Beg, Borrow, or Steal (When in Rome, #3)(84)

I don’t know . . . I’ve had some wine. I probably won’t send this. But in case I accidentally do—you should know, I don’t think I really hate you at all.





Chapter Twenty-Eight


Jack


“I appreciate you letting me check in so early, Mabel,” I say after she hands me my room key over the counter. When I got back to my tarped-up, sawdust-covered house last night, I quickly realized an accident of some kind must have happened that day while they were working, because my AC was out. It was hot and oppressive in there. So if my night wasn’t bad enough, I added sleeping in 1,000% humidity to the situation.

I didn’t actually sleep, though. I tossed and turned all night, restless with memories of my conversation with Emily. And after the sun was up, and at the first appropriate hour, I went straight to Mabel’s inn and asked for a room for the weekend. A technician will be coming out to my house later today to work on the unit, but I figured why not go ahead and book a room for a few days just in case.

“It would have been rough trying to get through this hot weekend without AC,” I tell her, as I follow her up the stairs.

“Don’t blame you a bit. It’s gonna be hot as hell the next couple of days.” The stairs creak under her loafers. Once we’re on the second floor, she turns left down the hallway and stops in front of a door labeled THE PINK ROOM. She opens it for me and waves for me to step inside.

Good God, it is a palace of ruffles. It’s not just a tribute to the color pink, it is the full embodiment of it. The space is somehow louder than my anxious mind. Which—is maybe a good thing.

“I love giving this room to men,” she says with a chuckle. “It never stops being funny to see the look on y’all’s faces when you step inside. Most men look like they might catch feminism if they’re in here too long.”

“Thankfully I already caught that ‘affliction’ years ago. Now I’m just worried I’ll lose touch with space and time when you shut the door behind me.”

Mabel cackles and I’ve never felt so proud of a joke. “Go on and get settled, and then maybe once you’ve had some time to cool down in the AC you can tell me the real reason you’re at my inn instead of that shitty one you fed me downstairs.” She lifts her eyebrows.

“I—” I pause. “It was a real answer.”

Her eyebrows somehow lift even further. “Jack, you can’t fool me. I’m a hundred-and-one-year-old woman, I invented lying.”

“Are you really a hundred and one?”

“No. Now tell me what’s going on. You and Emily have a fight?”

I laugh harshly. “There isn’t a me and Emily.”

“I told you to quit with the bullshit. If you don’t want to talk about it, just say so, otherwise quit lying to me.” Her hands are on her ample hips now, yellow dress as bright as the morning.

“All right—I guess you could say we had a fight and it’s going to be awkward to live next door until we sort it out.”

“What was the fight about?”

I don’t know how to explain it. If I even want to explain it. What was discussed between me and Emily last night was personal. And the more time I think over what I said, the more I feel like I was in the wrong. If I tell Mabel, she might not like me half as much from here on out.

“Nope,” she says with a country bite. “Quit trying to find the perfect thing to say and spit it out. I don’t tolerate pretty words. They make me feel queasy.”

Fine, then. “I think I was a dick to Emily.”

“There we go! I can work with this.” Mabel shuffles over to the bed and sits on the bottom edge, patting the spot beside her. “Don’t worry,” she says with a sly grin. “I’m no cougar, you can sit by me.”

“I appreciate that clarification.”

She winks as I sit down, and then her expression sobers. “Now what did you say to our town’s Queen Bee?”

“I can’t tell you all of it because that would involve divulging a secret of hers that I need to keep. But in a nutshell, she had a hard day yesterday—and I wanted her to let me be there for her—but she was dead set on weathering it alone.” I dread saying the next part. “So then I essentially gave her an ultimatum. Either she opens up to me, so we have a meaningful, real relationship, or we go back to nothing.”

Mabel nods. “So essentially you said, Love me how I want to love or else—every woman’s favorite thing to hear.”

I groan and drop my face into my hands. “I know! It was rough.”

And on top of it, I tried to tell her exactly how to feel about her email with Colette. It was my chance to prove I could be someone safe in her life and I steamrolled right over her. I know that Emily doesn’t like to be cornered. And I know how hard criticism is for her, and yet, like Mabel said, I essentially demanded she love me in that moment rather than asking myself what she needed.

You only told me tonight, years after knowing me, because you were finally comfortable and ready, but you’re demanding vulnerability from me when it best suits you.

She was right. I didn’t realize it until now, but I’ve been trying to rush this between us. I don’t think I’ve ever really felt loved until her, so last night, I tried to capture it before it was gone.