Wide Open (9 page)

I deserved every bit of it, but it still stung to not see my things there.

I left before lunch because I wasn't sure if Mason would come home for lunch or not. I was being a coward, I knew, but I couldn't make myself face him yet. I needed to take this one step at a time.

And frankly, Mamma was the most important step.

I drove back to the hotel and gathered my things. I'd come back another time. I knew the nurse would tell them I had come by, and that was all right with me. I'd come back later on and take another step.

I couldn't believe how much better I felt, how much lighter I was.

I paid up the room and went across the street to get some gas and snackage for the road. I went inside to pay for my full tank and grabbed an egg salad sandwich and two bottles of root beer. I snagged a bottle of juice to even the health conscience playing field and went to pay.

The blonde in front of me turned like she forgot something and almost bumped into me as she swung around.

"Oh, sorry," she muttered and hoisted her purse higher on her shoulder. Her stomach was huge and round. I smiled at her antics as she snagged a pack of powdered donuts from the shelf and got behind me in line.

I moved and got back behind her. "It's fine. Go ahead."

"Really?" she asked sweetly and finally looked up at me. She smiled. "Thank you. I'm running so…" Her face changed, her mouth fell open. She looked familiar. "Milo?"

I tensed. No one was supposed to know I was in town. Who was this chick? She was too proper to be any girl I'd ever been with. "Uh…yeah. Do I know you?"

She stalled, uncomfortable. "Um, yeah. We met a couple of times." It clicked, just like that. My heart practically stopped. She was a little plumper in the face and the belly, of course. Her hair was longer and pulled to the side across her shoulder. It was her, but she informed me before I could say it. "I'm Emma, Mason's wife."

She was still beautiful, and I could tell her personality fit and she was just as beautiful inside. Panic smacked into me. "Is Mason here?"

"No," she said quickly, as if she could tell I was about to bolt. "I'm running some errands. He's at his tattoo shop."

I watched as her hand covered her belly. I couldn't stop my sigh. I had missed so much. My niece or nephew was in there.

"It's a boy," she supplied softly. She smiled and continued. "Mason was just about heartbroken."

I laughed. "What a sap. Of course he would want a girl."

I realized that we were standing there talking about nephews and Mason like it was commonplace. I looked up to find her eyes pleading.

"Milo, please. He misses you so much. He looked for you everywhere. We had signs all over town. The police were looking, too. They told us what happened…at the hospital." I tensed and looked around. She put her hand on my arm. "Please don't run, Milo."

"I can't stay," I said truthfully. "I did too many things in this town. I ruined any kind of life I could have here."

She winced. "I know. I know you can't come back. Just please…don't run." She searched in her purse quickly and pulled out a pen. She wrote a phone number down on my palm. "It's mine, not Mason's. Just…" She shrugged.

"Okay," I agreed to our silent agreement.

"You look…so good, Milo," she said with a smile. "Really good."

"So do you," I countered and glanced at her belly. "Pregnancy looks good on you."

She laughed sadly. "Yeah, if
cow
was in style, I'd be great."

I laughed but sobered. "Listen, I'm sorry about how I acted the last time…"

She smiled and tilted her head. "Water under the bridge."

"I can't believe Mason's going to have a son…and I'm going to miss all of it."

"You don't have to." The sympathy poured off her. "I don't know where you are or what you're doing for a living or anything, but…we just want to see you—Mason just wants to see you. He thought something awful happened and it was his fault because we…came for you that night."

She barely caught the sob in her throat. I swallowed. I couldn't even tell if I still hated Mason. My brain wouldn't even process that thought.

"I had to get out. I met some great people and they helped me. I'm doing good. Tell Mason he doesn't have to worry about me anymore."

She gave me a wry look. "You know better than that. He loves you. He'll never stop trying to make up for everything, whether you're fine where you are, he'll never stop looking for you. In his own way, he'll always be looking for you."

I looked at her hands, the way they twitched and wrung like she wanted to snatch me up and drag me home with her.

"Yeah," I muttered distractedly. "I've gotta go, Emma. I can't stay in town too long."

"You went and saw Mamma, didn't you." It wasn't a question. I swung my head up at the fact that she called her
Mamma
, too.

"I did," I confessed and couldn't stop the smile. "She's doing really well it seems." I sighed and shuffled my feet. "I'll come back to see her soon."

She leaned forward slowly and put her arms around my neck as much as she could with her belly in between us. "Thank you. They miss you."

I held my sandwich in my hand, but managed to get an arm around her. I didn't say I missed them, however. I was barely hanging on. I'd done it, the first step was done, but I wasn't ready to jump back in head first. "Thanks, Emma." I pulled back and look at her. "For taking care of them for me."

She nodded and knew this was it. "Please call or text. Anytime. I won't make you talk to Mason if you don't want to. Just let us know you're okay."

"Yeah," I agreed and smiled down at her. "I definitely want to come see my nephew."

"Please," she said again and turned slowly. She paid for her things and waved to me before she walked out. I could tell she didn't want to, but she also didn't want to scare me off.

As soon as I paid for my stuff and got in the Jeep, I pulled out my cell and put her number in. Then I did something. I took another step. I texted her…knowing that by doing so she'd have my number.

Tell Mason that I'm doing all right.

The drive back was both easy and hard. I wished I could change things. I wished things could be different, but I couldn't change my past or the things I did. There was no choice but to pay for them.

I thought of that man telling an entire roomful of people about how he thought his brother had hated him all those years for the crap he'd put him through. How he knew his mother and father were so disappointed that there was no way to come back from that. But when he'd finally made the plunge and went home, they all just missed him. They just wanted him back.

I wondered if my reunion with Mom would have been different if her memories had been intact. I couldn't think about that though. I couldn't go back to being scared. It was time to take responsibility and take my life back.

If I wanted any shot at a real future, the past had to be put to rest.

I stayed busy the rest of the week, anticipating and dreading the meeting. I knew I'd see Maya and though I barely knew her, she had already made a huge impact in my life. She was an off-kilter puzzle piece and showed me a few more that weren't in place either that I needed to fix. Mamma was just the beginning.

It's funny that you know the things you need to do and that have to happen, yet it's so hard to take that first step. But once you do, even though you know it's going to be hard, you don't want to stop. The needed momentum keeps pushing you toward the prize, and you let it because you know that as hard as this hurts, you can never go back.

You can never be the person who just exists for the sake of existing anymore, you have to be that person who lives.

My boss asked me why I was so smiley all week. Other than seeing my mom, the one woman in the world who loved me no matter what, I didn't know. Except for the fact that I knew and simultaneously hoped that things were about to change.

My smiley demeanor took a nosedive, however, when the time came for the meeting. I wanted Maya to do what she felt was best for her. If she didn't want to see me at all, honestly, I would leave her be, though that was the furthest thing from what I wanted.

I told her I'd chase her, but that was before she saw how pathetic and sad I was—a guy who couldn't even sit in on a meeting where people talk about their feelings without getting up and leaving. Twice.

I rubbed my head as I made my way inside. I had worked out a lot more than usual, trying to keep myself busy, and my arms ached in a good way from it.

Even as I made steps in the right direction, I still felt like I was falling behind.

I held my breath as I opened the door, and there she was. She was turned with her back to me as she looked out at the roomful of people. She was wearing a blue dress, short and sleeveless. She must have been wearing heels the last few times because with her little black flat ballet looking shoes on, she was a lot shorter than usual. And then I scolded myself for missing what those legs must have looked like with heels on.

I knew then that the chase was back on. The feeling of being alive—she gave that to me, and there was no way in hell that I was letting that go. Not now when I was on the edge of something epic changing for me.

I stuffed my hands into my pockets to contain them and tried to look normal, natural, as I made my way to her. Someone was wrapping their coat around herself as she exited and bumped into me with her elbow.

"Sorry," we spouted at the same time.

I knew Maya heard my voice because at the sound of it, her entire body straightened. She turned quickly, her shiny lips parted, her eyes wide and rimmed with sparkly make-up.

"Milo," she breathed, and her little hand made a fist. "Where have you been? I went by your place."

"I had some things I had to do—back home." I took another step closer, bringing us about five feet apart. "How, uh…how's the truck? Everything running—"

I barely saw her move as she pushed my stomach, forcing me to retreat against the alcove in the foyer that led to somewhere I didn't know. I felt her hand on the back of my neck as she pulled me down and her warm breath on my lips before she touched me. It took a second to respond because I was caught so off guard. What the hell was she kissing me for? I had acted like such an ass.

The suction her mouth made had me swaying as reality crashed back into me.
Good night,
she was kissing me. And she was being thorough.

The hand on my neck loosened, and I knew I'd waited too long to respond. When her hand slipped down to my shoulder, I stopped her and put it back on my neck where it belonged. I wrapped my arm around her waist, my hand coming up to hold her face. Her skin was softer than I imagined it would be. When I kissed her back, she made this long drawn-out moan under our breaths and went back down flat on her feet. She'd been on her tiptoes the whole time. I tugged her back up with my arm around her waist and held her there. Our breaths panted against each other's, and for a second I had a flash of another time when I'd been with a girl. It had been so long ago. I never kissed them. It felt like I was taking something from them when I kissed them. Their body was one thing, but their lips were sacred. In truth, I'd only ever kissed two girls my entire life.