Beyond Broken (The Bay Boys #3) (47 page)

For the next two days, he avoided her and every hour that he did made Maddie sick to her stomach.
 
When he eventually came home late the next night, he didn’t come into her room and slept in the guest bedroom.
 
He was gone when she woke up, the sheets on his old bed rumpled.
 
Already, she felt cracks squirming their way into her heart.

Please don’t do this, Caleb
, she silently pleaded.

Eventually, those nerves turned into determination.
 
Why was she acting like saying
I love you
was a nail in her coffin?
 
If she had been with anyone else, saying
I love you
for the first time should’ve been a happy event, not a mistake that she felt guilty over.
 
She’d done nothing wrong.
 
What she said to him was the truth, even though she hadn’t exactly
meant
to say it.

And Caleb seemed to think that he could make it all go away if he ignored the problem for long enough.
 
That was what he did with his past, but it was clear that that wound continued to fester.
 
There was no doubt in Maddie’s mind that if she let this go, if she let him get away with this too, then there would be no hope for them in the future.

This would eat away at her, slowly.

All her fears were finally coming true.

So, four days after she told him those three fated words, she found herself pulling up in the parking lot of
Montgomery Restoration & Repair
.
 
She parked in her parking spot, the one she’d always parked in when she worked for Caleb all those months ago.

It was late—a little past eight at night—but the sky still held streaks of pink and orange.
 
It was the second week of May, she was twenty-five weeks pregnant, and she was about to confront the man she loved.
 
The calm and warmth of the evening did nothing to settle her nerves, but she wouldn’t stand by and let him throw what they had away.
 
He meant too much to her.

The garage was already closed up for the night.
 
Brian had left over an hour ago since he dropped Peter off at their house on his way home.
 
Maddie knew that Caleb was most likely working on the new restoration in the back garage, rather than in his office, so she followed the building around, her sandals silently padding her footsteps.
 
She’d given up heels weeks ago since her ankles started swelling.

When she saw Caleb, her heart leapt in her throat.
 
He was working, thankfully alone, sweat gleaming on his brow.
 
That same intensity she’d come to associate with him was rolling off him in waves.
 
He was in a bad mood, she could already tell, and he looked like he’d gotten next to no sleep.
 
The man was running on fumes at this point and he still insisted on working himself to the bone.

He froze when he saw her, that brief moment confirming what Maddie had been afraid of, that he
had
been avoiding her purposefully, before he smoothed his expression over.
 
His eyes ran over her, like he was making sure she was whole and in tact and the baby was fine, since he hadn’t called her in the afternoons like he usually did to check up on her.

He didn’t stop working when she came to a stop just inside the garage, but he asked, “What are you doing here, Maddie?”

The question was casual, like she hadn’t told him she loved him, like he hadn’t slept in the guest bedroom for the first time in nine weeks, like he wasn’t breaking her heart at that very moment.

She ignored his question and asked instead, “Do you remember when I first told you that I was pregnant?
 
And it didn’t really hit you until you were driving and you needed to pull off in that deserted parking lot and you were only wearing a t-shirt even though it was practically freezing outside?
 
And you told me that you’d missed me…”
 
Tears were already beginning to clog her throat.
 
“And that you wanted to prove to me how good we could be together?”

Caleb stopped what he was doing, but he wouldn’t look at her.
 
He stared down at the stripped car, all old metal and red rust, and Maddie wished that instead of the car, he’d try and fix
them
.

“I do,” was his response, his voice both tight and soft.

“Well, you have, Caleb.
 
You’ve proven it to me,” she told him, a small, trembling smile floating over her lips.
 
“And since that moment, and even before then, I’ve loved you.”
 
His small flinch at those words, like they were blades as opposed to words, hurt more than his avoidance.
 
“A-and I know you heard me say them the first time.
 
So you can deny what I feel, you can try to avoid me and this situation all you want, but it doesn’t make them any less true, Caleb.
 
I love you
.
 
And there’s no reason why I should be ashamed of it.
 
Loving someone is a good thing.
 
It’s a beautiful thing.”

He still wouldn’t look at her.
 
His fists were clenched at his sides, his jaw locked tight, and he still
wouldn’t look at her
.

His voice was quiet and deliberately careful, almost clinical, when he finally responded to her words.

“I can’t love you the way you want me to, Maddie.
 
I’m sorry.”

Just like that
, Maddie mused, wanting to cry and laugh at the same time.
 
Just like that, Caleb thought he could dismiss her, reject her, and apologize all at the same time in a succinct and neat five seconds.
 
All that was missing was a pretty bow on top.

“See, the thing is, Caleb Montgomery, is that I
know
you,” she shot back, fire feeding into her veins.
 
“And I know that you
already
love me, so don’t try and tell me that you can’t or you won’t or you don’t.
 
That’s
what breaks my heart.
 
That you would so easily throw away what I want you to have and not even bat an eye as you do it.
 
That you won’t allow yourself to even
acknowledge
what you feel for me.
 
And I won’t do it.
 
I won’t wait around every day, hoping,
praying
, that maybe you’ll finally realize it!”

His head snapped up at that and
finally
she saw some of that heat, something that told her he was at least feeling
something
right now.
 
With an ugly scowl on his face, he shot back, “
Love
means nothing, Maddie.
 
You say you love me, but I don’t care.
 
I don’t want it, okay?
 
And if you plan on waiting around for me to return your
love
, then I don’t know what to tell you.”
 
He laughed, but the sound was bitter.
 
“Why can’t you just be happy with what we’ve had?
 
Who the fuck cares whether I love you or not?
 
We’re having a
child
, Maddie.
 
We’re good together.
 
We’re
friends
.
 
And, as a bonus, the sex is pretty fucking fantastic.
 
Why does it even matter?”

It was like a slap across the face.

“Don’t do that,” she told him, proud that her voice didn’t shake, even though she was reeling inwardly.
 
“D-don’t try and cheapen what I feel.”

He shrugged.
 
“It’s the truth.”

“So that’s all we are to you?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
 
“Friends with…with
benefits
?”

“No, we’re friends with benefits having a child together.
 
Don’t read into a situation, Maddie, because you might not like what you find there.”

Maddie didn’t know how long she stood there, processing, breaking, wondering how in the world
words
, simple sequences of sound, could hurt so much.
 
She felt humiliated, hopeless, and her heart was splintering into a thousand pieces.
 
The worst part was that she knew that he’d try and do this.
 
She knew that he’d try to hurt her, that this wouldn’t be easy.

But for the first time, she began to doubt herself, began to question if she’d read everything all wrong.
 
Terribly, terribly wrong.
 
He’d said those words with such conviction that she accepted them.
 
She hated that he had this power over her.

How could the man she’d been living with for the past five months, the man she’d been sharing her bed, her body with, suddenly seem like a stranger?

“I have work I need to finish, Maddie,” Caleb said sharply, clearly dismissing her.
 
He walked towards the bench to change out his tools.
 
“I’ll see you at home.”

He had the last word.
 
Maddie didn’t even think that she could form a coherent sentence at this point.
 
Before she knew it, like her body was on autopilot, she turned on her heel and walked back towards her car.
 
She was numb the entire way home, his words replaying in her mind on an endless loop.

Once she got home, she checked in on Peter and told him she was heading to bed.
 
And even though he looked at her oddly, he bid her goodnight and she waddled upstairs.

Maddie sat on the edge of her bed, not bothering to get undressed.
 
She’d barely gotten any sleep the past four days, but she wasn’t physically tired, just mentally exhausted.

Then she shook her head when it hit her.

No
, she thought, suddenly.
 
No
.
 
No, it’s all wrong.

Caleb Montgomery was a liar.

He could tell her that he only thought they were friends with benefits until he was blue in the face, but Maddie didn’t believe it.
 
She hadn’t made up anything, hadn’t imagined things that weren’t there just because she wanted them to be there.
 
She didn’t care what he said, but Caleb
did
care about her.
 
Deeply.
 
And she wouldn’t allow herself to be fooled because then it meant she didn’t have faith in her own feelings, that she didn’t have faith in
him
.

However, she meant what she said.
 
She refused to wait around for him to finally acknowledge his feelings.
 
She wouldn’t be pulled around on a string like a toy, waiting for Caleb to throw her a bone every now and again.

In her mind, she had no other choice.
 
Caleb had demanded everything when he found out she was pregnant.
 
She’d moved in with him, taking a chance on their future together, throwing all her eggs in one basket.
 
But she absolutely refused to be here now, in the house that she’d comfortably and lovingly nestled herself in.
 
Not when he’d flung ugly words at her in a very deliberate attempt to distance himself.
 
How could she respect herself if she stayed?

Until Caleb figured his shit out, figured out what he wanted from her,
she
needed to distance herself.
 
She would make sure that he was still involved in the pregnancy, but physically being around him, smelling him on her sheets, remembering the way he’d tenderly caressed her in their shower, or wrapped his arms around her stomach from behind in their kitchen, would be her own personal form of hell.
 
It wasn’t an option to stay at this point, not when her heart was breaking.

Even though it hurt her to do it, she rolled out her suitcase from her closet and started packing up her essentials.
 
She left a note for Caleb on her bed when she was done and then trekked down the stairs and to the opposite side of the house to knock on Peter’s door.
 
When he opened it, he frowned.

“I…I know something’s not right, Maddie,” he said quietly, uncomfortably even though concern shone in his eyes.
 
“Do…do you want to talk about it?”

She reached out to smooth back a lock of his hair, already missing him, wondering how to go about this.
 
“Caleb and I got into a fight.
 
And I think it’s best if I go for a little while, just to give us some space.”

Peter processed that information, eyebrows drawing together.
 
“But you’ll come back, right?”

She almost lost it right there, but she cleared her throat, taking a deep breath.
 
“I-I hope so.”
 
Peter’s shoulders sagged, but he nodded.
 
“Can you help me with my suitcase?”

“Yes.”

Once her car was loaded up, she hugged Peter fiercely.
 
“I’ll see you soon, okay?
 
Call me if you need anything.
 
And there’s a fresh tub of sorbet in the freezer,” she added, knowing it was Peter’s favorite, trying to lighten the mood.

He managed a small smile, standing on the driveway with bare feet, hands tucked into the pockets of his flannel pajamas.
 
“Thanks, Maddie.”

Then she got into her car and drove away.
 
And the farther away from the house she drove, the harder she cried.

FORTY-TWO

Caleb flung the tool back onto the bench harder than he’d intended, beyond frustrated, and then stalked over to the shitty sink they’d installed a couple years ago on the far side of the small garage.
 
He splashed his face with cold water, then his neck, his arms, feeling overheated, hungry, pissed, and tired.
 
So fucking tired
.