Mending the Blur (a Forever & Always novel) Page 8

  Braydon

  JUST BEFORE WALKING OFF the field, a woman seemingly near my age approaches the sidelines as my coworkers and I make our way to our cars before heading out to a local brewery. “Mr. Gibson?” she calls out.

  “Yes,” I answer puzzled. Typically, I’m Braydon, Coach, or Gibson, but I’m rarely ever called Mr. Gibson.

  “Braydon Gibson?” she asks for clarification. Jake, my coworker chuckles at my annoyance.

  “That’s still me,” I deadpan.

  “Awesome—” she says pulling out a legal envelope from her bag, “—you’ve been served. Have a great day.”

  “What the hell?” I growl aloud just as Jamey squawks the same response. Shaking my head, I look up at my friends and sigh. “Y’all go ahead; I’ll meet you at Emily’s.”

  “Are you gonna open that?” This comes from Jake, his eyes bouncing from the envelope to my eyes a few times. “Oh hey, that’s the attorney’s office that settled my parents’ divorce. Weird, maybe you’re a character witness,” he continues rambling.

  We continue walking as a group toward our vehicles, and once I’m at my truck I throw my gym bag into the back seat and peel the envelope open. My heart begins to race when I see Adalyn’s name as the petitioner and instantaneously stops when I skim the words “Action for Divorce.”

  “Dude, you okay?” Jamey asks coming up beside me. “You’re white as a ghost.”

  “Apparently I’m married,” I mumble skimming through the legal document reading the date of marriage, the Thirteenth day of May 2012.

  “You’re what?” my friends say in unison.

  “Yep, for almost four years,” I say incredulously. What in the actual fuck? She cannot be serious. I just saw her over the weekend. She said nothing. She led me to believe we could mend the relationship we had severed and rebuild our friendship. No wonder she avoided all conversation of her husband. Because I am her husband. Her. Husband. And Brenton and Braxton knew. So did they know about the divorce too? “Fuck this,” I growl throwing the papers into my truck and pulling out my cell phone, violently tapping the screen until ringing emanates through the speaker.

  My day is officially complete shit. Adalyn’s phone is either shut off or she’s redirected me straight to voicemail. Coward. My chest aches as I drive home, after reassuring Jake and Jamey that I will be out tonight after I shower and try to find some answers. I mean, it’s been nearly four years, what’s the hurry at this point. I know one thing; she’s got another thing coming if she thinks I won’t confront her about this.

  Once I’m home, showered, dressed, and putting on my Doc Martins, I snatch the envelope off my entryway table and skim it again. The lawyer’s office is here in town so that means she must also be living in this area. I mean, that’s the only thing that makes sense. Last I knew she was living in the bungalow in Alabama. She didn’t mention moving, not that the lack of disclosure equates to much since she failed to mention us being married too. Son. Of. A. Bitch.

  EMILY’S TROUGH IS PACKED tonight, more so than a typical Friday night. Then again, it’s been this way since they won best brew at the Missouri Craft Brew Fest last year. Once I move past the door, I make my way toward the bar. To say I could use a drink is pretty damn close to the understatement of the century.

  “Thanks, Betsy,” I offer up after taking my drink and looking around for the rest of my group. Before I was served this afternoon, the athletic department had decided it was time for a night out after the hell our athletes have put us through this season. Let’s not mention we just started back up after winter break. Lazy little shits have another thing coming. I made Bethard puke three times in an hour today. It was bliss, until he aimed for my shoes, then I made the whole baseball team pay. Nodding once I find Jamey and Jake, I make my way across the bar and join in the conversation effortlessly until it stops mid-sentence. I think a cat just died. Who the hell just gave the chick on stage a microphone?

  “What a train wreck!” Jamey laughs in my ear. Granted she’s not one to talk, chick can barely carry a tune to save her own life, but we all have faults. I just have to make sure not to drink too much or my ass will be up there belting ballads… well that or hate music. I’d decided before making my way in that my emotional stability is wavering more than I’d like–alcohol is only going to intensify it.

  The ear-piercing vocals die down and to my dismay everyone in the bar hoots and hollers– freaking small towns, always so friendly. As the pretty girl and red faced guy that was awkwardly trying to sing with her make their way down the stage, the patrons move around giving them room to reunite with their table, and what the… Shaking my head, I continue to stare, blinking hard a few times. She never disappears. What is Adalyn doing here?

  “Bray? Dude, you alright?” Jake asks as he waves his hand in front of my face a few times before I swat it away.

  “I’m fine,” I respond before draining my beer. “Hey, you see that woman over there? The one in the yellow top, turquoise scarf, and jeans?” I ask pointing across the bar, my heart suddenly racing and a lump forming in my throat.

  “Yep, she’s hot,” Jake confirms, and I see red.

  “Oh, that’s the Adalyn you go on and on about, I know her!” Jamey giggles. “Small world.”

  “Eyes to yourself, Jake.”

  “Oh hell, that’s your wife? Hell, I’d be fighting that filing too. She’s hot, dude,” Jake booms just as the music fades and everyone including Adalyn looks in our direction. Her eyes go wide, the entire group she’s with laughs, and my brow arches waiting for a reaction. Which she denies. Go freaking figure.

  After a few moments she breaks our stare down by shaking her head and redirects her attention to the man talking to her. He’s taller than her but barely; fair skin, short hair, and scrawny–total douche. I could break this needle-dick douchebag with my thumb and forefinger.

  “Easy, killer,” Jamey laughs coming up beside me, forcing her hand into my clenching fist.

  “I could break him with my bare hands, and if he touches her, I might,” I state and she laughs again.

  “Yeah, Hulk, and that’s gonna get ya nowhere fast. Why don’t you just go say hi? Kill ‘er with kindness,” she says pulling me toward Adalyn and the group of people she’s surrounded by, our eyes again glued to each other’s. Ed Sheeran just stopped crooning the lyrics of “Photograph” when Jamey drops my hand as if it were diseased and not so covertly nudges my shoulder.

  “Hey, stranger, long time no chat.” I seethe internally but manage to come across as normal, or at least I hope. “This is Jamey, my co-worker, what brings you to my neck of the woods?” I ask feigning my indifference. I honestly couldn’t give two shits if she knows Jamey or vice versa, but I felt the need to introduce her as my colleague. I’m just not sure why.

  “Um, wow, okay. Hey, Jamey, good to see you again!” Adalyn stumbles then picks herself back up before hugging Jamey tightly. Before I know it, Jamey’s making her rounds within the group giving hugs and catching up. I look up at the ceiling trying to pull all this together. Clearly, I’ve lost my damn mind. “Everyone, this is Braydon, a friend from college, Braydon these are some of my friends, and of course you know Dr. Watret already.”

  “Hey, Dr. W, great to see you, ma’am.” I smile shaking her hand before finding Adalyn nervously biting the inside of her mouth looking around. “So…?”

  “So?” she asks, and the guy she’s been talking to bursts into laughter.

  “Awkward anyone?”

  “Shut up, Paul,” Adalyn snaps.

  “Say what?” I prose as quietly as I can, which albeit isn’t too quiet. We are in a bar that had the world’s worst karaoke singers battling it out at every given moment.

  “Oh shit,” I hear someone say before I catch Jamey kiss the girl that was singing on the stage earlier, the one that sounded like a dying cat. Then Paul reaches over to grab Adalyn’s glass, but I stop him, her eyes are far too glassy, and it’s not from tears welling up either.

&
nbsp; “Are you driving?”

  “Not your business,” she quips back at me.

  “Are you driving?” I ask again with more force.

  “No thank you, Paul, I’ve had enough. You,” she says pushing her pointer finger into my face, “outside.”

  “Ohhhhhh,” I hear the group call out as I follow behind her, watching each sway of her hips; angry or not, she makes me hard in seconds with that body.

  Once we are outside, she walks toward my truck and heads to the rear pulling down the tailgate and hopping up to sit down. I’m a little too cautious and way too pissed off to just be buddy-buddy without some explanations right now. To which, she might as well start spilling because I have shit to do, and it’s not standing outside under a blanket of stars playing twenty million questions. Who am I kidding, I would if she asked. What the hell is wrong with me? Pathetic, simply pathetic.

  “So, you’ve probably got a lot of questions, I reckon?” she asks, and really— reckon.

  “You could say that.”

  “Don’t be like that, Bray. I’m gonna do my best to lay it all out there. Just don’t speak until I’m done. Deal?”

  “No deal, but start talking.” The tension between us grows even thicker as silence lingers between us until she opens her mouth.

  “So, those are my friends and my co-workers. I work at the campus hospital as I’d mentioned at Brenton’s. Dr. Watret brought me on under her last November. She transferred here last August; it just took me a bit to make the move.” Her words are so calm and smooth, like she’s been practicing them for weeks. But my temperament is slightly declining. “Anyway, when I moved most of my things into the storage shed over at my parents’ place, my mom handed me a massive stack of mail. She’d said she’d opened anything that looked like a bill, but the junk mail she’d just put in a pile.”

  “Junk mail?” I ask after clearing my throat.

  “Yep, junk mail. So what we thought was a fake wedding in Vegas, was actually a real marriage. So I put all the mail she’d given me into a box when I unpacked my new apartment. When I found it, I flipped my shit and called Brenton to see if he remembered. He did. I also sent him photos that were included in the package we apparently chose. So, yep.”

  “Are you done?” I ask and continue after she gulps down a breath and nods. “One, you talk so damn fast it annoys me, still. Two, screw all three of you for not telling me you were here,” I shout throwing my hands into the air. “Four, we could have been working on rebuilding us all along no matter what or who was in our lives, psycho; you’re a shitty co-exister. And five… we’re married, and I’m not signing those fucking papers until A— I’m ready, or B— you take my ass to court!”

  “You skipped three,” she says still calm as can be, holding up three fingers in my face.

  “What?” I ask in disbelief? Is that all she got out of all of that? Did I talk too slow? “Are you kidding me or just drunk?”

  “Oh my God…” she growls out and throws her hands in the air before hopping back off the tailgate of my truck. “We’re done.”

  “Adalyn, don’t you even!” I growl wrapping my arm around her waist to stop her from passing in front of me. “We need to talk about this. We will talk about this.”

  “Fine!” She frowns looking up, her brows drawn together and the stars reflecting off her dark chocolate eyes. “Just please don’t hate me, I didn’t know how to tell you. I’m a coward.”

  “I’m so fucking angry and hurt, but I could never hate you.”

  “You probably should…”

  “Adalyn Charleigh Miller-Gibson, because yes it will one day be Gibson, like your husband because that’s apparently what I am, and I’m in no hurry to erase something that we just discovered unless there is someone else in your life that you’re choosing. I would like to have a very long conversation with you then perhaps fuck you into oblivion, although I guess the latter is not an option, so talking will do.”

  And just when I thought I’d lost her for good when she cut off all communication after seeing each other again, hope flickers. My trust is a little shaky, my heart feels as though it’s been put through a meat grinder and glued back together, but there’s a chance. I hope.

  Adalyn

  CRAP ON A CRACKER… I’m toast.

  “Yeah, I mean, no one else,” I stutter on my words taken aback slightly from the mere thought of his idea. I shake my head to clear my thoughts, but my body is already heating. “But that’s not happening.” Tucking the wayward strands of hair behind my ear, I slowly back away from Braydon. “I’m going back to my group now.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yep, I’m going back to my friends. It’s a rarity that we all get time off together, and we’d planned this since my first week officially here.”

  “So you live here? In Columbia?” Braydon asks while his eyes appraise me lingering a little too long in places that make me tingle.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s it? Yes. Where do you live in this large metropolis?”

  Once his eyes reach mine again, I’ve been given a few seconds to consider my answer. Thing is, we–Braydon and I–are not just going to go back to the normal that existed three plus years ago. Yeah, of course he’s gorgeous standing there in his worn jeans ripped at the knee and dark gray, long-sleeved Henley that might as well be painted on the way it hugs every plane and valley of his upper half. Chill hormones!

  “Um, yes. I mean, I live north of campus. Like ten minutes from here,” I ramble quickly then bite down on my bottom lip to stop myself.

  “Mhmm, I live just off campus. Perhaps since you live in my city and all now, you and I could, I don’t know, grab a coffee, have lunch, maybe dinner.” His cocky smirk would usually give me butterflies, but okay, it still does. Damn it!

  “No.”

  “No? I thought I was your friend.” He laughs, “You wound me.”

  “Keyword–was. One full day hanging out does not constitute friendship reinstatement. We are merely acquaintances. And my friends are in the bar, where I should be.” I walk away and refrain from smiling until I’m past him with my backside all he can see.

  “I know you’re smiling, and I’ll get you to say yes. And don’t fool yourself; we are far more than acquaintances.”

  “Keep dreamin’, I’m a busy girl.” I throw out the words although I’m fairly certain he knows exactly how to get me to bend to his will.

  “Challenge accepted.”

  I KNEW I WAS in for something ridiculous when Braydon said challenge accepted, I just didn’t anticipate his level of determination. It’s been a little over a week since I saw him at Emily’s Trough, and he has finally begun worming into my life. Every person on my shift had a candy basket delivered for their eating pleasure; mine was full of Hershey Kisses… so corny. Yet the only way he would have known how many to get or the names of each person on this shift is by an insider who had access to the scheduler.

  “Oh, Adalyn, that man of yours sure is sweet,” Dr. Watret sings, her voice might as well be laced in sugar she’s so damn cheery.

  “So you helped him?” I question and roll my eyes.

  “I plead the fifth.” Her laugh fills the hallway of the clinic until she’s in her office. Plead the fifth my ass, she’s guilty and just wants more deliveries.

  ME – The entire shift thanks you for your damn sweets delivery.

  Braydon – Shucks, I’m glad they’re happy. Did you like yours?

  ME – No. I stopped eating chocolate a few years back.

  Braydon – Mmhmm. Happy hump day, Ads.

  Gah, really how stupid… I stopped eating chocolate a few years back. I fucking eat chocolate. Like, love to eat it really. Laughing after failing to come up with a response, I pocket my cell phone and knock on my next patient’s room.

  “Good afternoon, Hannah Banana, it’s nice to see you again.” I smile at the vibrant woman; one could barely tell that she’s scared shitless unless they’ve had the chance of sitt
ing with her. I give her massive props for her perseverance. “How are you, darlin’?”

  Hannah James became a patient at the first part of January. This blonde haired, blue eyed, fearless woman. She’s overcome the loss of two miscarriages, and is still holding out hope that third time’s the charm. So far so good, she’s approximately ten weeks along and doing amazing. We laughed at her first appointment when we both pinpointed how we had already known each other. Hannah had come to the hospital over Thanksgiving the first month I had been working here as support to her bestie, Brielle. I wasn’t scheduled to the emergency department, but I had been called in to help until things calmed down.

  “Hey, I’m good, I really want to see the peanut today, could we do that? Please?” Hannah’s voice is almost whimsical.

  “We absolutely can see Peanut.”

  “Perfect, Carter should be here soon. We have time right?”

  “Sure do; let’s get your measurements, weight, and vitals while we wait for him, and Em to do her thing.”

  “Let’s skip the scale. I’m eating everything. Our friend delivered a huge bucket of candy this morning, but Carter took it all. Damn Bastard. I have wedding stress, and I’m a human incubator… I neeeeeed all the food!”

  I laugh as she continues to talk about her obnoxious food cravings, and I do what I do best and then chart the results. She begins to tell me about her extraordinary desire to have her fiancé plow her into next week, but is interrupted when a knock is at the door.

  “Yes?” I smile to Carter Jacobs, Hannah’s fiancé. “Oh, you want to come in?” Laughing I open the door fully and allow him to pass.

  “You know, it’s a good thing we like you,” he grumbles before chuckling.

  “Listen, I know the truth. Y’all love me. Today, I’m going to be the baby whisperer so Peanut cooperates before Momma here has a conniption fit and eats all the candy that was left for her.”