Take a Gamble (14 page)

“Look, asshole.
I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but you need to take a step back. MacKenna tell him.” Douchebag is getting upset. I don’t really care and it looks like Mac isn’t paying any attention to him anyway. She’s still staring at me, looking in my eyes, into my soul.

He
r eyes close and her body shivers again. I wait for her to say something. I need to hear her voice, to make this all real. When she opens her eyes, they drift from me to Erica and back again. I watch as douchebag tugs on her arm. He better not be hurting her.

Mac looks torn.
Then she speaks and I think I’m in heaven. Her voice is like hearing the angels sing. It’s been too long. Too long since I’ve heard her voice. Too long since I’ve seen those beautiful eyes looking at me like they are right now. Too long since I’ve felt her love or shown her the love I have for her. This changes everything.

“Roe.”

MAC

It’s really him.
He’s standing
in front of me. Close enough to touch. Close enough that I can smell his aftershave. I want to reach out and touch him, to make sure I’m not seeing things. To prove to myself it’s really him.

“Roe,” I breathe.

I’m about to lift my hand when Wes pulls me back. I feel the anger vibrating off of his body. He’s squeezing my arm tighter than necessary. This is a new side of him, one which has never shown itself before. Then again, he’s never had to deal with the powerful force, the pull Roe has over me. Even after all this time.

I yank my arm out of his grasp and take a step forward, towards Roe.
“It’s fine,” I say without turning around to face Wes. I don’t want to see the look he’s giving me right now. I don’t care.

“Roe, who the hell is this and why are you loo
king at her like that? Is this
her
?” I look over at blondie who looks like she wants to punch me even more now that she’s figured out who I am. Way to go. You’re smarter than you look.

“Mac.”

I can’t help closing my eyes when he says my name again. It’s like my heart started beating again for the first time in years. The weight of my decision lifts off my shoulders. When I open my eyes, he’s still staring at me with love. God, I missed that stare. I missed that grin. I need to see it. Just once.

I smile at him and reach out to take his hand.
I’m rewarded. That grin, that sexy-as-hell grin, appears on his face instantly as he takes my hand. My heart stutters when our hands connect and I revel in the feel of the warmth of his hand surrounding mine.

For a second, everything around me disappears and it’s only me and Roe.
Nothing else matters. Not the time that’s gone by. Not the way we left things. Not the fact that I walked away from him. Nothing matters except the two of us in this moment. He found me. I found him.

Then, Wes steps up behind me again and yanks me away from Roe
. Anger flashes in Roe’s eyes the second Wes touches me. He’s trying to contain it, to not let it overshadow what’s really happening right now, but it’s not working. He’s angry.

“Mac.
Who the hell is this guy?”

Shit!
I forgot I never took Alexa’s advice. I never told Wes anything about my past or about Roe. I was always afraid he would walk away. Right now, that’s exactly what I want him to do. I want him to walk away.

“Wes, this is Roe.”
I say it like he should know who he is and what it means but I know he won’t understand.

“Okay…”

I guess I am going to have to tell him now. I really have no choice. This is not exactly the way I had planned it, obviously. This might actually be better. He might be able to see clearly how I felt about Roe, how I still feel about him. Maybe he will back out gracefully?

“Roe and I met and fell in love when we were seventeen.
I made the mistake of letting him go because I was scared he wouldn’t be able to handle my world.” I still can’t say the word cancer after all these years. “That vacation I take every summer. I’ve been looking for him.”

I don’t take my eyes off of Roe the entire time I’m talking to Wes.
I want him to see how sorry I am. I want him to see how much I love him, still. I want him to know I’ve been looking for him.

“Um, okay.
So, what? Now you’re going to leave me for some guy you met a long time ago? Is that what’s happening here? We’re supposed to be getting married in less than a month, MacKenna. What am I supposed to tell our friends and family?”

Is that what’s happening
? I lift my eyebrow at Roe, wondering what his plan might be. He smiles at me in return, a sign that I’m sure means I should say yes. I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I can end things with Wes like this.

“I need to talk to Roe.
Alone.”

“I will take that as a yes, then.”
I feel Wes step back and I’m positive he’s walking away from me. I turn to look at him and I see how heartbroken he is.

“No.
That’s not what it means at all. It means that I would like to catch up with Roe. Is that alright with you?”

Why am I trying to save this relationship?
I’ve found Roe. Isn’t that what I’ve wanted all these years? Now I’ve found him.

Wes looks skeptical but nods before walking away, leaving me alone with Roe and blondie.
Roe is watching Wes walk away, a sour look on his face. Blondie is staring at me with a sour look on hers. I have a feeling the world has shifted slightly.

“Can we go somewhere and talk?”
I’m talking to Roe but I’m not taking my eyes off of her. If looks could kill, I would be dead right now.

“Erica, I’ll be b
ack to pick you up later.” Roe says over his shoulder, as he grabs my hand and we head towards the exit. He doesn’t even wait for her answer.

I hear her scream “don’t bother” and I’m sure Roe heard it too, but he doesn’t stop walking and neither do I.
I’m focused on two things right now. One is how good it feels to have Roe holding my hand right now. The other is the fact that we are about to be alone together for the first time in years and I’m scared of what might happen.

What will we talk about?
Is he still upset with me? He didn’t look upset but he might be harboring a deep hatred for me that I can’t see. What if he doesn’t want to talk at all? I’ve only been with one other person besides him, Wes. Will he want that?

We don’t talk the entire walk to his car.
We don’t talk the entire drive to his apartment. Now, we’re sitting in his living room and we’re still not talking. The silence is killing me. I want to say something but I don’t know what to say. I want him to say something, but I don’t know what I want him to say.

“I’m sorry.”
That’s the best I can come up with.

He turns to face me on the couch and takes my hand in his.
“You think I’m looking for an apology?”

“I have no idea what you’re looking for but I feel like I owe you an apology at least.”

“You don’t owe me an apology. I get it. I got it then and I get it now. I didn’t like it and I think we’ve wasted a lot of years apart that we could have shared making new memories, but I don’t want you to apologize for your decision.”

“What do you want then, Roe?”

“You. That’s all I want. For the rest of my life. All I want is you, Mac.”

I close my eyes
, and when his hand finds my cheek I can’t help but lean into it. I feel his breath on my face and as much as I want to kiss him, I know it’s wrong. Then, he surprises me by kissing me softly on the forehead before resting his forehead against mine, trapping his kiss.

“I’ve waited so long to know you weren’t mad at me.
You have no idea how glad I am to hear that you don’t hate me.”

“I could never hate you, Mac.
I love you too much.”

“I love you, too.”

“God, I needed to hear that,” he says as he releases a deep breath.

“Where do we go from here?
I’m engaged and it looks like you have someone in your life, too. If she’ll take you back, that is. She looked pretty pissed.”

“I don’t want her to take me back.
As for you, that’s your decision. I won’t make it for you. If you love him…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence and I know why.
He doesn’t want to hear me say that I love Wes. Honestly, being here with Roe makes me doubt that I ever loved Wes. He was a stand in. A stand in who I almost married.
Shit!
I almost married him.

“I know you don’t want to hear this
, but in a way I do love him, yet it’s nothing compared to how I feel about you. No one will ever compare to you. I can’t imagine loving anyone else as much as I love you.” I pause to make sure I haven’t broken him with my words. He looks unaffected after hearing that I do, in fact, love Wes. “I want you to know I regret my decision to leave you. I’ve regretted it every day since I left you. I know I can’t go back and change things. I know I hurt you. I can’t undo any of that. What I can do is promise to never leave you again. You will have to leave me this time.”

“Good luck with that.
I told Alexa that if I ever got you back I was going to hold you against your will if I had to. I was never going to let you go again. And so you know, I’ve never stopped loving you.”

My body went rigid after I heard Alexa’s name.
He’s been talking to Alexa? She didn’t tell me. Why would she not tell me that she’s been talking to him? Why would she keep that a secret from me? If she knew where he was all these years, why would she not tell me?

“Mac?
Are you still with me?”

“Yeah,” I croak out.
My throat has gone dry and I’m not sure if I will be able to speak.

“Let me get you something to drink.
Wait here.”

I gulp down the water Roe brings me and try to figure out what I’m going to say to him once I find my voice again.
I’m not sure I can find the words to describe how betrayed I feel right now, by both of them.

“Better?”

“I think so.”

“What happened?
Where did you go?”

“Well, I got lost in thought when you said that you had talked to Alexa.”

Roe’s face goes pale. He must not have realized he said it. Well, the cat’s out of the bag now. I have questions and he is going to answer them.

“How long?
How long have you been talking to Alexa?”

Roe ducks his head and stares at his hands as he twists them together.
“Since you left me.”

“
Seriously!
”

“Look, I wanted to tell you but Alexa thought it would be better to wait and tell you later.
Then, later became much later and then it became too late.”

“Why?”

“I needed to know that you were okay.”

“So, she told you that I went through treatment again?”

“Yeah. She kept me posted about your progress.”

“And after I beat it?
What then?”

“Then she made rules.”

He’s still staring at his hands but looks up when I burst out laughing. Leave it to Alexa to make rules.

“Of course she did.
What were the rules?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes. Maybe it will help me to understand why she kept us apart all this time.”

“I always wondered that myself.”
He pauses but I don’t say anything. I purse my lips and nod my head. He needs to keep talking and he understands that. “Alright. Well, at first it was to keep me posted about how you were doing. We would talk maybe once a week, twice if things weren’t going good. Then, after you were better, she tried to get me to come visit but I knew you wouldn’t want to see me. I knew you would be mad. By the time I changed my mind, you were getting ready to go off to college and I didn’t want to turn your world upside down. So, I went to the beach to be with you.”

“But I wasn’t with you.”

“No, but your memory was. I decided that if I couldn’t be with you that I would at least celebrate your memory. So, I went to the beach that first summer for my birthday. I got a call from Alexa right after I got home telling me she thought you had gone to the beach to find me a few weeks earlier.

“I wanted to see you but she wouldn’t tell me where you were going to college.
That’s when she made the rules. Rule 1: no personal information. I wasn’t allowed to tell her where I was going to school and she wasn’t going to divulge anything about your whereabouts. Rule 2: if she knew that you were headed to the beach, she wouldn’t tell me. She seemed to think we would find each other on our own, in our own time.”

He smiles at me.
Damn her! She was right.

“Rule 3: no talk about significant others.
Basically, she was allowed to tell me that you were fine, safe, happy, but she wouldn’t tell me if you were seeing anyone and I wasn’t allowed to share that information with her. She wanted to stay unbiased,” Roe tells me.