Perfectly Reckless - Chapter #3 - Free To Read

#chapter Three

What do you do when you can’t stop yourself from going back over and over to the same person? No matter how bad they are for you. No matter how much they hurt you. Again and again, always the same. What do you do when you can’t stop loving?

It wasn’t the longest they’d gone without talking to each other. In the beginning, weeks had passed sometimes before one or the other of them reached out, though it was always as easy to talk to him as though no time had passed at all. At least in the beginning. And there’d been months of silence during her divorce, when she’d been focused on making sure everything she needed to do was done. This time, it had only been three days. A very fucking long three days.

The worst of it was the constant forgetting — she’d see something funny and want to text him a picture, hear a joke and want to tell him, discover a new song and her fingers were on her phone’s keyboard all ready to share it with him before she remembered. For three years they’d had to sneak every scrap of contact they had, and now that nothing was stopping them from talking or seeing each other whenever they wanted, they weren’t speaking.

She missed him. She would always miss him. That’s what love was, sometimes, a big gaping hole in the middle of everything else.

“It’s not like I never had my heart broken before,” Maura told Shelly across the table. “It’s just the first time I ever did it to myself on purpose. I knew better. And yet…”

“You just kept doing it. I know.” Shelly made a face and put the menu aside. She’d order the same thing she always did, and so would Maura. They’d been coming to the Black Raven Cafe for ten years. The chicken caesar salad was to die for.

Maura laughed at her friend’s expression. “What can I say? His penis is made of magic.”

“Riiiiight.” Shelly looked skeptical. “That’s totally it.”

“And I’m head over heels, totally crazy for him. That too. I can admit it.” Maura sighed, then rapped the table with her knuckles. “Fucking Ahab.”

Shelly looked sympathetic. “He’s a pussy.”

“Yes. That. Or maybe he just doesn’t feel about me the way I feel about him.” This was hard to admit, hard to feel. But necessary.

“Bullshit. He’s crazy about you, too. He’s just being a man about it. He can’t give you what you seem to want?” Shelly snorted her derision and wagged a finger. “Bull. Shit. All that means is that he’s too scared to try.”

Maura stirred the ice cubes in her glass of iced tea, wishing she’d gone for a cup of the Black Raven’s famous hot cocoa with a peppermint stick and plenty of whipped cream. Screw the calories. Screw the salad, too, she decided when the waiter came to take their order. “I’ll take a bacon double cheeseburger, chipotle mayo on the side. Onion rings. Oh…and an extra large cocoa. Extra whip. Hot fudge drizzle.”

“Super cute,” Shelly commented about the waiter when she’d placed her own order of the expected salad and he’d walked away. She gave Maura an eyebrow lift. “And, wow. When’s the last time you ate?”

“I’m eating my feelings,” Maura said flatly. “And I didn’t notice him.”

“You didn’t notice how cute that waiter was? What the hell? I can’t even with you,” Shelly said. “What happened to your hot dude meter?”

Maura frowned. “It broke.”

This earned a second brow lift from Shelly, who could always be counted on to provide comfort and ass-kicking in equal measures. “Ian's an asshole.”

“Yeah,” Maura said, not meaning it. Because that was the thing. Ian could be a jerk sometimes, who couldn’t? She wasn’t proud to say she had her moments of outright bitchery. But he was not an asshole.

“I hate to see him get to you.” Shelly leaned a little closer across the table. “I mean…you’re not regretting anything now, are you? About Chad?”

“God, no.” Maura gave a startled laugh and shook her head. “No way. The divorce was the best thing. The right thing. Sometimes things break and you can’t fix them. Better to end it than live on in misery and resentment.”

Shelly, who’d been married to her high school sweetheart for almost twenty years, pursed her lips. She was the only other person Maura had ever told about Ian. If she’d laid judgment about the affair, she’d never given Maura any sign of it.

“There are days,” Shelly said, and paused before saying in a low voice with a furtive glance around the room, as though someone might give a damn what they were saying, “I envy you.”

Maura laughed, then covered her mouth apologetically. “Oh, c’mon. You and Rex are like salt and pepper. Peanut butter and jelly.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want to toss him out the window sometimes. The one on the second floor,” Shelly added, as though she needed to clarify.

“That’s normal.” Maura chewed on her next words a minute before figuring out how to say what she meant. “When all you do is argue about who forgot to put the cap on the toothpaste or whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher or who should take care of Christmas presents for whose parents…when that’s all you’ve become is nagging each other, that’s no good. But I didn’t leave Chad because we fought all the time. I left him because I’d stopped caring enough to even argue. One day he asked me why I hadn’t bothered to pick up his dry cleaning for him, and all I could do was stare at him like he was talking in a foreign language. I mean, literally, Shelly, I simply could not process what the fuck he was talking about. And he kept on and on about it, just picking away at me, until I realized that I simply no longer cared enough even to defend myself. It wouldn’t matter. If it wasn’t the dry cleaning it would be about whose turn it was to make dinner, or why I couldn’t iron his shirts for him, and I was just…done. All done.”

The waiter brought their food then, and both women stopped long enough to dig in. Maura let out a long, low groan of satisfaction at the taste of the burger. Fuck the size of her thighs. This was heaven wrapped in nirvana on a platter of delight.

The conversation turned to other things. Work, family, celebrity gossip. It was exactly what Maura had needed, a few hours of girl time with her bestie, and even she’d been unable to manage any ogling of the super cute waiter, she did feel better by the end of the lunch.

In the parking lot, Shelly hugged her unexpectedly. Maura squeezed back, surprised but grateful for the embrace. A good friend was worth everything in the world, and Shelly was one of the best.

“Hang in there, cookie,” Shelly said. “You know I’m here if you need to vent.”

Maura straightened and smiled. “Thanks. I know. I’ll be fine. I’m sure it’s for the best, anyway. I’ll get over it…eventually.”

Shelly didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t argue. “Anytime you need me, just call. And hey. If you need someone to go out with dancing with you and play wingman while you score with all the hot guys who will be lining up for a shot at you, I’m your gal.”

“Absolutely.” Maura had no intentions of going on a manhunt any time soon, but there was no doubt that when she did, Shelly’d be the first person she’d call. Then again, wasn’t that how she’d gotten into this mess in the first place? Girls’ night out, one too many margaritas, the slow pulse and throb of her favorite song and a man who knew how to dance?

If she’d known then what she knew now, Maura thought as she got in her car and waved at Shelly, driving away. She caught sight of her reflection in the rear-view mirror, wide gray eyes lined with navy. Today, she wore red lipstick like armor. If she knew then what she knew now, nothing would’ve changed. She’d have done it all over again.

Every time.