Page 5 of Fearlessly Us

As a proud member of the five minutes early is on time club, I’m well aware I can’t expect the rest of the world to adhere to my extremely inflexible relationship with time. But when seven comes and goes and the clock cruises towards seven thirty, eight, and then eight thirty—when I’ve folded and refolded every blanket in my living room ten times and wiped spotless countertops and dusted dustless shelves and taken a Magic Eraser to the non-existent scuff marks on my walls and changed my tampon twice and checked my phone eight hundred times until I consider tossing it out the window just to get it out of my sight—I have to face the uncomfortable truth.

He’s not coming.

He realized I’m too much or not enough or he hated the way I can’t help but let my bitch flag fly. My hair wasn’t blonde enough or my boobs weren’t big enough or he thought it was weird I couldn’t just order the drink I actually wanted or he replayed the half hour we spent together in that club, and without the distraction of crowds and darkness and alcohol he found me, somehow, lacking.

Well, get in line, Drew, because me fucking too.

When a tear leaks out the corner of my eye, I wipe it away with a growl and an impatient swipe of my hand. Bending down, I unzip my boots and tug them off, setting them neatly in front of my coat closet before yanking my tights down my legs, breathing a sigh of relief at being unbound. Stalking to the kitchen, I fill a tall glass with pebble ice and pour a Sprite, then pull open the freezer and grab one of my emergency pints of Chocolate Fudge Brownie and a spoon.

Spinning around, I head straight for the living room couch, setting everything down on the coffee table. I tear my dress over my head and toss it to the floor, letting the bulge that is my painful, bleeding, broken uterus hang free. Flopping down on the couch, I eye my phone, knowing I have a twin brother I could call for company. Five women who would drop everything to be here in an instant. Who would hold my hand if I wanted them to or rage with me if that’s what I needed. Who would tell me Drew Ellicott is as dead to them as he is to me and that men are trash and we’re all better off without them.

Fuck Drew Ellicott and the perfect hair, enticingly haunted eyes, and lickable forearms he rode in on.

My fingers twitch to pick up the phone. To light up the group chat with the SOS that would bring my girls running. But then I think about putting on clothes to cover the havoc my period is wreaking on my body and dragging myself up the stairs to hide all evidence of how bad things have become. About explaining to them how I agreed to this date in the first place and why I didn’t tell them about it sooner.

I should be able to open up to my best friends. To ask for help and tell them what I need. But somehow, I missed the life lesson on how not to be the person who does everything all on her own. Who can offer help but doesn’t know how to take it.

The idea of figuring it out now makes me want to lie down and take a nap.

I’d rather be alone.

I can’t believe I used my brand new, very expensive nail polish for this.

Snatching up my phone, I navigate to Drew’s contact, pointedly ignoring our text thread—the bantery messages from the past two weeks that had butterflies swarming my stomach and anticipation swimming in my blood. As quickly as I can, I block his contact because him not being able to contact me at all is better than knowing he can but chooses not to. Ignorance is bliss or whatever.

Then I shove my phone deep between the couch cushions and grab the remote like a lifeline. Flipping on the TV, I open one of my streaming services and pick a CIA spy thriller at random—brilliant people who solve complex terrorist plots being my very specific kink. I dig ice cream out of the pint and shove it into my mouth, the words I’d rather be alone spinning over and over in my head until I almost—but not quite—believe them.

CHAPTER ONE

CAITLIN

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, dropping my head in my hands and rubbing my tired eyes. Chugging from the iced latte and eating the last spoonful of ice cream from the pint sitting next to me at the kitchen table of my family’s Western Maryland lake house, I refocus my attention on my laptop screen. The sky is just starting to lighten on the horizon, and there’s a perfect view out the sliding glass doors of the reflective lake surface and the trees soaring on its bank.

I barely notice.

There will be time for sunrises tomorrow. Or the next day. Definitely at least once before I go home. Probably.

I may technically be on my family’s annual Deep Creek Lake summer vacation, but lawyer life is not glamorous, and clients don’t understand things like vacations and leisure time. So, while the rest of my family and the various other people who come on this trip with us sleep, I’m redrafting a trust I spent the last six weeks working on, only to find out seven hours before I left for the lake that my client was hiding the existence of a girlfriend and two teenage kids from his wife and five adult children.

While said wife and adult children were all sitting around my conference table with copies of the trust in their hands.

Chaos ensued, and I had to start completely from scratch because my carefully drafted dispositive provisions don’t fucking work when there are two extra kids the client conveniently forgot to tell me about.

It just fucking figures a man is the reason I’m working at dark o’clock in the morning.

Hurl them all into the sun, honestly. We’d be way better off.

With my eyes glued to the screen, my fingers fly over the keyboard as I finally get an idea for how to handle the order of death provisions that have been alluding me for the last hour. I’m congratulating myself on my brilliant legal prowess when a noise from the other end of the kitchen breaks my concentration again. I glance over, and my entire body instantly flashes with heat, my heart giving a hard, painful knock against my ribs.

Speaking of hurling men into the sun.

Fucking fuck.

Drew Ellicott’s tall, broad frame fills the kitchen doorway. His hair is a tousled mess, eyes heavy with sleep. His jaw is shadowed by a dark scruff like he skipped the razor yesterday, and his white Renegades T-shirt hugs his chest and biceps so perfectly it’s as if the shirt was made just for him. He flashes me his signature smirk, standing there like he owns the place, and in the shadow of the light from over the stove he looks cozy, hot, and like everything I absolutely do not want to want.

Men who stand me up for a date I didn’t even want to go on in the first place don’t get to be wanted by me. Especially when they never apologized and never explained. That last part might be my fault since I blocked his number and refuse to let him talk to me pretty much ever, but those are just details.

As far as I’m concerned, he’s the guilty party.