Janelle would get her divorce just as she’d asked for. I had no problems granting her that. It wasn’t like I wanted her to stay and fall in love with me because I’d spent the last five years plotting out our future or pining for her. I wanted her here for one reason and one reason only, and that was to be a part of her family the way they all needed her to be. But that would never happen if she spent all her time and energy battling me. My hope was that she’d exhaust her efforts soon and begin to focus on the real matter at hand. And that would never happen if I gave in first. She had to be the one to fold. I only had to keep upping the ante long enough to make her do so.
“If you’re not doing this to get back at me…why are you making me stay here on a Saturday while you go out on the boat with my brother and sister?”
“I already told you. A package is being delivered today, and I need someone here to sign for it. As for me going on the boat with your siblings…I guess I don’t see it that way. I’m going out to spend the day on the lake with my best friend, his wife, and possibly his sister and brother-in-law.”
“If it’s your package, don’t you think you should be the one to stay home and wait for it?”
“Not really. I assumed you’d be hung over after going out last night. I didn’t expect you to be awake before I left. Not to mention, you don’t really have any friends around here since you’ve been away for so long.”
“What if I leave? Huh? What will you do if I’m not here to sign for it?”
I shrugged and turned around to walk away, speaking over my shoulder when I said, “Do whatever you want, Janelle. We both know you’re going to anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I stopped at my bedroom door and looked right at her, standing exactly where she’d been when I walked away. “If you don’t want to stay here, then by all means, leave. Go hang out with whoever you were with last night, or go run into more people you used to know. I. Don’t. Care. If you’re not here when the delivery truck comes, they’ll just come back another time. The world won’t end. You won’t stick it to me, it won’t piss me off, and it won’t keep me up at night. I’ll still be out on the boat with my friends, having a good time. But there’s one thing I won’t be doing, and that’s thinking about what you’re doing.”
Without waiting for her to respond, I walked into my room and closed the door behind me. Aside from my shoes, I was already dressed and ready to go, but I knew I needed to hang back for a few extra minutes. So I sat on the edge of my bed and ran my hands through my hair, wasting time before I could leave my own house.
I hated these games—usually avoided all games—and wished I didn’t have to participate in this. Granted, I didn’t have to. I could’ve given up and put an end to it all. I could’ve given Janelle what she wanted, signed the papers, and let her go off and marry that moron for money. But no matter how easy that would’ve been, something stopped me. Probably my need to fix things. And by this point, I needed to see it through. I refused to lose this, and the only way I’d be able to accept a loss, was if we’d made it all the way to the end of our arrangement and she still refused to reconnect with her family.
At that point, it wouldn’t be my loss.
It’d be hers.
And there was nothing I could’ve done about it then.
It was eight by the time I made it back home. The sun was about to set, the streetlights about to come on, but there was still enough light to see the woman standing on my front porch. Without wasting a second, I parked the car and jumped out, hurrying around the corner to greet my guest. I only prayed she’d just gotten there, and Janelle hadn’t already had a chance to answer the door.
I swept my gaze along the road in front of us, noticing her car in front of my neighbor’s house, and I shook my head, unable to figure out why she always parked there. “What are you doing here?” I asked, almost out of breath—not from the light jog from my driveway to the front door, but because of the adrenaline coursing through me.
“I had to get out of the house and didn’t have anywhere else to go.” She ran her perfectly manicured fingers through her stick-straight, black hair, pulling the silky strands away from her face. Then her ruby-red lips tipped into a smile and her onyx eyes glistened with mischief. “Whose car is that?”
It wasn’t that I wanted to lie to her, but I had to be careful with how I explained it, while also being mindful that I didn’t speak too loudly in the event Janelle stood on the other side of the door, listening. I took my guest by the arm and walked her to the driveway where we stood in front of the garage. “Matt’s little sister.”
Her smile grew wider and the glint in her eyes brightened. “Does Matt know?”
I nodded without offering more.
She’d get the information she was looking for without me having to offer it all up at once. And she didn’t disappoint when she asked, “Visiting?”
“No. She’s living with me for six months.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, and her mouth rounded into a bright red O. “This is going to be fun. And exactly what I need to take my mind off the shit going on at home. Tell me, Holden. Tell me everything. And don’t even think about leaving out a single detail.” She poked me in the chest with her pointy nail that sparkled like aluminum foil. “Are you two together?”
I rolled my eyes and heaved out a long and controlled exhale. “Nope. But she knows about the chapel in Vegas. She came here like a week ago and asked me to sign her divorce papers, and I told her the only way I’d do that is if she moved back here and into my house for a while.”
The giddy surprise in her expression quickly turned to complete amazement. “And she fell for that? She didn’t know she can still get the divorce without you agreeing?”
Worried that Janelle could overhear, I shushed her and lowered my voice. “I told her I’d drag it out, and she didn’t question me. Shut up, okay? I’m doing what I have to do for her family. They need her, and if this is the only way to get her here, then so be it.”
“I’m pretty sure if you just tell her what’s going on, she’ll stay. I can’t imagine anyone from that family being so coldhearted they’d find all that out and still turn their backs on their loved ones. Are you sure there isn’t some ulterior motive behind your actions?”
I knew where she was going with this, but I refused to give in. She may have known more about me than anyone else, including Matt, but that didn’t give her the right to jump to conclusions. “No. I’ve told you a million times, but I’ll say it again…I’m over her. I knew it that first Christmas when she came back and made no effort to see or talk to me. And then it was further substantiated that next summer when she refused to come home. I knew then that I meant nothing to her, and that’s when I moved on.”
“Sure thing, Holden. Keep telling yourself that,” she practically sang in her sickly sweet, singsong voice. “So tell me…how’s it going having her under the same roof? Made any babies yet?”
“It makes total sense why you were kicked out of your house. What’d you do this time?”
“Bought a pair of shoes.” She thrust out her foot to show off some fancy-looking pair of heels that she for whatever reason paired with jeans. “Apparently, it wasn’t in the budget, and this wasn’t the first time I’d spent money on myself without discussing it first.”
“How long do you have to be gone?”