CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

 

HOW DID she tell Keir that not only had she spoken to Greg, but he’d been in her home?

Myah gnawed a cuticle and watched Dylan draped over Jolie’s hide as the large puppy slept. “Uh-huh.” She switch the phone to her other shoulder and continued mending the hole in Dylan’s pants.

“Are you listening?”

She froze. No, not listening. “You said Ron’s not feeling well?”

The pause accented her mistake. “I said his daughter’s gone to the hospital. He left. I gotta’ get back to work,” Keir said quickly. “I got double the load now. Leave Jolie in the backyard when you go to bed. I’ll be late.”

She’d love to blame her Greg-dilemma for her relationship problems, but it was her man-repellent which entwined itself in her words and actions. Myah longed to tell Keir to wait. Wanted to hug him, smell him, bury her face in his chest, play with the vulnerable tickle spot on his abs he ultimately let her overpower him to get to. But that wouldn’t be the impression he got when she opened her mouth and out came the wrong word. “Okay.”

“I’ll leave her with Haylan next week. It’d be easier.”

Easier. Relationship death wish, detonate now. “Okay.”

She lay awake listening as he arrived minutes to three and collected Jolie from the discarded playpen on the veranda. He whispered a loving conversation she couldn’t hear. The truck door slammed.

Myah’s heart raced in the many minutes of silence. She sat up. But the engine started and took her man away. She rolled over, aching and angry, vowing she’d never again cry for a man while hot rebellion trickled over her nose bridge to her pillow.

Days passed. Wednesday night came with no communication from Keir. She emailed to remind him that she’d be over after his Treasure Auto shift on Friday to set up for Dylan’s party. That’d give him enough warning that he’d see her. Shutting down the laptop she stared at the phone screen that used to light up with a text at least once per day.

She crawled into bed, torn, empty, abandoned. When a jingle exploded on her cell after eleven, her heart thumped with fretful excitement. She had to check the number twice.

“Hello?”

“Myah. It’s me, Greg.”

Instant fatigue set in. She sunk beneath the covers. “I can’t talk, Greg, I’m trying to sleep.”

“Sorry to disturb you, Myah-girl. Just checking up on you.”

Ugh. She hated that irritating name. “At eleven-fifteen? This is not the time to call a house with young children.” She clutched the sheet. “Is there an emergency?”

“No. Just like I said, I wanted to check on you. How are you doing?”

Awful. “Tired, Greg. I’m doing tired.”

Dings from a car’s interior came over the line before a door shut. “All right. I should let you rest. You sleep, sweet pea. Good night.”

“Don’t call me sweet pea.” But he’d hung up. Stress built painful pressure in her head. The thought of Greg wormed in her brain well into the early morning until he was overlapped by images of Keir.

 

 

“HOW DO you have a party for a two-year-old?” Amy flipped through the list of party favors Myah had purchased during lunch. “Do they even remember when they’re older? No! I can’t tell you how many Daddy threw that were wasted.” She sat on Myah’s desk and sipped a diet cola. “Wait until he’s ten.”

Myah chuckled. “I never had any, but my Dylan is going to get to laugh this year. It’ll be a nice night with family, a kind of get-together to meet and mingle. Oh, I know what you’re trying to do. You want me to un-invite the children and add an open bar. Get out of here!”

She smacked Amy’s butt to get her off the desk.

Her friend hopped off and started toward her own cubicle. “Not just booze, my Pretty. Booze and hot men. Show’s how much you know.”

Laughter dying, Myah started to clean up, and checked her blank phone. A sickening sensation roiled in her stomach. Three, fifty-seven. The only hot man she cared about obviously didn’t care about her.

She scrolled to the one-word response to her email last night. Fine. That was it. Fine.

Leaving everything pretty much a mess, she stood up and left her desk. Her only fit of love and belonging came from the warm smile of Miss Violet.

“How’s he been today?” She squeezed Dylan tight and carried him sideways toward the den at the back of the house.

“He been good. Always good.” Miss Violet hesitated and looked at her. “You not sick again are you?”

Did her heartache show? She took a deep breath and smiled through it. “Tired. Getting ready for somebody’s birthday party this Saturday.”

The older woman grinned. “How old are you going to be, little soldier?”

Dylan’s face went blank, then brightened. He held up two fingers, but brought his other hand up to curl one digit down. Myah laughed at his effort.

“You won’t be one and a half anymore, baby, you’ll be two. Show me two?”

Laughter erupted from his cheerleading squad at his successful effort. He did it again and Myah smooched a loud kiss on his little fingers in celebration. The sneaky munchkin held them up again just so he could get some more praise, and she pretended to nip them off.

Dylan squealed his pride. “Mmshukeer!”

The wind knocked out of her, she put him on his feet and continued to the back room. “Time to pack up, baby, let’s go.” She snapped her fingers to hustle him along.

The hole in her chest grew larger. She didn’t let on to Miss Violet what went wrong, though the older woman must have known what was said. Escape to the security of her four walls became the only place Myah wanted to be.

With Dylan down for the night, she turned to her Bible, prayed, and tried to get rid of the incessant ache. It followed her to bed. Mmshukeer. She cramped on the edge of the mattress and tried to erase the echo. Mmshukeer.

Myah checked her phone screen for messages, texts, emails…anything. Mmshukeer. Mm shu keer. M show keer. I’m show Keir. When he never saw Keir again after this weekend, how would Dylan react?

Her hand jumped when the phone vibrated in it. Ready to cry from relief, she hated the reaction. This state. She couldn’t sink any lower. Viewing the screen, she knew she could.

“Hi.”

“Myah.”

It should bother her that he didn’t think it necessary to identify himself. Worse, that he’d called close to midnight.

“You there?” His voice filtered through background ambiance.

“Yes. I’m here.”

“Sounds like you had a rough day.”

She shouldn’t sink lower. Try to think straight. But her broken heart ached for comfort. Perhaps that’s what Greg sought as well. Just to belong. “I’ve had better, Greg.”

“Aww, what’s happened?”

She chuckled, fighting tears of frustration. She admitted vulnerability to the last person she wanted to know. “I’m not doing this with you. Why all the interest in me all of a sudden?”

“I can’t get to know my sweet, innocent Myah?”

That’s not what he’d called her two years ago. “You like the innocent type. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one you sated yourself with while you courted Jocelyn.”

“Sated. Hmm, that’s a new word. Having a bad day makes you bite. Is that how it is now? Turning on me?”

“I’m not the one to find answers with for your marriage. Work it out with your wife.”

“We don’t have fights or anything. Jocelyn’s got the decorator over to change something or the other. I’ll leave her to it.”

“A designer at this hour?” She searched out the clock.

“He does what money tells him to do, and it’s when they’re both available. Ten o’clock. I hate it when she comes to bed exhausted, though. No time for me, like she forgets I need some lovin’.”

“Whatever. I’m not listening to this.”

“Wait. It’s okay. I’m just a little down that things aren’t as simple as they used to be.”

“You mean that you actually have to work for your marriage?”

“Ah, so you do have an opinion.”

“Forget it. This is all between you and your wife.”

“You keep reminding me I have a wife. Maybe I married the wrong woman.”

“Greg…”

He chuckled. “I’m just kidding, lighten up. But I could use a female’s opinion. What would you do to get her attention back?”

“Ask her. I don’t know her.”

“On some level all women want the same thing so tell me where to start. What would I do to woo you, Myah-girl? What would you like me to do? What do I fix first?”

Myah’s heart and head pulsed. Blood rushed too quickly. Greg’s low rumble broke through the torrent.

“You just have to tell me.”

I want to feel like I haven’t been abandoned in love. Not again. To feel like someone appreciates me. Hold me.

“Myah-girl. You have to show me.”

“Don’t say another word.” Hang up the phone.

“Why? Are you ready to tell me?”

Exhausted mentally and emotionally, she didn’t know how to respond.

“Why are you so afraid to tell me what you like? Think I’ll follow through?” Greg paused. “A day trip to New York. Dinner at any restaurant you want. Oh, I got it. You want a day at the spa. Or I’ll do it myself. Rub all over your back. That’s what you want, isn’t it—as a woman, I mean.” Silence let the offer sink in. “That’s what Jocelyn would like. True?”

“I can’t—”

“True? Yes or no.”

“I’m not answering your stupid questions.” Hang…

“When I asked you the other day who touched you, your reaction, I know I’m the only one who has. You’re such a good girl.”

The only sound became her shallow breaths and the buzz of emptiness of space around him. Boy, even Greg had found someone to love him, and she was the discarded goods. She let the drone of the background ask her why her emotions were too barren to hang up the phone.

“Hey. Let me come over and talk about it. You’ll feel better.”

“I can’t.”

“Say yes.”

“Greg, no.”

“Say yes.”

She scrunched her eyes. No, she couldn’t do this again.

“Let me over, Myah. Say yes. I’ll be right there.” Highway rumbles. That’s what it was, those ambient noises behind him. He’d already been on the road. From the start. To her place?

“Don’t you dare!” All her anger boiled in her head. “I’m emotional because it’s the sorriest thing that I ever got involved with you, and now you’re ready to hurt the woman who gave you everything you asked for! You’re despicable! I hate what you stand for but I got the best gift in Dylan and that’s why it tears me apart that I can honestly say I wish I never met you.

“He’s good, and he’s precious, and he has a father.” Something ugly rose inside. It anchored in a place deep and black, a place totally foreign to her; and it found voice in a dark, unconnected woman far from any good girl Greg had ever known. “And it’s not you!”

She squeezed off the phone, blindly dismantled the battery, and wailed into the sheets. Muscles, eyelids, fists, all coiled tight to breaking capacity. She screamed into the bedding for herself and for Dylan. It seemed impossible to love someone so much, yet hate—with a sickening stench—where he came from. But Dylan didn’t need Greg, he’d get the best in life with Keir.

How she loved that man. And she messed things up. She tried to stop her sniveling into the pillow. Keir’s heart had always been in the right place, even if his head was uncharacteristically not. And she needed to take a chance that he wouldn’t be like the rest.

He’d said he loved her, shown her through his actions. Genuine. Sacrificing. Myah felt pain rack her whole body that she’d dashed away the best thing in her life. She’d fix it. She had to.

She threw back the covers and dried her face as she flew to the next room. “Come on, baby. Going on a road trip.”