Seven Years

reliving this over and over. Don’t you get it? There’s no going back and undoing what you did.”

He gripped my shoulders. “Look, babe, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. It was a mistake and I won’t—”

“Save it,” I interrupted. “You’ll never know what that did to me, and it’s not something I can easily get over. Maybe some women can, but you’ve always known that was the deal breaker for me. Not only would I always be wondering where you were when you came home late, but I’d always know that I wasn’t enough for you. I loved you, Beckett. I trusted you, and you broke that.”

His grip tightened when I tried to shrug him away. “Lex, you know you’re the only girl for me, right? You’re the girl I want to marry.”

I snapped.

My hands flew out in a karate-chop move I must have seen on one too many Kung Fu movies. A stunned look crossed his face when his arms were knocked away.

“Fine! Goddammit, I’m just trying to make it right again. Fucking bitch!” he yelled, storming out of the room.

There I stood amid ringing bells, screaming kids, and arcade machines.

Shaking.

I had to pull it together before my sister saw me have a nervous breakdown.

“Maizy, stay right where you are and don’t go anywhere,” I shouted, holding my finger out. “I’m going potty.”

She nodded and I walked to the restroom, only a few feet away. But once I entered the empty hall, I couldn’t go any farther. I allowed my body to slide down the wall and I covered my eyes as a tidal wave of pain surfaced.

I’d been with Beckett for two years, and through our ups and downs, I had started to imagine a life with him. One that might have involved kids, or maybe even going to college and figuring out what I wanted to do in life besides working a cash register. It took me two years to give him all of my heart, and he threw it away in one night. I’d thought he loved me. How many other times were there? Didn’t matter.

Once was enough.

“Lexi?”

Two heavy hands covered my knees. “What’s wrong?” The controlled anger belonged to Austin Cole.

My stupid tears. Damn them. I was already trying to get myself together and now my emotions switched gears to another part of my life that was an open wound.

“Why did you leave us?” I finally asked. The words felt like a sword because I’d said them a number of times over Wes’s grave. It hurt to breathe for the first year after his death.

Austin sighed hard. The kind of sigh that had a long, regretful story behind it. “Lexi, I can’t talk about this with you right now. Are you okay?”

Finally wiping my tears, I glanced up. Austin crouched in front of me wearing a white shirt and a leather- rope necklace with a round medallion made of silver. The tattoos on his upper arms briefly caught my attention, but when his sharp blue eyes cut through me, I looked away.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

He lowered his head with a doubtful glare. “No, you’re not.”

“What are you doing here? Why do you keep showing up out of the blue at the worst times?”

“I’m back for good, Lexi. I want to set things straight and there’s a lot I need to tell you, but this isn’t the place. You tell me when’s a good time and we’ll get together.”

I sniffed and gave a barely perceptible nod.

Austin let go of my knees and reached forward, sliding his hands down my hair with a short grin.

“It’s Pretty Pigtail Day,” I said in a small voice. “I do this with Maizy a couple of times a month.” I didn’t even bother explaining who Maizy was.

Austin didn’t laugh. “It reminds me a little bit of you at that age. I remember you wearing your hair like this, or sometimes braided in the back. Come on, let’s get up.” He hooked his hands beneath my arms and lifted me to my feet. “You sure you’re okay?”

Before I could answer, his thumb slid across my cheek, wiping away a tear. All those stupid rehearsals I’d played out in my head of telling him off were stuck in pause, and I felt ashamed I’d later be rewinding this moment, wishing I had tossed him into the bin of plastic balls.

He reached in his back pocket and pulled out a business card, placing it in my hand. “Call me when you’re ready to talk, Ladybug.”

I lifted my hand and admired a plain off-white card. Austin’s name was on the front with a phone number beneath. A symbol of a bow and arrow filled in the right-hand corner, but nothing indicated what he did for a living. Did that mean he was Robin Hood?

When I looked up, Austin was gone.

The card went into my purse and I decided to take Maizy home. Austin had left the ball in my court, and while it felt good to know the mystery of his disappearance would be solved, it also irritated me. Now in order to get any answers, I’d have to go crawling back to him, and that didn’t leave me in a position of power. I didn’t know how to feel about it, but I knew one thing: panic flooded my veins like rocket fuel when I didn’t see Maizy in the play zone.

“Maizy?”

My heart raced and I whirled around, dizzy with fear. I frantically searched the tunnels, peering through the clear plastic domes just to make sure she wasn’t hiding.

“Maizy? Come out from hiding! It’s time to go!”

When she didn’t answer, I went into a complete state of panic, screaming her name and pacing around. Kids were turning to stare and a few moms lifted their chins and glanced around the room.

Oh God, I’ve lost her.

After I’d combed the room five times and scoured the bathrooms, I ran out of the restaurant to the brightly lit entrance in front of the parking lot.

“Lexi! Lexi!” a bright little voice yelled out.

My head swung to the right. Beckett stood motionless beside my little sister, holding her hand.

“Maizy,” I gasped, my arms flying out. She let go of his hand and ran into my outstretched arms. “Don’t you ever leave me like that, do you understand?”

“Uncle Beck gave me a ring,” she said, holding up a plastic toy affixed to her finger.

I glared at him and he shrugged, walking away.

But something else made me uneasy—Maizy would have never left that room by herself. Beckett lured her out of there on purpose just to scare me.

It worked.

He’d resorted to a low tactic by taking advantage of my sister’s trust in order to threaten me. At least, that’s what it felt like. Beckett wasn’t aggressive, nor did I take him for the kind of guy who would kidnap a child. He had a mouth on him when he drank, but I’d never seen him do anything like this before, and what gave me chills was how smooth he was when I caught him in the act, and how casually he walked away.

“Let’s go, Maizy.”

I tossed her ring in the trash and she started to cry, so I picked her up. “Sweetie, don’t be mad at me.”

Tears streamed down her ruddy cheeks and her mouth was agape. “But that was my ring,” she whined.

“Maze, can I tell you something? It’s a secret.”

She nodded and wiped her nose.

“Never take a ring from a boy unless he’s your prince.”

Something sparked in her teary eyes.

“Remember how you said you wanted to marry a prince? Well, if you take a ring from another boy before you meet the prince, then he won’t marry you.”

Panic flooded her eyes. “But I took that one!”

“No, it doesn’t count because I threw it away. That’s the rule. Your big sis has to take it off and then the spell is undone.”

She smiled and hugged my neck. Maizy loved stories about magic and spells. In her eyes, the world was