“Are you kidding me?” Denise asked incredulously. “You know he’s come by here every single day.”
“He has?” Paige asked surprised.
“Yes. It’s been when you’re at work. Apparently, you told him you wanted space, so he was trying to give it to you. But he’s come by, talked to me, asked how I was doing, dropped off food from his grandmother and sister. And he asks about you. Talks about you.”
“What does he say?”
“That he misses you. That he loves you. That when you’re ready to talk, he’ll be there. He’ll forgive you, Paige. You just have to ask. You just have to talk to him. You have to fix this. You know, the only regret I have when it comes to your father is that I didn’t get more time. I cherished every second I spent with him. I loved him from the moment he came into my life, and I will continue to love him for the rest of mine. I know that if you walk away from that boy, you’ll regret it, Paige. You’ll regret it every single day for the rest of your life.”
“I know,” Paige said and she promptly broke down.
Denise held Paige until the sobbing stopped. “Go fix this, Paige,” Denise said, pulling back and holding her daughter’s face in her hands. “Go get him back.”
* * *
Paige went to her old room and sat down on the bed. She grabbed her phone and stared at it for a moment, her thumb hovering over the button to listen to Brendan’s message. She pressed it and brought the phone to her ear.
“I’m sorry, baby, so damn sorry. It was just one of those impossible situations. I knew that no matter what, you were going to be hurt and that there would be absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. From almost the moment you came into my life, all I’ve wanted to do is protect you. Hurting you was the last thing I ever meant to do. I just didn’t know what to do besides what your father wanted. I loved him too, Paige. He was my family. He was like a father to me,”
he said, strangled.
“Being apart from you is killing me. It’s ripping me up inside. I miss waking up next to you. I miss your smile and your laugh. I miss the feel of your hand in mine, the smell of your hair. I just miss you. I know you want space. Time to think about things. Work things out. But I don’t need time. I don’t need space. I just need you. I love you, Paige, and I’ll always love you. So come back to me, baby, please just come back to me.”
Paige listened to the message five times, crying the entire time. She put the phone down on the bed, laid her head in her hands, and promptly started sobbing again.
What the hell had she done? What had she been thinking? Time? Space? She was a freaking idiot.
She got up from the bed and went into the bathroom, gathering up all of her stuff. She reached under the sink to pull out her blow dryer and spotted an unopened box of tampons. She froze and just stared at it, a prickly feeling at the back of her neck.
Paige hadn’t had her period this month. She was almost three weeks late.
“Oh my God,” she said, feeling lightheaded. She turned and sat down on the closed toilet. “Oh my God.”
She wasn’t positive she was pregnant, but for someone who’d always had a consistent period, it was a distinct possibility. When the room stopped spinning she got up and finished gathering her stuff, throwing it all into bags, packing as fast as she could.
She had to get to Brendan.
* * *
Brendan was barely holding it together. He’d been apart from his wife for sixteen days and each day had been worse than the last. Time and space away from her was so damn painful he couldn’t think straight. Sleeping in their bed without her was torture. That empty space next to him was a constant reminder of the hole in his life. Sydney wasn’t dealing very well either. She’d lie by the door, waiting for Paige to come home. Waiting for her to come through a door that just wouldn’t open.
Brendan had taken to leaving early in the morning, going to the shop before the sun came up, and then going home late. It wasn’t that there was a lot of work to be done there or anything. He just couldn’t sit in that empty house.
It was after seven o’clock when Shep walked into the office.
“You eaten yet?” he asked.
“Nope,” Brendan said, shaking his head.
“Then get your ass up and let’s go,” Shep said.
Brendan didn’t argue. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t hungry; he knew how Shep worked. Shep would station himself in that office until Brendan followed. So he got in Shep’s Mustang and they drove through the pouring rain.
Floppy Flounders had the best hush puppies on the Panhandle, and the second they stepped inside and the smell hit Brendan’s nose, his stomach growled. Shep just smirked at him. The stupid ass thought he knew everything.
Before they were even settled at the table, Shep ordered a pitcher of beer.
“You need a drink?” Brendan asked.
“Nope, but you do,” Shep said as he grabbed his menu and looked at it.
The waitress came back with the pitcher and they ordered their dinner. Shep made small talk and Brendan tried to give more than one-word answers. But it was pretty hard to do. All the while Shep kept filling up Brendan’s glass, ordering two more pitchers. Brendan was pretty sure that Shep had had only two glasses of beer.
“This your plan to get me to talk?” Brendan asked. “Get me tanked?”
“Yup,” Shep said as he poured them both another glass.
“Well, I don’t want to talk about it,” Brendan said.
“Alright, then I’ll talk. Go get her. Go stand on that porch until she comes out and talk to her,” Shep said.
“She doesn’t want to talk.”
“Then make her.”
“I can’t,” Brendan said a little too loudly. The beer was definitely taking effect.
“So you’re just going to give up?” Shep asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You can’t give up on a relationship that you’re in by yourself. She already gave up. She already walked away.”
“You feeling a little sorry for yourself?” Shep asked.
“No, I’m feeling a little drunk and it’s all your damn fault.”
“I’m sorry. Did I miss the part where I poured the beer down your throat?” Shep asked more than a little sarcastically.
“Fuck off,” Brendan said angrily. “I don’t need this bullshit from anyone, especially you.”
“Especially me?” Shep asked slowly.
“When did you become the master on relationship advice? You’re the guy who has a longer relationship with a toothbrush than with an actual woman.”
Shep’s eyes narrowed and he leaned across the table. “Brendan, you’re my friend, and you’re going through a tough time right now, not to mention you’re a little under the influence at the moment, so I’m going to look past the fact that you’re being a total prick when I’m just trying to help your sorry ass.”
“I don’t want your help,” Brendan said, shaking his head.
“Then what do you want?” Shep asked.
“Paige. I want Paige. She’s all I’ll ever want. So it fits that I can’t have her doesn’t it.”
“Wow,” Shep said, leaning back in his seat. “This pity party you got going for yourself is really something.”
“Look, I love her. I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone. But she walked away.”
“So you’ve said. But that doesn’t mean she won’t come back,” Shep tried to reason.
“I can’t do it, alright. I can’t be with someone who I’m constantly scared is going to leave me. We got married, something that was supposed to be for forever, but she left. She just left,” Brendan said still a little too loud. But he could give a shit if people heard him. He just didn’t care anymore.
“So that’s it?” Shep asked. “It’s done.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I can’t think straight,” Brendan said, defeated. “Can we just go?” he asked.
“Sure,” Shep said.
They paid for their meal and walked outside, smack into Chad Sharp and his two lackeys, Hoyt Reynolds and Judson Coker.
“Well, look who it is,” Chad said and smirked. “Why aren’t you with your wife, King? Oh, that’s right, because she left you.”
“Just walk away,” Shep said to Brendan.
“But it looks like you replaced her,” Chad said, looking at Shep. “I didn’t know you played that way. So who’s the bitch in the relationship?”
Nothing would have been more satisfying than punching the son of a bitch in the face, and it took everything in Brendan to walk away. He stepped around Chad and made his way down the steps to the parking lot, Shep at his side. The rain had let up for the moment, but the air was still thick and wet.
“It was never going to work out anyways, King. It was just a matter of time. There was no way a girl like Paige was ever going to want a useless bastard like you. If your own father didn’t want you, what makes you think a girl like that would? And I’m so glad I could do my part in breaking up the charade. I was the one who saw you at the hospital, King. I was the one that told Bethelda.”
“Fuck,” Shep said, coming to a stop at the same moment that Brendan did. “So close.”
Brendan turned and launched himself at Chad, landing a punch square on his jaw.
* * *
Brendan’s truck wasn’t there. He wasn’t home. It was almost nine o’clock and he wasn’t there. The house was empty and dark, not a single light on.
Paige stared at the big empty house for a moment before she got out of her Jeep. Lightning flashed across the sky, and thunder boomed. The rain had stopped for a little while, but the storm that was coming was going to be bad. She grabbed her bags from the backseat and made her way up the steps carefully in the dark.
When she unlocked and opened the door, she stuck her hand in and flipped the switch. Sydney was standing there, and the moment that Paige was through the door, the dog launched herself at Paige. Sydney ran around Paige in circles, her tail whipping Paige in the leg. Paige dropped her stuff and got down on the ground.
“Hey, pretty girl,” Paige sniffled as she wrapped her arms around the dog. “Where’s your daddy?” she asked as she buried her face in the dog’s fur.
Paige wasn’t exactly sure why she was crying. There was just something about the empty house that had set her off. She was expecting to come back to find Brendan. And how stupid was she? She’d walked out on him and she’d expected him to just be sitting there waiting for her?
Sydney whined, moving so that she could give Paige a big sloppy lick on the cheek.
“I missed you too,” Paige said. “You want to go outside? Before the storm hits?”
Sydney pulled back and bolted for the back door. Paige got up from the floor and followed Sydney, switching on lights as she moved through the house. When she opened the back door Sydney went down the back steps and Paige stayed up on the deck. She had a flashback to the first night that she’d stayed over, the first time she and Brendan had made love.
He was everything to her. Had been for a very long time and she’d almost let it all slip away, possibly had let it slip away. What if he was done? What if she was too late?
Lightning flashed across the sky again and Sydney came back up the steps. They went back inside together and she looked around the empty house, desperate for Brendan to get home.
Paige sat down on the couch, Sydney at her feet. She turned on the TV but it was just noise in the background; she couldn’t pay attention. Where was he?
By ten she couldn’t wait anymore. She picked up the phone and called him. She held her breath as it rang, but it went to voicemail.
“Brendan, it’s me. I’m at the house, and you’re not here. Of course you already know that,” she said stupidly. “I really need to talk to you. I don’t want to tell you everything in a voicemail, but I’m sorry and I love you. Please come home.”
He was probably out with Jax or Shep. Yeah, that’s where he was. They were out getting a drink. He would come home when he was ready.
Paige eyed her bags that were still by the front door. She’d stopped by the drugstore to buy a home pregnancy test, and this waiting was killing her. She’d planned to take it after she worked everything out with Brendan. But she couldn’t wait any longer. She had to know. She grabbed the bag and went into the bathroom.
She ripped the box open and read the instructions. It said that the best time to take it was in the morning but Paige didn’t care. She couldn’t wait any longer. So she took the test and before she even flushed the toilet the little pink plus sign appeared.
Paige just stared at it, fear and excitement warring with each other, and the desperation in her to fix everything with Brendan brought her to her knees. She wasn’t sure how long she sat on the bathroom floor sobbing, but Sydney came up behind her and pushed her cold snout into Paige’s face.
Paige peeled herself up from the floor and undressed. She found one of Brendan’s T-shirts on the back of the door and put it on before she crawled into bed. She would wait for him there, and when he finally came home, they would talk.
* * *
Brendan looked across the jail cell where Shep was sitting, his feet stretched out before him, leaning back against the wall with his eyes closed. Shep had a split lip, and his left eye already had a pretty dark bruise around it. Brendan had gotten away with a nice little gash across his right cheek and a patchwork of bruises across his ribs.