Chapter 67 Neither of Them Gets Her

Chapter 67 Neither of Them Gets Her
Mayzie giggled as she and Donny strolled down the sidewalk. They were heading to a small café not far from the restaurant — a pleasant walking distance. Up ahead, the massive local mall was impossible to miss. Taking in the cobblestone streets, manicured foliage, and immaculate walkways, Mayzie felt completely out of her element. Even when she used to work nearby, the neighborhood had never looked this nice.

"So, you live with your brother and his wife?" she asked.

Donny nodded. "It's not that I can't afford my own place, but nothing available really..." He cleared his throat. "I'm going to sound like a snobby rich kid here. I'm looking to buy a nice apartment, and I just haven't found anything I like."

"That doesn't sound snobby at all," Mayzie grinned. "You should be picky when buying a home or a car. It's not like a shirt you can just return if it doesn't fit right. What brought you out here, anyway?"

"I met Dr. Saunders and Dr. Ramos at a few medical conferences while I was in med school. I really wanted to work under them — they're brilliant minds, and I knew I could learn a lot. When I found out they were both at the same hospital, I made sure to secure my internship here." He paused, looking lost in thought for a second.

"You knew Dr. Saunders beforehand? What a coincidence."

"Well, I didn't really know him personally. I just heard him speak and was impressed." Donny slid his hands into his pockets.

"Still pretty cool. Speaking of connections, you know Dalton, right? I thought he mentioned you two were good friends."

Donny chuckled. "Is that what he said? Our families were close, so we spent summers together on annual vacations. But I'm quite a bit older than him, so we didn't have much in common back then. I hung out with the older crowd while he was with the kids."

"So you'd never actually been to Ravenfield before moving here?"

"Nope. I've only been here since last fall," he stopped as Mayzie's phone rang.

She checked the screen. "Speaking of the devil," she muttered before answering. "What is it, Dalton? It's my night off. I'll get to that report tomorrow when I'm at work," she said sharply.

Donny smirked, remembering how entitled and short-tempered Dalton had been as a kid.

"No, I'm out right now, and I won't be home until later," Mayzie snapped. "It's none of your business who I'm with or when I get back." She let out a defeated sigh. "I'm with Donny Nereo. And no, I don't know when I'll be home... I don't need your permission to see people. If that's all, I'm hanging up."

She ended the call before he could argue. "Asshole," she mumbled, turning off the phone and shoving it into her purse.

"Sounds like he hasn't changed much," Donny remarked.

"Was he always a pushy brat who threw tantrums when he didn't get his way?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Donny said matter-of-factly as they walked into the café and took a seat.

The moment they sat down, Mayzie pulled her phone back out and turned it on to check for missed calls, even though it had only been off for two minutes. Sure enough, Dalton had tried calling back immediately.

"I hope it wasn't anything important," she murmured to herself.

"Has it ever been?" Donny smiled as the waitress approached. Having already decided at the restaurant, he ordered two cappuccinos for them.

"There's a first time for everything, I guess." Mayzie stared at the screen.

"Call him back if you're worried."

She looked up. "Oh, no. It's just odd for him to call on my day off. Yesterday he crashed a private picnic with my friends, and now he's calling to ask me over. It's out of character. I just wonder if something's bothering him." Her eyes drifted back down to the phone.

"Maybe he's lonely," Donny gently reached over, closed her flip phone, and nudged it toward her. "If you aren't going to call him, you should put it away. Otherwise, it's just going to keep distracting you."

Mayzie flushed with slight embarrassment. "Sorry about that." She picked up the phone and tucked it back into her purse.

"Don't worry about it," Donny said warmly.

Inwardly, though, he felt a strange spike of jealousy. They had been having such a great time, but a single one-minute call had completely stolen her focus. He usually didn't get jealous, and the unfamiliar feeling made him want to pull back. He wasn't looking for a romantic connection anyway — he was still holding out for someone else.

"Are you alright?" Mayzie asked, noticing he had drifted off.

"I'm sorry, that was rude of me. You were saying?"

She smiled softly. "I was just saying we should go to a baseball game next time. That way we can actually relax and let loose. I feel like in places like this, we both try a little too hard to act proper."

"That sounds fun." He cleared his throat as their cappuccinos arrived. "You mentioned earlier that you recently broke up with your boyfriend?"

"Yeah. It was a mistake from the start. I just feel bad that he got hurt while I was trying to figure things out."

"Figure things out?"

"I saw him more as a brother, but his family kept pushing us to be more than that. I gave in and spent our short relationship trying to force those feelings, but it just didn't work." She took a sip of her drink. "What about you? Leave anyone behind back home?"

Donny's smile faded slightly.

"I'm sorry, you don't have to talk about it."

"No, it's fine," he said, shaking his head. "She broke things off after I was cut off from my family. We were supposed to get married once I started my internship, but it turned out she was in love with my family's wealth and status, not me."

"Are you sure? Maybe her parents forced her to break it off?"

"They probably had a hand in it, but if you really love someone, do you let money stand in the way? If she truly cared about me, she would have walked away from all of that. Don't you think so?"

"No," Mayzie replied, shaking her head. "Love is great, but you shouldn't have to choose a life of misery just to be with someone."

"Isn't that what sacrifice is about, though? Isn't that what love means?"

"Giving up your dreams and everyone else you care about? That sounds more like selfish love to me." She took another sip.

Donny watched her for a moment. "I suppose. You sound like you're speaking from experience."

"I gave up someone I loved to come here to Ravenfield. I know he would have abandoned his own future to follow me, but I couldn't let him do that. I ended things because I refused to let him suffer just to satisfy my desires."

Donny thought it over. "So... are you saying I should have been the one to end it, to spare her from hurting me?"

"I'm just saying those were my choices," she said softly. "You shouldn't force someone to give up their life for you. It has to be their choice, but people often make decisions in love that they end up regretting. He had a bright future ahead of him, and I wasn't going to stand in the way of that."

"A bright future? Sounds like what wealthy mothers tell their sons' girlfriends when they want them gone."

"Money had nothing to do with it. We were great together," Mayzie looked him in the eye. "I just didn't want him sacrificing everything for me. Seeing that lingering sadness on his face would have eaten me alive. I couldn't do that to someone I loved."

Donny nodded slowly. "I get it. I just wish the woman I loved had at least offered to stay — even if her parents wouldn't have allowed it."

"It's the thought that counts, right?" She gave a small smile.

"Right." He took a sip of his coffee.

When the waitress placed the check on the table, Mayzie quickly snatched it before Donny could reach for it. "This one's on me," she said with a grin.

He watched in surprise as she pulled cash from her purse. In all his time dating, no woman had ever offered to pay.

· · ─────── · 𓅪 · ─────── · ·

Dalton snapped his phone shut after trying to call Mayzie for the third time. It had gone straight to voicemail. "She turned her phone off. Unbelievable," he muttered, staring down at the white case of his phone.

He looked over at Ariel sitting on the opposite couch, then sighed as Gustav walked back from the bathroom and slumped into an armchair, propping his feet up on the coffee table.

"Is she coming?" Gustav asked, picking dirt out from under his fingernails.

"No," Dalton grunted, leaning back against the cushions to stare at the blank TV screen.

Gustav glanced at Ariel, noting Dalton's mood — a cold demeanor he hadn't shown since Mayzie started working for him. "Something wrong?"

"No," Dalton snapped again.

"She's on a date," Ariel offered casually. He had overheard the phone conversation and knew exactly why Dalton was sulking.

"A date? With who?"

Ariel shrugged. "As long as it isn't Arking, who cares? Did she say she'd drop by afterward?"

"No," came the monotone reply.

Gustav groaned. "Are we getting anything more than one-word answers from you tonight?"

"No."

Dropping his shoulders, Gustav turned to Ariel. "What do you think your brother is planning?"

"I don't know, but he's up to something, and it definitely involves Mayzie." Ariel kicked his own feet up onto the table. "Thelma and Ember aren't from rich families. Blake picked them because they were easy to manipulate. I'm positive Arking is the reason they were brought to the university in the first place."

"We can't just accuse Arking based on a hunch." Gustav glanced back at Dalton, who seemed totally checked out.

"I know. That's why I need to know his stance first." Ariel gestured toward Dalton.

Dalton sat up, meeting their gazes. "My stance on what?"

"You keep claiming you don't care about Mayzie," Ariel said, leaning forward. "So why do you care about what Arking does? Just let him have a shot and drop it. He's serious about her, and you're just messing around anyway."

Dalton glared at him. "You were right there when she rejected him. I'm not keeping her from anyone."

"He wouldn't have pulled those stunts on the island to push her away if he didn't think you wanted her," Ariel countered, leaning back.

"I never asked either of you to interfere," Dalton snapped. "Don't sit there acting like my orders failed you. That was your own scheme."

"Fine. Then I'll let Arking do whatever he wants. If you don't care, there's no reason to stop him." Ariel crossed his arms.

"Arking isn't fucking touching her!" Dalton slammed his hands onto the coffee table.

Gustav put his hands up to defuse the tension. "Hold on a second." He turned to Ariel. "If Arking is playing dirty, we shouldn't let him get away with it." Then he turned to Dalton. "But Ariel had a point. If you don't want her, Arking has every right to try. You need to make up your mind."

Dalton stared at the blank screen, thinking back to the hours they had spent together in the meadow. "Neither of them gets her."

"Neither of them?" Gustav asked.

"Arking or Donny... they can't have her," Dalton repeated cleanly.

Assuming Donny was the guy Mayzie was currently out with, Gustav pressed, "Why?"

Dalton clenched his jaw, shooting a dark look at Gustav. "Because I said so."

Gustav bit back a know-it-all smirk and turned back to Ariel. "Good enough for you?"

"I guess that's as clear an answer as we're going to get," Ariel smirked. "I don't get why you admitted to liking her a month ago, and now you can't even say it out loud. Whatever. We'll handle it because you said so."

Dalton sneered. "I don't like her. I just don't want them to have her."

"Right. Well, I'll figure out what Arking is planning and put a stop to it," Ariel said, looking straight at Dalton. "It's up to you to handle Donny... and I wouldn't use your usual aggressive tactics. Get more info on him first."

"I know plenty," Dalton snapped. "Donny Nereo. We spent our summers around him until he left for college."

"Right, I vaguely remember. He was older than us," Ariel mused, lost in thought.

Not knowing who Donny was, Gustav stayed quiet. He knew Ariel understood Dalton better than anyone and had a knack for steering his decisions without pushing too hard.

"I can handle him," Dalton muttered.

"It might be better to handle Mayzie instead of confronting Donny directly," Ariel suggested, resting his feet back on the table. "You know... treat her better, stop arguing all the time. She actually seems to be warming up to you."

Gustav nodded in agreement. "Surprisingly, yeah. Seeing you two holding hands and falling asleep on the couch? If someone had told me a week ago I'd seen that, I would've said they were crazy."

Dalton felt a heat rise up his neck as the memory flashed back. "You took that out of context," he coughed awkwardly. "We held hands so we wouldn't get separated in the crowd. And we were drunk when we crashed on the couch. I have no idea how we ended up like that — she's probably just a closet pervert."

Ariel chuckled, shaking his head. "Must be. Anyway, I'll figure out what Arking's up to. It won't be hard; he's never been good at keeping secrets from me."

"And I'll just sit here and offer moral support," Gustav said smoothly, before looking around. "Where's Blake, anyway?"

"Where else? With Bellatrix," Ariel laughed. "If he isn't careful, he might actually fall for her."

Dalton shook his head. "Not Blake. The second he thinks he's developing real feelings, he'll cut it off."

The other two nodded, knowing he was right.

"I suppose," Gustav shrugged. "They still seem pretty attached, though."