After drinking my fill of the wine, I have a stack of four women—one of whom could be Mack’s saving grace. The woman who makes it appear that he has it all together. The woman who looks good in photo opportunities, who wears a tasteful ring of my choosing, and hell, she might even take Mack to church if she’s the right type of girl. I’ve got a couple of those in the stack.
That’s right, Big Mack. Your ex-fiancée is getting you a fiancée. And maybe a wedding to boot. Tom Cruise hires wives all the time, and plenty of people think he’s straight. Why can’t we hire one for you so that people don’t think you’re an asshole?
When I’m done sorting, I finish off the cheese and watch the sun set over Macklin’s house. Part of my plan for Mack feels like pure genius—and part of it makes me insanely nervous, deep down inside. But that part of me is long dead. Isn’t it?
The sun hangs low over Macklin Pride’s house, and I examine each of the windows, looking for traces of him. When it nears eight in the evening, I’m about to go do my yoga exercises and get ready for bed when I see a shadowed figure step out onto the porch. Tall, like Wingate, and for a second, I wonder if it’s my old friend. My pulse quickens—because when the shadow steps into the dying sunlight, I see dark hair cropped close, broad, muscular shoulders, and arms and legs so muscular they resemble tree trunks instead of a regular person’s limbs. But somehow, the utter hugeness of the man always looked good, like he was a male model that had to beef up for a photo shoot or an actor who needed to gain sixty pounds to play a soldier in some war movie. He doesn’t move after that. Hands in his pockets, he just looks toward the guest house, eyes focused on the front window where I’m sitting. I’m not sure if he can see me, or if the glare from the sunset is obscuring me from his view. But he stands there just the same, his muscles outlined in the deep blue t-shirt he’s wearing. I can’t see his eyes clearly, but I know they’re that same shade of stormy blue. In the dying light, I can just make out the line of his Roman nose, the bridge broken one too many times. On someone else, the multiple breaks and the extra scar tissue that built up over time would look rough or sloppy, but it only ever made Mack look more distinguished, somehow perfectly matching his long jawline and high cheekbones.
After a while, I realize I've been staring for a long time.
And so has Mack.
Instead of indulging any longer, I rip my gaze away from him. But his eyes seem to follow me as I stand. Just before I walk away to my bedroom, he raises one hand in my direction and waves it slightly.
My pulse quickens when I see that hand. I can’t help but think of his long fingers taking my hand in the vast expanse of his palm and sliding that ring onto my finger.
Renata Young, you’re smarter and savvier than any woman I know. And you could wheedle the badge off a police officer even if you were robbing a bank right in front of him. I need that kind of woman in my life. I need you there when I fail, and I know I will. I need you there when I win—because without you I won’t. And I want to be there by your side when you do the same. I want to grow old with you and sit next to you in a big-ass rocking chair while our grandchildren run around the porch and give us hell.
His voice had cracked at that last part.
I thought I’d never part from that ring, that it would always be with me, through good times and bad. Through thick and thin, sickness and health.
After that, his hands were on my body, and all the things we did that night faded into an incandescent blur.
We never had sex, never went all the way. That was for after the wedding. Because we were young and stupid and idealistic, and we thought that’s what people did. There was everything else though—all the other ways we could explore and celebrate each other—over and over, until dawn greeted us and we finally slept.
I’d thought that was the first night of many, but instead, it was the last.
“What happened, Mack? Why wasn’t I enough for you?” The words echo in the empty house, and I’m glad Mack can’t hear me. I wouldn’t want to listen to his response anyway, not at this point in my life.
Six months after he left for South Carolina and I departed for Cali, I lost my virginity to a boyfriend I barely remember, just after I started graduate school in California. My old plans and vows don’t matter anymore because Mack decided to throw it all away.
Part of me wants to keep standing there, my gaze locked on Macklin Pride’s body, my eyes trying to find his in the coming dark.
But I remind myself of the pain I felt when his brother showed up to tell me Mack was done with our relationship.