The Closer You Get (32 page)

“How long have you been standing there?” he asked. Not waiting for an answer, Adam kissed Cash, lapping up the rainwater off his lips.

He felt Cash’s hands fist in his hair, and his kiss deepen and progress. Adam pulled back enough to hum in pleasure. “Let’s get you out of these wet clothes.” He ran his hands beneath Cash’s shirt to those abs he loved so much.

Cash cupped his face. Adam looked up and felt his happiness die. There was so much hurt and sadness in Cash’s eyes, Adam couldn’t help but feel his pain. “This is over,” Cash said.

Adam’s hands dropped to his sides. He took a step backward, all emotion draining, leaving him cold and in shock. “Because of Rye?”

“Those Dunigan brothers showed up with a few of their friends and a baseball bat.”

A wave of nausea rose in Adam’s throat. “I did not mean for that to happen.”

“You’re supposed to ask if Rye’s okay. If I’m okay.”

Adam shook himself. “Are you? Is he?”

“We’re fine. Physically fine, anyway. You might want to call your best friend. She’s been trying to call Rye, but he’s too busy torturing himself and looking for jobs in big, far away cities to give her comfort. I think she’s pretty distraught.”

“How’s that my fault?”

Cash laughed bitterly and shook his head. “So you didn’t mean for this to happen. What did you mean to happen when you told those guys about Rye and Davis?”

“I was just talking to Jack and Roux. They overheard; that’s all.”

Cash nodded. “Next question: How’d you find out about Rye and Davis?”

“It’s public record—”

“But not current. No reason for it to have come up in casual conversation. You went digging, didn’t you?”

Adam didn’t deny it.

“So you know,” Cash said. “You know what happened to me even though I told you I wasn’t ready to talk about it. You know, and your reaction was to make even more hell for my brother?”

Adam choked down his emotions. The cold of shock left, replaced by awareness. Full awareness of what he’d done and what he was losing. “I thought if he left maybe things would be better for you and me.”

Cash frowned and nodded.

“What you went through,” Adam said, “no one could blame you for idolizing your brother. He saved your life. But he’s not a good person, Cash—”

Cash laughed again. “No, you’re not a good person, Adam. What did he do? I mean, you go on and on about how you hate the way he treats women. But hasn’t he changed? So what is it you hate so much?”

“Cash, can’t we just start over? Let me start over. You mean so much to me.”

“What is your issue with my brother? What is it?”

Adam’s body was trembling. “Please—”

“Answer the goddamn question!”

“He messed with my life, okay!” Adam shouted, shocking even himself with the words. “He waltzed in here and suddenly my best friend starts putting on high heels and earrings. He changed her. And he was so damn cocky about it. I hated seeing her pine over an asshole who didn’t even care about her. She used to play pool with me. Have beers with me. Go on dates with me. Now she’s even invited him to her mom’s birthday party, which I always go to with her. It’s…it’s…” he trailed off.

Cash’s mouth hung open. Slowly, his lips curved upward, but the smile was one of bitter amazement. “You know, Rye’s got this trigger…this sensitive spot, and it has to do with not belonging. He’s always so cool and collected, but the minute someone starts treating him like an outsider, he freaks out and goes on and on about how he hates small towns. How the people act so righteous, but the minute an outsider shakes up their lives, they close ranks and cast him out. I never paid much attention to his rantings, but now I see it. He’s describing you. How fucking petty, Adam!”

Tears left hot tracks down Adam’s cheeks. He had no defense. Petty was exactly the right word, and now that he’d finally articulated what it was he hated so much about Rye, it was like a light flooding a dark room. He suddenly saw everything clearly.

Only the light had come on a little too late.

“Cash—”

“Goodbye, Adam.” Cash walked out the door, in spite of Adam’s calls.
 

Adam ended up standing on his porch in the rain watching the best lover of his life drive away.

A
FTER
SEVERAL
FAILED
attempts to contact Rye, Cora decided to back off. Her heart hurt. She wanted to dissolve into tears. But she held it back. He needed time, and she would give it to him.

At work, she peeked into his office to say hello. He smiled and chatted casually. Then she left to go to her office and didn’t hear from him anymore. That went on for three days so that she was numb from the pain in her soul when he knocked on her door.

She was sitting at her desk about to wrap up her workday. “Come in,” she said, without looking up from her computer. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him and smiled. End of the day. He must want a beer at Darcy’s. That would be fine with her.
 

He sat in the chair across from her desk, his legs splayed in front of him, one elbow casually draped over the back of the chair next to him. Cora finally looked at him and felt her smile die. He looked exactly as he had the day he’d come in for an interview. That same closed, I-don’t-give-a-shit expression on his face. “What’s up?” she asked.

Rye shrugged and glanced around the room. “Cash and Adam broke up.”

“I heard. I’m sorry about that.”

Rye shrugged again.
 

“Do you wanna maybe go somewhere and talk about it?” she asked.

He finally met her eyes. “I sent you an email a few minutes ago. Did you get it?”

“I hadn’t checked. Let me look.” She opened her email. Opened Rye’s email. His two week’s notice. She blinked, hoping she wasn’t seeing this. As she stared at the screen, she said, “You’ll never find a home if you don’t stay long enough to forgive people.”

“Oh, really? That’s how it works? I forgive them? You don’t get it, Cora. Once you see that side of people, it’s not about forgiveness. It’s about trust. Cash needs to be somewhere he feels safe. And I need to be somewhere where I can look at my neighbors without wanting to punch them. God, it’s like everywhere I go, all I find are these hate-filled, evil people hidden behind smiling masks of righteousness and morality. I hate it. There has to be somewhere where people are real and honest and true.”

Cora turned her tear-filled eyes to meet his. “There’s nowhere that doesn’t have some bad people and some good people. There’s nowhere like that.”

“I don’t care if they’re bad; I just want them to be fucking honest about it.”

“Lots of people don’t know themselves well enough. Don’t understand themselves enough to be honest with others.”

Rye’s frown deepened slightly.

Cora swallowed. “There are always some, though, who are honest and real. Aren’t I? Haven’t I been real for you, Rye?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You’ve been the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Then you won’t find better, no matter where you go.”

“I can’t stay here. I can’t walk around here knowing behind all those nice smiles, people are judging me and distrusting me and hating me.”

“Not all of them, Rye.”

“It’s better in a city. Everyone minds their own business. That’s where I’m going next. St. Louis or Chicago. No more of these towns full of hypocrites and hicks.”

Her chest tightened, and as much as she fought, she couldn’t keep the tears from trickling out. “You said you loved me. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“Of course it does.” His eyes were wet, too. His jaw clenched tight.

“Then stay for me.”

He breathed deeply for a moment, tension rolling off of him. “I’m too angry,” he said through his teeth. “I can’t stay here. Come with me.”

A laugh escaped her lips. “Come with you? Do you realize what you’re asking?”

He didn’t answer.

Angry, he’d said. He was angry? Well, she was angry, too. “You’re selfish,” she said. She gasped in shock at the truth of it and the fact that she’d said it out loud. But once she started, she couldn’t stop. “You’re so fucking selfish! You come here, and you talk to me like I’ve never been talked to before, and you touch me in ways I never imagined possible…you take me to the point that I offer my heart up to you…trust? You wanna talk about trust? That was trust! Falling in love with you was trust. I didn’t expect you to abandon me for no good reason!” She was on her feet.

Rye jumped to his feet and leaned forward onto her desk. “You feel let down? That’s how I feel all the time! People let you down and it fucking sucks, doesn’t it? Kind of breaks your heart doesn’t it?”

She was sobbing now. “Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”

“The absolute last thing I want in this world is to hurt you, but if I don’t get out of this goddamn town right now I’m going to go crazy. I’m terrified for my brother. I’m angry at everyone. Even you, though there’s no reason for it. I just can’t be here anymore. I’m so sorry.”

“I hate you,” she said, all sense of reason abandoning her. “I hate you for doing this to me, for making me love you and then taking it away.”

A tear streaked down his left cheek. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re selfish. Adam was right. Maybe you changed and stopped sleeping around, but you’re still selfish, and I’m the one getting hurt because of it.”

His brow furrowed in confusion.

“Go,” she said, falling back into her chair. “If we’re done here, then go. I’ll put out ads for your replacement immediately.”

He cleared his throat and stepped backward. “I can stay on and train the new guy.”

“That’s the least you can do.”

“Cora, I’m so sorry.”

She glared at him until he finally turned around and left. She hurried to her door and locked it so she could cry without fear of interruption.

Friday night she went to Adam’s apartment. After two days, she figured she’d cried out all her tears. At least she hoped so.
 

Adam opened the door, looking like how she felt, pale and miserable. He smiled sadly, stepped to the side, and invited her in. “I called Franny,” Cora said. “She’ll be over in a few minutes.”

“You invited Franny to my apartment?”

“I needed to be with my best friends.”

“Yeah, I get it. It’s just that Franny’s been the voice of reason lately, and I’m just not sure I’m ready for that tonight.”

Cora laughed as she collapsed on Adam’s couch. He brought her a beer and reclined into his chair. “So it’s over with you and Rye?” he asked.

“Yep.” No, she’d definitely not cried out all the tears. She had to fight to keep them from spilling out again.
 

“He was good for you.”

“Yes, he was. But you don’t have to pretend to think so for my sake.”

“No, I know he was good for you. He brought you out of your shell. Made you happy. I mean, it was a rocky start, but after that he was nothing but good for you.”

Cora stared at him in confusion. She was about to ask why he’d had such a change of heart when a knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. Franny didn’t wait for Adam. She came in on her own, carrying a big, pink box. “I brought cupcakes from Ruby’s,” she said cheerfully.

She sat the box on Adam’s coffee table. Cora moved her feet back so Franny would have room to sit on the sofa. Franny sat and pulled Cora’s legs onto her lap. “Saw Rye at Darcy’s earlier,” Franny said.

Cora had a nightmare vision of Rye picking up women, acting like he’d never been in love. “What was he doing?” she asked, unable to stop herself.

“Drinking and talking to Jack.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“For a few minutes.”

“Did he hit on you?”

Franny laughed. “No, he didn’t hit on me. He’s far too broken-hearted for that. I told him he was an idiot, and he took the news really well.”

“You told him that?”

“Well, yeah. I told him love doesn’t always strike once and hardly ever more than that. Leaving you would be the biggest regret of his life.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. Just stared down into his glass of whiskey. Then you called and I came over. Now I figure it’s my chance to tell Adam he’s being an idiot.”

Adam sighed and dropped his head onto the back of his chair. “You don’t have to tell me, Franny. I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Have you considered trying to fix this mess you’ve made?”

Adam sighed. “I’ve thought of a thousand ways to apologize to Cash and none of them seem adequate.”

“Cash isn’t the one you need to apologize to.”

Adam sat up and frowned at Franny. The moment dragged on to the point of awkwardness when at last, Adam let out a laugh. “You know, you’re right.”

Franny smiled proudly at Cora.

“I’ve just spent so much time thinking of Rye as this unevolved ape it hadn’t occurred to me to think of his feelings. I have to talk to him, don’t I?”

“Absolutely,” Franny said. “And he’s a good guy, Adam. You managed to identify his primary insecurity and just totally exploit it, so you’ve seen nothing but the worst in him. But he’s a good guy. Give him a chance.”

Cora watched the interaction, listening and hoping. She didn’t know whether an apology from Adam would be enough. Rye was certainly angry at Adam, but more than that, he was angry at injustice, prejudice, and just humanity in general. Overcoming that was going to take more than an apology from one man.
 

She reached for a cupcake. Red velvet with cream cheese frosting. “Mmmm, so good.”

“Cupcakes or sex?” Franny asked with a wicked glint in her eye as she snatched a chocolate-on-chocolate cupcake.

“Sex,” Cora said, knowing without a doubt she would toss that cupcake aside if it meant one more night with Rye.

“Cupcakes and sex,” Adam said. “This is America. We don’t have to make choices like that.”

Franny sighed. “Honestly, I love sex, but I’ve not met anyone who rocked my world harder than one of Ruby’s double chocolate fudge cupcakes.”

“Maybe you have to be in love for it to rock your world,” Cora said.

Adam and Franny shrugged as they quietly pondered the idea.