Stone Cold, page 2
“But they’re going to ask. You know they will. And if you don’t give them any details, they’ll fill in the holes in the story with details of their own. That’s how rumors spread …”
I shrug, even though she can’t see me. “Oh, well.”
It’s not like I have an ounce of control over anything people will or won’t say.
“I don’t know how you’re not beside yourself right now. I’d be freaking out,” she says.
“Maybe it’s because you’re freaking out enough for the both of us?”
I’m so drenched in humiliation I can taste it on my tongue and smell it in the air and every time I blink, I can see that engagement photo on the backs of my eyelids—but what’s done is done.
“I need to hit the shower,” I say.
I want to wash the events of last night and this morning out of my hair and off of my skin. I want to scrub it from the forefront of my mind and replace it with anything but. I want to sing at the top of my lungs to some Sia or Robyn or some old-school, upbeat Taylor. Anything to move forward from this unfortunate incident.
“Appreciate you looking out for me though,” I say.
Monica and I met the first day of our freshman year at U of Maine. We had Econ 101 together and by the end of the first class, we were both completely lost and almost in tears. She asked if I wanted to study with her, which then led to dinner and drinks and parties and best friendship that spanned the following four years and the five years that have lapsed since.
“You going to be okay?” she asks.
“Of course,” I say.
No question that my ego is bruised, but bruises never last forever. Eventually their intense colors fade and with a little bit of time you never see them again.
“’Kay. Text me if you need anything,” she says before ending the call.
I’m about to sign off of Facebook when a thirteenth message dings my inbox, and a chat window pops up on the bottom part of the screen. The sender? My ex’s best friend—a man I haven’t seen, heard from, or thought about since college.
* * *
Jovie—
In no way does this mean my opinion of you has changed.
I’m reaching out because sometime in the middle of last night you tagged yourself in Jude and Stassi’s engagement photo.
I don’t care if you were drunk or it was unintentional. I suggest you remove it immediately since the wedding is in two months (which I’m sure you know since you were clearly FB stalking them). The damage is done, but no reason to make things more awkward.
You’re welcome.
Stone
* * *
Wow …
The little green icon next to his name tells me he’s still online, so without thinking twice, I fire back a response to the man who never made any bones about his abhorrence towards me the entire time Jude and I dated.
* * *
Stone—
Oh, my gosh! It’s so wonderful to hear from you after five years of dead silence. While I’m sure you took great pleasure in sending me such a delightfully condescending message via Facebook, I can assure you that by the time it was received, the tag was already removed.
Should your best friend inquire about the mishap, feel free to tell him it was an unfortunate accident involving an ill-fated amount of NyQuil.
Nothing more, nothing less.
I hope all is well with you, and that the Wizard of Oz finally gave you that heart you’d been missing.
Best,
Jovie
* * *
I hit ‘send’ before I have a chance to delete the last line.
I don’t make a habit out of being petty, but when it comes to Stone Atwood, I have no problem bending my own rules.
He was the worst.
And apparently, he still is.
Chapter Two
Stone
* * *
“The tag’s been removed,” I tell Jude over the phone. Standing in front of my office window, I stare toward the Portland coast, taking in the harbor horizon and watching the boats drift through the fog and into their ports. In the distance, a fog horn sounds, which always reminds me of summers at Jude’s dad’s lake house in northern Maine.
“Thank God,” he exhales through the phone. “Stassi’s convinced Jovie’s trying to sabotage the wedding.”
I bite my tongue to keep from reminding him that Jovie is a lot of things, but a saboteur isn’t one of them.
“She says she took some NyQuil or something …” I didn’t quite buy her excuse. I was too busy being impressed with her quick wit and ability to put me in my place—no easy feat.
“You talked to her?”
“We didn’t talk,” I say. “I messaged her online and told her to take the tag off … like you asked.”
Messaging someone on a social media site I haven’t used in years isn’t normally my style, but I’ve long since deleted Jovie’s number and it seemed like the most efficient way to reach out to her.
“Yeah, but did you ask her why she did that?” he asks. “How’d you know about the NyQuil?”
He’s coming across as far too curious for a man who’s about to get married in two months.
“I didn’t ask her,” I say. “She told me to tell you that it was—and I quote—an accident involving NyQuil, nothing more, nothing less.”
He’s quiet, as if he has to think about it for a second; wrap his head around it.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he says.
“It makes sense if you’re not trying to make it make sense.” As a divorce lawyer for the past several years, I’ve witnessed the dissolution of enough relationships to learn firsthand that half the time people do things, they don’t know why they do them. Love, hatred, and everything in between makes people act in ways they normally wouldn’t dare.
“Is she … did she seem okay though?” he asks. “Do you think she’s upset that I’m getting married?”
Does he seriously think she’s been pining away for him for the past five years? Hoping he’d change his mind and come sprinting back to her? I hope for both of their sakes the answer is no. I’ve never understood why people would want to dig up bones they buried a lifetime ago.
“Maybe you should ask her yourself?” I answer his question with a question.
In the last five years, Jude hasn’t once brought up his ex-girlfriend. I refuse to believe he suddenly gives a damn about her feelings in this whole equation.
“I doubt she’d want to hear from me,” he says, pausing as if he hopes I’ll disagree.
“A little late to start giving a shit about her, don’t you think?” As his oldest and closest friend, I’ve always reserved the right to be brutally honest with him. Then again, I don’t tend to mince words with anyone. Only telling people what they want to hear involves mental gymnastics that I don’t have the time or energy for.
It’s one of the reasons I spent the entire three years of their relationship opining about how wrong they were for each other every chance I got—which wasn’t often in the grand scheme of things. They were together twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five, minus a handful of days here and there. The three of us even lived together our senior year in a two bedroom off-campus apartment Jude’s father rented for us. Every day I’d come home from class, there’d be a flickering floral candle on the kitchen island, fluffed and carefully arranged sofa pillows, and some soft music playing from a Bluetooth speaker. I never admitted it to either of them, but I didn’t hate that part of the arrangement. It beat the spilled-beer-and-gym-bag scented bachelor pad we had the year before.
“What, just because I dumped her means I can’t still care about her?” Jude asks.
“That’s exactly what that means.” I opt not to go into detail about the way it all went down. I already went for a jog this morning; no need to take another one down memory lane. “Anyway. I’ve got a meeting in ten. You need anything else?”
Before he can respond, Stassi’s nasally whine fills the background.
“I gotta go,” he says, his voice low. “Let me know if you talk to her again.”
Jude ends the call without giving me a chance to remind him once more that Jovie and I didn’t talk—we messaged. And only because I was asked to. Huge difference. And had Jude not hung up so quickly, I’d have also informed him I have no intentions of continuing that—or any—conversation with her. The tag has been removed and the short-lived incident will be forgotten about soon enough.
Life goes on. It always does.
A knock at my door steals my focus from this nonsense.
“Come in,” I call out.
A second later, in waltzes my law firm’s newest junior partner—Becca. A sultry smile plays across her full mouth as she locks it behind her. I know what she’s thinking. I know what she wants. But now is not the time. That and I’ve been planning to end this fuck-buddy arrangement for weeks now—I just haven’t gotten around to it thanks to a heavy workload.
Becca struts to my side of the desk, perches on the edge, and reaches for my tie.
“Stop.” I lift a hand and lean back.
Her megawatt smile disappears and her vivid emerald gaze turns a shade darker. “What’s wrong? It’s Monday … you said you always like to start your work week with a—”
“—I know what I said.” I slide open my top left drawer, reach inside, and pull out the two items I brought from my apartment this morning.
Lacy crotchless panties the color of midnight.
And a purple toothbrush.
“You left these behind last week.” I slide them toward her.
She laughs through her nose, like she thinks I’m being cute.
“Yeah,” she says, brushing her inky black hair over her shoulder and crossing her legs. “So?”
“The week before, you left a pair of running shoes,” I say. “And the week before that, you left some mascara, hand cream, and a box of tampons.”
She wasn’t even on her period—and I’d have known given the kinds of things we were doing on my kitchen table, my washing machine, and lastly, in my shower.
“You know my rules,” I remind her. I made myself perfectly clear before Becca so much as set a red-bottomed stiletto inside my apartment.
“Oh, come on.” She runs her palms over my shoulders. “You’re so tense … you just need to lighten up a bit. You need a release.”
“I’m good.”
“I thought we were having fun?” Her pretty face tilts to the side as she feigns a pout.
“We were,” I say. “Until you started leaving your shit all over my place.”
Becca wastes no time rising from my desk. She smooths her hands down her blouse before tugging her skirt back into place.
“I guess you weren’t lying,” she says under her breath. “You really are a coldhearted bastard.”
I lift my palms in a sorry-not-sorry sort of way as I watch her move for the door.
“I tried to warn you,” I say as she leaves in a huff.
And I did.
Last December we spent the entirety of the office Christmas party drinking entirely too much Dom Perignon and flirting like smashed idiots, and when she cornered me later that night and asked if I wanted to ditch out of there early and go back to her place, I told her under no uncertain terms that I was only interested in one thing—and that I’d only ever be interested in that one thing.
A leopard can’t change his spots.
Not if he tried.
Not if he could or even if he should.
Not even if he wanted to more than anything in the world.
Chapter Three
Stone
* * *
Age 10
* * *
“My dad said you could have your own room if you want, but I told him we could just share the bunk bed in my room,” my best friend, Jude, says after we leave my mother’s burial. “I told him you probably didn’t want to be by yourself.”
Jude puts his arm around my shoulders, but I don’t feel them.
Everything around me looks like a dream; realistic and familiar but not real.
I can smell the peanut butter toast he had for breakfast.
I can feel the rain drops sprinkling from the sky.
I can hear the people all dressed in black having quiet conversations behind us.
We walk to the silver limousine parked under a shade tree. A driver opens the passenger door for us.
“You want to play Xbox when we get home?” Jude asks when the door shuts. He’s probably trying to take my mind off of things, but I’m not in a mood to do much of anything.
“Nah,” I say, staring ahead at the piece of glass separating the back of the limo from the front.
“You want to swim?” he asks.
“It’s raining.”
“Maybe we can read some comic books? I just got the new Morpho Man. I’ll let you read it first,” he says.
“I kind of just want to be alone.” The air in the limo is stuffy and hot, and all day I’ve been feeling like the wind’s been sucked from my lungs. I press the button to crack my window a couple of inches. I can breathe a little better, but I still feel like my chest is being crushed from the inside.
A minute later, Jude’s dad, climbs into the back seat of the car, his black suit coat damp with rain.
Jude moves out of the way and his dad takes the spot beside me.
“It was a beautiful service, kid.” Paul gives my shoulder a squeeze. It’s the only thing he’s said to me all day, but he’s always been a man of few words, only saying something when he feels it’s meaningful enough to share.
Last year, my mother went to the doctor with a searing headache. At first they thought it was a migraine. It turned out to be an inoperable brain tumor that had already spread throughout her body. They gave her two weeks to two months to live.
She lasted six.
With my grandparents long gone and my dad out of the picture, she was anxious about who would look after me once she was gone. That’s when Paul stepped up. Jude and I were already joined at the hip. He promised Mom it was no big deal, even telling her he’d always wanted another son. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Maybe he was just adding that part to make her worry a little bit less. I’m just thankful I don’t have to go live with strangers.
Thunder rumbles through the sky as the limo takes us out of the cemetery and to Jude’s house on the other side of town.
I turn around to look back at the rainy graveyard, but Paul slips his arm over my shoulder.
“You’ll learn soon enough,” he says, “that life’s too short to look back. Keep looking forward, Stone. You should always be focusing on your next move.”
I’m not sure what he means.
Maybe someday I’ll figure it out.
Chapter Four
Jovie
* * *
I check my stagnant word count for the ninth time this morning. I’m sitting at forty-one thousand with fifteen chapters left to write until the break-up scene and at least another nine chapters after that. An email from my editor sits in my inbox, a gentle-yet-stern reminder that this book is due next week.
When I signed the contract for Heartsong Books to publish my fifth novel last year, I wasn’t expecting that ten months later I’d be going through a divorce. To be fair, we were doomed from the start. The husband and wife part lasted half as long as the boyfriend and girlfriend part—which was a laughable five months.
No one ever tells you that insta-love often leads to insta-heartbreak.
Or that quickie marriages sometimes lead to snail-paced divorces.
Everyone tried to warn me not to rush into anything, but convincing someone that the man they love isn’t the Prince Charming he’s pretending to be is no easy task. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to see it. A romantic at heart, I thought I knew what love was.
It turns out I didn’t have a clue.
And maybe I still don’t.
It doesn’t keep me from believing in it any less though.
For now, I just want to put the past behind me and forget Jason Whitlock ever happened.
Rising from my desk, I stretch my arms over my head, do a few squats, and refill my water bottle in the kitchen. Swiping my keys off the counter, I run out to grab the mail from the cluster of mailboxes outside.
Ida Moss’s blue hydrangeas are in full bloom and her heavy-headed pink peonies nod in the agreeable June breeze. If my nose were in working order, I’d be able to smell their sweet fragrance. For now, I’ll just appreciate their beauty.
A minute later, I grab the stack of mail from my box and head back into my apartment—the top half of a 19th century Victorian someone turned into a charming four-plex decades ago. Rifling through the various envelopes, mailers, magazines, and fliers, I stop when I get to a bill from my law firm.
It turns out it doesn’t matter how long you were married—divorces can be as messy and expensive just the same.
Last I heard, Jason’s seeking fifty percent of the royalties I’d earned while we were married. If it were chump change, I’d cough it up just to get him to sign the papers. But we’re talking a comfortable six-figure sum. He’s also gunning for alimony, given the disparity of our incomes, but my lawyer says he doesn’t stand a chance. We weren’t married long enough for him to grow comfortable with any sort of cushy lifestyle. We hadn’t even had time to buy a house—thank goodness.
“Jovie, hi,” Ida steps out onto her front porch, her spotted rescue pooch Domino pulling on his leash and wagging his tail as he tries to drag her closer to me. They make their way down the steps and across the lush green yard that separates her house from my place. “Do you have a quick second?”
“Sure. What’s up?” I keep a careful distance, so as not to infect her with whatever nasty virus is coursing through my veins at the moment.
