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“You can’t just leave her waiting and worrying about you.”
I looked up at him. “What makes you think she’s worried about me?”
His lips twitched slightly. “Because she called Liv before you even got here.”
The irony hit me like a punch to the chest. “Liv said I was going to hurt Della. She didn’t want me dating her friend. Turns out she didn’t have to be worried about me at all.” The sight of moving boxes flashed back through my mind, and I had to rub my temples to ease the ache forming there.
Fletcher said, “Della cares about you, Hayes. And if you want a chance with her, you need to do the right thing and text her so you can handle this when you cool down.”
A dangerous spark of hope lit in my heart at the idea of fixing things. I took a sip of coffee to tame it. But still, I got out my phone and sent a message to Della, following my brother’s guidance.
Hayes: Can we meet up tomorrow night to talk? We can have supper at my place.
I showed Fletcher the screen. “Done.”
“Good... Look.” He pushed the phone back to me on the counter. Della had already replied.
Della: I’ll be there.
That spark of hope started flickering, growing stronger. “What do I do next?”
Fletcher said, “You need to think about what you want. Now that you know she’s moving, and she kept it from you, do you want a relationship with her?”
My throat felt tight.
“If you do,” Fletcher continued, “what do you want that relationship to look like? Are you okay with long distance?”
His questions weighed on me as he continued. “And if you decide to stay together, what do you want out of a relationship? How do you want a partner to behave in conflict? In good times? In some ways, you’re grown, but in others, it’s like you’re seventeen with your first girlfriend, trying to figure out how all this works. It’s okay that you don’t have all the answers right now, but you do need to think about them.”
I nodded slowly. He was right. Of course he was right. But underneath it all, the only thing going through my mind was that I just wanted Della. Any piece of her I could have. “How do you decide?” I asked.
Fletcher set his coffee on the counter, looking pensively down at it. “Here’s the thing about relationships. Most people think about what they want, not what they’re willing to give. You should do both.”
I looked down at my own coffee as I mulled it over, eyes trailing a spiral of steam.
Fletcher drained his coffee in the sink. “Why don’t you stay in the guesthouse tonight? We can talk more in the morning when you’ve had a chance to think.”
He knew me better than almost anyone else. And I was grateful for the time and space to process.
I got up from the counter, embracing my brother in a hug. “Thank you.” It wasn’t lost on me that I could show up here in the middle of the night and know that he’d be here for me, no matter what.
And I mentally added something to my list of desires.
That’s the kind of man I wanted to be.
44
LIV
I tugged at the blanket strings on my quilt as Della told me what had happened between her and Hayes just moments ago. She sounded so upset, and my heart hurt for her. I hated that she was going through this, even more so because I saw it coming. I wanted to throttle Hayes for getting into a relationship with my best friend when he had no idea how to be in one.
Yes, Della could have told him about her job offer sooner, but that didn’t mean he should run away when things got hard.
But then my husband’s phone started ringing and he rolled to the side, blearily looking at the screen. He showed me the incoming call. Hayes.
I pursed my lips.
Fletcher whispered, “I’ll go handle this.”