Hard to Say Yes (The Fallout Series Book 3) Read online

  Not after what he’d just tried to do.

  “Give me twenty minutes before you return to the hotel because I swear if I see you there, I can’t be held accountable for what I do.”

  I stormed away from him and didn’t stop until I got outside. Walking would’ve worked off some steam but taken too long. I wanted to get my things and be gone before Ian came back to the hotel. I pulled up the ride share app and found someone in the area. It’d mean using the credit card I almost never used, but I didn’t care. I turned the corner toward the car’s location and hit the order button. If Ian knew what was good for him he wouldn’t try to follow me. But I had left him with a spectacular mess to clean up in the restaurant. No. He wouldn’t be the one actually cleaning but he had food and drink all over him and he’d want to save face.

  The car pulled up almost immediately. I greeted him, but everything about me probably told him not to try to make conversation.

  Shit. I’d need a ride home.

  No way would I wait four and half hours for someone to come get me, so on the ride I downloaded the Amtrak app, found the next train to leave Chicago and bought myself a ticket. I only had about forty-five minutes, but dear lord, I’d make it work.

  Unlike Ian, I hadn’t unpacked, so all I needed to do was grab my makeup bag from the bathroom and tuck it into my bag. I did take a quick minute to change out of this dress and into shorts and a T-shirt. It’d be late when I got back to Detroit, but I’d figure that out then.

  Chapter Two

  Five and a half hours later, I stepped off the train in Detroit. It was just after eleven at night because Ian had wanted an earlier dinner, so we could “fuck like rabbits” that night. The only thing I remembered from the train was blocking Ian’s number on my phone and deleting it from my contacts. I wanted no contacted from that asshole. Forgetting about him, I needed a ride home.

  After taking a minute to roll through all of my options, I pulled my phone out of my purse and tapped out a text to Laney asking her to come get me and to let Zac know I could pick Dylan up in the morning since this wasn’t supposed to be his weekend. I hated to do it this late, but I didn’t necessarily have the money to spend on a ride share. It’d be expensive from Detroit and I’d already spent a ton that I hadn’t been expecting on the ride share in Chicago and the train home.

  Moments later, my phone rang.

  “Hello, Zac,” I said, knowing that if he was awake when I’d sent the text, he’d call.

  “How can you pick Dylan up tomorrow when you’re in Chicago?” His deep voice made me feel at home. The thing about Zac and me was that, while I never wanted a romantic relationship with him, he’d been one of my three best friends for as long as I could remember.

  “I’m not in Chicago,” I told him honestly.

  “Where are you?”

  “Train station in Detroit.”

  “Why?” he pushed.

  I took a deep breath then blew it out slowly. “I’d rather not talk about it. Can Laney pick me up? I know it’s kind of late, but… ”

  “Yeah. She already left. You should have a text waiting.”

  “Thanks.” I ended the call, grabbing my bag and heading for the front of the building.

  When I glanced at my phone, I noticed the text from Laney saying she was on her way. Twenty minutes later, she pulled up to the curb and she wasn’t alone. Rhian Schwartz sat in the passenger side of Laney’s jeep. Fine by me. I didn’t want to talk anyway.

  Once they were fully stopped, I lifted my bag into the backseat and climbed in behind it. For the first time today, I realized how tired I was. Not physically, but emotionally. Yet there was something exhilarating about breaking up with Ian. Like my mind wanted to sleep, but my body was alive with endorphins. A weight had been lifted. Probably a weight of about one hundred and ninety pounds, if my estimations were correct.

  “All set?” Laney asked while turned my way. Both she and Rian looked like it wasn’t late. They were still wearing shorts and tank tops. Each had their hair pulled back. Rhian’s blonde hair was threaded into a braid which hung over her shoulder while Laney’s darker blonde sat atop her head in a messy bun.

  “Yup,” I told her, but her eyes lingered on me, scanning over everything she could see with concern.

  Then she turned back and pulled away from the curb. The only sound in the car was the ballad playing quietly from the radio. I laid my head against the cool glass and closed my eyes as I soaked up the air conditioning.

  “Why are you back?” Laney asked. I knew my solitude couldn’t last.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I told her.

  “You came back so late,” Rhian added.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I said again as I leaned back against the window. Two seconds later, I sat up and asked, “Why is finding a decent guy so hard?”

  Laney glanced at Rhian as if she’d known I wasn’t going to keep quiet long. She’d probably known before I had.

  “Why would I ask you two? You found your guys,” I said. Laney and Zac were made for each other, even if neither had admitted it until last year. No one could’ve loved Porter, or put up with him, like Rhian. “How hard is it to find a decent guy who gives you an orgasm fifty percent of the time?” I continued.

  Rhian turned in her seat. “Fifty percent? Aim higher.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I just want a guy who loves me, doesn’t care that I have a kid, and can maybe, once in a while, give me a fantastic orgasm. Of course, I don’t need a man. Hell, I can give myself better orgasms than most, but I want one. I want what you guys have, but Ian was moving too fast. I wasn’t there yet and suddenly I’m staring down the barrel of getting married. Then he—Who does that?” I took a deep breath, realizing that I’d just word vomited all over them. They didn’t need to know most of what I’d just said.

  “You have amazing lung capacity,” Rhian said first, which brought a much needed laugh out of me. One I hadn’t known I had in me tonight.

  “You’re coming back to our house,” Laney said as if I hadn’t just spilled everything in my brain all over them. Zac had just moved in with Laney and Dylan had his own room there. Rhian took over Zac’s house then, for reasons I didn’t know, her brother, Tegan, moved in with her.

  “I’d rather go home.”

  “No way. I feel like there’s more to all this than you’re saying and you’re not going home to an empty house right now.”

  I shook my head. “Then someone would have to go back out to take me home at some point.”

  “I can do that,” Rhian offered. “When we leave later.”

  “Still… ”

  “You’re coming,” Laney said as if it’d been decided. “Before we left, we were all still out back around a fire. Dylan’s asleep. Sounds like you could use a drink.”

  “No shit,” I muttered, knowing they’d both hear me. She was right, though. A drink would’ve been a dream at that point. And arguing was probably going to be useless.

  We rode the rest of the way in silence. The closer we got to Laney’s house, the more I just wanted to go home. This had been a shit day and hanging out with a bunch of people in love didn’t seem like the best idea.

  Laney pulled into her driveway and the three of us went straight for the backyard, where we found the guys… and Rhian’s brother, Tegan. Great. I’d get to relive the day in front of Rhian’s super-hot brother. He was so stupid hot and probably gave his girlfriends great orgasms. Lucky them. They all greeted me, but I gave a small smile and wave in return instead of an actual hello.

  Rhian handed me a beer as I dropped into one of the chairs around the fire. Silence surrounded us again after everyone was settled.

  “All right,” Zac finally said. No one else was talking. May as well have been him. “What happened?” His dark hair was all a mess as if he didn’t care how he looked and knowing him, he didn’t. He’d never had to try hard to get girls to swoon and Laney was already so far gone he wouldn’t have had to t
ry hard now.

  “I decided to come home,” I told him, but I kept my eyes on the fire. “That’s all.”

  “Bullshit,” he spat.

  I rolled my eyes and said, “Look, it just didn’t work out and I came home.”

  “So you and him are done?” Porter asked. If Zac didn’t have to try very hard to look good, Porter didn’t have to try at all. His dark blond hair was a little longer than he usually kept it and it was basically everywhere in an unintentionally well-managed mess. I couldn’t see him in the night but I knew his dark eyes were on me. With Porter, you could feel it. Both he and Zac were tall as well as muscular. It was too easy for guys.

  “Totally done.”

  “What happened?” Zac repeated.

  No matter how much Laney glared at me or pled with her eyes for me to tell them all what happened, I wasn’t going to do it.

  “Laney?” he asked.

  She visibly swallowed hard. I didn’t think she’d betray my confidence, but I also didn’t like him putting her between us. She and I had worked incredibly hard to be friends again and the last thing I needed was for it to be fucked-up again.

  “He was moving faster than I was ready for,” I finally told him, hoping it’d be enough.

  “You were dating for a while,” Porter interjected, which got him a glare from me.

  “He was talking marriage and moving in and shit that I just wasn’t ready for with him.”

  “With him?” Zac asked. “So he was the problem.”

  “Yeah,” I replied. “He was the fucking problem.”

  “So he wanted to marry you and instead of saying you aren’t ready, you leave him in Chicago?” Zac shook his head. “That doesn’t add up.”

  “She said he gives subpar orgasms,” Rhian offered up.

  My eyes grew wide as I stared at her. That was girl talk not meant to be shared with the guys. She mouthed ‘Sorry,’ but the guys roared with laughter. Apparently, the entire group forgot that Tegan was among us. He especially didn’t need to know this shit about me. It was like nothing was private anymore.

  “How do you give subpar orgasms?” Porter asked between laughs. “It’s not that hard. I can make Rhian hum like a motor in minutes.”

  “Fucking hell,” Rhian muttered. “My brother is sitting right there.” She pointed at Tegan.

  For the first time, I did more than just glance over at her brother. He was sitting back with a beer in his hand, watching everything happening before him. And he was still stupid hot even when the darkness kept me from getting a clear look at him. I shouldn’t have even noticed at this point but it couldn’t be helped.

  “It’s more difficult for some guys,” Rhian told her boyfriend quietly.

  “Look,” I told them. I figured I might as well get it all out since they weren’t going to let it go until I told them everything. “Yes, it was all of that. He wanted to move quicker than I did. He was sure of me, but I wasn’t sure of him. Yes, he gave subpar orgasms when he bothered to give them at all. But the thing that threw me over the edge, since you all want to know so badly, was dinner tonight.” I took a breath. “Or before dinner since it was him telling me to do my hair when I’d already done it. And saying that we look great together. Never that we are great together. But the thing that made it too much was when he pulled out paperwork that he’d had drawn up on some website to give Zac full custody of Dylan.”

  “What?” Zac snapped. By the sounds of it, his teeth were clenched. Something I couldn’t see through the darkness.

  “Yup.”

  “Why?” Laney asked, her entire face scrunched together, looking like I’d felt when it had happened.

  “He felt it would give us more time alone together.”

  A bottle crashed and broke on the ground near the fire. Zac said, “I’m going to murder that motherfucker.”

  “No, you’re not,” I said back calmly. I nodded at Laney for her to back me up.

  “Agreed. You’re not,” she said. “Maddie handled it. He’s gone. Not coming back, right?” She directed that part to me. The tightness of her face showed that she was just as angry as Zac. Only she showed it differently.

  “Not a chance.”

  He pushed up from his chair and stomped around, letting out the same anger I’d felt when Ian had shown me those damn papers. He crossed his arms and stopped to look me dead in the eyes. “I swear to god, Maddie… I fucking swear—”

  I cut him off. “If you see him again, it won’t be because of me.”

  After a long pause, he said, “Good.”

  With that settled, I decided to go inside and peek in on Dylan. I pushed his bedroom door open slowly to ensure I didn’t make a sound. This used to be Laney’s room. When we were teenagers we’d spent hours in here talking about whatever had been on our minds at the time.

  My kid looked so small in this big bed. In reality it was only a twin, but while he’d been growing up too quickly, five years old already, he still seemed so small.

  Before leaving the room, I leaned in and kissed him gently on the forehead. It wasn’t like I hadn’t grown used to him being away at Zac’s, but I guessed having someone suggest you get rid of your kid completely had a way of making you miss them. Even when they were right in front of you.

  Stopping in the kitchen, I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and twisted the cap off.

  “Rough night?” An unfamiliar voice brought the bottle to a stop halfway to my mouth.

  “You could say that,” I replied dryly.

  “Did you leave him in Chicago?”

  I spun my head around to get a look Tegan. He did not just ask me for personal information. I didn’t even really know him.

  “I don’t know you,” I snapped.

  “I was—”

  “No. Listen. You’re Rhian’s brother, so I don’t want to be a total bitch, but you don’t know me. You have no right to pry into my personal life and you should mind your own fucking business.”

  He stood between me and the exit with an uncomfortable look on his face. As I headed toward the back door, he slid out of my way. His hand rubbed the back of his neck as if he wasn’t sure what to say to me now or if he should say anything at all.

  Nothing at all worked best for me.

  “Can someone just take me home?” I called out to the entire group.

  Porter held up one finger. “I got it. Be back in a few minutes.”

  I didn’t bother saying goodbye to anyone. Sure. It was a bitch move, but I needed to get home and fall into bed.

  Chapter Three

  I woke the next morning, if I could call it that given I’d barely slept, to a nagging headache. The kind you get when you didn’t get restful sleep. I’d been up almost the entire night going over how awful I’d been to Rhian’s brother, Tegan, when he’d only tried to talk to me.

  The scene played over and over in my mind, plaguing me as I took a shower and dressed for the day. I’d bitten his head off because of my anger toward Ian. Though that made me snort. I rhymed when I didn’t even mean to. And it was all anger. I wasn’t sad that I’d left Ian behind at all. No, that part was all relief.

  Now, what would I do with my day? I was supposed to be in Chicago with my boyfriend. My son was with his father and I already knew Zac would brush me off if I offered to pick Dylan up early.

  Dylan might have a mother who chose awful men, but at least his father wasn’t one of them. Then again, I hadn’t chosen Zac exactly. Neither of us had meant for me to get pregnant in high school. It had been a moment of sadness over losing one of the best things in our lives. Nothing more and both of us knew it.

  So no Dylan. I didn’t exactly want to hang out with the group today, either. Zac had been rightfully pissed off when he’d heard about what Ian had tried to force me to give up. Giving him some space to get over it was probably the best idea there was.

  Work. There was always work to do even if I wasn’t scheduled for today. They wouldn’t turn me away. The salon was busy as hell a
ll the time. They would’ve loved to have an unplanned extra hand.

  That was what I told myself on the drive over. The salon wasn’t in East Branch. No, it was in a very nice part of town. I was just lucky that my sister had gotten me in there. The clients tipped amazingly and my life, along with Dylan’s, would’ve been much different had I not snagged this job.

  “What’re you doing here?” my sister, Natalie, asked as soon as I entered the salon. Her chair was in the front closer to the door since she was also the manager. That way she could keep her eye on everything and she was currently adding highlights to the hair of a middle-aged woman.

  Natalie always looked spectacular but when I’d told her this in the past, she’d insisted that I only thought so because we looked so much alike. Though she had the same brown hair as me, same hazel eyes as well, her new cut was much shorter than mine. The strands barely swept her shoulders.

  I shrugged. “Nothing else to do,” I told her.

  “Not what I meant,” she said as she continued applying color foils to the client in front of her.

  “Can I work?” I asked. “I know I’m supposed to be off, but—”

  “Yeah, of course you can. We’ve been denying people all day. You know how crazy we are on Saturday and Eliza had to call in. Or rather I told her she couldn’t come in when she called.”

  “Sick?”

  “She threw up twice on the phone with me.” She grimaced. “We’ve been trying to fit her clients in where we can and rescheduling the ones who only want her. With you here, we can keep the flow going. Oh, and we’ve had seven walkins today.”

  I nodded. Saturday’s were the craziest day. “Give me two minutes to set up and I’ll get to work.”

  Serenity Salon was one of the more popular salons in the area. The entire thing was new and modern, though my sister had worked here eight years now, working her way up to management.

  The décor in silver and black with the beautiful intense lighting was what one would expect from our place. We were midscale, I’d say. Not quite upscale that only the wealthiest could afford to patronize, but we weren’t cheap and I made fantastic tips for the industry. Plus, it was only about twenty minutes from my house.