by Meg Tilly
Attraction, Eve thought, was never an issue. Hell, if she’d felt any more sparks around Levi her hair would’ve caught fire. It was the day-to-day connection that had been the problem—or the lack thereof.
“Mmm,” she murmured, even though a reply wasn’t necessary. Maggie had already disappeared through the swinging doors that led to the kitchen.
Eve placed the pie on the counter and started to assemble the pastry box.
Levi. She still missed him. Correction. She missed the Levi she used to know, the bright-eyed boy-man who was overflowing with big dreams and passion, not the Levi he’d turned into. They’d met her first week at the university. Within a month he’d convinced her to move out of her dorm and in with him. He was exciting, older than her, in the graduating class. His philosophy was that one should live in the present, seize life with both fists, burn hard and bright. It was what had attracted her to him in the first place.
Their first year together had passed like a dream. Memories of music and making love, sunshine and laughter, friends and members of the band tumbling in and out of their apartment. Making sangria in the enormous pasta pot that the previous tenant had left behind. Going to the band’s weekend gigs, standing in the front, starting the dancing, other people joining in. Aware of his eyes on her while he made love to his guitar, to the mic. The gigs became a protracted foreplay to what they would be doing after the set, his music and voice thrumming through her sweat-slicked body like a caress. She’d felt unleashed from the girl she used to be. The one who’d spent her high school years working weekends and summers in the family construction business alongside her sister, mother, and dad. Weeks would sometimes pass before she’d remember to drag herself out of their warm bed, put on her sensible clothes instead of her wild-child ones. She’d walk across campus to the Presbyterian Church on Whitney Avenue. But it wasn’t her church, with her family, familiar faces and friends. She would sit there surrounded by strangers, a lump in her throat, imagining her family back in Eugene, Oregon. Sitting in their regular pew, freshly scrubbed and innocent of the wild university goings-on, their bellies full of homemade pancakes and cheesy scrambled eggs. Missing them had loneliness rising like a volcano, threatening to tear her apart until finally she stopped going to church altogether.
Eve placed the cherry pie in the assembled box and unspooled some string.
Looking back, it was hard to pinpoint when the shift happened and he became the other Levi, the one she didn’t know. It had been an imperceptible slide. He’d graduated so certain that fame was going to reach out its golden finger and tap him on the shoulder. Over that next year, bit by bit he lost his way. He would come home worn-out, anger flaring unexpectedly, a crack of lightning exploding out of a clear blue sky. He was on the road more often than not, with a plethora of women, drugs, and booze at his fingertips. Their relationship changed, became brittle, full of recriminations, and the very quality she’d adored became the thing that tore them apart.
Eve secured the pie box with a bow, a wave of melancholy sweeping through her. Someday, somewhere, I’m going to meet someone who’s right for me, she vowed, pushing the sadness aside. And he’s going to be a steady Eddie. A nine-to-fiver. Someone I can count on.
She turned toward the bustling café, plastered a smile on her face, stepped to the cash register, and rang in Ethelwyn’s purchases.
About the Author
Meg Tilly may be best known for her acclaimed Golden Globe-winning performance in the movie Agnes of God. After publishing six standout young adult and literary women's fiction novels, the award-winning author/actress decided to write the kind of books she loves to read: romance novels. Tilly has three grown children and resides with her husband in the Pacific Northwest.
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