by Amelia Wilde
I’m halfway down the block from the Dockside when a black Honda CR-V glides into one of the parking spots in front. Shit, the diner is filling up, and the last thing I want for this conversation is a huge audience…
The man who comes around to the front of the car and looks up and down the sidewalk is definitely not the soccer mom with three kids I was expecting. It’s Brett, and he looks even hotter than he did last night in jeans and a black hoodie against the cold, the sleeves shoved up to his elbows. When he catches sight of me on the sidewalk, a smile plays across his face, and he sticks his hands in his pockets, closing the distance between us. My heart picks up speed even as my muscles relax.
Maybe this won’t be so bad.
“Are you a soccer mom now?” I say as we get closer together, cutting my eyes at the car.
He flicks his green eyes, bright in the morning sun, up toward the sky and then back to my face. “It’s a rental.”
“Did it come with kids?”
He laughs at my lame joke, then turns toward the Dockside. “You hungry?”
“It’s ten o’clock on Saturday. Yeah, I’m starving.”
“Good.”
He pulls open the door, the bell tinkling on the glass, and we step inside. The men around the back corner table don’t even look up from their argument. Candy, the waitress, bustles out from the back, and her face lights up when she sees us. “Addison! How are you, honey?” She gives me a warm pat on the arm. “And is that Brett Miller?” Her eyes go wide. “You haven’t been around here in ages!”
“Nope,” Brett says, and his face is caught between a smile and the set expression that seems to be his new default.
“Well, have a seat! Take your pick,” she says, opening her arms wide at the empty tables.
We go for the table for two in the opposite corner, and Candy has the coffee on the table before I’m done sitting down. “I’ll be back with your order shortly,” she says with a wink and then leaves.
Brett watches her go with a wrinkled brow. “Ten years later and she still knows our order?”
“She’s a pro.”
I stir some cream into my coffee and study him from across the table, my heart jittery, heat already rising to my cheeks. Might as well get this over with before the silence gets any heavier.
“So,” I say, keeping my tone as causal and level as I possibly can. “Ten years. What happened?”
Brett sips his own coffee, then set the mug carefully on the table. “It wasn’t anything you did, Addi.”
“I don’t know how it could have been.” There’s an edge in my tone that I didn’t plan for. How can this conversation feel so damn heavy after an entire decade apart?
“Listen,” he says, and I swallow down the lump in my throat.
“I waited for you to call.” I’m gripping the coffee mug so hard I’m a little concerned it might shatter in my hands. “I waited for weeks, Brett. And you never did.”
This is the accusation that’s been sitting heavily in my chest for ten years, and now it’s out on the table between us, rising into the air like the steam from the coffee mugs.
Brett looks directly into my eyes, his own slightly narrowed. His jaw works, and I can see the tension of his muscles even underneath his clothes. Is he going to get up and walk out? Is this going to be the end of this little reunion?
“Addi, that was the biggest mistake of my life.”
Chapter Ten
Brett
Addison is trying so damn hard to play it cool that it breaks my fucking heart. She stood there on the sidewalk with a wide smile, her strawberry blonde ponytail swinging behind her while she walked up to me in her casually sexy outfit—yoga pants that hug every inch of her legs and ass, and a purple hoodie that accents her slim waist.
It’s like being in the Dockside, where we used to come at six in the morning before work and just talk about stupid shit until we had to leave for our shifts, has broken something open inside of her.
I’m not so sure I want to let that happen to me.
Getting involved with people in Lockton never worked out very well for me before, which is why I got the hell out of here while I still could. A tiny fear blooms in the pit of my stomach—that not only has she moved on, but she’s just like everyone else in this town, narrow-minded and small.
“I waited for you to call. I waited for weeks, Brett. And you never did.” She can’t disguise the pain in her voice, but she doesn’t have to. It’s radiating through her eyes as clear as fucking day.
This is the truth she’s been waiting a decade to say out loud, and it pisses me off. Not because she said it, but because I made that happen in the first place. There’s only one way to respond, and that’s with more truth.
“Addi, that was the biggest mistake of my life.”
Her shoulders relax a little bit, coming down a short distance from her ears, and she presses her lips together, her chin quivering a little.
“Then why did you do it?”
I take a deep breath. “This is going to sound stupid as fuck, but I thought that if I called you, I might just leave everything I was doing and come back to Lockton.”
She narrows her eyes. “I wasn’t in Lockton. I was in college. Where were you?”
“You went to State, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” A hint of a smile flickers across her face. Despite me, college must have been a good time for her. My stomach twists. I should have been there with her to see it.
“I was at the U.”
She nods, looking down into her coffee. The two universities are only a couple of hours apart, which somehow makes this even worse.
Candy reappears at that moment with two plates, which she slides in front of us with a beaming, triumphant smile. “I got it right, didn’t I?”
“Of course you did, Candy,” Addison says, smiling back up at her. Addison’s plate has two waffles and two sausage links and one scrambled egg. Mine is an American Breakfast—hash browns, two eggs over easy, two slices of bacon, and two sausage links. Toast comes on the side, already buttered.
“I don’t know how you did it,” I tell Candy, and she waves me off.
“Anything else for you two?”
The way she says “you two” makes my chest feel warm, even though I know she’d say it to any random people sitting at this table together. As soon as she walks away, though, a cold heaviness descends into my chest. It’s like a damn roller coaster.
Addison unwraps a pat of butter from its foil and puts it on the waffle, her eyes on it as it melts. Then she takes her knife and carefully spreads it out over every nook and cranny, adding another pat when the first one runs out. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched her do just this.
“I just don’t get it, Brett.”
She slices the knife downward into the waffle as I take a bite of the hash browns. They’re greasy and crispy—the best I’ve ever had, and I’ve eaten in a lot of diners in the last decade away from Lockton. But Addi’s words compete with the delicious taste in my mouth, turning it cold and empty. How can I explain this to her? How can I make her see that it really was a horrible mistake?
“It didn’t have anything to do with you.”
Addison’s eyes flash up at me, and I would be chilled to the core if her cheek wasn’t full of a bite of waffle. Instead, she just looks fucking cute, and I choke back a laugh. What the hell is wrong with me? I want to reach across the table and take her face in mine, draw her in for a kiss that will wipe away every stupid thing I’ve ever said to her. Every stupid thing I’ve ever done.
She swallows hard and the sight of her struggling with the bite of food tears my heart in two. “That’s not what I meant. You have to know that, Addi.”
“You know what?” Addison puts her fork and knife down delicately at the edge of her still-full plate. “This was a bad idea.” She lifts her napkin from the table and presses it to her lips, then lays it next to the plate, reaching for her purse.
“Addiso
n, don’t—”
She holds up one hand, and fuck me, I let it stop me from speaking. For a split second. Then I barrel on while she takes out a smaller wallet, pulls out a twenty, and puts it on the table.
“You have to know I didn’t mean it that way.”
Addison looks into my eyes and her gaze sinks all the way down into my fucking soul, her eyes locked on mine, the radiant blue shining in the dim light of the diner. I can hardly get a breath, I want to touch her so badly. I can hardly move, I want to shove those words back into my mouth so badly.
“You never meant anything, did you?”
With that, she pushes her chair back and stands up, her purse over her shoulder, her ponytail shining as she heads for the door.
“Addison,” I call, but she doesn’t look—the only thing that happens is that the crowd of old men turns to look at me.
The bell on the door bangs brightly against the glass.
I’ve never been more alone.
Chapter Eleven
Addison
Tears sting my eyes as I drive away from the Dockside, and it’s not just because Brett said something asinine. Men are prone to saying stupid shit, and I shouldn’t be walking away from him over that. But his words hit me to the core.
It didn’t have anything to do with you.
I mean, if that’s how he remembers that summer, fine. But in my memory, it was so charged, so electric, that there was no way anything afterward could have not been related to the us that almost was.
That’s why this is so fucking stupid, all of it. There was never a commitment between us. It just seemed like we were on the verge…or that an unspoken agreement was there somehow. I was so certain, when he stopped showing up at work and downtown, that he’d call me at any moment, be back at any moment.
Now, to find out that he ended all of that without a second thought?
I hate to be dramatic, but it feels like I’ve been stabbed in the chest.
I drive home at five miles over the speed limit, as much as I’m willing to push it, and slam the car into park in my driveway. It’s a bright, clear day, and I’ll be damned if I waste it wallowing over Brett Miller. I’ve done enough of that in the past ten years to last a lifetime.
I just need to step back from this. Reevaluate.
I hate gardening, hate it with a fiery passion, and normally I would ask one of the college interns from the Parks Department to come over and do this for me, but instead I grab the dirt-caked garden gloves from the garage, sink to my knees in the flower beds in front of my house, and attack the dead plant carcasses with a trowel.
I vacillate between regret and confirmation all day on Sunday. Leah appears around noon, finding me on the couch with a bowl of popcorn, still wearing my ratty sweats.
“What’s wrong with you?” she says, digging her fist into the bowl.
I shoot her a narrow-eyed look and turn my attention pointedly back to Magic Mike XXL. She drops it.
Monday is another parade of people with increasingly difficult needs to satisfy, and by the time I usher out a single mom of four who just got her food assistance slashed in half out the door of my office, the tension in my shoulders has settled into a painful stripe across my back. But I’m not going to leave now.
Instead, I sit down at my desk and enter the mom’s information in a dozen more ways through a dozen more searches until I’ve got a hit. She’ll be relieved when she hears my voicemail later tonight, which makes this worth it.
The sun is already halfway through setting by the time I pull onto my street, only to see that—of course—my driveway is half-blocked.
By a giant moving truck.
“Are you kidding me?” I mutter through clenched teeth, pulling my car up to the curb just behind it. Then I take a deep, cleansing breath and let it out, channeling that one yoga class I went to last spring. Approaching this with anger is not the solution, though it seems like a damn good one right now. At least this is probably the last job of the day, so my driveway should be clear again fairly soon. Hopefully sooner, if I can find one of the movers and give him my most winning smile while I ask him to please move his truck the hell away from my property.
I get out and stand on the curb. The movers are hustling out of the house next door to mine. So somebody finally bought it. It’s an opposite twin of my own house, built the same year, and nobody has lived in it since I moved back, probably a lot longer than that. The paint is peeling off the siding, and the realtor has only just been keeping up with the lawn.
They rush toward the back of the truck.
“Hey, guys,” I call out, and then I see the third man come out the front door, his face instantly recognizable even in the fading daylight. No. Way.
“Hey,” says one of the movers, though I’ve already forgotten that I spoke to him at all, I was so transfixed with the sight of Brett.
No way is he moving into the house next door.
But he is.
My heart thuds in my chest, and I wipe my hands on the front of my slacks, all the words I was going to say stuck in my throat. Holy shit. Am I excited or pissed off? Both? I can’t tell. It all blends together in an unholy tornado of emotion.
The movers, in my silence, have moved toward the truck again. “Listen, guys,” I try again, my voice cracking. I clear my throat. “This is my driveway—would you mind pulling your truck up another ten feet?”
“Oh, shit!” says the second man, a stocky guy with dark eyes. “Tony, I told you we wouldn’t be done before the neighbors got home.”
“No problem, miss,” says the one now known as Tony. Not-Tony slides the ramp up into the truck while Tony runs around to the cab, starting up the truck with a rumble.
From the corner of my eye, I can still see Brett, standing on his front porch, hands in his pockets. I can’t make out his expression.
The truck moves forward just far enough for me to pull into my driveway, and I jump back behind the wheel, hands shaking. I want him to come over and talk to me. I want him to stay the hell away from me. I don’t have any idea what I want.
In the driveway, I leap out of the car, grab my purse, and give the movers a jaunty wave. “Thanks, guys!”
Then I go up the porch stairs two at a time, shutting the door sharply behind me.
Chapter Twelve
Brett
My heart stops when I see Addison’s car pull up to the curb behind the moving truck.
What are the fucking odds?
I never asked Valerie Vale about the neighbors, although even the slightest hint of a description could have saved me from this disaster. “An older couple” could have lived next door. “A young guy with a dog” could have lived next door. Instead, it’s the gorgeous strawberry blonde with sparkling blue eyes who currently hates me and probably always will.
I can’t hear what she says to the movers, but they jump to do her bidding, and ten seconds later the truck moves forward fifteen feet. She rushes back to her car and jumps in, reverses a little, then pulls into the driveway.
When she gets out, she waves at the movers, calls, “Thanks, guys!” in her nicest voice, and turns and rushes into the house, the slam of the door echoing across the lawn.
I’m still rubbing my hands over my face when the movers come up the front path carrying my couch. I could have done all of this myself, but it would have taken several trips to the storage unit I had my stuff shipped to when I decided to leave the Air Force, and something about the thought of rifling through all that made me want to die more than usual, so I hired a moving company.
They were late, of course, even though most of my shit was culled before I left California—most of it given away or sold or left in a dumpster. Mostly what was in the unit was furniture, a few tubs of clothes and pictures, and a squat entertainment center for my TV to sit on.
I’ve spent most of the day cleaning the house. Yesterday I had a team from Lowe’s come in and helped them tear up the old carpeting, laying down acres of fresh new stuff. T
he one concession the previous owners made to trying to pretty the place up was installing new flooring in the kitchen, dining room, and bathrooms. It’s not real wood and tile, but it’ll do. Nobody that lives here now particularly cares about that kind of bullshit anyway.
Aside from getting the outside into a presentable condition, I need to paint over the dingy white paint covering every single wall in the place. What was this, some kind of rental? It doesn’t matter. I needed a place, I got one, and I can spend the next forever painting it and making it look decent so I can sell it for more than it’s worth.
Maybe not forever. Not if Addison lives next door.
The thought of her in her house, thirty feet away, sends my heart rocketing against my rib cage.
The movers go back out the front door. “Almost done, boss,” the shorter one says, and I nod at him with my eyes still fixed firmly on the side of Addison’s house.
I look like a complete fucking stalker.
And that is not what I’m about.
If she wants to talk to me, she’ll come over and talk to me.
No—fuck me if I just sit in this shell of a house like some kind of coward. I’ll go talk to her.
Just not now.
Given the way our conversation ended yesterday, marching over to her door and demanding to see her won’t fly. We should both cool down. Although if I cool down any more, I’m going to die of frostbite. My entire chest felt icy after she walked out of the Dockside and even icier when I went back to the Holiday Inn Express to collect my stuff. I never got to tell her that I moved back into town. I never got to tell her that I was sorry. Something being a mistake isn’t the same as being regretful. I just lost my damn mind when she was sitting next to me.
