Watch Me Fall (Ross Siblings, #5)(90)
“So…what, you’re done with us damsels in distress? Too much work for you?” Shelly teased. They were both getting a few curious glances from passersby, fuel for the gossipmongering.
He had to chuckle. “That’s not it.”
“She was cute. Not what I expected for you, of course, but cute. The girls still talk about her.”
She was beautiful. He missed her throaty chuckle. He missed watching his fingers stroke her colorful skin. He missed her dirty mouth and her peachy scent; he missed teasing her clit piercing until she came apart against his mouth…
“Jared, you’ve been like a ghost lately. Mimi has even said you’re acting weird. Not to sound presumptuous, but look, if you’re worried what I think given some of the stuff I said, it’s okay. All right? I’m good.”
He turned that over in his mind and decided that Shelly’s opinion had held more weight than he would’ve liked it to. She was the mother of his children, after all, and she deserved that respect. Still, she didn’t know all the lurid details.
“I appreciate it.”
“And I’m sorry. I came into our marriage knowing I was living in someone else’s shadow, and even though you were never anything but good to me, I let that consume me. It was a hard place to be in, though, you have to understand.”
He stopped to look at her. “You were my wife. I gave you everything I could.”
“Which was everything but your heart. No, don’t deny it,” she added quickly when he opened his mouth. “We’ll just have to agree to disagree if you do. Let me say this. I think you carry a lot of guilt when you shouldn’t. At least some of it belongs to me. I didn’t let you…I don’t know, I didn’t let you try.”
He cast a glance around. The girls were waiting for them beside their mom’s car, both of them occupied for the moment by a teammate. “What do you mean?”
She took a shuddery breath, and he worried she might start to cry here in front of a good portion of the town. Her pretty dark eyes glistened, but any tears that might be coming forth stayed put. “I know you wanted things to work for us. You worked hard for things to work. I didn’t help. I freaked out. I felt like a failure. I’m only saying… I don’t know what I’m saying. Just that you deserve to be happy. You deserve someone who’ll help you work toward being happy, and not throw it in your face if you’re not.”
“You deserve to be happy too, Shell. You deserve it with someone who doesn’t have to try, or work for it. I want that for you.”
“Yeah.” A breeze blew a strand of hair across her face. Not long ago, he would have swiped it away for her. She tucked it behind her ear instead. “I do too.”
He found himself driving by Dermamania even though it wasn’t on his way home. It looked busy and Ghost’s car was there, but Starla’s wasn’t. Even if it had been, what would he have done? Nothing. She probably wouldn’t even want to talk to him. But if she was there, at work with her friends, he would know she was okay. That she wasn’t working when the place looked wrapped up with clients disturbed him.
Still, he drove home, where the only company he had was his animals outside. He ran his horses for a while, but all too soon the sun went down, and he was forced to face the empty house alone. Eating alone. Netflix alone. Empty bed. This house had never been so empty, not even after Shelly left. Starla’s presence was just so bright and vibrant. It felt as if a light had gone out.
He flung his remote control aside and tossed over onto his back, cramming the heels of both hands into his eyes. Dammit.
He couldn’t go through this again.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“I love it, girl. Love it.”
Grinning, Starla popped off the top of a beer. “Sorry I don’t have any furniture but my bed.”
Janelle chuckled, taking a sip from her own bottle. “Hey, what else do you need?”
The apartment was small and the walls were bare, but it was hers. A space all her own. Her own kitchen. Her own wonderfully functional oven. Her own living room. No deadbeat brothers loitering on her (at the moment nonexistent) couch, or generally stinking up the place. So she’d be living solely in the bedroom for a little while until she could furnish the rest of it, but that shouldn’t take much longer. The rent wasn’t going to break her, especially with the higher commission Brian had given her. She’d been working in the newly opened shop for two weeks now, and every night she wanted to weep from sheer happiness. They were starting small with two other artists for now, but they were already busy, and a few of her South clients actually lived here in her new town, so they’d been happy not to have to make the thirty-mile trip over to Dermamania to see her.
It was Sunday night, and Janelle had driven over to see the new apartment and have a beer, though Starla hadn’t been able to resist whipping up a batch of cookies for her first official guest. They were standing at the bar that separated the living room from the kitchen, devouring the entire plate.
“You look happier than I’ve ever seen you,” Janelle observed.
Starla sighed, breaking a warm cookie in half and watching the chocolate string decadently between the two pieces. “Stands to reason that when one area of life falls into place, another one falls spectacularly to pieces, doesn’t it?”