Page 52 of Returning Your Love
“Bet your last dime, I did,” she whispered. “And I won’t admit to being sorry about rumpling his bedsheets before Rose’s body was cold in its grave either.”
“Babs!” I snorted a laugh, amused rather than repulsed by her frank, almost morbid admission.
She shrugged. “Life is short, Jamie, and when you love someone and are willing to set aside a few years for them, why drag out the loneliness once you finally have a chance to be happy?”
A few years. More like forty if not more for her. The fact I couldn’t be patient for a couple of months but pushed Chaz to have an affair brought back that shit feeling inside me again.
“Why didn’t you retire along with him and go see the southwest together?” I asked, needing to change my thought patterns.
“Pfft. I love the man, but being stuck in a tiny camper for months on end?” Grimacing, she shook her head.
“As if marriage after he returns is going to be any different!” I joked.
“I’m kidding,” she said, still smiling. “I would have loved to go with him, but there’s no way I could just up and leave last minute like he wanted with winter fast approaching. I also wasn’t going to ask him to hold off until I trained someone even though I had every right to.”
“You’re a good woman, Babs.”
She lifted and dropped a shoulder as though not sure she agreed.
“I’ll see you Tuesday night?” I asked even though I expected the whole town would attend Shelly’s wake at the only funeral home in town.
“I’ll be there,” she promised, her eyes filling with tenderness. “Now, go take care of that boy of yours.”
Shit, she sounded like Dad.
“I can’t until he’s ready,” I said, my chest heavy.
Babs reached over the counter and patted my arm. “It won’t be nearly as long as I sat twiddling my thumbs—I can promise you that.”
I sure as fuck hoped not, but for Chaz?
Yeah. I’d told him I would wait forever, and I’d meant it.
But fuck, walking into the funeral home on Tuesday night after football practice and catching sight of him in a new suit andtie, hair slicked back, hazel eyes just as empty on his pale face as the last I’d seen him at the hospital on Wednesday?
Every part of my being yearned to pull him close and hold him. Whisper that I was his whenever he was ready to move on.
But I paid my respects first to the closed casket, my throat thick as I chose to remember some of the good times Shelly and I had shared while with Chaz. She’d been an upbeat, sunshiny soul once in our teenage years, always attempting to make our best friend smile when he’d gotten down in the dumps. She’d been an unbelievable caretaker to her mother before they’d had to hospitalize her, never once complained or bitched about the dementia that had slowly made her mom forget who she was—or at least, that was what Dad had told me. Who knew what went on behind closed doors though.
The scent of roses, her favorite flower, lay thick in the air, suffocating and taking me back to her and Chaz’s wedding day. White petals had decorated every surface that afternoon, their sweet scent overpowering, burning my nose and etching in my memory the moment my best friend had saidI doto someone other than me.
I stared at Shelly’s casket, humiliation rising up over my bitterness and resentment in the prior weeks, the wish to have her husband all to myself. My throat ached over my selfishness, and I offered up a prayer for her soul, begging forgiveness once more.
Blowing out an audible exhale and not feeling the slightest bit better about my shame, I finally turned my attention on the two-person receiving line.
Chaz, dressed all in black, waited for me, hands clasped in front of him, Shelly’s mom in a wheelchair to his right.
“Chaz,” I said, moving to stand in front of him, hand extended.
He clasped my palm, and we both leaned in for a bro-hug, the stiff material of suit coats between us uncomfortable and unwanted. I breathed him into my lungs, the underlying scent of his shop, and my eyes stung.
Swallowing hard, I stepped back, clasping his shoulder while retaining my hold on his hand. “I’m sorry for your loss.” I offered the proper condolences although they seemed meaningless. “For both of them,” I tacked on quietly in case he hadn’t told anyone about the pregnancy.
A muscle ticked in his jaw, and he nodded. “Thanks for coming.”
He’d given me nothing more than the same greeting as everyone else, and although his lack of enthusiasm over seeing and touching me stung, I reminded myself he grieved and probably didn’t yet have space in his heart for more.
This time, I would be patient and not push no matter my longing to ease his suffering.
