, you two were totally toxic—”

  Outwardly, I’m sure my face was calm, but inside? Inside, my heart was sinking. Tig thought I was toxic. Fuck. Maybe I was. I certainly had fucked with Charlie. She’d called in sick to a job she enjoyed, for a person she valued as a close friend . . . because of me.

  I’d pushed. I’d forced some sort of emotional connection with the physical.

  And now I’d broken something in her.

  I’d been like Lorna said, shoving, forcing my way forward, not giving a shit who I decimated along the way—

  She came to you. She asked you to kiss her.

  It didn’t matter. I should have known better. She’d been vulnerable, her past thrown in her face, and I’d known that I shouldn’t give in to my desires. It hadn’t been the right time . . . and now she was running from me, from her work, from her life.

  Isn’t that what you’re doing?

  “Shut up,” I muttered under my breath.

  We’d slept together and yes, it had been fucking incredible, but it had also been too much for her. I’d known that, and I’d still gone there.

  Selfish, again.

  Toxic, again.

  But instead of ruining my own life because I’d lost myself and was unwilling to see the truth, now I was threatening the livelihood of a woman I respected and cared for. A person who was the most intriguing mix of contradictions, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, who was funny and . . . wounded.

  She’d shared her past.

  And I’d trampled all over it, injected it with my particular form of venom.

  Fuck.

  My hands clenched into fists at my side.

  “But man, Charlie—” Tig sighed. “She’s not like Lorna. She’s—”

  “Special,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. It wasn’t a truth I didn’t already understand. “Yeah, I know.” A beat, Tig’s eyes still heavy on mine, and I gritted my teeth. “I’m reading you loud and clear. I’ll leave her alone. I’ll be moving on in a few weeks anyway.”

  Tig froze, brows drawing together. “I thought you were considering staying on for a while.”