Always Been Mine Read online

  Always

  BEEN MINE

  By Carina Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Always Been Mine

  Copyright ©2013 by Carina Adams

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical without the expressed permission of the author.

  Cover art created by M.S. Fowler of Melchelle Designs

  Editing done by Amber B. of Editing By Amber

  For Bambino.

  You and me against the world,

  In sunshine or in shadow

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Twenty Seven

  Twenty Eight

  Twenty Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty One

  Acknowledgements

  One

  It was raining again. Again. So far, the whole summer had been a washout. Normal rain I could handle, but this dreary want-to-go-back-to-bed weather made me cranky. Well, I could try to blame my mood on the weather.

  The parking lot was almost empty this morning. I was always one of the first people at the office, but it looked like the other early birds had decided to sleep in. I didn’t blame them. I’d thought about it, but the hotel room was too quiet and if I was going to be miserable, I might as well be miserable at work. I parked in my usual spot, locked my doors, and ran for the three-story brick building, trying to avoid getting absolutely soaked. I was inside waiting for the elevator, looking out the glass door at the growing puddles, before I saw the familiar car parked near the building.

  My mood instantly improved. Matty was never here before eight. And today was Thursday, the one day we both had full office days. Barring an

  emergency, there were no meetings to go to, no parent visits to supervise, and no kiddos to see. A full eight hours of my best friend, even though we were working, made me happy. I was grinning by

  the time I got off the elevator and walked to our cubicles.

  “Good morning!” I smiled at his back, removing my raincoat.

  “Hey.” He didn’t turn around and his normally energetic voice seemed flat. Thinking he was on the phone, I started my computer and turned on my light. He didn’t say anything else so I glanced at his desk; his phone was still on its cradle.

  “What’s wrong?” I sat in my chair, turning towards him. We’d been friends for years, coworkers for even more. When you spend forty hours a week with someone, you get to know them pretty well. Add our Friday lunch out ritual, the time our families spend together, hours of phone conversations, and hanging out almost every Saturday morning for the last few years, I could honestly say that I knew him very well. He never greeted me that way—unless something was wrong.

  “Not gonna leave it alone, are you?” He sounded annoyed, but he turned and offered me his signature lop sided grin. I shook my head, grinning back. “Taylor stuff.”

  Of course it was. I felt slightly annoyed that I hadn’t pegged that one. Matt’s girlfriend, Taylor,

  was the prettiest woman I’d ever met. She was absolutely model perfect from the top of her platinum-streaked head all the way to her impeccably manicured toes. She was flawless, at least until you got to know her. Then you realized that she was one of the most spoiled, self-centered, and pretentious people on the planet. I was biased, of course, but I couldn’t stand her. I hated the way he acted around her. He spoiled her rotten and overlooked her crappy attitude. They’d been together for a little over a year, and we’d learned a few months into their relationship that we couldn’t talk about Taylor. Matty would vent sometimes, but only when he really needed it, and I would just listen, biting my tongue. “Need an ear?”

  “Nope. Don’t want to think about her right now. I needed a distraction.” He motioned to the thick blue files scattered on his desk.

  I scanned the piles of chaos; they hadn’t been there last night when I left. “What time did you get here?”

  “Five-thirty-ish.” He shrugged. Apparently, the Taylor issues were big this time.

  “Did you get breakfast?” He raised an eyebrow;

  his normal breakfast consisted of a protein shake

  that would put hair on even the most feminine chest. It made me nauseous just thinking about it. “Come on, I’m taking you to Denny’s.”

  He smiled. “I said I needed a distraction, not a heart attack.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’ll be ok. Besides, what could possibly be better, or more distracting, than having a nasty grease filled breakfast with me? You’ll be so busy worrying about your figure and how much exercise you’ll need to burn off all those awful calories that you won’t have time to think about other things.” I moved just in time to avoid the highlighter he tossed at me, giggling at the annoyed look that crossed his face.

  “I’ll drive.” He grinned as he stood up. My breath caught and I looked away. He had the best smile, and when he smiled that way, really smiled, his eyes twinkled and creased. Lately I’d noticed that my heart beat a little faster when that smile was directed at me. Whenever Matty smiled, women noticed, and I’d seen him use his charms more than once. My reaction to it, however, was new, and I blamed Will.

  Our families, along with a couple of other co-worker’s families, had gotten together for our annual Memorial Day cookout the month before.

  Taylor had worn strappy-heels so she couldn’t play in our traditional soccer match after lunch. Will offered to sit with her, making the teams even. I didn’t argue because I sure as hell didn’t want to sit with her. My team was winning and I was about to kick a goal when I’d been lifted into the air and spun. I screamed and kicked, batting at the strong arms around my waist. The kids stopped playing the game and came to either help me or help Matt keep me from scoring more points. Everyone was laughing and one of the kids tackled us. Before I had really figured out what happened, I was on the ground looking up into Matty’s face, his body heavy on mine, his hand under my head. The kids thought it was the perfect time to pig pile and without warning, they were all climbing on us at once. Matty was smiling down at me and I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to catch my breath. He pushed himself up, knocking off anyone that tried to keep him down and reached a hand to me, pulling me up. “You ok?” His hand ran through my hair touching my scalp, as if checking for bumps.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Something broke my fall,” I answered, trying not to start laughing again. He grinned at me. “Thank God it was soft.” The grin disappeared and he looked confused.

  “Nope, nothing soft here,” he patted his arms

  and then flexed, showing me his muscles. I giggled. He smirked, moving his mouth next to my ear so only I could hear, “Part of me had an amazingly soft landing, though.” Winking at me, he ran back to the kids and was busy playing tag before his words sunk in. The soccer game forgotten, I walked toward the table where my husband sat. I was still laughing and looked up just in time
to see Taylor giving me a nasty look.

  On the way home, Will brought up the game. “She really doesn’t like you, you know?”

  I knew whom he was talking about without even asking and I scoffed at him. “Well, the feeling is mutual.”

  “Careful, honey. That’s dangerous ground.” He tilted his head at me. “I know that you don’t think she’s good enough for him, but he loves her and that should be enough for you. Female friends of men tend to get catty when said friend dates a woman they don’t approve of.” He shook his head when I tried to interrupt. “You know what I’m talking about.” I did. He’d heard all of my Taylor rants, and I had no doubt that catty was the nicest way to put my opinion of her. When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “There is nothing worse

  than a catty woman. You can’t choose who he loves and you can’t change his mind. He adores

  you. That won’t change because of her behavior. It could change because of yours, though.”

  My husband had a way of looking at most situations that made me reassess. “I don’t understand why she hates me so much.”

  “Really?” He sounded genuinely surprised. “You have no idea?” I wanted to make some comment about not being able to understand the thought process of someone so self-absorbed, but I kept quiet and shook my head. “I don’t know,” he said looking at me, “maybe you just don’t see it. When he sees you, he stops what he’s doing and smiles, he touches you every chance he gets, his eyes follow you every time you walk by. Christ, whenever you laugh, even if it’s across the room, he looks at you. I’m not blind, and neither is Taylor. I see how you look at him and how you react to him. You two have a connection that leaves the rest of us out.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Matt did touch me often. At work we both listened to music and with headphones in, it was easier to touch his shoulder to get his attention than it was to say his name.

  We were comfortable with each other. And he

  was nosey, one of the nosiest people I knew. He needed to know what was going on at all times and

  most likely wanted to know what was funny. I would have pointed out each of these arguments, but the thing that I was most concerned with at that point was Will’s lack of emotion. “And none of that bothers you?”

  Will gave me a small smile. “Honey, how Matt feels about you is really the least of our issues, don’t you think?”

  He’d been right of course. Matt and his seemingly stalker-ish tendencies toward me were the smallest problem Will and I had. A few weeks after the picnic and our kids were spending the summer with their grandparents, and I was living in a hotel room five miles from work. Trying to save our marriage wasn’t even the biggest problem we had; figuring out if it was worth saving was.

  “Hey, where’d you go?” I shook off the memories and realized we were pulling into the restaurant. “I thought breakfast was a distraction for me.” Matty nudged my left arm. “In order to do that, you have to actually talk to me.”

  I smiled over the roof of his car as I got out. “Wait. Are you actually complaining about me being quiet?”

  He stuck out his tongue, making me laugh. “There’s a first time for everything.” He opened the door for me, putting his hand on my lower back as we walked into Denny’s.

  The woman that greeted us made no attempt to hide her distasteful ogling. I watched as her eyes moved slowly over Matt, all six-feet-two-inches of him, from head to feet and back to his face. Meeting his eyes, she gave him a flirty grin before showing us to our table. Her eyes followed him again as he slid into the booth. “Your waitress will be here in a few minutes. Can I get you anything?” Her tone implied she wanted to give him something – like her phone number.

  I moved into the booth across from him, knocking my knee into his. He raised an eyebrow in my direction but answered the waitress, “I’ll take a coffee, black. And, we’ll both have iced water – hers with lemon.” The girl looked at me as if she’d just realized I was there.

  I smiled up at her, moving further back in the booth to avoid the legs invading my side of the table. “Thanks.”

  A leg bumped into mine suddenly, and I turned away from the girl to glare at my friend. His head was buried in the menu so I bumped him back.

  “Get those knobby things on your side of the table.”

  “Listen Shrimp, if you don’t need the space, you can share.”

  “Shrimp? Really? And, I do need the room!” I wanted to kick him, but settled for another knee nudge. He moved the menu enough for me to see the smile, but he didn’t budge his legs. I didn’t know why he was reading the menu; we both ordered the same thing every time we came. A few minutes later, another waitress brought his coffee and our waters and took our order. I was debating small-talk topics that would be distracting when he met my eyes.

  “Taylor…” he broke off like he didn’t know what to say. His brow creased and I could tell he was searching for the right words. He sighed. “Taylor is a miserable witch sometimes.”

  I almost choked on my water. Never, not one time, had he ever said anything like that about her. He’d complain about her spending habits, her criticisms of him, and her complete lack of knowledge about kids. But never had he laid down a blanket statement. After he complained, he would defend her and talk of all her ‘redeeming’ qualities. Blah, blah, blah.

  “Not one word.” His look told me that I’d regret not keeping silent. “She wants to have a baby, says,” his voice got high, mimicking Taylor’s, “that it will fix all our problems.” He shook his head, lowering his voice back to normal. “Because bringing a baby into our house will fix everything.” The anger had taken over and his face was contorted as if in pain. “I’m thirty-six for Christ’s sake. I don’t want to start over!”

  I couldn’t keep quiet. “She hates kids!”

  “Yep.” He glared out the window. “She said a baby would ruin her body and so she made me get fixed, remember?” How could I forget? Taylor was supposed to pick him up after the surgery but had ‘lost track of time’ and couldn’t make it, so I took him home and kept him supplied with a steady stream of frozen peas and Advil while watching the first season of Sons of Anarchy. Good times, really. “Now she wants me to get it reversed so we can have our own baby.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I had no words of inspiration. Hell, I couldn’t save my own marriage, what wisdom could I deliver to help him? “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t much, but I could offer empathy. I had so many questions though. “Why now?”

  He looked back at me. “She wants a ‘grand gesture.’” His hands made air quotes around the words. “A real commitment. Something to prove I’m going to stay with her, even with all our problems.” He sighed. “I think I’m going to ask her to marry me.”

  There was so much to say but the words wouldn’t form. I searched his face, looking for his telltale smirk or a wink that would prove he was just kidding. Why would he want to marry her? Ok, so I knew there were probably thousands of reasons, but I was positive that I could easily rebuttal most of them. And I had plenty more why he shouldn’t. One was more glaringly obvious than the rest.

  “Have you told Sam you want to marry her?” If anyone disliked that woman more than I did, it was Matt’s son.

  “Sam’s nine, Jo. He still wants his parents to get back together.” I didn’t blame the kid; I did, too. “When I talked to Becky she said I should ask you what you thought.”

  “You already talked to Becky?”

  “Of course I did." He looked at me like it was the most absurd question he'd ever been asked. "If she ever decides to do something stupid, like move

  that loser in, I know she would talk it over with me

  first.”

  “Loser? Did she and the vet break up?”

  He grinned, showing perfectly aligned white teeth, “Nope.”

  I grinned back. “Some habits are just hard to break, huh?” I had adored Becky when they were married—but just like every other possession in a divorce
, friends were split up evenly. Matty was the lucky party that got us. I still spoke to her every time I saw her, but it wasn’t the same. She was more reserved and it was very clear she knew my loyalty was with Matt. The last time I’d seen her she’d been out with her long-time partner. The ‘loser’ vet was anything but. He owned his own practice, was known for both his dedication to animals and for having a big heart, was easy on the eyes, and most importantly, adored Sam. I liked him instantly. Matt would find something wrong with a saint if that saint were dating his ex-wife.

  “Whatever,” he rolled his eyes. “What do you think?”

  “About the vet? Or about you getting married?” He tipped his head slightly, giving me an annoyed look. “I think getting married because you want your girlfriend to feel secure or because you want

  to prove you’re not going to leave her when the next floosy comes along is just plain stupid. It’s something you would have done in your twenties.”

  He graciously ignored my floosy comment. “I’m not getting married tomorrow. I’m talking about getting engaged. That way she will know that I’m committed, but we’ll have plenty of time to work out the kinks.”

  Kinks? Hmmm… it sounded like they had more than a few kinks to work out, but I was really the last person to judge. The waitress appeared at our table, handed out our food and after making sure we were all set, left just as quietly as she’d come. I watched her go, making sure she was far enough away to not hear us.

  “I didn’t know you were having trouble.” He dove into his eggs; I was sure he was going to ignore me.

  “It’s over stupid shit.” He took another bite. “You piss her off.”

  “Me?” I almost dropped my fork. “What in the hell did I do this time?”

  He chuckled. “Well, we piss her off. We spend too much time together and she gets insecure.”

  Ah. Yep. That made sense. Same old argument. “Hmmm. I thought her attitude had changed now