Made for You (The Best Mistake 2)

The world that had been starting to tilt around Brynn now felt completely upside down. She’d only met Maggie a couple times, usually when they’d just returned from vacation and she’d come over to drop off the mail that she’d been collecting.

Maggie was…well, frankly, she was a total mess. Brynn had a dim recollection of a tiny, fake redhead whose clothes were always just a little too big and careless, whose fingernails were always chipped and who laughed too much.

Maggie was James’s opposite. Maggie was Brynn’s opposite.

It was ironic, really. Brynn had been trying so hard to be structured and normal and acceptable so that James would propose.

Apparently he hadn’t wanted perfection at all.

“I didn’t realize you two were close,” she said stiffly.

He started to put a hand on Brynn’s back, but stopped when she tensed and instead took another sip of wine. His sips were calmer now. As though he could relax now that he’d dropped the bomb and would be done with her.

“It’s not like anything’s happened,” he said again. “But she’s come by a couple times recently to drop off UPS packages that she’d signed for, to let me know that maintenance came by to fix the air-conditioner…that kind of thing.”

“And what, you’re drawn to…what? Her split ends? The gap between her teeth? Jeez, James, isn’t she an artist?”

“She paints. Does some freelance graphic design stuff,” he said quietly. Almost guiltily.

“Of course she does,” Brynn muttered.

She felt like a bitch, but she couldn’t help it. She was pissed. And baffled. She ignored the fact that hurt hadn’t yet registered. That would probably come later.

“It’s just…she’s different from me. Different from us,” James said.

“Ya think?” she snapped.

“I like the difference. She’s unpredictable, quirky. She doesn’t care what people think of her, doesn’t care that she’s saying the right thing, doing the right thing, being the right thing. Maggie…she makes me feel…alive.”

But being different sucks. How could this Maggie woman stand it?

How could James stand it?

“And I made you feel…dead?” Brynn asked, keeping her voice calm.

He put his hand firmly on her knee. “No. No. But, Brynn, don’t you ever get sick of us? Sick of our plans and our checklists and the way that we know every little step that’s going to be in front of us?”

She stared at him. “Obviously, I don’t know every little step in front of me. I certainly didn’t see this coming.”

“You didn’t? I thought for sure you’d been feeling me pulling away. I thought you’d been pulling away too.”

She wasn’t in the mood to deal with the truth behind that statement. Sure, things hadn’t been perfect the past couple months, but that didn’t mean she’d been expecting to be discarded so he could dally with a Bohemian.

“I thought you were getting ready to propose,” she blurted out.

He went still. Brynn felt both foolish and relieved for having said it out loud.

“I thought we were headed in that direction too,” he said quietly.

She relaxed slightly. At least she hadn’t been that far off base.

“What changed?”

And why don’t I care more?

He linked his fingers with hers, giving her a squeeze meant to comfort. She found herself squeezing back.

“It’s nothing you did, Brynn. It’s us together that isn’t working. I realized I want more than a lifetime of white furniture.”