Her hard, unflinching eyes pinched into a glare and he met them in silence. Grudgingly, she tilted her head toward the living room. He pretended he didn’t see her flip him off as he left the kitchen. Caz made some comment about food and their voices dropped, a hushed but sharp conversation he didn’t bother trying to overhear. His concern was two steps away.
Curled in an overstuffed armchair, she ignored him, turning her face away, but he saw it all in a camera flash. Charlie had been crying. Those huge baby-blue eyes were rimmed in pink and bloodshot. Her nose was red and her hair stood on end.
Easy, go easy.
Never mind, screw easy.
“If you’re going to fire me, do it to my face.” He dragged a flowered footstool closer and sat at her feet.
Her mouth opened then shut. She leaned closer to him and sniffed. “Have you been drinking?”
“A little.”
Her gaze dropped to his sweatpants then slowly rose to his face. “You shouldn’t be drinking this soon.”
“I turned twenty-one a long time ago and you’re avoiding the topic of conversation.”
“There is no conversation. You’re off the show.”
“Screw the show. I don’t give a shit about the show. I do give a shit about us.”
“There is no
us
either.”
“Because you’re being a bitch.” Her eyes went wide and he mentally grimaced. He had to have a little talk with his tongue and Johnnie Walker.
Charlie thrust out of the chair. “If I’m a bitch, you’re an asshole.”
“Then we’re perfect for each other,” he said dryly.
She snorted a crude phrase he was positive was anatomically impossible to do but she wouldn’t look at him. Her eyes fixed on a spot on the wall over his shoulder. The delicate wedge of her jaw clenched so tightly he saw the muscles bunching and jumping and longed to kiss the tension away. He didn’t dare try. He liked his teeth in his mouth.
“Talk to me, damn it.” He leaped from the footstool. “You were going to say yes. I saw it in your eyes. What did I say that pushed you away?”
“It’s what you didn’t say.” A single tear dropped from her lashes.
“Wait, you’re pissed at me for something I didn’t say but that you heard loud and clear? That makes perfect sense.” Apparently a hangover didn’t wait until all the alcohol left the blood because a headache exploded behind his eyes. “On what fucking planet?”
“You’re being a martyr,” she snapped. “You threw away something you’ve wanted for years because I’m not good enough for you.”
His jaw dropped. “What? Where in the hell did you get that idea?”
A mocking laugh twisted her mouth. “You. If I were Lisa, you’d never have had a vasectomy.”
“Lisa divorced me.”
Her chin lifted. “And I’m going to Arizona.”
“You can go to hell.”
Pain colder than the north wind shot through her, freezing her vision into a sharp point. “Fuck you.”
“You wish.” Bastian wasn’t drunk but he was close to it. His angry breath smelled of sweet scotch and heated fury. Hurt turned his voice from rich velvet to brittle shale. “All this time, I thought you knew me better than anyone. You don’t know shit.”
“Why don’t you just get out?”
“I’m not finished,” he growled.
This was going to get uglier before it died. It was something she’d never wanted. All the livid fear from that night around the campfire rushed back. She was losing her best friend in cruel words and bitterness. She’d rather be filleted with a rusty knife.
Out of pure pretense, she dropped her shoulders into a bored slump. Tightening her lips into a line kept her teeth from chattering and her heartbreak from whimpering out. “Then by all means, continue being an asshole.”
“I might be an asshole but I’m not a martyr. If that title belongs to anyone, it’s you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
A sneer carved a deep groove around his mouth. “Not good enough? In whose mind? Mine? Or yours?”
Shock widened her eyes. “Yours.”
“Wrong.” One long finger pointed in her face. “Name one time I’ve ever said or did something that gave you that idea. You can’t because I never have.”
Her fists balled at her sides. “Royce was right. You’re hiding behind my skirt. But you’re not gay. You’re afraid. With me, there was no pressure. I never throw shit in your face like Lisa did. The minute that changed, you freaked and decided to play slice and dice.”
“No, Charlie. The minute that changed all I could think of was you.” Soft, deep as espresso, his tone robbed all her anger. “You need to go off the Pill. I don’t want to lose you to a stroke when I have the power to prevent it.”
A jittery quiver exploded in her belly and sent waves of nausea rippling through her. She knew down deep why he’d made his decision, why he’d turned away from a dream being handed to him. He did it for her. She wasn’t worth that sacrifice.
“We could’ve just used condoms.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Raking his hand through his hair, he glared at her. “You’ve been using the dual protection argument so long, it’s ingrained in my head. It’s the best choice for our future and your health.”
“Royce said you’d never make part—”
“And fuck Royce and his BMW,” Bastian spat. “You can’t let him dictate our lives. He’ll screw anything in a skirt if it stands still long enough. Please tell me you aren’t comparing me to that son of a bitch.”
“So what about Doug and Karen?”
He jerked his chin back. “What about them?”
“They’re separated.”
“I didn’t know that but it doesn’t surprise me.”
“What?” She gaped.
“Didn’t you listen to them? They had nothing in common but a hot sex life. We don’t have that but we’re best friends. We’ve spent years together because we like each other and enjoy each other
outside
the bedroom. We know we’re right together. That’s all that matters to me.”
There were a few things he’d overlooked.
“I took the job out west. You signed a two-year contract here.”
He snorted. “The hell with the UC. I’ll buy my fucking contract out if I have to.”
Charlie blinked. “Where are you going to get that kind of money? We’re not talking pocket change here, wise-ass. No bank is going to loan you a couple hundred grand to
leave
a job unless you have another one lined up. You don’t.”
The stiff line of his shoulders shifted as he stomped to the window. The drapes were pulled but he didn’t seem to notice. He inhaled and exhaled ten times. She counted each noisy breath. A frown drew his brows low above his eyes.
“I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. I can practice medicine anywhere. I’ll find a job but I’m going to Arizona with you.”
“I never asked you to.”
He laughed but there was nothing funny in it. “I have no choice. I can’t live without you. Hell, I’ll just sell the house. Even after paying Boo half, that should cover the broken contract penalty.”
“You can’t do that!” Her stomach plummeted to her knees then surged to her throat. “That’s your forever place.”
“You’re wrong.” Bastian shook his head. He rubbed his thumb between his eyes then looked at her, sincerity bleeding the stiffness from his body. “It’s just a house. I don’t need it. I need you. I love you. My forever place is with you, wherever you are.”
He fishbowled in her vision. Everything around him faded away, and only Bastian filled her gaze. “You’d sell your house for me?”
“I’d sell my soul if that’s what it took.”
How could he sell something so important? There were permanent notches charting his height from age two to sixteen in his dining room. A delineation in the backyard marked where a wooden play structure had stood for countless years. The bay window stuck in the summer because he’d “fixed” it when he was seventeen and bent the latch.
He’d come home to the same walls, the same rooms, the same familiar rattle of pipes nearly all his life. But the blue Victorian that had been his home from the time he was an infant wasn’t his forever place. He hadn’t even hesitated about giving it up. His forever place was…with her.
Blood rushed away from her head, leaving her dizzy. Then it soared to her face and sweat broke along her brow line. She’d memorized twelve addresses by the time she was nine and could recall at least fourteen different bedrooms. There were more things she’d forgotten than she could ever remember about home. She’d never had a forever place.
Bastian was the one thing she couldn’t picture her life without.
I’d sell my soul…
That wasn’t what he’d done. He’d sold his future. He’d had the surgery. Her watery eyes dropped to his crotch. Bastian never wore sweats outside the house unless he was boxing. He considered them sloppy, more lounge-around-the-house wear than anything to be seen in public in. But she supposed having your testicles operated on made jeans a bit confining. Fashion had to take a backseat to recovery.
Damn him, if he hadn’t had had a vasectomy then she might have had time to change her mind about kids, thought about it as a concrete possibility not a what-if situation. Now there was no chance for her to give him a flesh-and-blood piece of forever. He hadn’t talked to her first. He’d done something so permanent, something that went against the very basic fiber of who he was, just for her. How could he not grow to hate her in a few years?
“I wish you’d waited.”
“Waited for what? For you to move to Arizona and forget about me?”
As if she could ever forget him. She pinched her eyes tight. “No, asshole, the vasectomy. You should have waited. You should have…Why, Bastian? Why would you throw your chance of having children away?”
“You don’t want kids.”
“You never gave me a chance. I want…wanted you. If that meant kids as well, then I’d have thought about it. You took the opportunity away from me.”
Bastian blinked. “You’re right. I did. And you have no idea how sorry I am for that. But I didn’t have the surgery this morning.”
“What?” Her eyes darted down again then jerked back up. “You’re wearing sweatpants.”
Confusion rounded his brows. “So? I went a couple rounds with the bag, then drank too much scotch and sat around feeling like a piece of shit all day.”
“You need to have the surgery! To repair the tear or whatever.”
“I’ll have it. I just postponed it until next week.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what I’ll do about the vasectomy, okay? Your leaving just about killed me. I wasn’t in any frame of mind to make that kind of decision.” Licking his bottom lip, he walked to her and carefully reached out, taking her hand as if she might suddenly slug him. “I need to talk to my best friend before I do anything…if she’ll still talk to me.”
All the fight drained out of her and fear rushed in. She’d been pissed when he took the choice from her but it suddenly seemed too big a decision for her to make. Responsibility weighed on her. How could she steal his hope?
A tiny kernel of faith took root. He could have walked away, found any other woman to carry his child. But he hadn’t. He wanted her. He had to believe in her, right? If not, any uterus would do.
“I have no idea what to do with a baby. I’d be a terrible mom.”
Bastian inhaled, slowly, cautiously. “So you say.”
“What do you think?”
He looked away. “I think you don’t give yourself enough credit. Kids don’t come with a manual, but people figure it out every day. You could. You’ve never backed down when life gets hard. You just get stronger and face it. Any child would be lucky to have a mom like you.”
Charlie drew a shaky breath. Behind him on the wall, Eddy had a collage of picture frames. Her gaze darted to each photograph. The backgrounds were different, the houses, the streets, the towns, sometimes even the states. But in each one, Charlie was smiling.
That toothless baby grin. One where she wore a stupid floppy hat with a bathing suit, ice cream all over her face. Her elementary school science fair. The awkward year her knees grew faster than her legs. Her first car. Graduation. Her college diploma. Picking out pumpkins with Bastian last fall.
Bubbling from somewhere beneath her ribs, a sense of completeness filled her as nothing ever had before. It swelled until her eyes overflowed. It was so simple. How had she not seen it before?
Forever wasn’t a place. It was who you were with. Who loved you. Eddy might not have been June Cleaver but she’d been there, always, a touchstone no matter where they lived. Now it was Bastian. He was her foundation, her support, her security, her future.
It wasn’t a house.
Bastian was her forever place. The future was whatever they made it, together.
A tiny cackle spilled from her lips, shaking her shoulders and scratching her throat.
Bastian frowned. “What are you laughing at?”
Her hysteria grew until it racked her whole body. Her bones rattled inside her skin, and her hair bounced against her forehead. She whipped around and shot into the kitchen. Heavy footsteps told her Bastian followed but she couldn’t stop. Caz and Eddy sat at the kitchen table, both with blank faces that pretended they hadn’t overheard the argument. Charlie didn’t care. She caught her mother in a hug, squeezing with all her strength.
“What’s all this?” Eddy stroked her back.
“Love you, Mom,” Charlie whispered and pressed a brief kiss to her cheek.
Eddy was still blinking at her in bewilderment when Charlie headed for the back door.
“Where are you going?” Bastian stopped at the threshold, confusion knotting his forehead.
She threw back her head and laughed into the setting sun. “I’m having an epiphany, damn it. Come on!”
Her feet smacked up the stairs to her apartment and his thundered behind her. With her chest heaving and her cheeks aching with a grin, she bounced into her kitchen and stood waiting as he topped the last step.
“Charlie, what in the hell are—” His attention riveted on the disc of birth control pills in her hand. Hope surged onto his face before he tamped it down, replaced it with a cool professional mask. Still, he couldn’t hide the sudden twitch in his cheek as he pulled his eyes up to hers. “What are you doing?”
“If I said I’d marry you but no kids, would you have the vasectomy?”