Speakeasy (True North #5)(66)

Alec stands up. He rests a palm on my hair for two beats of my heart. “You and I will talk later,” he says. And then he finally leaves.





Chapter Twenty-Five





Alec


I feel shattered when I walk out of May’s hospital room. But I don’t even get a moment alone to give myself a pep talk, because Griffin is waiting there, glaring.

“Save it,” I say with a sigh. “I know you hate the idea. She’s your sister.” Blah blah blah. I’m so exhausted all of a sudden that it’s difficult to speak.

“You two have nothing in common,” Griff says.

“We have tons in common.” It’s totally true. We’re both the forgotten middle child with grumbly older siblings and younger ones who suck up all the attention.

And both of our families underestimate us.

Griffin scowls. “Sneaking around was a shitty thing to do.”

That’s a much better point, except for one problem. “Sneaking around was never my idea. Ask May which of us was sneaking around.”

“But does that seem right to you?” His big eyebrows lift. “She’s young, and she’s been through a lot.”

“Two things,” I say, walking slowly backward down the hall. Because I’m done here. “She’s pretty tired of you all treating her like she’s made of glass. Maybe if you eased up she’d tell you what’s on her mind. And she doesn’t want me for keeps, anyway. So it looks like you get your wish after all. I’m outie.”

With that, I turn my back on Griffin Shipley.

As I exit the hospital doors, Audrey is standing there in the sun. “Hey!” she says, smiling at me as if we’ve bumped into each other at the grocery store, or some happier place. “Can you give me a lift to the coffee shop?”

“Sure,” I grunt. Although I’m not in the mood for company. But when a pregnant woman needs a ride, a man doesn’t hesitate. I bleep the locks on my truck and then open the passenger door for her. She lets me help her up without any pushback. “How much longer?” I ask when I climb into the driver’s seat. Ever since Zara’s pregnancy, I have more empathy for pregnant women.

“Two and a half months,” she says. “I won’t even fit into a truck by then.”

“There’s always the tailgate,” I point out, and she smacks my arm. I give her another smile and crank the engine.

Audrey puts some music on the radio, and I relax because I assume that means she won’t grill me about May.

But apparently she’s only lulling me into a false sense of security. At the first red light, she says, “If May thinks she’s so sneaky, someone should tell her not to park right beside the dumpster we use for the bakery. I don’t go to work at five thirty very often anymore, and still I’ve seen her car there several times.”

“Oh.” Whoops.

“You’re going to take good care of our girl, right?”

“If she lets me. It’s a pretty big if.”

“Oh, she has it bad.”

“I don’t know.” I’m trying to hang on to my optimism, but May isn’t making it easy.

“Pfft.” Audrey dismisses this with a wave of her hand. “Every time she’s on her way out to see ‘Selena’—” Audrey makes quote marks with her hands. “—she’s practically singing. I mean, I know what sexual satisfaction looks like, and it looks like that.”

I snort. “Thanks for the five-star review. But I was looking for more than just sex, and she isn’t.” You can make a girl sing without winning her over. “I told her I’d be her fun rebound guy. But then I tried to change the rules.”

“Ah,” Audrey says. She’s silent for a moment. “You really fucked that up, then, didn’t you?”

“No?” I argue. “How can it ever be a fuck-up to tell someone you love her?”

“How many women have you said ‘I love you’ to?” Audrey asks.

It’s an easy calculation. “One.”

“Does May know that?”

“Probably.”

“You sure?”

“Well, no. But everyone knows I’m allergic to commitment. Was, anyway.”

“Hmm.” Audrey rubs her belly. “Then how hard did you try to explain why she’s different for you? Did you sit her down and lay out each of the ways that you’ve changed? Or did you just hit her with this news like a hand grenade.”

“Uh…” I look back on the last twelve hours and realize that I made more mistakes than I thought. Fuck. “Not so much. I texted ‘I love you’ to her while she was driving in the snow. And then she hit a tree. Also, we were having a fight at the time.”

“Smooth,” Audrey says with a sigh. “Look. That was a real rookie move. But you know it’s not over, right? The last person who claimed to love May asked her to move in and then cheated on her. May is only protecting herself. It’s been how long since you started seeing her—six weeks?”

I let out a little groan as the truck rolls toward Colebury.

“Yeah,” Audrey says with a sigh. “I get that this whole relationship is a big deal for you. When you love someone, you want them to know right away. But sometimes epiphanies aren’t on the same schedule. Just because you’ve suddenly discovered that unicorns and leprechauns are real, doesn’t mean that May is on the same timetable.”