“What if I don’t?”
A spark of hope lit in her chest. Then fight for us, Brody. Fight for me. Tyler couldn’t speak, too afraid that if she did, all she’d manage would be pleas for him to stay. She wouldn’t beg. The scraps of her pride were the only thing she had left.
“I guess you’ve already made up your mind,” he said.
It would be so goddamned easy to bend and give him an in, to let him convince her to allow this to play out a few more weeks. But she couldn’t do that. Couldn’t bear it.
“This was temporary,” she began. “I knew that when I decided to get involved with you again.” A lie. “My life is here, in Wishful. Yours is out there in the wide world. I tried to ignore that, tried to pretend that eight years of becoming different people didn’t happen. But it did, and I’m not interested in pretending anymore. Playtime’s over.”
“You think I’ve been playing with you?” Now it was his voice with the edge.
Tell me. Tell me you haven’t. Tell me this is real. Tell me you aren’t walking away.
The sound of the zipper closing made Tyler flinch. Brody picked up his bag, slung it over his shoulder in a manner that suggested he’d rather be hurling it at the nearest wall. His eyes were narrowed, his lips compressed. “Good to know. I’ll see you at rehearsal, Tyler.”
She listened to his retreating footsteps, feeling her heart sink with each step. At the sound of the door closing, she shot to her feet and stumbled down the hall toward the front door. There, she stopped herself, wrapping both arms around her middle to ward off the shaking as she stared at the wood panels, willing it to open again. But, of course, it didn’t. Every cell in her body strained toward the door, urging her to run after him, whether he thought her a fool or not. But she didn’t move. And when she heard the engine of his truck turn over, heard the sound of him pulling out of the drive, she fell to her knees and wept.
2 Weeks 'Til Show
The Babylon job was all but done.
There were lists of final details to be tended to—always some kind of last minute, unexpected thing. But by and large, the construction was complete. The interior design crew was kitting out the rooms upstairs with the furniture that had been delivered earlier in the week. The landscape architect was overseeing the planting of the hanging gardens on the roof. As Brody sat alone at the gleaming mahogany bar, he knew he should already be moving on. The portion of the job under his purview was done. Because of his commitment to the show, Gerald was leaving him to take care of the details that Louis normally handled. But even that should be handed off to the new manager in a few weeks. He’d done a hell of a job, beating even his best record for the company in terms of bringing in the project ahead of schedule.
None of it meant a damn thing.
Brody felt none of the usual pleasure in a job well done, no joy over the finished product. Because it all meant he was that much closer to being out the door and on to the next job. And for the first time in eight years, that was no longer enough.
Cracking open a bottle of bourbon from the newly stocked bar, Brody poured himself a glass and avoided looking at the envelope full of details on the Portland job that Louis had sent over that afternoon. Brody had lost the first one.
“You been holding out on us, boy-o!”
Brody looked over his shoulder to see Tucker clomping his way across the room, Cam on his heels.
“Neither of you is supposed to be h
ere,” said Brody.
“We are on a mission,” said Tucker. “And since it’s all of benefit to you, you can pour us some of whatever it is you’re drinking there.”
Brody didn’t relish company for his brood, but he knew his friends weren’t going to leave him be until they’d said whatever they had to say. With a marked lack of enthusiasm, he circled around to the other side of the bar and grabbed a couple more glasses.
“Much obliged,” said Tucker, accepting the glass. He took a testing sip. “Mmm. Smooth.”
Cam took his own glass and used it to point at Brody. “Now, it has become increasingly clear over the last week that you have a bug up your butt about something and, given that Tucker and I have actually seen you on multiple occasions when you have heretofore been joined to the hip with the lovely Miss Edison, we conclude that all is not well in paradise.”
He and Tucker exchanged a look. "What did you do?" they demanded in unison.
Brody glared at them. "Not a goddamned thing. And if you're both going to be assholes instead of friends, I'm not sharing."
Tucker moved his low ball out of Brody's reach. "Let's try this again. What happened?"
"Hell if I know. She came home from rehearsal last week and asked me to move out. Already had my bag packed."
"Did you have a fight? Because groveling is always advisable in that case," said Cam.
"She wasn't angry." If she'd been angry, he would've had something to fight against. But that calm, cool finality gave him no leverage. "She just said she couldn’t do it anymore—that we’d both known it was temporary from the start, and she didn’t see the point in pretending anymore." God that burned. When had he ever given the impression that his intentions were temporary?
"Is that what you were doing?" demanded Tucker. "Because I'm not too gimpy to kick your ass."