The Last Boyfriend

Chapter Sixteen

Owen opted to work in the shop. It gave him time to think—okay, maybe brood was the word, but he felt entitled.

Just as he started to take the next steps, she pulled back. What kind of sense did that make? While he makes the effort not to let things just slide, to be sure he wasn’t taking her for granted, to treat their relationship like a damn relationship, she’s suddenly too busy to spare ten minutes of her time.

“What kind of bullshit is that?” he demanded of Cus, and got a sympathetic tail thump as an answer.

He measured his board, marked it, and remeasured automatically before feeding it into the saw.

“She likes being busy,” he continued over the scream of the blade. “She likes the freaking chaos of a crazy schedule. But out of the blue she doesn’t have time, not to go out, to stay in, to have a goddamn conversation.”

He switched off the saw, stacked his board, pulled down his safety goggles. “Women are a pain in the ass.”

But Avery never had been, wasn’t supposed to be. So it all made less sense.

Something was up with her. Didn’t she get he could see it? Avoiding him, making excuses, closing off when she’d always been up front. She was acting like . . .

“Uh-oh.”

He’d started taking her out, making plans. Christ, he’d given her jewelry. He’d changed the balance—was that it? She didn’t want that next step. Everything had been fine, had been smooth until he’d started treating their thing like a thing.

Casual and easy, all good. Add a few shades of serious, and she pulls the plug. Just sex, fine, but try a little—romance, he supposed—and she shuts the door.

And made him look, made him feel, like an imbecile.

Couldn’t she have told him if she wanted to keep things simple? Didn’t he, and a lifetime of friendship, rate that?

Plus, fuck it, didn’t he have a say in the whole business?

Damn right he did.

“I’m not her damn sex toy.”

“Words a mother longs to hear from her beloved son.”

On a wince, Owen shoved his hands in his pockets. “Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Owen.” Justine closed the shop door behind her, rubbed her chilled hands together. “What’s going on?”

“Just working on one of the built-ins for Beck’s place.”

“You’re a good brother.”

“Yeah, well. I had some time. I didn’t see your car when I came in.”

“I just got back.” Both dogs wandered over to press against her, tails batting. “I was over at Willy B’s. I took him some dinner, gave him a sounding board. I’m surprised you’re being a good brother instead of doing the same for Avery.”

“What? Why?”

“They . . . Hmm. Avery hasn’t talked to you about anything?”

“That’s exactly right.” Annoyed, he pulled off the goggles. “She hasn’t talked to me about anything. At all. Too busy, not enough time. What the hell is going on?”

“That’s a question for her. Go ask it.”

“Mom, come on.”

“Baby, this is something Avery should talk to you about. If she doesn’t, then I will. But she should tell you. The fact is, from where I’m standing, she should have talked to you already.”

“You’re starting to freak me out. Is she sick?”

“No, no. Stubborn, I’d say, and wrongheaded.” Moving to him, Justine sighed a little. “You’re a practical man, Owen. God knows how that happened. I don’t know whether to tell you to be practical or not when you talk to her, but I will tell you to try to be patient.”

“Is she in trouble?”

“No, but she’s troubled. Go, talk to her. And later, you and I, we’ll have a talk, too. Go on,” she said when he grabbed his coat. “I’ll get the lights.”

She watched him go, rubbing the heads of the dogs that leaned against either side of her. “He’s in love with her. It’s all over him. But he hasn’t figured it out yet, and she sure as hell hasn’t figured it out.”

Standing in the scent of sawdust, wood oil, Justine all but felt Tommy’s cheek against hers—and closed her eyes to hold on to it, for just a moment.

“It was easier for you and me, wasn’t it, Tommy? We didn’t do all that thinking. Ah well, come on, boys, let’s close up shop.”

He checked the restaurant first. Dave worked behind the counter, tossing dough.

“Is Avery in the back?” Owen asked him.

“Out on deliveries. We haven’t got a delivery guy yet.”

“Are you closing tonight?”

“Avery is.”

“Will you close?”

Dave raised his eyebrows and a ladle of sauce. “Sure, if—”

“Good.” Owen pulled out his phone, stepped away from the counter as he punched Beckett’s number. “I need a favor.”

When Avery came in twenty minutes later, flushed from the cold, Owen was sitting at the counter nursing a beer.

“We got some flurries coming down,” she began. “Not sticking to the roads yet so we should be all right on deliveries for . . .”

He saw her spot him, saw her hesitate. And thought: Fuck this.

“Hey, Owen.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“I’m on deliveries.” She gestured with the insulated bags she carried before stacking them. “Let me just—”

He rose, left his beer. “Out here,” he said, and taking her hand, pulled her toward the stairway door.

“I’ve got to move the deliveries out.”

“Beckett’s filling in.”

“What? No, he’s not, I’m—”

“Going to have a conversation with me. Now.”

“I’ll have a conversation with you later. I’ve got deliveries, and I’ve got to close tonight, so—”

“Beckett’s on deliveries. Dave’s closing.”

He knew that light of battle in her eyes, and at the moment welcomed it.

“I run this shop. You don’t.”

“It’s running, and you can go back to it after we talk.”

“This is just bullshit.”

She started to push by him.

“Yeah, it is.” To simplify things, he boosted her up, over his shoulder, and started up the stairs.

“Have you lost your mind?” She bucked, shoved. “I’ll kick your ass.”

“Keep it up and I’ll end up dropping you on your head. It might be an improvement.” Clamping down on her legs, he pulled out keys with his free hand, juggled out his set to her apartment.

“Owen, I’m warning you.”

He shoved the door open, booted it closed.

He knew her temper all too well. She’d punch, kick, and wasn’t above biting. Since he didn’t want her teeth marks on him—again—and didn’t want to hurt her, he considered his options.

Superior weight and reach, he decided, and hauled her into the bedroom.

“Don’t you even think about—”

The rest of the words came out in a whooshing grunt as he dumped her on the bed, laid on top of her, and clamped her arms down.

“Just calm down,” he suggested.

“My ass!”

She could be quick as a snake and sneaky as a shark, so he kept all his body parts out of range of her teeth. “Calm the hell down and we’ll talk. I’m not letting you up until you promise not to hit or bite or kick—or throw anything.”

The light of battle escalated to an explosion of full-out war. “What gives you the right? Do you think you can come into my place, give orders, tell me what to do and how to do it? In front of my crew?”

“No, I don’t, and I’m sorry. But you didn’t give me much choice.”

“I’ll give you a choice. Get the hell out, now.”

“Do you think you’re the only one who’s pissed? I can stay like this all night, or you can pull yourself together and we’ll straighten this out like normal people.”

“You’re hurting me.”

“No, I’m not.”

Her chin wobbled. “My burn . . .”

“Shit.” Instinctively he loosened his hold.

It was all she needed.

Quick as a snake, sneaky as a shark. She sank teeth in the back of his hand.

He cursed, hissed in air as he wrestled her down again. “Jesus, you drew blood.”

“I’ll draw more in a minute.”

“Fine.” His hand ached like a bad tooth, infuriating him. “This is the way you want it. I’ll just hold you down while I do the talking. I want to know what’s wrong with you.”

“What’s wrong with me? You drag me out of my place of business, you manhandle me, shove me around—”

“I didn’t shove you. Yet. And I mean what’s been wrong with you, before this?”

Turning her head away, she stared daggers at the wall. “I’m not talking to you.”

“Exactly, and you haven’t been, essentially, for the better part of a week. If I screwed up I need to know it. If you don’t want to be with me the way we’ve been, or move forward on it, I deserve to know that, too. I deserve a goddamn conversation with you, Avery, one way or the other.”

“It’s not about you, or us, or that.”

But wasn’t it? she realized. On some level, wasn’t it—because she’d let it be.

She closed her eyes. She was sick of it. Sick of herself.

She’d hurt him. She could see that clearly enough now that she looked beyond her own bruises. And he’d done nothing to earn it.

“Something’s wrong. You have to tell me.”

“Let me up, Owen. I can’t talk like this.”

He eased back, cautious, but she only shifted, sat up. Then dropped her head in her hands.

“Is it the pizza shop?” He couldn’t think of anything else. “If you’ve got some cash flow problems, or—”

“No. No. I’m doing all right.” She rose to pull off her coat and the rest of her outdoor gear. “You know my grandmother set up that trust for me after my mother left. I guess part of it was guilt, though she didn’t have anything to be guilty about. Still, I’m next in line, so . . .” She shrugged. “It meant I could open Vesta, and it means I can have the new place. I just have to make them work.”

“Is your grandmother sick?”

“No. Why . . .” He asked, she realized, because she stalled telling him the reasons. “No one’s sick. You didn’t screw up.”

“Then what?”

“My mother came to see me.”

“Your mother? When?”

“She was waiting for me, on the stairs, the night I got home from shopping with Clare and Hope. It really didn’t go well.”

She came back, sat on the bed beside him, linked her fingers in her lap to keep them steady. “I didn’t even recognize her. I didn’t know who she was until she told me.”

“It’s been a long time.”

“I don’t know, maybe I’d blocked her face out of my head. Once I really looked, she hadn’t changed that much. She said she wanted to see me, she was sorry. I wasn’t having it. She cried a lot. It didn’t touch me.”

“Why should it?”

“She was pregnant when they got married. I knew that—I’d done the math. And I talked to my father about it a long time ago. They loved each other, he said, and from his side it must’ve been true. Maybe she thought she loved him. She pushed how young she was, just nineteen, but Dad was barely twenty-one. He was young, but he handled it.”

In comfort, Owen rubbed a hand on her thigh. “Willy B’s a hell of a guy.”

“Yeah, okay, yeah.” She swiped at a tear, hating it. “I was a fussy baby, she had too much to do, she wasn’t happy. Blah, blah, fucking blah. Then she drops the bombshell of how she’d had an abortion when I was around three.”

Now Owen laid a hand over hers. “That’s a hard thing to hear.”

“Yeah, I bet it was a lot harder for my father to hear—after the fact. She went, had an abortion, had her tubes tied, and never discussed those decisions with him. Never told him she was pregnant. Who does that?” she demanded, turning drenched eyes to him. “Who treats someone that way? She knew he wanted more kids, but she ended that possibility without telling him. It’s another, horrible kind of cheating.”

He said nothing, but got up, found a box of tissues in the bathroom and brought them to her.

“Thanks. Crying about it doesn’t help, but I can’t get a handle on it yet.”

“Then maybe crying about it does help.”

“According to her, what she’d done came out when they were fighting, and gee, he was upset and mad. What are the odds? She agreed to marriage counseling, but hey, she felt trapped and unhappy. So she had an affair. And another. She admitted to two, but there were more than two, Owen, before she left. Even I figured that out.”

She looked at him now. “You knew. Pretty much everyone knew she was fooling around.”

He considered a moment, looking into those devastated eyes. She didn’t want soothing evasions. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“My mother, the town slut. It was easier, really, when she left.”

This time he took her hand, brought it to his lips. “It’s never easy.”

“Maybe not, but at least it wasn’t in my father’s face, in mine, anymore. She stayed with the guy she left us for. That’s what she said, and it felt true. Steve. That was his name. I got all the how unhappy she’d been, how she’d needed more. How she loved this Steve guy.”

“She can justify what she did with that, to herself. You don’t have to accept it. You feel what you feel.”

“I felt hard. I didn’t like feeling it, but I did. I got lots of sorrys, lots of how pretty I am, how proud she is of what I’ve done with my life. Like she had something to do with it. Then it came out this Steve died, a few months ago.”

“So she’s alone,” Owen murmured.

“Yeah, and broke. That came out, too, when she asked if she could borrow a few thousand.”

He pushed up, walked to her window, stared out at the thickening snow. He couldn’t imagine, just couldn’t imagine a parent using a child for gain.

But he could imagine just how deep a wound it would score, especially in someone like Avery. “What did you do?”

“I said a lot of pretty harsh things. She cried more, Jesus, and begged. She wanted to stay here, with me. A couple weeks, she said, then just for the night. It made me sick, all of it, just sick. I gave her what I had in my wallet and kicked her out.”

“You did what you had to do, and that’s more than a lot of people would have.” He turned back. “Why didn’t you tell me, Avery? Why did you push me away instead of letting me help?”

“I didn’t tell anyone at first. I just couldn’t.”

He walked back, stood in front of her. “I’m not anyone.”

“You can’t understand, Owen. You can sympathize, and I wasn’t looking for sympathy. I don’t think I could’ve handled sympathy. But you can’t understand because you’ve never felt unwanted, not once in your life. You always knew your parents loved you, would’ve done anything to protect you. You don’t know, you don’t know how much I envied you your family, even before she left. How much I needed all of you, and you were always there. My dad and the Montgomerys. You were like my true north.”

“That hasn’t changed.”

“No, it hasn’t. But I had to make something of me, for me. No matter how bad things are, and sometimes they were bad in our house, you want your mother to be there, to love you. And when she doesn’t, you feel . . . less.”

Unable to think of another term, she lifted her hands, let them fall. “Just less. It didn’t matter what my dad said, what your parents said, and God knows they said and did everything right, I still felt she left because of me. That I was bad or unworthy or just not enough. The truth is, I wasn’t enough.”

“That’s not on you, Avery.”

“I know that. But sometimes you know one thing and feel another. Maybe what she did is part of the reason I worked so hard, pushed so hard, and have what I have. So, good for me.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she plunged on. “Even with that, there’s this thing—the thing that asks why I’ve never been able to maintain a strong, long-term relationship, why I’ve never felt enough to stick, or why I jump too soon, then look for a way out. So I worry that’s what she gave me.”

“It’s not.”

“I pushed you away.” Steadier, she looked at him again. “You’re right about that. I hit a rough patch, so my default is push away instead of pull in.”

“I’m right here.”

“That’s you, Owen. That’s because you don’t give up. You just work the problem until you have an answer.”

He sat. “What’s the answer, Avery?”

“You’re supposed to have it.” But she leaned her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I hurt you, and I let you think you’d done something wrong when you hadn’t. I’ve already got issues, I guess, and seeing her just screwed me up. Not just with you—maybe mostly with you, but not just. I didn’t even tell my father. Then I was going to. I’d worked through it that far.”

He laid a hand over hers. “What did you cook?”

“God.” She blinked back tears. “So predictable. Soup. I took a big container of soup over to Dad’s, and she was there.”

Shifting, he pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Harder yet.”

“I don’t know. It just sort of flipped a switch. I was so mad, that she’d go there, make him feel any part of what she made me feel. He looked so sad when I burst in. So sad with her sitting there crying. I couldn’t stand it. Same tune, and the thing is, now that I’ve had some time, I don’t think she was lying. Or not altogether. I think she is sorry, and maybe she’s just sorry because she’s alone now and can look back. But that’s the thing. She’s sad, sorry, and alone, and she knows she can’t go back.

“He gave her five thousand, and told her she could have it if she never contacted me again. He told her to send him her number when she settled, and if I ever wanted to contact her, he’d pass it to me.”

“That’s Willy B,” Owen said quietly.

“I couldn’t understand why he’d give her money, and after she’d gone he told me it was because she was grieving. That’s the goodness in him. And it was because it closed a door he and I needed to close. That’s him thinking of me, him loving me.”

“He’s the best there is. But he’s not the only one who thinks of you.”

“I know. I’m lucky, even blessed. I couldn’t tell you, or Hope or Clare or anyone who really, really matters. I just couldn’t admit my mother came back after all these years because she’s alone and broke. No matter how sorry she may be for what she did, she only came back because she needed something. Knowing that makes me feel less. I wanted to close everybody out until I felt me again.”

He waited a moment. “I have some things to say.”

“Okay.”

“She’s less and always will be for turning her back on you, for walking away not just from her responsibilities but from the potential of you. She’ll never have a daughter who loves her absolutely, without reservation and with real joy. The way you love your dad. She’s less, Avery, not you.”

“Yes, but—”

“Not finished. Is your dad less?”

“God, no. He’s more than most people could be.”

“She left him, too. She walked out on him, without a word. Chose another man over him. She didn’t even give him the respect of truth, of a clean break with a divorce, but it didn’t make him less of a man, of a father, of a friend. She came back because she needed something, and she took his money.”

“It’s her, not him.”

“That’s right. It’s her. Not him. Not you.”

Something loosened inside her, something tight and hard and painful. “It helps to hear that.”

“I’m still not done. Whether you’re happy or sad or mad or glad, you’re still you. If you figure I’m only around—or you decide you only want me around—when everything’s solid, you’re wrong, and you’re stupid. It’s not going to work that way for me. It’s never been surface with us, and whatever else has changed, that can’t. That’s bottom line.”

Shame wound through the lessening misery. “I screwed up.”

“Yeah, you did. I’ll cut you a break this time.”

Relieved, she managed a smile. “I owe you a break for when you screw up.”

“I’ll remind you when the time comes. Next, personally I don’t see the point in dragging in prior relationships, how and why they worked or didn’t. This is you and me. If you decide it’s not working, you better damn sure not look for an out. You tell me, to my face. I’m not some loser you need to shake off.”

“I never thought—”

“You tried shaking me off.”

Excuses, rationalizations trembled on her tongue. Weak, she realized. Weak and wrong. “I don’t know if I tried because I thought I could or I knew I couldn’t. I just don’t know the answer to that. Either way, it was wrong because yeah, this is you and me.”

She laid a hand on his cheek. “Solemn promises, here and now. I’ll tell you to your face when I’m done with you.”

That got a smile. “Same goes.”

When she shifted toward him, he put her on his lap. She curled in, held on. “I’m glad you acted like a bully and dragged me up here. I’ve missed talking to you, being with you.”

“I had to be a bully because you were a moron.”

“Calling me names isn’t cutting me a break.” She eased back. “And you’ve got Beckett out there making deliveries.”

“He’s got three kids now. He can use the tips.”

She laughed, reached for his hand, released it when he yelped. “Oh God.” She lifted it again, carefully. “I really nailed you.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s your own fault for falling for the ‘oooh, you’re hurting me’ ploy.”

“Won’t happen again.”

“Let me clean it up.”

“Later.” He pulled her back in, just sat while the world rode smooth again. “You wouldn’t have any of that soup left?”

“I have smoked tomato bisque in the freezer. I can heat it up.”

“Sounds good. Later.” He tipped her head back, found her mouth with his.

“Definitely later.”

Feeling sentimental, she roamed his face with kisses as she unbuttoned his shirt. He smelled of sawdust, even along the column of his throat.

“I’ve missed this, too,” she murmured. “Missed touching you.”

Only a few days, really, she thought, but the distance had spanned so wide, so deep, it felt like weeks. And here he was, smelling of sawdust, his chest warm and solid under the rough thermal shirt, and his hard-palmed hands confident and easy as he drew her sweater up and away.

Her true north, she thought. Constant and steady.

He ached for her. Not just physically, but in his heart for the hurt she’d endured. For the fact she’d felt obliged to endure it alone.

She said he couldn’t understand, but she was wrong. He’d never believed you had to experience pain to understand it.

He’d thought he knew her, every facet, but there he’d been wrong. The parts of her that questioned her worth, her courage, her heart, those were new to him, added complexities and vulnerabilities.

To those hurts he offered a gentle touch, an easy glide, pleasing himself with the curves of her, the pulse beats, the sigh of breath warm against his skin.

When she caught his face in her hands, when he saw her smile up at him before their lips met again, he thought: There. There was Avery. All of her.

She stroked her hands down his back, over his hips, back again as if measuring the length of him. Wanting to give, just give and give, she shifted to wrap around him, heard him curse when her shoulder pressed against his sore hand.

“Oops.” It choked a laugh out of her, and everything just fell away. All the guilt and grief, the apologies and worries.

You and me, she thought again. It’s you and me. So she wrapped around him and nipped her teeth at his shoulder.

“I’ve got a taste for you now.” She rolled him over, nipped again.

“Want to play rough?”

“You already did. Hauling me up here, throwing me down on the bed. Let’s see how you like it.” Mindful of his hand, she clamped his wrists, ranged over him.

“I like it fine.”

“Because now we’re naked.”

“It’s a factor.”

She lowered her head, stopped a breath from his lips, pulled back, lowered again. Pulled back.

“You’re asking for trouble.”

“Oh, I can handle you.”

She leaned in again, then slid down to glide her tongue over his chest.

Okay, he thought as his blood surged, she could handle him.

She owned his body, every inch, teasing, inciting, seducing, exciting. Quick and rough one moment, slow and tender the next, leaving him off balance, off rhythm, and totally possessed.

“Owen, Owen, Owen.” She whispered it again and again as she rose over him, drunk with power and lust.

She took him in, deep, deep, clamped her hands on his shoulders as triumph and surrender catapulted through her system. He took her breasts, pressed his hand against her galloping heart.

She lowered again, and this time let her lips take his in a long, trembling kiss.

And she rose again, let her head fall back, let everything that was the two of them fill her.

Then she rode them both empty.

Later, she doctored his hand, kissed the little wound. In her blue-checked robe she heated soup in the kitchen while he poured them each a glass of wine.

On impulse she lit candles for the table. Not quite a midnight supper, she thought with a glance at the time. But pretty close.

“It’s snowing hard now. You should stay.”

“Yeah, I should.”

Content, she ladled soup into thick white bowls while the snow fell on the rest of the world.