Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)(35)

It was just a regular Friday morning when I’d woken up, still high from my visit with Rosalee the night before and broken from Caven’s Sixth Sense ghost routine. But it was Friday. People were happy on Fridays. Well, people who didn’t work around the clock painting pictures that would never be good enough to sell because their sister who had been a total pain in the ass but the most talented painter in the world had passed away—those people were happy on Fridays anyway.

I, on the other hand, hated Fridays because it kicked off the longest stretch of the week before I could get my Rosalee high and Caven low again. It also sucked because Beth would no doubt try to drag me out to some god-awful happy hour or speed-dating nightmare. And I’d have to make up a ridiculous reason why I couldn’t go.

But not that night. Because, that night, I had a valid excuse.

My studio was filled with shit.

At some point overnight, the toilet, shower, and both the sinks in my studio had backed up with enough sewage to fill a swimming pool. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. But it was a lot nonetheless.

I’d called the plumber out and he’d taken one look at my pipes and laughed.

No, literally—laughed.

It seemed my contractor had done just enough to pass inspection, but not enough to keep gallons of sewage from pouring into my house any time it rained.

A small fortune and six hours later, he was able to fix my problem and pump out the inch of vomit-inducing filth that had been pooling on the floor.

Cleaning the aftermath was up to me. I’d called around and found a company that could come first thing the next morning to rip out the majority of my floors, but I needed to get it cleaned as much as possible so it didn’t start seeping up the sheetrock.

Hence why I’d been hurrying through the grocery store in search of a mop and my body weight in bleach when I’d run face-first into none other than Ian Villa.

Why hello there, Karma. So good to see you again.

“Shit. Are you okay?” he said, recognition hitting his dark-brown eyes.

“Just dandy,” I replied, swiping at my nose to see if it was bleeding. It wasn’t. Though, for a moment, I wished it were so I had an excuse to make a break for it. Stepping away, I aimed an awkward smile up at him. “Hi, Ian.”

“Hey,” he replied, curt but upbeat. Like maybe he was one of those people who got excited about Fridays.

“Sorry about that,” I mumbled, starting around him. I didn’t know Ian. Not really, anyway. Most of what I knew about him I’d learned when Beth and I had done our research before I’d come back as Hadley. We’d spoken a few times, during most of which he’d glowered and grumbled. He was Caven’s best friend, but that hardly obligated me to stand in the grocery store and have a chat. “Have a good weekend.”

“Willow, wait. Can we talk for a minute?”

I stilled, my eyelids fluttering shut as I internally groaned. No. The answer was no. We had nothing to talk about. Nothing left to say. No apologies left to issue. I was a horrible person. I got it. I didn’t need another reminder.

So I craned my head back, opened my mouth, and chirped, “Sure, what’s up?” Damn my manners to hell!

Much to my surprise, he smiled down at me. I’d seen a lot of frowns from that man, so the smile took me off guard. And it should be noted that it was a gorgeous smile. The kind Beth would lose her mind over, but since he was holding a basket with nothing but a box of condoms inside, I figured some other woman would be losing her mind over it later that night.

“He’s confused,” he stated, thus making me confused.

“Huh?”

“Caven. He’s confused. He misses Hadley. Well, he misses you when you were Hadley. Now, he has these different versions of you. Willow the little girl. Willow the woman who lied to him. Willow the sister of his daughter’s mother. And he can’t figure out what compartment to put you in in his head.”

I blinked at him. “What are you talking about? All of those people are me.”

“Right. But Caven doesn’t live his life that way. Ever since…” He glanced around the cleaning aisle then lowered his voice. “Ever since that day, he lives his life in neat little mental boxes. He has one for work. One for Rosalee. One for me. One for Trent. One for the mall. And every box has its place. Because inside those boxes in his head, he doesn’t just get to decide what goes in them. He decides what stays out.”

He popped his eyebrows pointedly. “But you were different. I didn’t understand it while it was happening, but when you were Hadley, Caven started this one big box for you in his head. You were Rosalee’s mom, the one thing he’d always wished he had growing up. And you knew about his past, so whether he wanted that to be in your box or not, it didn’t matter. And then there was just you. The beautiful woman who made the Tin Man feel.” He grinned. “Now those people all live in different compartments. He’s mad at the woman who lied to him. He misses the woman he was falling in love with. And he is damn near paralyzed by guilt when he’s around the girl from the mall.” He shrugged. “He’s confused.”

I shifted my eyes from side to side, waiting for the music from The Twilight Zone to start playing. “I’m sorry. Don’t you hate me?”

He laughed. “No. I hated your sister. I hated her for getting pregnant and never telling him. I hated her for dropping the baby off on his doorstep. And I hated her for never looking back after she abandoned the most incredible child I have ever met.”