Page 35 of QB Keeper
He laughs. “I’m the guy who’s put up with your ass for years so I could get in good at your dad’s company. Did you know I applied there while I was still in college so I could get a foot in the door, but my resumé was never even pulled? Why do you think I tried to hook up with you back then? You can’t possibly think I’d have really wantedyouwhen I had my pick of hot college girls at school. I was playing the long game.”
I’m frozen, unable to move or speak. All I can do is stand there while he continues.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to pack everything you need, and you’re going to leave. You’re going to tell everyone we’re taking a break because you’re getting cold feet, but that we still love each other. When the project is over and I have the experience under my belt, Soph and I are starting our own business, and you can go crying to daddy about how I broke your heart.”
My mind is reeling with the way this just got flipped upside down, but I can’t risk the project not getting finished. I was able to get to know some of the future tenants when my dad did the initial press conference about it. So many women sacrificing everything to give their children the best lives possible, all on their own. Some of them came from abusivesituations, and having safe, affordable housing is giving them a brand-new start. I can’t let them down.
I know my dad. If he finds out that Cash is cheating on me, especially with another one of his employees on company time, they’ll both get fired. So, I’ll play nice. But as soon as those families are safe and sound in their new homes, this man and everything he’s building will be burned to the ground.
Keeping my eyes boring into his, I reach into the suitcase, removing his clothes piece by piece and dropping them to the floor in a heap. Fuck him. He can pick them up himself. I make sure to walk on them while I go over to my dresser and mindlessly take out random pieces before taking my time to fold each one meticulously and setting them into the now empty luggage. He stands there, arms folded, shifting his weight from foot to foot like my petty antics are annoying him. Good. He hasn’t seen anything yet.
Once I’ve packed everything I can fit into the bags I have, I load up like a pack mule, determined to make one trip out to my car so I don’t have to come back into the house. Cash just stands there like the selfish piece of shit he is, never offering to help. Not that I’d let him.
It’s not until I’m in the car, turning off of our street that I let myself cry. All I’ve ever wanted was to be the most important thing in the world to someone. I wanted to build a life and be happy with them, making plans for the future with a family that we created out of love. I thought I had that a long time ago, and then again now, but both times I ended up alone and humiliated. With Cash, it feels like less of a blow, but it still fucking hurts to know that I never really meant anything to him. I was a steppingstone to the career he wanted. All the times he told me he loved me were only lies to reel me in so he could steal my heart. A heart that, by the time he got to it, was already missing so many pieces.
I tried to put myself back together in the months afterTanner left, and while I did the best I could, there was still a part of me that would always walk around outside my body. A part that was so close in distance but may as well have been on another planet.
I don’t remember the exact moment I realized he wasn’t coming back, but eventually, I started learning to live knowing that a small piece of me would never be returned. Cash was a Band-Aid covering that hole and making me feel like someday, I might be okay. Now that we’re over, that part has become exposed again and I know how dangerous it is being near the person who has always been its rightful owner. I need to be careful and not give Tanner another chance to walk away with more of me. I would never say the words out loud, not even to myself, but I don’t think I could survive losing him again.
It's a short drive back to the lighthouse, but these emotions I’ve been feeling for the past three days have me so exhausted, I just want to curl up in bed and hibernate for a few days. I can’t because I have to work and keep up appearances that everything is fine for the next month or so while the housing project is being finished, but I have all of today to pretend like my life isn’t a stage five dumpster fire.
It wasn't even a question that I would be staying at the lighthouse, at least until I can find another option. Tanner gave me a key and told me to stay as long as I wanted. As much as this place stirs up all kinds of memories, it’s also giving me a feeling of safety and security that I haven’t felt in a while.
When Cash and I bought our house, even though I grew up right there, it took a while for me to feel like it was truly my home. Maybe it was because I was used to just riding my bike by it every day, knowing it was owned by someone else, but when it came time to fill it with our own memories, it just never really felt right.
But not here. Even though I’ve only ever been here withhim, the inside of this lighthouse feels like it’s been ingrained into the deepest part of me. I didn’t dig into why Tanner ended up buying it, but a part of me is glad that it wasn’t sold off to someone who didn’t know all of the amazing memories that were made within these walls. I knew it had been sold shortly after he went back to school that summer, but I never would’ve thought in a million years that he was the new owner.
What made him buy it? Does it hold a place in his heart the way it does mine? Even though he left and never returned to me, or by the looks of it, to this place, does he feel the same security here that I do?
All these questions swirl around in my head, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m still full of so much resentment toward him for doing what he did. Him coming back into my life certainly muddied things, but I still can’t forgive or forget right now. I may never be able to. I may neverwant to. All I know is that I need the comfort this house is currently giving me, and I’m going to soak it up until I find somewhere else to go that isn’t my old bedroom at my parents’, which would raise way too many eyebrows.
I unload my bags from my car, lugging them into the house and dropping them with athudonto the hardwood floors. I pull up the delivery app on my phone, ordering some food to cook because, although I may be staying here, I won’t be eating the groceries Tanner bought. Other than the roof over my head, which I plan on paying rent for, I don’t want any help from him. He can keep trying to extend olive branches, but I have to keep him at arm’s length to protect myself. My trust has been hanging by a thread for years, and it’s all but obliterated after my conversation with Cash today. It’s going to take a miracle for me to ever give my heart to anyone again.
I busy myself, hanging my work clothes in the closet while I wait for my groceries to arrive. When they do, I make roomin the refrigerator and pantry, unloading the bags and kicking them aside. I’ll pick them up later. But right now, I’m starving. My nerves were too out of whack earlier, knowing I had to confront Cash, but it’s catching up with me and I know I need to eat.
I keep it simple, throwing some pasta in boiling water and some jarred spaghetti sauce in a large pot I found in the cupboard. I complete the meal with enough cheesy garlic bread to feed a small country, because after the day I’ve had, I deserve it.
I leave my mess for later as I plate the food and plop down in one of the barstools. I notice that the roses Tanner bought are starting to wilt, an ugly brown fading into the petals as they droop off the stems. I tilt my head, slowly chewing my food as I think about how nothing beautiful ever seems to really last in my life. Not security, not love, not even the most exquisite flowers. They all die at some point, and it hurts my heart knowing that I may never find the lasting happiness my parents have shared for the past forty years.
My appetite begins to elude me, so I finish what I can before moving the rest into a container and placing it in the refrigerator. I’ll try again later.
I don’t bother doing my dishes because I have all night here by myself. I just want to lie down and take a nap so I don’t have to think anymore about all the things I’ve lost and how I’m going to move forward in my life.
It’s all so fucked. I’m going through so much and the only person that even knows half of it, besides Cash and Sophia, is the one person I wish I could stay away from. But instead, I’m here in his house by myself, trying to make sense of how I got to this point.
I know not everything was my fault. I didn’t ask to be cheated on, and he obviously planned to use me long before we started building what I thought was a genuine connection. The effort I put into us was all wasted, but I can’t even find itin myself to care about the time I lost with Cash. I’m too pissed that he was so careless and put me in danger by sleeping with someone else,or several someone elses, while he was sleeping with me.
I decide to go online and order an at-home STI test so I don’t have to go to the clinic in town. Obviously, the doctors and nurses aren’t able to discuss my medical history, but the nosy ass old biddies in this town have nothing better to do than to sleuth until they find out why I showed up there looking like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck. No thanks to that. I’ll just take the test here, send it out, and wait a few days for the results. And if they’re positive, please refer back to that time I mentioned cutting Cash’s dick off and throwing it out of a moving vehicle.
I climb into bed, not bothering to set an alarm because honestly, I don’t care how long I sleep. The less I’m awake, the less time I have to dwell on everything I have going on. I’ll need all the rest I can get in order to put on a show at the boutique tomorrow. We have two big deliveries coming in and I need to get them ready for the customers who will surely be ready to see our fall collections. It took me all summer to hand pick each piece and it’s something I’m really excited for.
Exhaling a slow breath, I close my eyes and focus on that, pushing everything else from my tired mind. It isn’t long before I’m dozing off peacefully in a bed that smells vaguely like the man I used to love, dreaming of an alternate universe where he stayed, and I fall asleep every night with his arms wrapped around me.
TWENTY-SEVEN
TANNER
I usemy spare key to unlock the door of the lighthouse, careful not to make any noise as I slip inside. The sun has just risen over the harbor, and I wanted to come check on everything before I had to be at practice for the day. I saw Grace come back yesterday on the outdoor security camera, but I knew she’d need some space because I’m guessing her talk with Cash didn’t go well. I know I’m the last person she’d want to talk to about that. I’ve got my work cut out for me fixing the trust that I broke, but I’m not giving up. I’ll show her slowly that I’ll do whatever it takes to get her back into my life in any capacity.
