Page 48 of I Found You (Wilder #1)

Wyatt

The last nine days had been the longest of my life.

After spending two nights at Wes’s place, I knew I had to get back to my place and start straightening things up.

I opened all the windows to get rid of some of the stale air that permeated my house.

Threw out all of the food in my fridge and pantry.

I may have gone a little overboard during the cleanse.

Even the mayo didn’t make the cut. I tried to go grocery shopping after that, but the idea of throwing out more food was sickening, so I just grabbed some necessities that would see me through a few days.

Plus a candle that I found in that weird card and book aisle at the grocery store. Never understood it until I needed it.

As long as this week had been without Maeve or Jane in it, I felt like I was walking in a haze. I knew I was a grouch, especially since Luke told me to watch my tone with him. I didn’t even realize I was snapping at him.

Yesterday though. Fuck.

The conversation still played on repeat in my mind.

“Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?” Jackson asked right before the end of the day.

“Yeah, what’s up?” I reached for the bucket of rags to clean my hands as I waited for him to start. After a beat too long, I looked back at him and saw him fidgeting.

There must have been something in my facial expression that conveyed my impatience.

Jackson hurried to start talking, and it was like he needed to get it all out before he could change his mind.

“Do you think… would you… I’m going back to school for my diploma like we talked about, and I was looking up those certificate programs for auto technicians.

And if I can get into one, would you be open to me apprenticing…

with you?” He paused before he started up again.

“I know you and Maeve broke up, and it might be weird with me being here and working for you. But I already talked to her about it, and she’s fine with it as long as you’re cool with it.

We don’t need to talk about her. I never even have to bring her up in conversation.

I won’t make it weird. After this conversation. ”

My heart stuttered. What the fuck did he just say? She was telling people that we broke up? The fuck we did.

The idea that she thought this was over between us seemed to clear the fog I had been walking in.

I had let this fight go on for too long.

I had no idea how to be in a relationship, and my inexperience was making me make a fucking mess of this.

I was still so pissed that I didn’t have a chance to say bye to Jane.

But that didn’t mean we broke up. I guess nine days without seeing each other or even talking or texting was a bit of a stretch.

But I could still come back from this. I had to. There was no other option for me.

“Fuck whatever Maeve told you,” I growled. “Of course you can apprentice here.” I grabbed my keys from the workbench and headed for the door. “Lock up when you’re done cleaning up. I have to go somewhere.”

I got in my car and just started driving.

What was I going to do? I needed to set the record straight, but I wasn’t dumb enough to just show up and tell her that, no, she did not break up with me because I simply fucking refused it.

My first thought was to talk to Reid about it, but he was still reeling from his own breakup.

One that he didn’t have the option to simply refuse to accept.

Luke was out. Wasn’t even sure if he was working or at home, but either way, he wasn’t in the best place to give me relationship advice.

Wes was as clueless about this shit as me. He wouldn’t be any help.

While my mind was racing to figure out who I could turn to, my instincts took me right where I needed to be.

Without knocking, I barged into my father’s house like a bull. He was sitting in his recliner, watching an old western on TV. Sheila lay on the couch, sprawled out with her head near my dad and a blanket over her lap. His hand was absently stroking her hair.

“Oh, shit,” I started. “Sorry. I didn’t realize you had company. I should have knocked. Or called first. Hi, Sheila.”

“Hi, Wyatt. Don’t worry about it. I was just getting ready to head out,” Sheila said.

“No, don’t leave on my account. I’ll, uhm, come back another time.”

“I have to be at the diner for the dinner rush anyway. Really.” Sheila patted me on the shoulder as she passed, my father two steps behind her.

“Wyatt, why don’t you grab us some beers. I have a feeling one of us is going to need them,” my dad said. Hint taken.

Giving them a moment to say bye, I rounded into the kitchen and pulled out a can of beer for each of us and sat at the kitchen table.

The same table that I sat at with my mom when I was a kid.

She used to help us with our homework at this table.

Feed us family dinner every night at this table.

God, I missed her. She would tell me to get my head out of my ass right about now.

No, that wasn’t true. That was more my dad’s MO than my mom’s.

She was too kind for that. She would tell me that love would conquer all and to go to Maeve and tell her how I felt. Simple as that.

“Trouble in paradise, I’m guessing.” My father walked into the kitchen, and I passed him his beer while he took his seat at the head of the table.

“More like paradise was set on fire,” I sighed.

“You know, when you all were little, I thought that having three sons and only one daughter meant that I was going to get off easy on the broken-heart conversations. Ha. What a fool I was.”

“Ha.” It was true though. Lydia didn’t have a boyfriend all through high school.

She thought it had something to do with Luke and me.

Maybe it did, a little. And she moved to New York for college right after she graduated.

Any relationships she’d had since then she’d been tight-lipped about.

Luke, on the other hand, had more heartbreaks than underwear.

I think that was what he liked about Juliet in the beginning.

The safety of being with someone who didn’t make him lose his heart to her.

Instead, she seemed to be chipping away at it piece by piece.

“So, what happened? She seemed like a keeper to me.”

“Me too. But I happened. I don’t know how to do this, Dad.

I’m fucking thirty-three years old, and I have no idea how to be in a relationship.

I think I messed up for real.” I told him about Jane and her so-called family.

What I said to Maeve before I walked out her door.

“Now, Jackson is telling me that Maeve and I broke up.”

“You want my advice?”

“That’s why I’m here, old man.” He sent me a dirty look, but I tried to muster up enough of a smirk to let him know I was kidding about the old man joke. I desperately did need his advice.

“Get your head out of your ass and go talk to the girl,” he said.

Okay. Maybe I didn’t need his advice if that was all he had for me.

“That’s it. Go talk to her?”

“Start with an apology. That’s my advice.”

Dad stood from the table and gripped my shoulder on the way past. He paused. “She’d want you to be happy, Wyatt. And I’ve never seen you happier than you’ve been since she’s come into your life.”

My brow furrowed. “Maeve?” I asked.

“Your mother.” He squeezed my shoulder again. “Now, go get your girl.”

He was right. I needed to get my girl back. But I couldn’t just call her and talk to her. She deserved more than that. I could just show up, but I had a feeling she wouldn’t let me in right now.

* * *

My house was spotless from top to bottom.

After barely sleeping last night after I got back from my dad’s, I tried to sleep in this morning, but I was too fidgety.

I was up with the sun, but unfortunately, I still had to wait hours before I could start to win Maeve back.

The impatience drove me to clean. My kitchen, my bathroom, the floors, the windows.

The curtains were washed. Hell, the baseboards were dusted.

My house had never looked this clean since the day I moved in. Yet, I couldn’t wait to leave.

As soon as I could, I hopped in my truck, and after making two stops along the way, I showed up at Maeve’s house at eight thirty in the morning.

The front of the house had been finished a few weeks back.

The porch was sanded and painted a light blue.

The same color was applied to the shutters.

The siding had been pressure washed and repainted with a fresh white coat.

Weeds were no longer coming up from the cracks in her walkway.

It still needed to be replaced, but that would have to wait for another day.

Curtains swished in the front window, and before I had even made it halfway down the walkway, the front door opened.

My heart stopped at the sight of her. Christ, I’d missed her. Even with a sweatshirt and flannel pajama pants, she was easily the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen.

Nearly tripping over my own feet, I made my way up to her.

Where was my confident swagger and trademark smirk now?

I couldn’t remember a time when I had been so nervous just to talk to a woman before.

Maybe the fact that she had yet to say anything to me was messing with my head.

Not that I expected her to bound into my arms and wrap her legs around me, but it would have been nice.

“Hey,” I said. Real smooth-talker here. “I, uh, this is for you,” I said as I handed her the coffee and the bag with the pastries in it.

I had bought two, hoping maybe she would want to share one with me.

She looked at me but didn’t say anything and didn’t make any attempt to take the offerings.

“I’m sorry, Maeve. I fucked up, and I’m so sorry. ”

Without a word, she reached for the bag and the coffee and then closed the door.

“Maeve. I’m sorry. I never should have said those things to you. You didn’t deserve that. Fuck, I feel awful.” I rested my head against the closed door as I talked to it. I wasn’t positive, but I swore I heard her rest against the door on the other side. It was probably my imagination.

After a few minutes of pleading with her to open the door so we could talk face-to-face, I gave up. Time to move on to the next phase.

Hauling all of the equipment and supplies from my truck to the backyard, I set up a staging area and got to work on the back deck.

Reid and I had started it earlier, but after his breakup with Kayleigh, he hadn’t really been in the headspace to be helping others with their projects.

And Maeve and I got into our own routine.

House renovations started to fall to the wayside.

But I wasn’t going to let her down. Even if she never talked to me again, which I hope to God wasn’t how this was going to play out, I was finishing what I started.

About an hour later, Maeve came out. She was freshly showered, wearing a cream-colored sweater over a skirt with a pair of black tights clinging to her legs.

I was itching to reach toward her. Touch her, hold her.

But I held back. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her away if I came on too strong. We’d already been there once.

Wordlessly, she handed me a glass of water and then pulled one of the pastries, the raspberry danish, from the bag and gave the bag back to me with the cheese danish in.

I thanked her and tried to catch her eyes, but she wasn’t looking at me.

“Why are you here, Wyatt? You don’t need to finish doing home projects for your ex-girlfriend.”

“We didn’t break up. We had a fight, Maeve.

We might still be fighting. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you something fierce.

This is only the first fight. We’ll have more, and that’s a fact.

Do you want to know how I know that’s a fact?

Because I’m never giving you up. Never walking away.

We can’t go through life without some battles along the way, but that doesn’t mean I’m out.

Not ever. You’re mine, and I’m yours. I found you, and I’m not letting you go.

Finders keepers. Like it or not, you’re stuck with me. ”