Loving Mondays (2 page)

"I needed the time to think."
 
I focused my gaze over his shoulder, unable to meet Luke's steely gray eyes.
 
Once he was my best friend, and the only person in the world besides Gran and Monday that I trusted.
 
In a small town in Texas, being the high school quarterback meant everyone wanted to be your friend.
 
You couldn't know who had your best interests at heart and who was out to ride your coattails.
 
Being an all-state quarterback committed to a division I college with every major sports network calling you the one to watch meant that everyone wanted a piece of you, everyone but the three of them.

But as it turned out, Luke had wanted something from me after all—my girl.
 
And now Gran was gone and the girl I loved was his, and I truly was all alone in the world.
 
I felt a dark anger building in me at the sight of him and I flexed my hands to keep from plunging them into his face.

I needed to get the hell out of this town first chance I got, and never come back.
 
I thought I had put all this behind me, but seeing her here, seeing them here together, just drug it all back up.
 
I wasn't there to rekindle old flames, or make nice with long lost friends.
 
I would spread my Gran's ashes over the ranch like she wanted me too, and lay to rest all the hurt and anger alongside her.
 
I was here to free myself from this town and the people who still had an inexorable hold on me, and then get back to Florida as fast as humanly possible.

Unable to meet Monday's questioning gaze I busied myself pulling my suitcase from the trunk.

"I'll take this to the bunkhouse for you," Luke insisted, taking the handle from me and gazing meaningfully from Monday to me.
 
"Give you two a chance to talk."
 

"There's nothing to talk about," I insisted gruffly, but he was already walking off along the edge of the property.
 
Looking back at Monday, whose lips turned up sheepishly, I pointed at Luke's retreating back.
 
"Why am I staying in the bunkhouse instead of the big house?"

"You can always stay in Annie's room if you want," Monday offered, her hands fidgeting with her hair, looking nervously around the yard o she didn't have to look at me.
 
She hadn't changed at all.
 
Her long fingers twisted through the gleaming blond strands, a nervous habit, though the worry and grief etched on her heart shaped face was new. "I thought it might be easier on you if you were in the bunkhouse without being surrounded by her things."

"Is there something wrong with my room?" I frowned at her.

"It's occupied."
 

"Occupied?
 
By who?"
 

"Me," she said matter-of-factly, meeting my eyes, her jaw clenched challengingly.
 

My eyes widened in surprise.
 

"You?" I asked, my confused feelings and anger at being forced back to Texas finally bubbling to the surface.
 
"Why are you staying in my room, Monday?
 
I come back to town and you think you can climb back into my bed like you never left it? Fuck it, if that's what you want I'm down for the ride, just don't expect anything to change between us come morning.
 
You'll still be a cold bitch and I'll still be on the first flight out of here."

Her eyes flashed and my head snapped back under the force of her palm connecting with my cheek. I deserved it.
 

"That's your one," she said angrily, her voice trembling, "And you're only getting that out of the kindness of my heart and respect for Annie's memory.
 
If you ever speak to me like that again, Cody Jackson, it'll be a closed fist and don't you think for a minute that I won't knock the smart out of your mouth and take your front teeth along with it."

"Well aren't you an angry little elf," I chortled.
 
"If my Gran hadn't raised me to be a gentleman, Monday, I would tell you exactly what I thought of you and your little boyfriend setting up house in my family ranch.
 
Like the two of you haven't taken enough from me already.
 
I'll sleep in Gran's room tonight because I'm too tired and too pissed off to deal with you and your bullshit.
 
But tomorrow you and Luke can pack your shit and get the fuck off of my land and I'll be satisfied to never see either of your treacherous asses again."

Her nostrils flared and she stepped into my personal space.

"First of all, I told you when we were twelve not to call me an elf and I meant it." She jabbed her finger into my chest painfully, punctuating her words. "Secondly, I don't like what you're implying about Luke and me, and if I wasn't so damn happy to see you I would demand you explain yourself.
 
So instead of beating some sense into you like you deserve, I'm going to go put some clean sheets on Annie's bed and try to be glad that you're finally home.
 
I just wish it hadn't taken something like this to get you to do it, and sorrier still that the one person who should have been at Annie's side was too busy being a big city jerk to do right by her."
 

My shoulders slumped and I felt my anger dissipate.
 
Gran would tan my hide if she heard me yelling at a woman the way I had been, no matter what they had done to me first.
 

"Look Monday—"
 

"I don't want to hear it," she said on a sigh, her eyes wounded.
 
"I'll go put some linens on the bed, you go have Luke bring your things up to Annie's room.
 
Whatever problem you have with him, you need to fix it before you take off again.
 
You hurt him something terrible when you cut us off, Cody.
 
You hurt all of us and you'll never get to tell Annie that you're sorry for it.
 
Don't wait until it's too late to mend those fences with Luke too."

Damn.

She always did know how to go for the kill shot.

The house didn't look like much had changed since I had left.
 
There was a new sofa in front of the fireplace, but the same photos hung on the walls and the Christmas tree in the corner had all of the ornaments Gran had painstakingly collected over the years, and the stockings hung from hooks on the mantle.
 
Gran's beat up red stocking, my blue and white stocking with my high school football number, seven, embroidered in the crushed velvet, and a delicate red stocking with Monday stitched in dark green swirls on the snowy white cuff next to it.
 

Dragging myself up the stairs, I took a deep breath and opened the door to Gran's room.
 
Monday was bent over the bed, tucking in the white wedding ring patterned quilt that had been on Gran’s bed since it was given to her as a wedding gift some sixty years ago.
 

Monday's shoulders were shaking quietly and I froze, uncomfortable and torn between not wanting to bear witness to her private grief and wanting to hold her in my arms and comfort her.
 
She sniffed delicately and turned towards the door.
 
When she saw me, her spine stiffened and it was her turn to freeze.

"Cody," she said softly.
 
It was so difficult to be close to her and not touch her.
 
Her face crumpled and I stopped fighting the need and tugged her into my chest.
 
She buried her face against me and her shoulders began to shake with the force of her sobs.
 
I ran my fingers over her hair with one hand and whispered platitudes, feeling my resistance crumble with every tear that fell from her eyes.
 

"Why weren't you here, Cody?" She cried against my shoulder, her tiny fists pressing into my chest.
 
"Why weren't you here when we needed you?
 
Did she mean so little to you?
 
Did I mean so little to you?
 
I waited for you to come back, but you never came..."
 

I held her close and let her continue to cry as every word stabbed deeper and deeper until I knew she would draw blood.
 

"You meant everything to me, Monday," I said as I held her tight against me.
 
"I just couldn't bear to see you and Luke together, so I stayed away.
 
I knew it would hurt too much.
 
I never meant to hurt you, I only meant to protect me."

But that wasn't exactly true.
 
I had meant to hurt her.
 
Every time I went out in public with sorority clones on my arm, smiling for the cameras, I knew that she would see it and I wanted her to hurt as much as I was hurting.
 
The truth was, I had stopped answering her calls and reading her letters because I knew if she asked me to forgive her, I would have, as much as I didn't want to.

"What the hell are you talking about?" She pushed herself away from me, her chest heaving.
 
"I think this is the part where you explain exactly what you were implying about Luke and me outside."

"I know about you and Luke." My gaze moved around the room, darting this way and that, anywhere but on her.
 
I couldn't bear to look at her while she crushed me.
 
"About two months after I left for school Madison Wylie called me and told me that she had been seeing you and Luke together all the time.
 
At first I told her she was imaging things, that neither of you would run around behind my back.
 
But then she texted me a picture of you sitting in his lap in the front seat of his truck.
 
You had your face tucked into his neck and his arms were around you.
 
I almost called you a thousand times to demand you explain yourself, but the guys on the team made me realize it was best if I just let you both go.
 
And so I did.
 
I couldn't bear to hear you tell me you loved me when I knew I wasn't the only one, or worse yet, tell me that you loved him.
 
So I just stopped answering your calls."
 

I watched as a range of emotions played out over her face.
 
Confusion, shock, disbelief, and finally, rage.

"So you're telling me that you broke my heart, and Luke's, and your Gran's for that matter, because you were too much of a coward to pick up the damned phone?
 
I thought you knew me better than that, and you owe Luke an apology.
 
It's too late for you to apologize to Annie now and you'll have to live with that regret for the rest of your life, but let me tell you something, Cody Jackson, you were lied to."

"How was I lied to?" I demanded.
 
"Pictures don't lie, Monday!"

"Because you were stupid enough to believe Madison Wylie, the girl who always wanted you and never got you.
 
That girl has been looking for a chance to sink her claws into you since the seventh grade, and you bought her bullshit by the pound.
 
Pictures may not lie but it's only a moment in time, out of context, and if you would have called and asked me I would have told you what was going on."

"So tell me now," I demanded, moving close to her, my fingers curving under her chin and forcing her to meet my eyes.
 
"Tell me what the picture didn't. Tell me how it wasn't what it looked like."

"The only time I ever curled up in Luke's lap was the day I found out my momma had cancer.
 
I was crying, and he held me while my heart bled out.
 
And when I tried to call you to tell you what was happening, to tell you that I needed you, you never picked up the damn phone."
 

 
If she had punched me, she couldn't have slammed into me as hard as her words did.
   

"I needed you and you were off hiding like a coward, and when we put my momma in the ground, you were off at college partying it up and giving interviews to ESPN.
 
When the bank took my house and I had nowhere else to go, Annie took me in, and when she got sick I took care of her, too.
 
You're not the wounded party here, Cody, you're just the narcissistic asshole who made everyone else's pain about him.
 
And that's something you'll have to carry your whole life through because you've chased off anyone who would have shared your burden."
 

Her chest heaved as she dragged in a ragged breath, and she pushed herself away from me and left the room without another word. When her steps echoed off the stairs as she ran down them, I sank to my knees on the floor, all the righteous anger that had been carrying me deflated, and I was left alone on Gran's floor.
 
The reality of everything I had lost to stupid pride burying itself in my chest like a dagger.
 

The next morning I awoke to something I had never expected.
 

Snow.
 

Sure, it occasionally snowed in West Texas, but rarely did it ever stick around long enough to actually enjoy it, and it was rarely anything more than a light dusting.
 
This was a hefty blanket of snow, and from the looks of the dark clouds and the chill in the air, it wasn't going anywhere.
 
Who knew if it would be there in the morning, but I'd take a white Christmas Eve over nothing at all.
 
I pulled on a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and rubbing a hand over my face, I stumbled down the stairs in search of the coffee pot.
 
I had tossed and turned all night playing Monday's words over and over in my head and coming to the same conclusion every time.