by Nella Tyler
“I don’t understand why that’s upset you so much,” Brian said.
I looked up at the amused sound to his words to find him smiling a little, his expression conveying the same kindness I’d come to rely on so heavily over the last 13 months.
“What?” I asked, face scrunching into a frown, my mind racing to make sense of his words. “I’m betraying BJ by even thinking about kissing his best friend, let alone doing it. What kind of person does that make me?”
He shrugged. “A normal one.”
My mouth dropped open, but I couldn’t come up with a response to that.
He reached across the small tile-topped table to take my hand. “You are a young woman, Maggie, with the rest of your life ahead of you. Do you really think that to honor BJ’s memory you have to live alone for the next 60 years?”
I shook my head, but I wasn’t quite sure what I really thought about that.
“BJ loved you more than his own life. He would want you to be happy. That means living your life. It means falling in love with someone else and starting a family. You can love my son and still live your life.”
I wiped my leaky eyes, but the tears wouldn’t stop. “I just don’t know what to do.”
He squeezed my hand once before letting me go, taking the warmth of his calloused skin with him. “Do what makes you happy, Maggie. God knows you deserve it. You couldn’t dishonor BJ if you tried. I love you like my own daughter and that will never change. I want to see you happy too because I care about you and because I know that’s what my son would’ve wanted.” He was wiping at his own eyes now.
We slipped from our chairs at the same time and stood to hug each other. I was crying but smiling too, so thankful for this man and how understanding and supportive he was. It was a bit of a shock to hear these words from him, as he’d been living as a widower for well over a decade. And even though Eliza had told me the exact same thing yesterday at breakfast, the words sounded truer from Brian Sr.
I stayed for a few more hours, not looking forward to being alone in my house after the last few emotionally trying days. By the time I got home, I was exhausted. I stripped my clothes off and collapsed onto my bed, sleep jumping up to meet me. Instead of finding BJ waiting for me the way he had been nearly every night since I’d lost him, Banks was there, smiling at me sweetly, his gray eyes shining with love and desire.
Banks
Monday
I’d gotten into work around 7 this morning to get a jump on a few things before one of the biggest meetings of my career took place at 11. Maggie kept springing up into the center of my thoughts, and I had to turn them back to what was important—the looming merger that would double the size of our family company but would also complicate our business dealings by adding an even bigger, more comprehensive international element than we’d ever had before. I’d been preparing for this merger for months, and though I still had Dad as an advisor, it was incredibly stressful. The negotiations had been a grueling process that had gone on for weeks before we could come to terms that were agreeable to both parties involved. I knew what was at stake—my job and the job of the hundreds of people this company employed, together with the hundreds of new employees that would depend on my business acumen and unwavering leadership—and I couldn’t risk letting thoughts of Maggie throw me off of my game. Not today. Well, at least not until after this big meeting at 11 when I either clinched the deal or derailed it completely.
I always psyched myself out before a major event, but when the time came for it to start—be it a track meet in high school, an exam in college, or a critical meeting at work—all the worry and anxiety drained out of me, leaving behind it an unshakeable focus.
Jane buzzed me just before 11. “Everyone’s here. The materials are on the table and your presentation is locked and loaded.”
“Thanks, Jane,” I said. She was a lifesaver. I was lucky to have her and made sure she knew it, reflecting the sentiment in words but also in her paycheck. I walked out of my office and went to the conference room. My pulse was elevated, but my skin was humming nicely with anticipation. I was born ready for this. Everyone turned in their leather swivel chairs as I entered and I flashed an easy, confident smile.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We have a lot to discuss.” I jumped into my presentation without wasting another word. There were many questions, but I fielded them without any issue. I’d studied and practice every inch of this merger. I knew both companies backwards and forwards, from inception to how they’d traded yesterday on exchanges around the globe. I knew the pros and that they far outweighed the cons. Every person in attendance left that room impressed, all their concerns alleviated—I could see it on their faces. I was so keyed up from how well it’d gone, that it took a second of standing in the empty conference room grinning at nothing in particular before I could fix my face enough to return to my office and the rest of the workday. I stopped by Jane’s desk to let her know how well it had gone and to thank her for all the late nights and weekends that she’d sacrificed in order to get us to where we were. She didn’t know it yet, but I also had cruise tickets for her and a few of her friends, leaving from Miami and headed to the western Caribbean and Mexico. All she had to do was pick a date and let me know how many friends.
I went back to my office and checked my cell phone, which I’d left sitting on my desk while I was in the conference room, not wanting any distractions from the presentation at hand. I scanned it for texts or missed calls. There were a few texts, but none of them were from Maggie. I hadn’t heard from her at all since Thanksgiving Day. I wondered miserably if she would ever talk to me again. I still didn’t have any clue what had come over me.
The phone rang and I nearly dropped it in my excitement. But it wasn’t Maggie. It was Dad.
“How was the presentation?” he asked.
“It was good,” I replied. “Everything went according to plan.” I went into more detail, talking for more than 15 minutes about the ins and outs. Overall, he seemed pleased. I could tell because he hardly had any questions. That was always a good sign.
“I didn’t doubt you for a second,” Dad said after I’d finished. “I really called because I received another offer for the Series 60. For some reason they contacted me instead of you.”
“What was the offer?” I asked.
“A million five.”
I blinked to hear such a high number. The old girl had been in such poor shape when BJ and I went to look at her in that leaky barn out in the country that I’d only paid 40,000 to haul her out of there on a flatbed. I’d put another 50 into her to get her back in fighting shape. This was the highest offer I’d received for her by over $300,000. I really couldn’t justify passing it up. But the huge profit margin only made me feel even more depressed than I already did. I’d never go riding in that dark blue beauty with Maggie at my side, the wind whipping through our hair as we laughed and talked, just happy to be together on the open road. She had to be done with me at this point. Holding onto the car was foolish. We found cars, restored them, and sold them. That was how this worked. We didn’t hold onto them afterwards, no matter how nice they were, because they were all nice.
“Go ahead and accept it,” I told Dad. I didn’t feel good about seeing the back end of that beautiful car, but I knew it was the right thing to do. He hung up pretty soon after that. He wasn’t really a phone person, only calling if he had something to say and then hanging up right afterwards. Now that left me without a project, even a complete one. I opened up a new tab and started looking for cars for sale, the rougher the better. With the big meeting out of the way, I only had a few things to handle during the remainder of the day, but first I’d make a little time to poke around online for a bit. I always got itchy when I didn’t have a project going. I found a few promising things to call about this weekend. I wanted to call Jackson too and ask his opinion on a few of these listings. I’d normally ask BJ. Just thinking about that tanked my mood even more.
I worked through the rest of the day, tying up loose ends on the deal that was another day closer to happening. If all went as planned, we’d have papers signed before Christmas. I’d prefer that over waiting until the New Year.
I left right at the end of the business day for the first time in weeks and drove back to Danbury in rush hour traffic. Alice barely let me in the front door, she was so excited to see me.
“Alright, girl,” I said, laughing at her antics. She was jumping up to my waist level, which always seemed to defy gravity, and making all kinds of anxious noises. “Let me get changed and we’ll go out and play.” I went to my room, took off my suit, and got into a more comfortable pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt. I put on a pair of tennis shoes, pulled a knit cap over my head, and put on my jacket. Alice had a few sweaters that she wore during her evening walks in cold weather. I put one of them on over her harness and off we went.
The condominium complex had plenty of trails surrounding it that included a very nice dog park right in the center. We often walked down there so Alice could run free in the gated area. I let her loose as soon as I closed the gate to the park behind her. It was after dark, but there were lights on, so she took off happily, racing from one end of the park to the other. No one else was out here. It was cold, but not as cold as it had been over the last few days.
I ran after Alice, careful to avoid mounds of dog poop that people often left behind instead of cleaning them up. She yipped enthusiastically and raced just ahead of me, looking back often to make sure I was following her. The terrier in her could go nonstop without tiring. But I didn’t have any terrier in me. After a few solid minutes of running after her as she keep going like the Energizer dog, I was about out of steam. I went to one of the benches just inside the gates and sat down on the cold wood.
My phone rang as I was trying to find a comfortable way to sit without allowing the cold to seep through my sweatpants. I pulled my phone out. It was Maggie. I stared at the glowing face of my phone, the picture of just Maggie smiling at the camera, her narrowed green eyes bright. Once, it had been a picture of both Maggie and BJ—the two people I loved most in this world, but I’d changed it after he passed away. It had just been too painful to see.
I answered the phone warily. “Hello?”
Maggie
The Same Monday
I waited through several rings and was preparing to leave a message when Banks finally answered with a simple hello. It took a second to respond, though I was the one calling him. I’d just accepted that he wasn’t going to answer, and now here he was.
“Hi,” I said. “Are you still at work?”
“No,” he replied. “I left at 5. I had a big meeting for the merger, but I think the worst of that is finally behind me.”
“That’s good,” I said, and relaxed a little more. I was sitting on the couch in my living room, a glass of red wine next to me on the end table and a blanket wrapped around the lower half of my body. There was a fire blazing in the hearth and soft music playing in the background. No other lights were on in the house. I liked watching the flickering flames until I felt drowsy, sleep helped along by a glass or two of wine and a full meal. Falling asleep wasn’t usually the problem anyway. Staying asleep was the bitch.
“Yeah, I’m really relieved to have that settled,” Banks continued. “I think we might even be able to move forward before Christmas. I’m really proud of the work my team has done on this.”
It was great just hearing his deep, steady voice. I had no idea why I’d called him. It hadn’t really been anything I thought about. I just picked up the phone and did it. I needed to talk, and not just to anyone, but to him.
“How are things going at the shop?” he asked.
“The same,” I said. I couldn’t think of what else to say. Here I was calling him and he was the one keeping the conversation going. I had so much going on inside of my head, but it was nearly impossible to translate it into words that I could use to communicate. I’d done a lot of hard thinking since the talk with Brian Sr. I wanted to tell Banks that I thought I was ready, but I had to get a few things out of the way first. I also had to make sure we were on the same page.
“I accepted an offer on the Cadillac,” he said. “BJ would be proud of how great the offer was.”
I smiled at how easily he brought up BJ. Unlike Mom and Eliza, he hadn’t been afraid to do that in front of me even right after the accident. He told stories about growing up together and all the things that had happened between them before I met BJ. I liked that about Banks. It let me relax around him almost as much as I could around Brian Sr.
“She is a beautiful car. BJ was very proud of her even on that first day when she was still a complete disaster.” I stretched out my legs and snuggled into the couch a little more. “What do you think you’ll buy next?”
“I’m not sure. I found a few things online that I want to check out. I’ll email the owners for pictures and share them with Jackson to see what he thinks of them. This is the part I like best. Hunting around for the next project.”
I knew that BJ’s favorite part had been the restoration, which was why their partnership had worked as well as it had for all those years. They each brought something completely unique but complimentary to the table.
“I talked to Brian Sr. on Saturday,” I said, and I knew all of a sudden that this was why I’d called him. I wanted to move forward. But I had to get everything out in the open and see how Banks felt about it. “About us.”
“Oh,” Banks said, sounding hesitant. I cursed myself for not having this conversation face to face. It would be great to be able to see his expression.
“Yeah,” I said. “I talked to Mom too, but more abstractly, and I didn’t bring up your name.” I didn’t tell him that was only because Mom herself had already asked if things were happening between us. Turns out, they had been, but I was still pretty deep in denial at that point, despite the way seeing Banks made me feel, the tingling that started in my cheeks and eventually made its way between my legs.
“How did that go?” he asked.
“Brian Sr. said many of the same things that Mom did. I’ve been feeling a lot of guilt lately over BJ and not wanting to betray his memory. But Brian said that being a widow forever isn’t what BJ would’ve wanted. He’d want to see me living my life the way I need to in order to be happy.”
“What did you say to that?” Now he sounded a lot more interested than he was hesitant.
“I agreed. I deserve to be happy and the key to that is to stop thinking of the idea of moving on with my life as a betrayal of BJ. I know the loving man he was and that he’d want me to do what I felt was right.”
“That’s true.”
“And what feels right at the moment is dating and trying to put myself out there more. I’ve basically been a hermit for the last year, never going anywhere besides work and church unless I’m forced.”
“You want to date?”
“Yes.”
“And you called because you want to date me?”
I smiled at how hopeful he sounded. “Yes, I want to date you.”
“That’s pretty convenient, because I want to date you, too.”
We laughed, the tension leaving my body all at once. I forgot about all the uncertainty involved in dating, even without worrying about your late husband spinning in his grave because you were thinking seriously about dating his best friend.
“And you feel okay about that?” I asked. “Because it took me some time to get in a frame of mind where I could consider this even halfway okay.”
“How could I not be on board with that ringing endorsement you just gave?” he asked in a dry tone that drew another giggle from me.
“You know what I meant!”
“I do know, and it has been a struggle dealing with my feelings for you and how much I loved BJ. He was my best friend for half of my life. I don’t want to do anything that could even be construed as double-crossing him. But I real
ly do think he’d want us to be happy, and he loved us so much, I feel like us getting together would be something he’d be okay with, his two favorite people dating and taking care of each other. He was just that kind of selfless person.”
I had to admit that Banks and I dating sounded like something BJ would want. His heart was enormous, and he always thought about everyone else before he thought about himself. That selflessness was one of the best things about him.
“What’s more of a concern to me is what our friends and family would think,” he continued.
“Eliza, my mom, and Brian Sr. are all for us getting together,” I said, and he laughed. “In fact, they’re pretty insistent on it.”
“Well, then, I guess we’d better date.”
“Are you going to tell your parents?” I asked.
“Of course. They love you and I know they’ll be supportive. It’s just weird, you know?”
“Yeah,” I replied. I did know. The entire situation was weird, and if anyone had told me this time last year that I’d be in this exact place right now, I’d have never believed them. Of course, the grief I was experiencing was still so raw back then. Even now I sometimes had trouble catching my breath. It was getting better, but I could still be knocked onto my ass by a sudden surge of feelings.
“I don’t care what anyone thinks, though,” he said. “Not really. This is about us. And I want to see how things go. I want to try.”
That gave me a warm feeling, this one less about the heat I felt when I looked at him and more of a tingly, companionable sensation. The last year had been so very lonely. I was desperate for the simple companionship I’d taken for granted when I was with BJ. It wasn’t like we’d been married for 20 years, but the three years we’d spent together had been so amazing. I was lucky to have ever known and loved someone like BJ, and I planned to live the rest of my life in his memory. I’d make sure to be as happy as I could, because it was what he’d want for me.
