Chapter 14

14

Mack

I'm quick as a ninja as I creep into Davey's LEGO hut and find the container we packed all the pieces into the other day. Do I like LEGO? No. Am I any good at it? Also, no. Which is why I'm enlisting the group to help me the hell out.

The look of horror on his face is something I keep replaying, and the way he comforted me after just goes to show what a perfect-hearted man he is. I'm getting him a Christmas present too, but I figure with how busy we'll both be in the lead-up to the holidays, especially with him still getting work done from home, he's not going to get a chance to rebuild this—so I'll do it for him.

Well, me and whichever friends I can bug to help.

The last thing I want is for Davey to leave for work again only remembering the kids' meltdowns, me destroying his things, and a hookup I'm worried he regrets. At this stage, I'm doing everything I can to cling to our closeness, to make sure nothing changes from this comforting love we have for each other.

Could I be content having this for the rest of my life? No relationship, no sex, just Davey and his cute freckles and sexy curls and the way he holds my eyes when he smiles.

I'm still stuffing the Luke question down in my brain, wanting to ignore it as long as possible. He came by again for lunch, and again, I couldn't bring myself to say anything. The thing is, when I chat with Luke, he's so nice. A genuinely happy person. And while I'm sure he has some kind of crush on me, I'm not convinced he's looking for more than a friend by the talks we've had.

If that's all he's after and I bring up more, that could go downhill fast. And I like the idea of having him as a friend.

The LEGO rattles in the container as I walk out to the car. Art picked Davey up, and Kiera is at school. Van's with his grandparents at kindy gym. So now is the perfect chance for me to sneak away and get this organized.

I have to hope that Davey doesn't notice the LEGO missing before I can rebuild it and get it back to him. Given that he hasn't had a chance to get out there all week, I should be in the clear.

Instead of heading for Killer Brew, where we all meet up regularly, I drive out to Ford's Garage. It's a huge space, and I'm sure he can find a teeny corner to allocate to me and my plans. Plus, there's no chance Davey would stumble across it here.

Ford's in the huge garage when I show up, coveralls stained with oil, and when he catches sight of my car, he grabs a rag to wipe off his hands and crosses the gravel front lot to meet me .

"This is new," he says. "Come to take me to lunch, pumpkin?"

I climb out and round the car to the passenger door. "I'll take you to lunch if you help me out with something."

"What's that?"

I pull out the container and rattle it his way.

"Oh, no. No, no, no. That stuff is the devil."

"I know," I say desperately. "That's why I need help!"

Ford backs up, dirty hands raised in front of him. "I'll buy my own lunch."

Taylor comes our way, eyeing my box in confusion. "What's going on?"

"I'm asking the handiest man I know to help me with a project."

"Griff is the handiest man you know," Ford says. "I'm an idiot. Very dumb. My fingers are way too big for those itty bitty pieces."

"Ignore him," Taylor says. "This looks fun. What is it?"

"Some Star Wars ship thingie."

Taylor grabs the box and lifts it to see through the clear plastic. "As long as it's not the Millennium Falcon or anything, I don't see why we can't help."

Uh-oh. That sounds familiar. "Uh … out of curiosity, if it was, that would be … bad?"

"Yeah." They lift their eyebrows. "It's big and tricky and will probably take weeks if we're not working on it constantly."

"Right …"

Their curious stare settles into a blank look. "It's the Millennium Falcon, isn't it?"

I pull the folded-over instructions from my back pocket. "Little bit. "

They take the chunky booklet from me, resigned. "I'll find somewhere safe we can work on it."

"Wait, what?" Ford yells after Taylor's retreating back. "But I said no!"

They wave him off and keep walking, and it's a real struggle not to smile over the fact I won.

"Stop it," Ford grumbles.

"Have I mentioned before that I really love Taylor?"

Ford rolls his eyes and stalks back toward his garage, with me following after him. No sudden movements and no smug jokes, and I should be fine.

There's a small group gathered around one of the workstations in the back, where Taylor is clearing tools and parts off a bench.

"Hey, hey, we're not on break," Ford calls, but his tone tells me he knows he's lost them.

"… always wanted one of these," one of the men is saying.

"When do you need this done by?" Taylor asks me.

"Ideally? Before Christmas. I sort of have a plan for it."

"Hmm …" They study the booklet, gaze darting from the instructions to the container of pieces. "And they're all in here?"

"Yeah, uh, plus two other … things. It all got smashed and mixed up together."

"That's going to make it harder."

"I know."

A voice comes from behind me. "This is interesting."

"Argh." I startle at Orson popping up to look over my shoulder. "Where did you come from?"

"Lunch break. Normally I catch Ford fucking around at this time, but he's not usually joined by the whole garage."

I sigh and point to Taylor. "I broke Davey's most prized LEGO set, so I wanted to sneakily fix it for him. Only, it's all in pieces, and there are other sets mixed in with it."

Orson pulls a face. "Looks like lunch is canceled, babe."

"What?" Ford's face falls. "Did I get dumped twice for LEGO?"

"Technically, you dumped me," I point out.

Orson waves a hand. "At any rate, this is important. True love is at stake." Orson holds his hand out for the instructions and studies them for a second. "I think we're safe to get rid of all the red, pink, and yellow pieces. Then, we'll need to work off the list of included parts to figure out what else we need." He claps Ford's shoulder. "It's almost like building a motor. You'll be great at this."

"But … but …" He holds his hands up again. "My fingers. They're too big."

"In that case, I guess you won't mind picking up lunch? Some sandwiches will do."

Ford throws me an unimpressed look but doesn't argue.

Half of the guys standing around jump into sorting through the pieces with Taylor while Orson pulls me back from the group.

"I heard camping was rough."

"You could say that."

"Oh, we did. Many times, and I have the texts to prove it."

I gnaw on my lip, wanting to defend myself, but it really wasn't my best moment.

"Now that's done with, I assume you have another plan. Maybe involving all this?"

"The thing is …" I stuff my hands in my pockets and scuff my boot on the cement floor. "I'm already feeling lost."

"About?"

"Whether I should even be doing this. "

"What happened to doubts not being allowed and that everyone just needed to say yes because this was happening?"

I lower my voice. "We, uh, hooked up. The night we finished decorating."

Orson's understandably shocked. "I think my flowers are at a one hundred percent strike rate."

"Don't want to know what that means. But it happened, and I keep wanting it to happen again, even though I know how stupid it is. We haven't fixed anything. We're …"

"Digging your hole deeper?"

"Right."

Orson crosses his arms. "But you still love him?"

"So much."

"Obviously the travel thing got too much for you, but if that was me and Ford, there's nothing that would get in the way of me being with him. I'd rather two weeks out of the month than no weeks out of the month. If you love someone, you make it work. You figure out what you can sacrifice and what you can't, and then you go from there."

I huff, frustrated. "That's the exact opposite of the advice everyone else is giving me."

"It's pretty fucking clear. If you love him, and you hate that he's away from you guys so much—go with him."

"With … him?"

"Sure, why not?"

Why not? There are a million reasons why, and they're all ones I've faced time and time again whenever I considered this question. "The kids have school."

"Then homeschool them."

"And my job?—"

"If they can't be flexible, quit. You don't need the money."

"But … where would we live? "

"Wherever Davey does now. Next?"

I had plenty of reasons before we started this conversation that I'm scrambling to come up with now. "It's not a stable life for the kids."

"Kids are adaptable."

I shoot him an unimpressed look. "Stop making this sound easy."

"I'm not. Look, I get it's a hard choice. I'm only pointing out that if being together is the most important thing to you, you can make it work."

"And if not, I should walk away."

Orson shrugs. "Well, I wasn't going to say it." He gestures toward the LEGO. "What's the plan?"

"His gran used to host dinner on Christmas Eve and cooked the same meal with pudding every year. He used to love it, and we haven't had it for a while, so I thought I could learn how to make it and then give him back what I broke. Like, it's nothing special, but I thought the gesture?—"

"It's perfect."

I perk up. "It is?"

Orson's expression sobers. "Thinking about people and making them feel special is the most important thing you can do. And I don't want to get all heavy on you, but speaking from experience … I know what it's like to lose the person I love. I'm incredibly lucky to have a second chance at this, and because of my perspective, there isn't a single thing I wouldn't do to make us work. It's easy to let our issues get to the point we can't see anything else, but … in the end, none of that matters."

Orson has a perspective no one else I know does. Losing his wife drove home how short life is, and the thought of losing Davey that way has me so fucking panicky I can barely breathe. On this side of it, with our marriage a distant memory, it's easy enough to think I could handle his traveling, but then I think of how it felt last time he left—when we weren't even together—and that confidence shrivels.

Am I being too selfish in wanting it all or nothing?

I don't like that I automatically know the answer to that question.

But both ways I look at it, waiting for him or traveling with him, have a distinctly difficult future ahead.

Finding someone else would be the easy option.

Too bad there's no one like Davey.