Page 79 of Make Me Yours

Then, we go right back to sloth mode and she’s right, it is healing.

But at this rate, I’ll need approximately ten thousand days in bed to mend the gaping misery hole inside me.

“More pizza?” Elaina asks as we finish the last episode of Anne of Green Gables. “Or should I be a good girl and make us a veggie stir fry for supper?”

“Pizza,” I say, and she grins.

“I like it when you facilitate my naughtiness. And really, it’s best if we eat the leftovers now. They won’t be as good tomorrow.”

So, we do, but hours later, when the lights are off and my best friend is snoring softly beside me, I can’t sleep. I tell myself it’s all the cheese, but I know it’s not that.

It’s Weaver’s last words ringing in my ears, and the horrible feeling that I’m never going to find a man like him again, that he was my one in a million and now he’s gone and I will be alone and untouched forever.

I don’t want anyone to touch me but him.

And memories won’t be enough to keep me warm or even sane, not even close. Cursing stupid past me for thinking they would be, I roll over and squeeze my eyes shut, willing my body not to shake as I cry.

chapter 27

WEAVER

The only thingmore devastating than losing the woman you love?

Losing her and realizing you don’t have a soul in the world to turn to for comfort, because you’ve cut every soft thing from your life in your quest never to feel again.

I did an excellent job with that for many years, but now the ice around my heart has melted and I’m drowning in a flood of emotion. I’ve been knocked off my feet by regret and I’m choking on my own misery, but no one’s interested in administering CPR.

And who can blame them?

I’m the first to reach for the check after a business dinner or to offer my home in The Hamptons to a friend for free, but my generosity doesn’t extend to anything beyond material things. When it comes to vulnerability and intimacy, I’ve been a miser, a Scrooge who’s only realized how desperately he wants to love and be loved now that it’s too late.

It is too late. I don’t want to be with anyone else. Sully is the only one for me. Imagining loving someone else the way I love her makes me physically ill. And I only had a little over a week with her. Eight fucking days. It’s not nearly enough. I wanta hundred more, a thousand. I want the rest of my life. I want to start watching what I eat and exercising even more than I do already so I can stay alive as long as possible and never leave my girl alone.

I suck in a breath, fighting the tears still burning the edges of my eyes.

I won’t cry. I don’t deserve to, not when this is all my fault. I should have been honest with Sully from the beginning. I should have confessed my sins so she couldn’t find them out from anyone else. Though, maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Half the gossip she’d heard wasn’t even true, but she was still ready to believe it, because it came from a family member.

No matter how hard I loved her, or how long we were together, that might have always been the case. Even if we’d been together for years, she still would have knownthemyears longer. They might have always had their claws in her, able to come between us with a few words.

Or not.

I suppose now, I’ll never know.

Willing myself to keep it together, I call my boss, Anthony, back in New York. I wouldn’t normally call a colleague on a Sunday, but Anthony and I are friends as well. And he’ll want to know that I’m going to be back in the office on Tuesday, sooner than later. We have a big meeting I was planning to attend via Zoom, but being there in person will spare the tech team the trouble of setting up a monitor.

He answers on the second ring, a smile in his voice as he asks, “Small-town life driven you to drink yet?”

“No, it’s driven me away,” I say, my tone flat, but even. “I’m flying back tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be in the office for the meeting on Tuesday.”

“Excellent,” he says. “Glad to hear it. But if you need to go back afterward, I get it. I know estates as large as your brother’s can be complicated to manage.”

“I’ll manage it from the city. I can’t come back here.”

He makes a considering sound. “Why not? What happened? Your family melting down from the stress?”

“Something like that.”

He grunts. “You know you can share personal details of your life with me, Weaver. I may be your boss, but I consider us friends. And losing a relative is big deal. If you need someone to talk to, I’m here.”

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