Trey
Trey didn’t have time to wallow, even if he wanted to curl up in a ball and die. His client meeting kept him busy most of the morning. By the time he pulled up to the Victorian, his mother and sister had arrived. The rest of the day was spent moving them into his apartment. They’d brought little. Jamie didn’t own much, other than clothes and a few books. Mom had put whatever she wanted from the house into storage, bringing only clothes.
By that evening, they’d settled into the spare room. Until Mom found a place of her own, Jamie was going to sleep on the couch and let Mom have the bed. However, they were sharing the closet.
“It’s just temporary,” he’d said. “We’ll find you a house soon.” The Wolves were on the job. They’d have her in a home of her own soon enough.
Around dinnertime, Jamie came back from the grocery store with ingredients for a chicken stir-fry. He’d sent several texts to Autumn, but she hadn’t replied. He prayed it was the wedding shower that kept her from answering and not her anger. After everything, if he lost her over this, he would never forgive himself.
While he and Mom sat at the table in his kitchen, Jamie scurried around making their meal. If they’d noticed his sadness, they hadn’t mentioned it to him during the day. He should have known that wouldn’t last. No sooner had he opened a bottle of wine than his sister, in her usual blunt fashion, asked him what in God’s name was the matter with him.
He thought about denying and just pretending that he was fine, but the need to talk outweighed his weariness. “It’s about Autumn.” He told them everything from the fake profile until the argument that morning. When he was finished, both his mother and sister wore an expression of pity mixed with disdain for his obvious stupidity.
“I’m with Autumn,” Mom said. “In that this was the worst idea ever. And I blame myself.”
“What?” Trey asked.
“I taught you by my example to keep everything inside.” She nodded toward Jamie. “It seemed to have the opposite effect on this one. She, obviously, doesn’t have a problem expressing herself.”
“Very funny,” Jamie said, good-naturedly.
“I’m afraid I’ve blown it for good,” Trey said. “She’s really angry with me.”
“Give her some time to cool down,” Mom said. “If she loves you, she’ll move past it.”
He hoped so. Please, God, help her to forgive me.
His mother and sister must have contacted Nico, because later that evening, his friend showed up at his door with a six-pack and an invitation to walk down to the beach. The sun had already set as they meandered down Main Street to the stretch of sand that curved like a quarter moon around the landscape. A starless twilight-blue sky hung over the dark sea. They sat on the bench that overlooked the water. Nico opened two beers and handed one to Trey.
“What you need, brother, is a plan,” Nico said.
“We had a plan. That’s how I ended up in this situation.”
“Plan B. Yep. We need a plan B.”
“What do you suggest?” Trey took a long pull from his beer.
“Clearly, I have the worst luck with women in the entire vast universe, so I’m not really the one to help come up with a way out of the mess we made. I’m thinking honesty is the only way out.”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that. You should have seen the hurt look on her face.” His throat went dry, remembering the way her eyes had stared at him, like a puppy left on the side of the road by its beloved best friend. “She took this as a betrayal. The one thing she thought I’d never do.”
“You want me to talk to her?” Nico asked.
“If any of us do that, it should be Stone. He’s her brother. She has to love him, no matter how many stupid things he does.”
“Shouldn’t that be how all love is? Unconditional? Even when we make mistakes, we’re still loved? If she truly loves you, she’ll see this for what it is. An attempt to win her heart. I truly believe that someday she’ll see this as romantic.”
Trey thought about that for a moment. “That’s not how it works in real life.”
“Sometimes it does. We don’t see it that way because our fathers made their love conditional. ‘Do as I say, or I can’t love you.’ They made those rules, and when we didn’t abide by them, they rejected us.”
A sadness enveloped him, crushed his hope. Maybe he was too damaged to have the life with Autumn he so craved. He drank from his beer and watched the tide creeping ever so slightly over the sand. Soon, it would be high tide. Too late to save any of the sandcastles that had taken beach dwellers all day to make. They would be trodden under the inevitable tides of the sea.
“Come on, man. Let’s take a walk,” Nico said.
“I don’t feel like it.” He tipped his beer and took another long drink.
“Let’s walk up to Autumn’s house. The wedding shower is probably over. Maybe she’s cooled off by now. You know you won’t rest easy until you’ve got this worked out.”
“She doesn’t want to see me.”
“By now, she’ll have softened, maybe even forgiven you. I see the way you two are together. She loves you. This is going to be fine. I promise.”
He got to his feet and accepted another beer from Nico’s outstretched hand. “If you say so.”
“That’s the spirit.” Nico slapped his back as they started down the cement pathway that ran parallel to the beach. “We’re fighters, remember?”
Trey shrugged and let out a long sigh. “Right now, I feel like a loser.”
“No way. You’re the best guy I know. Let’s go get the girl.”