“I wanted to step outside of my box. Do something unexpected. You thought I’d never come here. Neither did I. But then you laughed when I said I was going to The Bar. You thought I meant here, but I meant the barre studio that I’m redecorating. Anyway, I realized how boring I am in other people’s eyes and I felt like I needed to step out of my comfort zone. So I texted Zoe and asked if she wanted to come with me tonight. It was literally the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Why do you want to change yourself?” he asked quietly, simply ignoring the part where I’d admitted to wanting to prove him wrong.
I shrugged. “Everyone else is so daring. With their outfits, their friendships, their relationships.”
“But you don’t like that.”
“I don’t, which means I should probably change.”
“What do you like? You don’t have to live your life the way everyone else says you should. And don’t get me started on those friends of yours trying to change you. Friends don’t try to change friends or force them to do things they’re uncomfortable with.”
Thinking of how they’d wanted to throw me in the deep end of getting a new boyfriend right away, even though I was still hurting…it only proved Fletcher’s point even more. Compared to Andrea, who’d come over to just sit and be with me while I processed the breakup. Andrea hadn’t tried to change me or expect anything from me. She simply provided her friendship.
We were completely different. She was an adventurist. (A messy adventurist). But she’d never forced me to be like her.
Maybe Fletcher was right. Maybe it was time to be more discerning with the people I surrounded myself with.
“Don’t change yourself for other people, Saidy. You’re amazing the way you are. If you ever change, make sure it’s something you want, and not something that someone else is pressuring you into,” he said with a soft smile.
“You know,” I cleared my throat. “Sometimes it’s scary how similar you and my mom are. I’d never really noticed. But she gave me that same piece of advice.”
“About friends trying to change you?”
I smiled, “No, about letting other people interfere with our relationship.”
“I always knew I loved your mom.” He smiled as he stepped from the car and walked around to open my door.
He took my keys from me as we walked up the sidewalk and unlocked the house for me.
“Thank you for coming to my rescue tonight,” I said without turning to face him. “I wish—”
I didn’t know what to say. There was so much I wished. I wished we’d worked out. I wished I hadn’t let other people’s opinions influence my decisions. I wished he’d put effort into our relationship.
I wished we had another shot.
But I said none of those things. Instead, I stood there staring at my closed door.
“I know,” Fletcher’s voice rasped behind me, as though he were thinking the same exact things.
Chapter Twenty
Saidy
Something niggled at the back of my mind the rest of the night and on through the next day. It was like one of those flies that buzzed obsessively until you pulled out a fly swatter. And then it went suspiciously quiet.
I knew Fletcher was involved in something. I just didn’t know what.
There was something about Sullivan that didn’t quite fit. Yes, he’d been nothing but nice. He was a good-looking guy.
I slid another willow stem into the vase. It entangled with a fake lily. I pulled them both out at the same time, then proceeded to untangle them. I was in the middle of putting together the vase arrangements for The Barre with an ‘e’ as I’d taken to calling it.
Fletcher.
That’s what it was. I’d known it was something that seemed important. Sullivan knew about Fletcher’s and my relationship. When we first met, he’d asked me pointed questions about my boyfriend. Whom I never named. Then at the restaurant he mentioned him by name. But at his house he pretended like he didn’t know about the connection between us.
So which was it, did he know that Fletcher and I had dated or not? What was his connection to Fletcher besides work?
Fletcher must be in some kind of trouble, but I didn’t know what. He became unhinged when he found out I had met Sullivan.
All I knew was that whatever was going on, I couldn’t trust Sullivan. Some internal warning went off anytime I was around him. There was no rhyme or reason to my warning feeling. But it was the same internal sensation that shot off anytime Zoe tried to set me up on a date or interfere with my current relationships. Things never ended well.
Dad had the same feeling. He called it gut instinct. I wasn’t sure I agreed because not everyone else had this. We were right one hundred percent of the time so far.
I wasn’t going to ignore it this time. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I sent Fletcher a text.
Me: This is completely random, but I’m getting that weird feeling again.
He texted back immediately.
Fletcher: It’s not a weird feeling. You haven’t been wrong yet. Who is it this time?
Me: Sullivan.
Silence. I’d expected him to laugh me off or at least respond, but he didn’t do either. So I texted him again.
Me: I know it doesn’t make sense. I literally have nothing to back up this claim, but since you do some work for him, I just wanted you to know.
I finished adding the willow branches to the vase while I waited for a response.
Fletcher: I trust you, Saidy. Thanks for looking out for me. I’ll be careful.
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and finished the arrangements much quicker now that I had said something to Fletcher.
“Here, try this one.” Mom set a green salsa out in front of me on the table. She’d always been of the philosophy that food could fix anything. I also believed in that philosophy. I hadn’t seen a size four since I was in middle school.
Zoe always told me, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” She was wrong. My mother made a lot of things that tasted better than skinny. Her lasagna, cookies, sour dough bread, enchiladas, and her never-ending obsession with making the perfect salsa. Dad always raved about the salsa that his mother made growing up. I was pretty sure it was my mother’s attempt to constantly compete with her mother-in-law.
Tonight was no exception.
“I added a Peter pepper this time.”
“A what?” I asked as I picked the bowl and took a big sniff. It even smelled spicy.
“A Peter pepper,” Mom repeated.
Dad made a frantic face from behind her. His finger spun in circles around his ear.
“Dad!” I admonished.
Mom spun around and glared at him. “You don’t have anything to talk about.”
I lifted the chip to my mouth, but halted the bite when I heard Dad say, “I’m not the one who planted porn peppers!”
I set the chip down on the plate and whispered loudly, hoping Grandmother didn’t hear. She was in the living room watching TV and planning world domination. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“Nothing!” my mom snapped. “Just eat the salsa and tell me it’s the best you’ve ever tasted.”
Dad chuckled and Mom swatted him with the dish towel.
“How’s that nice boy of yours?” Grandmother asked as she walked into the kitchen. Dad hurried out of the room—coward.
Mom grimaced and carefully folded the dish towel. As though it were so important, she couldn’t tear her eyes from it. I wanted to help offer to fold it with her.
“Grandmother, Fletcher and I aren’t together anymore. We haven’t been for a while.”
“I thought you would have kissed and made up by now.”
“Well, we haven’t.” I bristled at her interference.
Grandmother’s lips pinched together unflatteringly. “Oh, I should have known.”
She sniffed loudly and left the room. Dad miraculously reappeared and sat down at the di
ning room table with me.
I propped an elbow on the table and rested my chin in my hands. I picked up the forgotten chip. “Why am I the family disappointment?”
“You dropped out of ballet school,” Dad reminded me with a grin.
I shook my head. “She still regrets buying those five ballet lessons for me when I was seven. She acts like she paid my way through Harvard.”
“She hoped you’d succeed where I didn’t.” Mom laughed, but I knew it was a sore subject. My mother had my brother at eighteen. She had me at twenty. My little brother came along when she was twenty-three. Grandmother was still upset with my mother for “throwing her life away.”
I happened to think my mom was pretty phenomenal, and nothing could change that.
Picking up a chip from the bowl on the table, I scooped a bite of salsa onto it. I stuffed the whole thing in my mouth. Dad sat there looking like he was waiting for something to happen.
“No.” I coughed. I tried to get air in. Dad sat there grinning away, letting me shove that chip in, knowing the outcome.
“A little hot?”
“Did she make it out of fire?” I gasped, glancing at where Mom stood in the kitchen filling more bowls with the salsa.
“She didn’t add hardly any tomatillos this time. It’s mainly those peppers.”
“Can those peppers meet with an unfortunate accident? I normally love Mom’s salsa, but this…this isn’t right—even for her!”
Dad rubbed a hand across his chin. “You know, it’s a real shame that your grandma’s cottage is going to have to be built right on top of that pepper patch.”
I smiled and nodded. “That is a real shame.”
Dad leaned forward. “I hid the good salsa in the back of the fridge. If you pour it into the same bowl, we can eat it without your mom noticing we’ve switched them.”
“Hey, Mom, do you have any wine?” I called.
“Oh, yes! Let me go grab a bottle I’ve been waiting to try with you.” She headed into the large walk-in pantry, and I sprinted into the kitchen, dumped a small bowl of the spicy salsa down the garbage disposal, and refilled the bowl with the salsa verde Dad had hidden in the back of the fridge. The consistency was similar, and the differences would only be noticeable if she stopped to study it. I hurried back to the table, careful to not spill salsa over the side.
Mom came out of the pantry just as I sat down. I grabbed a chip and loaded it with the good salsa and took a bite. Much better. It had a nice spice, but full of flavor.
The perfect amount to burn your mouth if you kept eating more of it, but you couldn’t seem to stop yourself because it tasted so good.
Dad winked at me with his back still toward Mom.
“Hey, your brother is thinking of proposing! He even went to look at a ring.”
“Wow! I can’t believe it.” I really couldn’t believe it. He’d thought about proposing for years. I’d only believe it when they were on their way to their honeymoon.
Mom was forever optimistic however.
“Let’s go sit on the patio, honey.” She grabbed a bottle of wine and two glasses and waited for me to come into the kitchen.
I held the back door open for her. We walked outside and sat down on my mother’s homemade patio. It was a gorgeous creation that she had built completely herself.
A perfectly pieced together masterpiece of rock.
“How are you doing, sweetie?” Mom asked as she poured two glasses of wine, then set the bottle down on the patio table.
Usually I answered with the typical “Good. Work is good, life is good.” But I wasn’t sure it was right now. “I think…I’m a little confused right now.”
Mom nodded. “About what specifically?”
“Life.” I laughed as I took a sip of my wine. My tongue was still tingling from the salsa I’d tried.
“It’s good to be confused about life sometimes.”
“Why is that?”
“Because then you take the time to make sure you’re on the right path. Wouldn’t it be worse if you lived your entire life, always sure, and then reached the end of your life to realize you’d done everything wrong?”
I swirled my glass, mesmerized by the wine swishing around.
“Well, yes. I guess that’s true. I don’t want to have a life of regrets.”
“Exactly. So don’t be discouraged when there’s times of confusion. That only means you’re human.” She reached over and patted my hand. “Now, is there anything I can help you with?”
“It’s Fletcher.”
She didn’t even blink. Not surprised in the least I still wanted to talk about him.
“I can’t seem to let him go.”
“Do you want to let him go?” Mom asked.
“That’s what I’m confused about. I thought I did, but now I wonder if I’ve let myself be influenced more by other people than by what I wanted.”
Mom didn’t say a word, simply sat there sipping her wine.
“I think I would have been more patient with Fletcher if I hadn’t listened to other opinions.”
“He still wants to work things out with you,” Mom stated.
“Yes. And I think he means it.”
A frog croaked from the flower bed.
“This is going to sound crazy, but I think there’s something going on with him. I don’t know what, but I think something is keeping him from being able to be with me, even though he wants to.” I shook my head. “I sound like an insane person saying that.”
“No, you’re not. I know how intuitive you are.”
“He says he’s going to tell me when he can. I don’t know what it is. Maybe something personal he needs to work through himself.” I paused, then added, “I can understand that. I’ve been doing my own amount of soul searching.”
“You’ll do what’s right for you and Fletcher. Just know that no matter what, I love you and will back you all the way.”
“That means a lot, Mom, thank you.”
We sat in silence as we sipped our wine.
“What if…” I paused, staring at the pepper plants that would soon be replaced with a cottage for Grandmother. “What if our timing wasn’t right?”
Mom hummed quietly under her breath but waited for me to finish.
“What if we’re supposed to be together, but just not now? Maybe someday in the future? Maybe we both still have a lot of growing up to do.”
“I wouldn’t say you have a lot of growing up to do. I’d say you have growing to do together. Every couple grows and changes together. You might not be the same person in ten years that you are today. Fletcher might be completely different five years from now. People grow and change, but what you want is someone who is willing to grow. Because that means they will continually be working to become the best version of themselves. Do you think Fletcher is that man?”
Fletcher had said he would tell me everything by the end of the month. He’d been adamant about that. Meaning that he was taking legitimate steps to make time for us.
Wasn’t that growth?
Did I dare allow myself to hope?
Chapter Twenty-One
Fletcher
Heading in right now.
I slipped my phone back in my front jeans pocket after I read West’s text. I stayed close to the fence as I made my way forward to be ready with camera in hand to take pictures of the two trucks that were pulling down the drive.
I grinned as I remembered Saidy’s text earlier that day. That was my girl. She was still mad, but still looking out for me. And she wasn’t wrong about Sullivan. I wish I could tell her how right she was, but right now I needed to get photo and video evidence of the trucks unloading at the warehouse.
But I was going to buy Saidy a new limited edition wallpaper book just for that text. She was always nervous to share her “feeling” with people, because she didn’t want to come across as judgmental or harsh, or even crazy. But I’d learned early on that if she listened to her gut feeling, it was right. I’d see
n her ignore it a couple times, and there was always some type of consequence.
Through the camera lens, I could make out Sullivan’s form walking from the warehouse. He greeted the two drivers, West, and another man who rode along with the second driver.
Sullivan’s faithful bodyguards stood there with him. I wondered if he got them as a package deal off of eBay.
This was it. This was the night that we would have photographic evidence of Sullivan unloading contraband into a warehouse that he owned. Through a shell corporation, of course, because he wasn’t stupid, but after a lot of digging practically with a backhoe, I’d been able to uncover him as the owner.
His days as a black-market broker were about to be over.
I snapped several more pictures as the large warehouse door rolled up and the truck drivers climbed into their seats once again. They turned the trucks around and backed into the warehouse, one at a time.
The trucks were too long to close the warehouse door after them.
The beeping of a forklift echoed loudly through the night. The safety feature still in place seemed pointless.
After gathering all the video and picture evidence I needed, I watched as the trucks disappeared.
Soon the cars followed, and I knew it was safe to leave. Sullivan had gone home after locking up. I’d be able to send the evidence to the chief, and then we’d be able to get the warrants we needed and hopefully make arrests at Sullivan’s upcoming auction.
I waited an extra few minutes after the last car left before I crept toward the back fence.
A grating sound surprised me into stopping quickly. I kicked a little of the gravel, making it skitter.
“Hey!” a loud voice barked.
My heart sank. Sullivan had left a man behind. Careful not to move, I waited to hear where he was. It was nearly pitch black and I couldn’t spot anyone.
“Is anyone out there?” the voice called out again.
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