In a Jam (Friendship, RI Book 1)

by Kate Canterbary

“Do you want a giant bowl of liquor and an axe?” Grace asked. “How about a giant bowl of liquor and a quick exit?” Audrey asked. “Something like that,” I whispered. “We’ve got you,” Emme said.

“It sounds like she left you a—a farm. In Rhode Island.”

Shay fucking Zucconi. In my town. On my farm. And she didn’t remember me.

Shay had always had one of those faces meant for smiling. Not every face was meant for smiling but Shay’s was one of them. The corners of her lips were always tipped up as if she was waiting for a reason to smile. And when she aimed those smiles in my direction…well, the adolescent version of me had lived and died by those smiles.

“We take in elderly dogs that have trouble finding homes. Give ’em a comfortable place to live out their days.”

I love him

“I’ll marry you,” he repeated. “You don’t want to fight a frivolous will? Fine. Then meet the terms of the will, build the venue, close the estate next July, dissolve the marriage next August.”

She was a sunbeam through a storm cloud.

I worshipped her from the minute she slid in beside me, smelling like heaven and looking at me with those cat eyes. I believed then that she saw me, the real me. She didn’t do anything miraculous and that was helpful because I didn’t think I could tolerate any miracle beyond being with a beautiful girl who chose to ride with me. She captivated everyone like that.

It didn’t matter what happened next. If she disappeared from my life tomorrow. If she went back to Boston and gave up Twin Tulip. Even if she stayed though I could never touch her again. None of it would matter because she’d kissed me back—and she’d loved every second of it.

I brushed my lips over Shay’s temple once more. Not because Christiane was watching or because I gave a shit about anyone’s opinion. I did it because I’d wanted to do this since long before I knew what it was to kiss a woman on the forehead instead of the mouth.

“No need. I can handle it.” “There’s a ton of shit I can handle,” she said, “and I’d still love if someone stepped in front of it for me.”

That was another reason for the crabby earrings. He hated those things. The lobster ones and the koi fish. The octopus too. He hated all my weird and wonderful things, and for a time he’d convinced me I didn’t want them either. Shouldn’t want them. It left me wondering what else I’d lost along the way. What I’d given up. And why I’d let it happen.

“Are you going to sit on the bench with me?” Noah asked. “I don’t know,” I teased. “I wouldn’t want to ruin the alone-and-silent thing.” He hooked an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to his side. “You couldn’t if you tried.”

“Don’t tell me to quiet down,” she snapped. “You’re going to hurt yourself. I’m not light.” “I know my strength, sweetheart. Don’t you worry about me.”

I was helpless here. I still wanted to wring her neck. I wanted her to apologize for shaving several years off my life. And I wanted to take her in my arms and let her cry it out because she didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve any of it.

“You did nothing wrong,” I said. I didn’t know who this guy was or what he did but I was prepared to make it my life’s work to ruin him.

The worst thing about loving Shay in high school had been watching her go out with worthless guys and promptly get her heart trashed. Even if it was just for fun and she wasn’t taking it too seriously, her feelings took a beating when those guys showed themselves as juvenile jackasses. Experiencing it again—while married to her—lit a fire in my stomach. I was right back to wanting my hands around her neck and requiring some

apologies from her, preferably while on her knees, for the torture of this evening.

“Sweetheart, I don’t have a single clue what you’re trying to do here but I know you need to stop spending all your time wondering what you did wrong when these half-assed people leave you. Stop giving yourself to people who have no hope of ever playing on your level. Stop chasing people who don’t know how to show up for you. It’s a waste of your time and so are they. Let them go. Let the door hit them on the ass on the way out. They’re the ones who fucked up. Not you.”

“You said I choose people who don’t play at my level. If that’s true—and I don’t think it is—there’s no one here.” I’m here. I am right here. All I need you to do is notice me.

“Allow me to make myself clear. I don’t give a pickled fuck how or why we came to be married. You are my wife. If you need some fun, you’ll call me. I’ll be the one taking care of you. I’ll give you

anything you want, including a properly prepared gin and tonic. If you can’t accept that, you’re welcome to divorce me now.”

It was unproductive to admit this but I’d harbored a slight hope that Shay would’ve walked downstairs and reacted to this little celebration by rushing over and throwing her arms around me and demanding I reciprocate. These were the hopes I’d always harbored, the ones that always went unfulfilled. And this was a problem I created for myself. Over and over and over I expected an outcome that would never materialize.

I could throw all the birthday parties I wanted and pick her up at all the dive bars along the Narragansett Bay and give her everything she needed but none of it would change anything for us. It wouldn’t change anything for her. And that was okay. I could live with that. I could shove the truth aside one more time, a thousand more times, if it meant she had what she needed. A birthday party, a ride home, a husband in name only. We were here now, we were in this, and it didn’t matter whether I’d vowed to save myself from falling down the same old hole for Shay Zucconi again. I had to accept that those fantasies of her running into my arms—and falling apart in my bed—were fully unattainable. That wasn’t going to happen. Not to me, not in this lifetime. It was time for me to accept that, even if parts of me died in the process.

“You deserve it,” I said. She deserved everything, even if I couldn’t be the one to give it to her.

It was cow earrings and poison ivy and loaves of bread every time I turned around. It was picking me up and forcing me to eat french fries when I was drunk and sad and petulant and it was sending ice cream scoopers to set up my classroom. It was my friend, the one who had changed so much but not in any of the ways that mattered.

The pressure in my chest swelled so big that I had to put the bowl down, wrap my arms around his neck, and press my lips to his. He smelled like dish soap and he tasted like cake and even if this was the worst idea I’d ever had, it felt completely right. Seconds ticked by while he stood there, his arms at his sides and his body frozen against mine. Then, like a switch flipped inside him, a growl sounded in his throat and he locked his arms around my torso. He let loose, his teeth scraping over my lips, his tongue in my mouth, his beard rasping my chin as he slanted his lips over mine. It was a wild scramble to touch and taste and hold and it wasn’t enough. Nothing was nearly enough.

I needed to feel something. I needed to feel like I was worth multiple failed attempts at chocolate buttercream.

Shay laughed against my chest. She was pinned tight to me because she was stumbling harder than the night I picked her up at the bar. She was also pinned tight because everything in the world felt right when she was there.

“What do I taste like?” He nuzzled into the crook of my shoulder and replied with a soft growl. “My wife.”

I had no idea what I wanted. No, that wasn’t true. I wanted to be held down again. Pinned in place in his truck, backed into the corner of the kitchen. Trapped yet completely safe. And I wanted him over me, around me, inside me. But that wasn’t the question.

“You are…huge.” A noise rumbled in his throat. “You can take it.”

“You were made for my cock. You were made to take it all. You’re going to take it bent over this bed, you’re going to take it on your belly and holding on to the headboard, and you are going to take it sitting on my lap while I lick those tits. And that’s just what I’m taking from this sweet little cunt tonight.”

“Just because I can plow through by myself doesn’t mean I want to,” I said. “Fuck, Shay. Let me need you, okay?” A quiet minute passed before she whispered, “Okay.”

“That was a different time.” “A time when you didn’t like me very much?” she asked, laughing. If only she knew how much I’d always liked her. That there was no one else for me. My world started and ended with her sitting beside me on those dark morning rides to school, and it started up all over again when I found her on my farm. But she wasn’t ready to hear that. She was barely able to imagine a future where we didn’t dispose of this marriage nine months from now and never speak of it again. I couldn’t tell her that I loved her. Loved her so completely, so thoroughly, that no one else in the world could compare. Maybe someday I’d be able to tell her this but not yet.

Sometimes you just need a glare to set you straight, sweetheart.” “What does that mean?” “You know exactly what it means,” I said. “Consuming nothing more than coffee and pudding all day. Going out to random bars with idiots. Telling me you’re going to walk home alone—at night. You needed a good glare.” And a reminder of who you belong to.

“Does it make me an idiot if I didn’t realize any of that until now?” “You’re not an idiot. You’re just accustomed to people failing you.”

I wanted to return the favor and call him husband but I couldn’t form the word. Not out loud, not yet. It was too dangerous. I’d almost called another man my husband and that history was all too recent to ignore. Though I wanted to say it to Noah. I wanted—just for one second—for him to be my husband. And I wanted it to be real.

He always thought he was too rough, too aggressive. He thought I was small and fragile despite the fact I was neither of those things, but there was something surprisingly wonderful about someone doting on me that way. I felt perfect and precious when he rubbed cream into my skin or frowned over a bite mark he’d left on my inner thigh. I felt like I’d been waiting a very long time for someone who knew how to shatter me and also wanted to pick up all the pieces. And I felt an unpleasant sense of relief in discovering that person was my husband.

“You’re staying out of reach,” he growled. “I’ll handle it from here.” I dropped the ring into his palm. To Xavier, he said, “You will never touch her again. If you see this woman coming, you’ll turn around and walk in the opposite direction. You’ll stay the fuck away from her. You will never speak to her again. Am I making myself clear? Not a call, not a text, not an email. Not a goddamn word from you.”

“You might have had a leg to stand on if she had been the one to break off the engagement, but in this case”—Noah gave a low whistle—“you did that all by yourself, didn’t you?” He held the ring between his fingers and frowned at the severe edges of the princess-cut diamond. “But if you’d rather sort this out in court, you should know I’ll be representing Miss Zucconi and I have all the time in the world to fuck you over. I will find all the skeletons in all of your closets. I’ll dig them up if I have to. I’ll bury you in legal proceedings and court fees. I’ll make it impossible for you to move more than an inch without triggering an avalanche of lawsuits. I’ll end you. Do you understand me yet?”

I needed her to wake up and come back to me. I needed her. Especially in the weeks to come when

Gennie and I left to visit Eva and—with any luck—came home unscathed. I couldn’t do this all on my own. Not anymore. Not now that I knew what it was like to have someone by my side.

“I don’t want to do it all on my own. I can but—but I don’t want to. And I deserve better than that.”

Noah wouldn’t leave. Not even if I left him.

“Noah!” “Shay? What the fuck are you doing out here?” “Someone had to rescue you this time.” “You could’ve been hurt or killed out here,” he roared. “But I wasn’t.” “Goddammit, Shay⁠—” “I love you too,” I said. “And I’ll love you as long as you’ll let me if⁠—” “Don’t finish that sentence,” he called. We could barely hear each other over the wind and rain but this had to be said and it had to be now. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to trust someone all the way and I don’t know

how to put myself in a position where I could get abandoned all over again.” “Shay—” “But I think I want to do it anyway,” I said. “I think I have to do it, even if it scares me. Even if I think it could fall apart or that you might change your mind, I have to stay here and I have to love you.” “I swear to you, I’m not changing my mind. I’m not letting you go. I couldn’t. Not after all these years.”

“I think I broke it when the ATV rolled.” “You rolled the ATV? What the hell were you thinking, coming out here in the dark, in a storm, on the ATV? Don’t you have rules about this sort of thing? Don’t you know better?” “Yeah, I do.” He caught a fistful of my coat and yanked me closer. “So, why don’t you tell me what the hell you did the same thing, wife?” “It was my turn to save you, husband.” He pressed his lips to mine and I knew. This was all the proof I needed.