Chapter Thirty-Four:
The Saddest Huevos
Knowing I had to dosomething and having the balls to do it were two different things. The renovations were long since complete and the realtor I’d spoken to before coming down to Domingo was breathing down my neck about it – and I couldn’t blame him. The commission alone would’ve been enough, but there were plenty of people in my neighborhood who were tossing around the idea of selling too, so selling my house would’ve given him an in.
I couldn’t kid myself into believing I was ready to sell, but I did give Jamie permission to list it. Maybe I could buy myself another couple of months by haggling and dragging my feet while considering offers, but eventually ... I was going to have to make some serious decisions. Namely, how I was going to handle what happened afterward. I couldn’t leave Mia but I couldn’t stay without a house, and the logistics of trying to move all seven of them were a nightmare. She wouldn’t leave Dinora or her boys, so it wasn’t even a question in my mind. I either went back to Brisley with seven additional people or I stayed right here.
Nothing else was even an option.
When Jamie arrived to take the pictures, I met him out in the driveway and looked around. I never paid much attention to my neighbors except for the ones on either side of me, but now that I was about to be leaving for good, I was curious.
Most of their houses looked a lot like mine – obnoxiously big, three or four stories, with ridiculous shrubs and driveways too short for the amount of cars they had. Most were varying shades of white with only the shutters to tell them apart, but they were quaint. Cookie-cutter, maybe ... but homey. Just not in the way Mia’s was.
I let Jamie in and stayed in the yard to frolic in the grass like a weirdo. My parents and brother always told me I ran from emotions and reacted in strange ways when I was forced to feel things I didn’t want to, and I’d always ignored them. I’d always pretended like I didn’t know what they were talking about and that it wasn’t true, but it was.
Good emotions weren’t an issue. Happiness, excitement, love? Those were easy for me to fall headfirst into. But the bad ones ... grief, anger, loss? No one was particularly good with those, but I was particularly awful at it. When my mom died suddenly and my brother called me and couldn’t do anything but scream into the phone, I barely made it to her funeral in time because I’d gone on a fucking bender. When that same brother pulled me into his office at work and told me he needed help with our dad because he was a fall risk and Sterling couldn’t handle being the one to find another one of our parents dead, I’d run. I’d taken more vacations in that year than I had in the previous ten combined, even after working my ass off to try and be worthy of his job. All I’d wanted at the time was to be able to take the stress of being managing director off of Sterling’s shoulders so he could have a life again, and that singular conversation had derailed me and those plans completely.
It had gone the same with pretty much everything else in my life, too. I’d gambled, drank, or slept my way out of every uncomfortable situation I’d ever been in, but I couldn’t run from this one. These emotions, no matter if they were positive or negative, were coming my way fast – and I’d just have to let them.
“Oliver?”
I blinked a few times and looked around to find out who called my name, and saw my neighbor Jeff’s son, Tanner. He was around Jago’s age, maybe a year older, and all I knew about him beyond that was that he played football at the high school around the corner and had a steady boyfriend for a few weeks that I hadn’t seen in a while.
“Hey, Tanner.” I stood up and brushed my shorts off, then rubbed the back of my neck as I realized I’d just been sitting in my front yard staring off into space. “How’s it going?”
He shrugged and ducked around the short fence they’d built to keep their yappy little dog from running away. “Pretty good. I haven’t seen you much since I was a kid. You move back in?”
“Uh ... yeah. For now, anyway. Realtor’s inside, actually. The people who were living here moved out so I have to do something with the place,” I explained. “How’s your family?”
“Mom’s good. Dad’s our football coach now, so that’s awkward. Kate’s eleven now, do you remember her at all?”
I shook my head with an apologetic smile. “Not really. Where’s your boyfriend been, though? Saw him a few times when you guys got home from school. Sorry if that’s nosey.”
Tanner chuckled. “Yeah, it’s nosey, but I guess it’s payback for all the times I used to ask you inappropriate shit, huh? We broke up, though. He met some college guy and decided he wasn’t into high schoolers anymore.”
“Yikes.” I couldn’t say I understood exactly, but heartbreak was heartbreak. “Sorry to hear that, man. You’ll find someone, though.” I clasped his shoulder as Jamie came back out.
“Oliver, can you let me into the attic? The door is locked.”
I nodded to Tanner in farewell then followed Jamie in the house, but every step I took seemed wrong, like I was making a huge, colossal mistake. Yet I had no way of knowing how accurate that was because I’d chickened out of asking Mia when I’d had the chance, so it was my own stupid fault, like everything else.
When Jamie left and I was alone again, I glanced at the time. Mia would still be at work for another hour or two, and now that I’d given Jamie the info, I needed to have that conversation whether I was ready or not.
Just one of many negative emotions I was sure were coming my way.
With that in mind, I drove to Sunday’s in silence and requested sad huevos from her the second she came over to kiss me and take my order. “It’s one of those days, babe. Skip the spinach tears, though. Maybe give me banana tears instead.”
“Oh no,” she said, worry weaved into her voice and etched into her features. “Is it something I can help with? We’re not too busy, baby.”
She reached out to rub my upper back, making me lean into the touch.
“I put the house on the market today. Or started the process to, at least. Jamie came to take the pictures.”
“Oh.” I felt her stiffen, like this was something she’d been dreading as well. “And you didn’t want to?”
My perceptive Mia. I slid over to give her room to sit if she wanted, then shook my head slightly. “Yes, but also no. Does that make any sense?”
“Yes,” she said honestly, sliding into the booth like she didn’t have other tables to wait. “Does that have anything to do with us?”