Tessa Ever After (31 page)

A glint of metal on the floor catches my eye—the object Tessa threw at me before she left—and I don’t have to bend down to retrieve it to know it’s the key I gave her.

“Well, as that little situation proved, there is no me and Tessa.” My voice is flat as I address my mother. “You can bring the news home to your puppet masters.”

“Jason . . .” She hesitates, clearly conflicted after everything she witnessed, but not enough to bottle that shit up. “You’re still planning—”

“Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll be there, suit in place, on January second.”

With a nod, she stands. “There’s also the holiday party the Friday after Christmas.”

“Which I won’t be attending.”

“It’s not optional.”

“The fuck it’s not. You own me in January. Every day before that is mine. I trust even without a housekeeper to show you, you can find your way out.” Even as I say it, I turn around and head into the kitchen. Forgoing the beer I’d had earlier, I pull some whiskey from the cupboard and grab a glass, ignoring my mother as she walks down the hall and the front door closes behind her.

And then I swallow two fingers of the amber liquid, letting it burn my throat, and immediately pour another, content to let the alcohol pull me under.

TWENTY-NINE

tessa

Somehow I make it home, relieve Becky from babysitting, and get Haley to bed before I allow myself to even think about the events of the last couple hours. I can’t even say I’m blinded by it, having been expecting it for so long. I just had no idea it would be like this. Admitting to his mom, of all people, that I’m basically a glorified booty call.

I’m lying in bed for forty-five minutes, reliving every word I heard from him, every subtle look in his eyes, before I finally give in and grab my phone to dial Paige’s number.

“Hey, girlie. How’d that
surprise
go? Get your lady business all taken care of?”

A choked laugh leaves me, and before I know what’s happening, I’m crying—sobbing, really—not able to say anything.

“Oh shit, Tess? What the hell happened?” Rustling in the
background comes over the line, then the jangling of her keys. “Never mind, I’ll be there in ten.”

The call disconnects, and I let the phone fall to my side, scrubbing my hands over my face. I don’t want to cry over this, over him, especially when he discarded me so easily when pressed by his mother, but I can’t help it. The tears come unbidden and don’t stop until Paige shows up some time later. She takes her shoes off and climbs into bed with me, a carton of double-fudge brownie and two spoons set before me like an offering.

Her eyes are sympathetic when I tell her everything that happened, sparing no details. The compassion that was initially in her gaze is now backed by a flickering fierceness, like she wants to take off and find Jason herself, teach him a lesson, and that in and of itself is priceless. That I have a friend who wants to take a piece out of anyone who hurts me is a balm to my broken heart.

Sometime later, after I’ve calmed myself enough to stop crying, we’re sitting up in my bed, both eating straight from the carton.

“I just don’t get it. It doesn’t make any sense . . . not with the way he was around you,” she says around a bite of ice cream.

“Doesn’t matter if it makes sense. He said the words, loud and clear. I wasn’t hallucinating.”

“No, I know you weren’t. But, was it . . . was it maybe something he was saying just to get his mom off his back? I know you’ve said they’re total assholes, making him do shit he doesn’t want.”

“But what could they make him do? Break up with me? They hate me enough for that, and Jason certainly accomplished it.” I shake my head and spoon another bite out of the carton. “No,
that wasn’t it. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Because this just cemented the fact that deep down he’s still a boy. He’s never gonna grow up, and that’s all I’ve ever looked for—a relationship with an adult.”

“Have you talked to Cade at all? See what he—”

“No. No way.” I hadn’t even thought about how I would tell Cade this turn of events, especially since he was so against Jason and me getting together in the first place. “How am I going to tell him?” And then a thought I didn’t allow myself to contemplate seeps in, and my shoulders sag. “How am I going to tell
her
?” I ask, and Paige knows I’m talking about Haley without my having to say it.

The thought of my little girl’s devastation at hearing Jason won’t be coming around as much anymore brings a fresh wave of tears from my eyes, and I accept the spoonful of chocolate medicine Paige offers me to help ease the burn in my chest.

•   •   •

IT’S THREE DAYS
later before Haley asks about Jason. Three days where I was afforded quiet contemplation—which basically meant I spent three nights crying myself to sleep. I didn’t think it through enough before I leapt into this with Jason. He’s been a fixture in my life for nearly as long as I could remember, and then, suddenly, he’s just gone.

I miss more than the combustible chemistry we had together, more than the intimacy we shared. I miss the guy he came to be over the last few months—my best friend next to Paige. And the loss shatters me all over again.

Once those three days have passed, when Haley finally asks where Jason’s been, it becomes an everyday occurrence.
Wondering if he’ll be by that evening, if he can come over Saturday for a pajama day, if he’ll take her out in the snow to play. And I try to fill the void, taking her to a movie on the night she hopes he’ll swing by, doing a donut and PJ day, complete with cookies for lunch on Saturday. Making snow angels and snowmen and having snowball fights with her, even though I absolutely loathe the snow, just to see her smile.

But she doesn’t stop asking.

And every time she does, my heart breaks a little more.

Not for me, though mine is decimated. But for my daughter. She doesn’t understand the mechanics of grown-up relationships, which is why I’ve always sheltered her from mine, never allowed a man to get too close.

Couldn’t really avoid that with Jason, the man who’s been in her life since the day she was born, could I?

A week after I broke things off with Jason, Haley and I are in the bathroom at home, her in a bath piled high with white bubbles, some on her face acting like a beard, while I sit on the rug and supervise.

“Do I look like Santa, Mama?”

“Just like him. You need to eat more donuts, though, to get your belly like his.”

“Maybe I better have some tomorrow, then.”

I laugh, shaking my head as I soap up her hair, trying to make funny shapes with it. It’s too thick and heavy, though, and falls down her back before anything can come of it.

“When’s Uncle Cade comin’?”

“He’ll be here next week, right before Christmas.”

“Winter, too?”

“Yep, she’s coming, too.”

The smile she gives me is blinding, and I’m so glad she has this to distract her, even if temporarily, from the void Jason didn’t even realize—or didn’t even care—he’d leave.

“What about Jay? He comin’, too?”

I guess it’s not distracting her like I hoped it would.

Like I’ve done the last week she’s been asking about it, I deflect. “Um, I’m not sure, baby. We’ll have to see what his schedule’s like.”

“How come he’s not comin’ around as much anymore? It’s been
forever
. He said we could build a snow fort.”

Despite my broken heart, hearing my daughter’s angelic voice say that Jason promised her something—promised and
flaked
—pisses me off, and I work hard to keep my temper under control so she doesn’t see it.

“He’s been really busy with school and stuff for his parents, I think.” That’s right, I’ve been a coward and haven’t told her anything about what happened. I haven’t told Cade, either, though he’s going to know about five minutes after he gets home. He’s got this weird voodoo power over me and can always sense when something’s off.

“Well, he better get here before the snow melts.”

I laugh and pour some water over her head to rinse her hair. “We’ve got a while till the snow melts, baby. It came early this year.”

“Yes!” she hisses, flailing about in the bath and splashing water everywhere.

And just like that, she transitions to talking about something else, her shoulders relaxed and a smile on her face, all contemplation over Jason pushed to the back of her mind.

I only wish it were that easy for me. That the thoughts of him
didn’t come to me at all hours of the day. That the nights, when I should get a reprieve from him, weren’t filled with dreams of what it was like when we were together so I’m forced to wake up with those thoughts fresh in my mind. Memories of his lips and hands on me, of his sweet whispered words crowding my head and heart.

So I can never get a moment’s peace from the memory of him.

THIRTY

tessa

Cade’s here for two hours before the drilling starts. He lasted longer than I thought he would, to be honest. I knew it was killing him, though, to know something was wrong but not be able to ask about it—not until Haley was out of earshot, snuggled and sound asleep in her bed.

She’s tucked in now, and I’m changed into some yoga pants and a hoodie, ready as I’ll ever be to face whatever questioning Cade can throw at me. I know there’s no getting out of this conversation with him, and I’m dreading it. Almost as much as I dread the nightly question from Haley about where Jason’s been.

I make my way into the kitchen and see Cade in there, opened bottle of beer in front of him and a wineglass filled halfway with red liquid in front of the empty chair next to him.

“That for Winter?” I ask with a nod toward the glass.

“No, she’s in the bedroom.”

“Ahh, no witnesses for this, huh?”

He ignores my question as I slide into the seat next to him and take a drink of the much-needed wine. Then he dives in. “Where’s Jase tonight?”

Taking a deep pull of my wine, I avoid Cade’s eyes. “Hell if I know.”

He swears under his breath. “What’d he do, Tess?”

I expel a deep breath and shake my head. “It’s nothing, okay? All you need to know is whatever we were doing is done. And I really don’t need to hear ‘I told you so,’ all right?”