by Rachel Lacey
“What?” Josie looked at her, certain she’d heard her wrong, because that sounded like…
“You need to focus on your bar, and I need to focus on my career.”
“No.” Josie’s chest tightened, like she might laugh…or cry. Because surely this wasn’t happening.
“I can’t get serious with you, Josie.” Eve kept her gaze resolutely on the table in front of her. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t do this.” Josie grabbed Eve’s hands, resisting—barely—the urge to shake her. “Please don’t do this.”
“You deserve someone who can give you all the things you want, but that person isn’t me.”
“You could be,” Josie countered, as tears swam in her eyes and the world seemed to sway beneath her feet. “The only thing I want is you, Eve.”
“And I can’t give myself to you.” Eve’s bottom lip trembled, her palms damp against Josie’s. “I’m sorry for letting us get to this point. I should have walked away weeks ago.”
“But you didn’t, because you feel it too.” She let go of Eve’s hands and flung her arms around her instead. “If you’re going to dump me, you might as well know what you’re walking away from, because I love you, Eve. I am so hopelessly in love with you.”
Eve stiffened, tears shining in her eyes before she turned her face away. And Josie thought of the photos in her bedroom, the wife and baby she’d lost, the family who’d turned their backs on her, loss after loss etched into her heart.
Josie slid one of her hands to Eve’s chest, feeling her heart thump wildly beneath her palm. “Please just let me love you,” she whispered.
“I can’t.” Eve stood abruptly, sliding out of Josie’s grasp. “And you shouldn’t presume to know what I feel.”
“Eve…”
“Stop it,” Eve gasped as tears slid over her cheeks. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for putting you in this situation. But I just…can’t.”
Josie wrapped her arms around herself. In everything they’d been through together, she’d never seen Eve cry, and the sight of her tears now was almost more than she could take. She could keep fighting, keep pushing Eve, but to what end? Josie couldn’t pretend to know what it felt like to be in a place where rejecting love felt less painful than allowing herself to love again.
“Please.” Eve pressed a hand over her eyes, chest heaving with ragged breaths. “Just go.”
Josie swiped at her own cheeks, wet with tears. Her throat burned, and her heart hurt. She wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Instead, she tugged Eve’s hand from her face, meeting her tear-soaked eyes as she drew her in for a kiss. A last kiss. She poured all her love, her passion, and her heart into that kiss. When she pulled back, Eve’s pupils were dilated, her cheeks flushed.
“I love you,” Josie whispered. “You know where to find me if you change your mind.”
And then, because there was nothing else to say, she walked out the door.
Eve rested her forehead against the door. She felt empty, hollow, drugged. Vaguely, she wondered if any of that had actually happened or if she was dreaming, caught in an endless nightmare. But the clatter of Josie’s receding footsteps in the hall outside was very real. It echoed in Eve’s heart as she remembered the press of Josie’s fingers there.
She walked to the middle of the room and stood, breathing hard as the numbness began to wear off. Josie loved her. Eve had never expected to hear those words from her lips. She hadn’t expected to hear those words ever again. She didn’t want to hear them, didn’t want to feel them, didn’t want the pain that came with any of it.
Because it hurt. It hurt so much. She pressed her own hand in the shadow of Josie’s, feeling her heart beat hard and fast, pumping pain through her veins. This hurt, but she’d recover, because it was nothing like the pain of losing Lisa, nothing like the pain of leaving her family behind. Better to nip it in the bud, before it had the chance to swallow her whole.
But as she blinked to clear her vision, she realized that letting go of Josie hurt a lot more than she’d expected it to. She walked into her bedroom, rubbing at her chest, which was bursting with the pressure of the emotions inside her, as if they’d vaporized into steam and she needed to scream until she’d let them all out.
But she wasn’t going to scream. She sat on the bed, fists clenched into her blanket as she sucked in slow, deep breaths, waiting for it to pass. Tears streamed over her cheeks, and her throat grew too painful to swallow. She hiccupped, swiping at her tears, trying to hold them back, but it was no use. Finally, she curled on her side in the bed and sobbed.
She cried until her eyes swelled and her nose ran and her chest hitched. When her tears ran out, she just lay there, eyes closed, too tired to move. Eventually, she drifted into a restless sleep, waking sometime later with a dull headache. She sat up, rubbing her eyes, which were scratchy and tender.
She took a shower, changed into her pajamas, and climbed into bed with her Kindle. And that was more or less how she spent the rest of the weekend. Was she hiding from the outside world? Absolutely. But she didn’t really care. This was the life she had chosen for herself, the life she needed.
When Monday rolled around, she blew out her hair, dressed, and went to work. At the end of the week, she’d have to return to Dragonfly to tape her follow-up segment, but until then, she would be focused on her Marlow Marketing clients, and she was going to do her best not to think about Josie—or her bar.
She kept the door to her office closed, working through lunch and often late into the evening. She’d fallen behind on some of her work this month, she’d been so caught up in…other things. And now it was time to get herself in order. It was a long, tiring week, but a necessary one.
By Friday, she was feeling almost like the woman she’d been before she pulled those kittens out of a trash can and set herself on a collision course into Josie’s welcoming arms. Tonight would be hard. She’d have to see Josie, interview her, spend hours at Dragonfly. It had been a full week since the robbery. Hopefully, Josie had gotten herself back on track.
Later that afternoon, Eve went down the hall to hair and makeup—perks of working in a television studio—and changed into the dress she’d wear for the taping. She checked in with her camera crew and with Josie herself, making sure they were ready. Josie was polite on the phone, although distant.
And if the sound of her voice made Eve’s chest ache and her eyes sting, no one needed to know about it. After tonight, she wouldn’t see Josie again. This was the last time she would step foot inside Dragonfly. That whole chapter of her life would close.
Around five, she gathered her crew and headed out, riding over in the van as she usually did when she had the film crew with her. They laughed and joked all the way there, completely oblivious to Eve’s internal turmoil. Because, after all, there was nothing unusual about her ignoring them in favor of answering emails on her phone.
When the van pulled up outside Dragonfly, she had to take an extra moment to compose herself before she stood. Emotion rolled over her in a smothering wave, constricting her lungs and leaving her in a sheen of cold sweat.
She squared her shoulders and pulled open the front door. Inside, music played, muffled beneath the buzz of conversation. The crowd was thick tonight, probably partly because of the notice on the front door about the taping, but also because Dragonfly was doing well. Josie and Adam were behind the bar, demonstrating some kind of synchronized dance move to a group of delighted women.
Josie looked up, and their eyes met. Eve steeled herself against the power of her gaze, the way it heated her from the inside out and made her whole body tingle. Would that ever go away? It didn’t really matter if they never saw each other again, did it? She schooled her expression as she approached the bar.
“Hi,” Josie said, her smile as bright as ever, although tonight it didn’t quite reach her eyes or bring out the dimples that Eve loved so much.
“You changed your hair,” she blurted, taking
in Josie’s turquoise locks, the color it had been the night they met. Full circle.
“I do that a lot,” she said, tugging at a curl.
“I noticed.” Eve cleared her throat. “Okay, then. We’ll start setting up. My team will shoot footage while you work, and then I’ll do a quick interview so you can tell me how everything’s going.”
“Okay,” Josie said. “Hey, before you get started, you should go upstairs and see the kittens. You won’t believe how much they’ve grown.”
“I don’t think—”
“Eve.” Temper sparked in Josie’s hazel eyes. “Will you for once not be stubborn about the damn kittens? Just go see them. Say goodbye to them. They’re going to be adopted soon.”
“Have you found homes for them?” she asked, trying to ignore the pinch in her chest at the thought of them going to live with people she didn’t know. Somehow, it hadn’t bothered her to think of them here with Josie.
“Remember that woman who came in on opening night? Jules Vega? She wants two of them. I had been putting her off, in case you wanted to keep Blanche, but I guess I should just go ahead and let her pick whichever two she wants.” She held Eve’s gaze as she lobbed the challenge at her.
“Yes,” Eve said, looking away. “You should. But I’ll go see them to say goodbye. Thank you.”
She strode down the back hall, leaving the noise and chaos of the bar behind her. She punched in the code and let herself into the stairwell, making a mental note to tell Josie to change it. Jesus Christ, what did Eve have to do to lose her trust? How did Josie trust so easily? How did she love so endlessly when she got nothing but pain in return?
Eve walked into the apartment, steeling herself against the avalanche of memories waiting for her here. When she looked into the kitchen, she pictured Josie on the counter with a row of drinks in front of her and the kiss that had followed. In the living room, she saw herself sitting on the couch wearing Josie’s oversized pink pussy T-shirt, bottle-feeding kittens after their first night together.
The painting she’d bought the night of their gallery date hung behind the couch now, jolting Eve out of her memories with its unfamiliar presence. It looked good there, though, a perfect fit. Holding in a sigh, she walked into the living room. She’d just peek at the kittens and go, because she needed to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
She could already see them, running and tumbling, wrestling with each other. As she approached the playpen, Blanche ran over to greet her, putting her front paws up on the plastic barrier between them and meowing loudly. Eve reached down and lifted her. “You’re all grown up.”
Blanche squirmed in her hands, purring.
“Maybe you’ll go home with that theater actress,” Eve told her. “I met her. She seems nice.”
Blanche grabbed Eve’s thumb between her front paws and bit down, hard.
“Well, you’ve turned into a handful, haven’t you?” She sat on the couch, rubbing the kitten as she rolled across Eve’s knees. White fur clung to her black dress. “Listen, I have to get back to work, but I know Josie will make sure you go to a great home. She’s good at that.”
She pressed a kiss against the kitten’s fuzzy head, laughing at the lipstick stain left behind. As she rubbed it away, Blanche nuzzled her head against Eve’s chin, still purring. Her whole body vibrated with the effort. Eve set her in the playpen, where she immediately pounced on Phantom, rolling him to his back. Hamilton joined the fray, while Pippin raced from side to side, chasing a ray of sunshine.
“You guys are cute,” she said. “I’ll miss you.”
Nigel walked over and sat down in front of her, staring as usual. She reached out and rubbed him beneath his chin the way she’d seen Josie do, and he immediately began to purr, rubbing his head against her arm affectionately. Maybe it really had been that easy all along. She’d made him uncomfortable with her own discomfort.
And now, it didn’t matter. After giving him one last pat, she stood and left the apartment, closing the door behind her. She went down the steps, attempting to brush cat fur off her dress, so distracted that she ran headlong into Adam in the hallway. “Sorry,” she murmured, stepping back to let him pass.
But he stood his ground. “You have a lot of nerve coming here tonight, running around like nothing happened.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he said. “You broke her heart, and still, she invites you into her bar, sends you up to her apartment…”
“I was going to tell her to change the combination.”
“That’s not the point. You weren’t here this week to see the damage you caused.”
She refused to flinch. “I’m sorry for that. I never wanted to hurt her.”
“Then why did you do it, Eve?” He crossed his arms over his chest, filling the hallway, blocking her path to the bar.
She didn’t feel threatened, though. There was nothing threatening about Adam. It was like being growled at by a puppy…or maybe a kitten, if kittens could growl. If anything, he deserved a hug for being a good friend to Josie. But she didn’t know what to tell him. There was no way to make this right. She’d fucked up. “It was supposed to be casual.”
“Bullshit.”
“Look, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“You didn’t treat her like a casual hookup,” he said. “I saw you guys together, remember? You looked at her like she was everything, told her all your deep, dark secrets—”
She recoiled involuntarily, her skin flushing hot. “Fuck you.”
She was shaking now, furious with him for cornering her like this and with Josie for betraying her confidence. Her vision swam, and she refused to blink, refused to cry in front of him.
Adam held his hands out in front of himself, his expression suddenly apologetic. “Look, she didn’t tell me your secrets, only that you’d been through a lot.”
Oh. She looked at her shoes, searching desperately for her composure.
“My point is that you treated her like she meant something to you. You let her fall for you. And then you just kicked her to the curb because her feelings were inconvenient?”
“She did mean something to me,” she said quietly, forcing herself to meet his eyes. “She does. But I can’t be what she needs. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
Adam shook his head, looking almost sad. “You’ll regret this someday.”
28
“Glad that’s over,” Josie said, pushing a strand of hair out of her face as the Do Over van pulled away from the curb outside.
“Me too.” Adam leaned his elbows against the bar, looking as exhausted as she felt. And they still had five hours until they closed for the night.
This week had been never-ending. She’d decided to tough it out for a few weeks before she hired someone new, to make back as much as she could of what she’d lost before she added another salary to her budget. That meant she’d been on her own until tonight, and while she’d tended bar alone at Swanson’s, it was different with Dragonfly. She’d been so busy, she barely had time to pee, let alone eat a meal.
In some ways, it had been good for her, because she’d been too busy to think about Eve, too busy to dwell on the pain of losing her, too busy to wonder if there was a chance she’d change her mind. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Josie had imagined that when Eve walked into the bar tonight, they’d fall back into each other’s arms.
But it hadn’t happened. Eve had been nothing but cool and professional the whole time she was here, and now she was officially gone. Josie would probably never see her again. And she really wanted to go upstairs and have a good, long cry about it, but of course, she couldn’t.
“You okay?” Adam asked.
She managed a wry smile. “No, but I’ll manage.”
“That’s the spirit.” He tapped his knuckles against hers.
She bent to open the dishwasher. “You know what’s weird?”
“What?”
“Eve didn
’t mention the robbery during our interview. I’d been worrying about it all afternoon because I knew the producers wanted her to play up any drama. And here’s stupid, gullible me who let myself get robbed.”
“You’re not stupid or gullible, just too trusting sometimes.”
“I let Lauren close for me, after knowing her for two weeks. That was stupid.” She began stacking clean glasses on the drying rack.
“It was,” Adam agreed. “But I love you for being such a trusting fool, and I think Eve does too.”
“What?” She nearly dropped a glass. It slipped through her fingers, and she hugged it awkwardly between her arm and her stomach before setting it on the counter.
“I may have cornered her earlier,” he admitted, looking sheepish. “I was angry with her, and I guess I wanted to pick a fight. But she didn’t give me one. Instead, I almost made her cry, and now I feel like an ass.”
“Oh, shit,” Josie breathed. “What did you say?”
“A lot of nasty stuff about the way she treated you. I thought she’d give me shit for it, and then I could really hate her. But she didn’t. She looked wrecked. She told me flat out that she had feelings for you, but that she could never be what you needed.”
Josie’s vision blurred.
“And if she hid the robbery from her producers so she wouldn’t have to embarrass you with it on TV? Well, that sounds like love to me. I don’t know what her emotional baggage is, but if it’s any consolation, I think you can assume she’s as miserable and heartbroken right now as you are.”
She choked on a laugh, swiping tears from her cheeks. “That does make me feel a little better, actually.”
“Love hurts, babe.” He pulled her in for a hug. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
A large group entered the bar, disappointed that they’d missed the camera crew but still thirsty, and she and Adam stopped chatting to mix drinks for them. From there, things stayed busy until the crowd started to thin out around two.
