TEN
One week later, Callie sat in her office and twisted off the top of her bottled water, staring at her laptop in the center of her desk. As she tried to compose a reasonable answer to her latest Ex Factor question, she avoided looking at the tiny camera eye centered at the top of the computer screen. And desperately tried not to remember how Matt had looked the night of their Skype sex.
She pressed her palms over her eyes. Maybe if she pushed hard enough she could force the images from her brain. Unfortunately, her brain was still filled with visions of Matt wearing nothing, long muscular legs stretched out before him. The broad shoulders and the hard chest and the flat abdomen. She loved the way his sweatpants had been slung low over his lean hips. Better still? Those sexy hands satisfying his body while she urged him on with her words. The sight of the successful conclusion would be her undoing for some time to come.
Throat dry as yesterday’s leftover toast, she reached for her bottle of water and swallowed gratefully.
She might never be able to sit through a video conference again without thinking of that moment. A fact that would prove incredibly inconvenient today when she’d had a Skype session with the mother of the bride of next week’s Pride and Prejudice wedding.
But of all the things she missed about Matt, many a sexy episode aside, she missed his smile the most. The sexy half smirk, that teasing hint of a grin. And her favorite? The smile accompanied by that spark of full-on humor in his eyes. She wished she could hang a poster on her wall with all the various looks. But that would only remind her of what was missing in her life.
And that something was Matt.
Callie slumped in her seat. The first few days after the wedding, she’d hoped that he’d call her up to say he’d rethought his position. But as one day slipped into the next, she began to wonder if she should consider moving. But leaving New Orleans, her family and her business?
She couldn’t imagine life so far away from the city, the bayou of her childhood and Aunt Billie. As strained as their relationship was, she’d even miss her parents. And she’d just started reconnecting with the extended family she hadn’t seen in years. She couldn’t leave now.
A knock sounded on her door and a head full of brown hair poked through.
Callie sat up in surprise. “Mama.”
Her mother rarely came to visit at the office. Usually it was Callie making the trip across town to see her parents.
“Hi, honey. You look...off,” her mom said.
A sad smile crept up Callie’s face. “I’m feeling very off.”
Her mother settled into the seat across from Callie and folded her arms across her lap. She looked ready to wait until Callie explained.
“The Paulson wedding was a huge success,” Callie said
“So I heard. That’s nice.”
Nice.
Snippets of the event had been broadcast on two local cable channels. Tommy and Penny’s brief interview had been picked up by a syndicated news channel and been aired across the country. Callie had received more business inquires in the past week than ever before. Business was booming, and Callie would probably need to hire extra help to keep up with the work.
But all she got from her mother was nice.
“What happened with that doctor you brought to the reunion ?” her mother said.
The muscles in Callie’s stomach clinched. Something in her mother’s voice rubbed Callie wrong. It was the same tone she’d used the first time they discussed Callie’s screwup in college. The tone that held an implied “What now?” Ten years later and her mother still expected bad news at every turn. And, as bad news went, this was the worst Callie had ever experienced.
Matt...gone.
And if she could blurt out the truth to Matt, there seemed no point in keeping anything from her mother now. “I’m in love with Matt Paulson.”
Something flickered in her mother’s eyes, but her expression didn’t budge. “I figured out as much on my own.”
“You did?”
“Well, I am your mother.” Her mother shrugged, as if the act of giving birth to Callie somehow had provided Belle LaBeau a peephole into Callie’s heart. “And it’s not like you did a very good job of hiding the fact. I could tell by the way you looked at him at the reunion . When he laughed, your whole face would light up.” She hesitated and then smoothed a hand down her pants. “You certainly never looked at Colin like that.”
This time Callie did groan. Good God. How long before her mother let this issue go? Callie had recovered from the breakup years ago. Did her mother need therapy to get past this and move on?
“Mama, Colin and I have been over for years. He’s happily married to a woman I consider a friend.”
“I’m well aware of that.” A soft smile appeared on her mother’s face. “I happen to know the woman who planned the wedding.”
In the end, Callie lost her battle with a wry grin.
“I’m not stuck on Colin,” her mother went on.
The news surprised Callie, because she sure couldn’t tell by her mother’s action. Every single visit with her mom had ended with Colin being mentioned at some point in time.
Callie sat up straighter in her seat. “Then why are you constantly bringing him up?”
“Only because he’s the last man you’ve brought around to visit your family. At least, he was until Matt came along.”
The mention of Matt’s name brought a fresh wave of pain, her heart aching. Callie shifted her focus to the window that overlooked the warehouse district of New Orleans. The day sunny and bright, but inside Callie’s office felt dark.
“You’re happy arranging weddings for other people, yet you haven’t had a serious relationship in ages,” her mother said. “What happened with Matt?”
Callie’s voice sounded as hollow as she felt. “He went back home to Michigan. And he’s kind of stuck living in Manford. It’s...” Callie paused trying to think of an explanation that wouldn’t be an invasion of Matt’s and Tommy’s privacy. “It’s complicated.”
Her mother crossed her legs and studied Callie for a moment. And in one of those moments known horribly well by kids the world over, Callie knew her mother was about to offer advice. Whether Callie wanted it or not.
“You could move up to Michigan,” she said. “Maybe even finally realize your dream of finishing college.”
Callie’s heart slowly slipped to her toes.
“I don’t want to go back to college,” Callie said.
“But that was all you talked about in high school.”
“That was the dream of an eighteen-year-old who had no real idea what she wanted to do with her life,” Callie said. “It was always more your dream than mine.”
Her mother looked knocked flat, and a stab of guilt struck Callie again. She never meant to be quite so truthful.
“Look, Mama,” Callie said. “I’m sorry you and Dad sacrificed so much to get me into a great school.”
Her mother straightened her shoulders. “Your dad and I sacrificed so you could make something of yourself.”
Callie dropped her head into her hands. “Mama.” Callie managed not to let out a moan. Barely. She looked up again. “I love my job.” She dropped her hands to her desk and met the brown gaze of her mother sitting on the other side. “This is exactly where I want to be. I’m my own boss and I have a very successful business. I appreciate all you and Dad have done for me, but—”
It was past time she told the truth and stopped letting this issue slide. She couldn’t continue to remain silent.
Callie sucked in a breath and gathered her courage. “But I’m not sorry about how things turned out. I wouldn’t change anything even if I could. If I could climb into a time capsule and undo all I’d done in college, I wouldn’t.” She should have spoken these words ages ago. Callie steadily held her mother’s gaze. “I’m exactly where I want to be,” Callie said, “doing exactly what I want to do.”
The strength of the conviction in her words reminded her exactly why she couldn’t drop her life and move up to Michigan. Both her mother’s brows arched in surprise, and Callie let the words settle a little deeper before going on.
“This isn’t my second-choice life, Mama. This is my very best life.”
Or at least it had been until she lost Matt.
Callie pushed the crushing thought aside and concentrated on meeting her mother’s gaze. “And I need—”
When Callie’s voice gave out, her mother set her purse on the floor beside her chair. “What do you need?”
“I need to stop feeling like y’all are just waiting for me to screw up again.”
Silence filled the room and Callie did her best not to shift her gaze away from her mother. It felt as if Callie had lived and died a thousand lives as she waited for her mother to speak.
“Okay,” her mother said.
Callie blinked. Okay? Just like that?
“Now you need to do me a favor, Callie.”
Callie fought to keep her breathing steady. “What’s that?”
Her mother leaned forward, her eyes intent. “Stop avoiding relationships. Get serious about finding someone, about sharing your future, with someone.”
Callie’s lungs stopped functioning, and she longed to take a deep breath. Problem was, she had finally gone out and gotten serious about someone.
But he was gone for good.
* * *
“Why are you still here?”
Tommy’s voice echoed off the walls of the garage, and Matt turned from his task of sorting through his tools. “Excuse me?”
Matt had been banging around the garage for the past two hours, trying to pack for the move to an apartment that held little appeal, yet grateful for the mindless task of sorting through his stuff. He’d tossed the things he didn’t need—a pile that wasn’t as big as it should have been—and stacked the stuff yet to be packed, which was larger than need be. Boxes covered the floor of his bedroom and living room and perched on the counters in the kitchen. He couldn’t seem to decide what to keep and what to throw away. So two hours ago Matt had come out to the garage, frustrated by his inability to focus, thinking that dividing the supply of tools in half would be an easier process.
He’d never had trouble focusing before. If anything, his focus had always been a problem. But with his mind stuck on missing Callie, and the impossible situation a relationship with her presented, he’d come out to sort through his problem the only way he knew how: banging the wrenches and screwdrivers and the various-size hammers around. The process offered him some satisfaction.
But zero relief.
“You heard me,” his brother said.
Tommy stepped down into the garage. His wavy brown hair and brown eyes always made him look a bit like an overgrown puppy. Well, an overgrown puppy with serious issues.
His brother came to a halt beside Matt and leaned his hip against the workbench.
“How long are we going to tiptoe around this, Matt?”
Silence had been working for them so far. And Matt wasn’t sure he knew how to change the status quo.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Matt said.
But he did. The dark thoughts plaguing him since he’d left New Orleans had been following him around like a black cloud hell-bent on raining down on his head, complete with lightning bolts and thunder and the foul mood.
Tommy let out a scoff. “You don’t want to be here.” He waved his hand to encompass their current surroundings, but Matt knew he was referencing something much bigger than a garage located in Manford, Michigan. “You want to be in New Orleans.” Brown eyes gazed at Matt. “With Callie.”
The familiar ache in his chest friggin’ hurt.
“Maybe,” Matt said.
Yes, his mind screamed.
Matt turned away from his brother and concentrated on repacking the tools in a manner worthy of the most diehard of obsessive compulsives. Matt knew the statistics; crystal meth addicts had one of the highest relapse rates of all the drug users.
There was no answer to this one.
Just like Tommy’s addiction, this wasn’t a problem Matt could fix. There was no treatment to be applied that cured the disease. Frustration burned through Matt and he randomly picked up a wrench and rubbed his finger on the cool metal.
“But my home is here,” Matt said.
“It doesn’t have to be.”
Matt closed his eyes, his fingers curling around a Phillips head screwdriver.
“Manford doesn’t have to be your home base anymore,” Tommy went on. “In fact, you could take a permanent job in New Orleans. The emergency rooms there have to be busy enough to satisfy the adrenaline junky in you.”
“I could,” Matt said. “But I won’t.”
“Why not?”
Matt stared out the window at the bleak view that only appeared that way because he was in freaking Manford. Anxiety coiled in his stomach, and he decided to voice the words that had been bouncing around his head for years.
“Because when I walked in on you two years ago, for several seconds I thought you were dead.”
The ache in his chest was all-consuming, and he met his brother’s brown eyes again. They’d never discussed that day. The event had been too painful. Matt took in the way Tommy’s hair flopped on his forehead, just like it had as a kid.
“And I can’t bear to go through that again,” Matt said.
“So what does that mean?” Tommy cocked his head. “Tough love until the day I die?”
Matt’s lips twisted. “Tough is a pretty good word for it,” he said. But as the moment lingered between them, Matt finally went on, “No matter what, you’re my brother. That comes before everything else.”
Tommy cleared his throat as his eyes grew suspiciously bright. “I told you before, you can’t save me from myself, Matt,” he said softly. And then he let out a humorless huff. “Though God knows you’ve tried.” He rolled his head, as if releasing the tension in his neck. “You can’t put your entire life on hold anymore,” Tommy continued. “You have to let it go, Matt.”
Anger, bright and hot, surged from his core. “What the hell?” Matt braced himself as he faced Tommy. “You’re my brother, Tommy. How am I supposed to just let you go?”
“Not me,” Tommy said. “The guilt.”
The word slammed into Matt, leaving him gut-punched and short of breath. His ribs squeezing his heart so hard Matt was sure the pressure would crush him.
What is with you and this martyr complex?
Jesus, he’d told Callie to fully let go of the past, and here he was clinging to his. But Tommy didn’t know about the thoughts he’d had...
Matt let out a self-deprecating scoff, wishing Callie was here with him with that playful spark in her eyes and her honey-tinted drawl. And the kind of nonjudgmental understanding that let a person share even the worst truths about themselves without fear.
Because how could he share that brutal news with his kid brother? He opted for the easier explanation instead.
Matt left the tool bench and headed for the stairs leading to the kitchen, dropping down to sit on the bottom step. “I should have been around more in the beginning.”
“You had a medical degree you were trying to earn.” Tommy took a seat beside Matt.
“But Mom and Dad were gone, and we were alone.”
And God knows wading through the days, trying to figure out how to deal with Tommy and be an adult all at the same time hadn’t been easy.
They sat there, side by side, and Matt tried to push the memories of the first time he’d found Tommy passed out on the floor. Of a Tommy so gaunt, so thin, his color so unhealthy that it physically hurt to look at him. Sure, Matt had been checking in by phone. But only so much information can be gleaned from the sound of a voice.
He couldn’t remember the precise moment he began to have his suspicions something was off. The little niggles of doubt had always been easily rationalized away.
He’s having an off week.
He’s stressed.
He’s just not hungry today.
Of getting the call he’d wrecked his car again, and this time not being sure Tommy was going to pull through. Perhaps the time had come to explain to Tommy exactly how much Matt didn’t deserve his kid brother’s devotion.
Matt stared straight ahead. He couldn’t meet Tommy’s eyes, not with what he was about to say.
“The third time you walked out of rehab and waded back into that mess it took everything in me not to leave.” Matt closed his eyes as he remembered the turbulent thoughts from that day. Angry. Petrified. And knowing he just couldn’t live this life anymore.
Tommy remained quiet beside him while silence engulfed the garage. Matt couldn’t bring himself to look at his brother. The confession was hard enough to express without those wide, brown eyes staring at him. He felt like crap for sharing the thoughts with his brother. If they’d just been a fleeting thought Matt wouldn’t feel so guilty. But since that day, every morning he’d woken up with the same thought.
Leave.
Get out of town.
Save yourself.
He scrubbed his face with his hands, exhausted from the mental war being waged in his head. And so friggin’ sick of living his life in limbo he didn’t know what to do. With every one of those thoughts came the opposing thought. Tommy was all the family Matt had. Walking away felt impossible, even during those times Matt was sure he was drowning.
“God, you have no idea just how badly I wanted to pack up and get the hell out of Dodge. Go to the farthest city that I could.” He turned to meet his brother’s gaze. “Because I just couldn’t bear the torture of waiting around for you to finally kill yourself. Watching you waste away into someone I didn’t recognize anymore.”
Always braced for the next slip. The next call from the E.R. The next night Tommy didn’t come home and Matt was sure that he’d overdosed, unconscious.
Or dead.
“I just couldn’t stand to have my heart broken again,” Matt said.
Tommy’s voice sounded raw. “But you didn’t go.”
Matt’s lips twisted at the words. They might as well be inscribed on his tombstone.
“But it’s time,” Tommy said. “You’ve got to get on with your life and stop worrying about your kid brother. Go back to Callie, Matt.” Tommy’s brown gaze held Matt’s hostage, and then his brother grinned. “Before you become a grumpy old man no one wants to be around anymore. Cuz, you know, you’re already halfway there.”
Matt slowly sucked in a breath. He’d told Callie to get over the guilt, maybe it was time he followed his own advice.
He let out a scoff. “Is this my kid brother giving me advice?”
“This is your kid brother showing you some tough love, dude, because it’s my turn. You need to leave. I need you to leave.” Tommy crossed his arms and leaned back against the railing. “How can I ever be sure I’ve made it on my own if you’re always around to help me out? I’ve kicked the ugly addiction. Every day I’m concentrating on staying clean. I know you’ve tried to ease my way in the world by smoothing out the bumps along the way. Now it’s time for me to handle life on my own.”
Matt’s chest shook with the force of the pounding beneath his ribs.
“Go back to New Orleans. Take a job there. You can visit whenever you like. This will always be your home, too.” Tommy stood up, looking down at Matt. “But you belong with Callie.”
Tommy climbed the last two steps and entered the kitchen, closing the door behind him. Matt stared at the door, his brother’s parting words echoing in his brain.