by Taryn Quinn
“I didn’t expect you to wait.”
“Didn’t you?” Her eyes were dry now. Resolute in a way I’d never seen.
“I…” Had I? I’d come back last February and saw her here. The same Felicity, the same bar, the same town. She’d had her fucking lips on some asshole, but everything else had been the same.
At least I had thought it was.
She shook her head. “Just take me to my sister’s.” She ran for the truck as I released a breath.
A glint of silver caught my eye. The chain she’d broken. I crouched down to pick it up. It was the one she’d given me all those years ago. I glanced around and found the sixteenth note broken off from the chain. I grabbed both and jammed them into my pocket.
Even her gift didn’t make it through our little war.
11
Felicity
I couldn’t even look at him as he pulled off at my exit. My heart was heavy and icy all at the same time. Like I’d lost something profound.
Maybe I had.
He’d offered me everything in a single moment. Two years ago, I would have leaped at that chance. I would have been wrong. It nearly killed me to realize it. If he’d offered to give up the road for me that rainy day two years ago, I’d have said yes.
I could still taste his rain-soaked kiss. My dimly lit hallway in my shitty little apartment. No roommate, no help—just me and my tiny seven-hundred-square-foot place. I’d spent a million evenings on the saggy couch with Myles.
Back then we’d wait for our Netflix DVD to come in. Once a week, we’d make sure we spent the night together, no matter what was going on in our lives. My two jobs and night school to get my master’s. His endless rehearsals and studio time. Wednesday nights were for us.
The nights together had been getting even more bittersweet because Myles’s band had finally started to take off. Their first major tour was coming up. No more Wednesdays, no more impromptu songs in my living room, and no more smoky chocolate scent filling my house.
But that night—the last night we’d spent together—everything changed when we said goodnight. I’d picked our favorite movie to say goodbye. (To this day, I still couldn’t watch The Transporter.) We ate too much, laughed too hard, and touched too much. It started innocently. Lingering fingers in a popcorn bowl. Chilly toes stuffed under his always-warm denim-clad legs. Sharing a blanket, then a hug at the door.
Then he’d cupped my face, much like he’d just done on the grass in front of the palatial fucking house that didn’t fit him or us, and he’d kissed me in the doorway.
With rain dampening his hair and jacket. Wetting our faces and fingers as we clutched each other in the doorway of my apartment.
The wild wonder of him finally touching me. Kissing me like he was drowning and I was the last island in a hundred-mile radius. Then he just backed away. Wrecked and horrified, he stumbled away from me.
“I can’t do this.” The only words he said to me before he backed out of my life and disappeared. Then there was the song that bore my name. And now…what? I couldn’t even comprehend all that had gone on in the space of twenty-four hours.
I shut my eyes as the familiar streets of my childhood home came into view. As his truck stopped at the curb.
I couldn’t look at him. Not and keep this resolve.
He leaned over and unhooked my belt, then dragged me across the middle console. The kiss was wild and harsh. None of the softness from earlier.
It was fraught with anger, sadness, and maybe a bite of desperation. I kissed him back because it might just be the last time. There was a logjam of words stuck in my throat. Kissing him was my only remaining option.
It was the only thing that made sense, even as tears burned behind my eyelids.
I struggled out of his hold. If I didn’t, I’d never leave him. As it was, it hurt too much to even break the kiss.
“Fee, please.”
“Music is a huge part of you. Leaving the band is one thing, but what else are you putting on a shelf? Your dreams, because you don't think you can have them and me too?”
His eyebrows snapped down. “That’s not it.”
It seemed so clear now. He’d left me in the dark while he’d chased his dreams, leaving me behind in this damn town.
I didn’t know I’d been chasing that light for years now. His light. And now he was trying to snuff it out all on his own.
I stroked his beard one last time. “Goodbye, Myles.” I pushed open the door and hopped out, running for the house before I did something stupid like turn back to him. Run back into his arms and tell him I changed my mind.
I couldn’t stay in this town. Not any longer. Not even for him.
When I glanced back, Myles stood on the sidewalk outside my sister’s house, shattered eyes and grief etching his features.
It took everything inside me to close the door.
“Felicity, have you seen—” My sister put down her purse. “Are you all right?”
I shook my head, my arms falling to my sides. We weren’t exactly the most demonstrative of siblings. We’d had such different ideals for the last few years. Such different everything. But she didn’t say a word, just led me to the couch and sat me down.
Robin disappeared back into the kitchen. I heard her make a phone call, then she came back with a large bottle of wine and two glasses we could each swim in. “Seems like a day-drinking kind of story.”
I laughed. It was a bit hysterical, but it was a laugh. My sister didn’t drink on a Saturday night, let alone at noon in the middle of a workday. I must look as miserable as I felt. “He bought me a house.”
She paused when the wine reached halfway up the glass. Her eyebrows shot up and she kept pouring. “A house.”
“Yep. A beautiful house in Phoenix, for fuck’s sake.”
Robin lifted the glass to her lips and took a huge gulp—actually more like three—then put her glass down and re-poured. “You’re going to tell me you broke up. He bought you a house in one of the most prestigious areas and you told him no.”
“Of course I told him no.”
She took another fortifying sip before she exhaled. “Dare I ask why?”
“Because he would be miserable there. It’s so wrong for him. For us.”
Robin held up a finger and downed her entire glass before refilling. “Go on.”
“I know it sounds ridiculous.”
“It does. But I’m sure it sounds right in your crazy brain somehow. Now if you could just explain it to me, then maybe I wouldn’t reach across the couch and strangle you.”
I reached for my glass and took a healthy gulp. The Moscato was perfect and exactly what my dry mouth needed.
In no time, I also finished my glass and collapsed back against the couch. Not three hours ago, I’d been cozied on this same couch with Myles. A precursor to the single most amazing sexual experience of my twenty-seven years.
“I knew it would be good with Myles. Knew it down to my damn fingerprints and DNA that we would fit in all the ways.”
“Is this going to be a sex story? Did you guys…”
I nodded and poured more wine. “Right against that wall.” I gestured toward the wood paneling.
“You had…here? In my house?”
“Where else were we going to have it?”
Ro took another huge gulp. “I hate you so much. Do you know how long it’s been since I had sex in this house?”
I nodded. “Last year at…” I shut one eye. The wine was already working. “St. Patrick’s Day last year. I walked in on you and that guy…Todd?”
“You don’t know that was the last time.”
“Based on your mood, I’d say it was. At least it sounded like you were having fun with him. You don’t have much fun anymore, Ro.”
“Some of us have to worry about our careers.”
I couldn’t even get upset with her usual remarks. I knew that I’d done what was best for me. And my sister might look down on my choices, but if she saw
my bank account, she’d sing a different tune. I’d been damn frugal the last eighteen months. I’d even managed to up my fees for my newer clients. Bookkeeping was a shitty job for most businesses. I just happened to be very good at it. I could organize the worst of businesses and make them run squeaky clean and smart. I’d even helped the bar with new software and trained Ewan Collins, Tristan’s brother, and the family member responsible for the bar’s accounting, before I left.
I’d tied up every loose end except one.
“He bought me a house and wants me to live with him. To have amazing sex and settle down with rooms for babies.” I hiccupped. “I mean, he didn’t say babies, but it was implied. The stupid house had a forest behind it with deer.” I pointed at my sister with my glass. “Deer. And trees and these huge windows. So pretty and big.”
“And you don’t want that? You’re insane.”
“I want it someday. Just not today. I’ve been in this town my whole life except the few years at school. But that was school. There were no crazy experiences in college. I wanted to have them with Myles. I watched him on stage at dive bars and any party he could manage. I watched on the sidelines for so long, Ro. I’m tired of being on the sidelines. I want to go out and experience all the things.”
“You don’t have to leave to do that, you know.”
“I do.” I set down my glass before I ended up wearing the sweet wine. “I do. Not forever. Just for a little while. I have to see what’s out there before I end up sitting here for the rest of my life and regretting it.”
Robin’s dark eyes shuttered. “There’s nothing wrong with settling down.”
“No.” I tipped my head against her shoulder. “Of course not. Nothing at all. I just can’t. I know you’re happy here. You’d be happier with some good sex, but you’re happy, right? Mostly?” I tipped up my gaze to meet hers.
“I’d be happier with sex, yes.”
“What happened with that Todd guy?”
She looked down into her glass. “He ended up getting promoted to be my boss. We had to break up.”
“Oh. I read books like that. Fucking on desks in secret. You should do that. It’d be good for you.”
“Felicity.”
“What? I’m just sayin’. Did you like him? Like really like him?”
She shrugged.
“Break the rules, Ro. You need to. It makes you feel alive.”
“So I can be miserable like you?” My sister lifted her glass again. “Pass,” she said before taking a large gulp.
“Did Todd make you miserable? I can’t remember.”
“It wouldn’t be proper to date my manager.”
“Proper is only good for old ladies who forgot how to have orgasms. Did Todd know what to do? Or was he Todd the dud? He didn’t sound like one when I, um…interrupted.” I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation with my sister. Then again, it was long overdue. And if I could help someone before I left, maybe this pit in my stomach would go away.
At least a little.
“No.” Robin tipped the last of the bottle in her glass and stood. “He definitely knew what he was doing.”
I followed her into the kitchen. “I’m hungry. I think we need a pizza. A big one with greasy pepperoni on it.”
“Do it.”
“Wow. This is crazy. You only eat salads with six ounces of chicken on it, for fuck’s sake.” I went to the menu drawer.
“Today is not a salad day.” Robin grabbed her lunch bag sitting on the kitchen island and tossed it back into the fridge. “I need salt.”
“What are you doing home anyway?” I fanned out the pizza menus. “Which?”
Robin plucked out the Domino’s menu.
“Wow. Hardcore grease.” I dug out my phone and used the app. “Twenty minutes!” I said when the order was in.
“Perfect. We need more wine.”
“There’s a fresh bottle under the microwave cart. I was going to leave you a note to drink one glass a day for me.”
“Okay if we do it all in one day?” Robin crossed to the cart and crouched down. She held up the fresh, very large bottle. “Huzzah.”
“Works for me.” I propped my head up on my hand. “I like you like this. Way looser. You should definitely have wine more often.”
“I need it today. Funny you should mention Todd. I ran into him in the printer room.” She retrieved both of our glasses and refilled. “He told me he misses me.”
“See?”
“Still my boss.” She struggled with the paper around the cap. Only the best wine for us.
“Is there a fraternization policy or something?”
“Kind of.” She held the big bottle against her body as she attacked the cap and finally it loosened. “Understood, not really in writing.”
I rolled my eyes. “You guys were colleagues before he became your supervisor, right?”
“Yes.” She took another sip. Her cheeks flushed with the wine…and maybe something else.
“Did he tell you he more than missed you?”
“He sort of kissed me.”
“At work?”
She put down her glass and covered her face with her hands. “Yes. Oh my God, Felicity. I almost dragged him into the storage room. What is going on with me?”
“You miss him. Maybe even love him.” I leaned on the kitchen island counter across from her and propped my chin on my hands. “Love him, huh?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long have you guys been broken up?” Me and my sister weren’t close. I should know this stuff, but she held me at arm’s length just like she did with everyone else in her life. Maybe if she went after Todd, she’d loosen up. Maybe even loosen up around me too. It was obvious she was unhappy. I’d just been so focused on my own plans that I didn’t ask.
So stupid.
“Five months and twelve days.”
“Yeah, you’re in love with him.” I laughed and rounded the island to drag her into a hug. “Call him. Right now.”
“Oh, no way.” Robin held up a hand. “I’m in no shape for that.”
“Sometimes drunk is the only way to do it.” I looked around the kitchen and into the living room and beyond. I spotted her purse on the edge of the table near the door. I hurried over to it and found her phone and opened her contacts.
“How do you know my password?”
“It’s the same password for everything. Birthday plus thirteen.”
She crossed her arms. “I don’t like being predictable.”
“Of course you do. You like your lines and boxes. Why you’re so good at the insurance stuff. Love doesn’t have neat boxes though.” I opened a text to Todd.
“What are you doing?”
“Texting him.” I stuck out my tongue and laughed. “Sexting.”
“No. Oh my God, Fee.” She lunged for the phone.
I held it out of her reach and turned my back on her. “I can’t stop thinking about that kiss. I miss you. Meet me tomorrow for lunch?” I read aloud as I texted. Thank God for autocorrect in this instance. The buttons were very small for my drunk fingers.
“No! You can’t.”
“Oh, I can and I did. Hey, there’s text bubbles already.”
“Felicity Marie!”
I ran into the living room.
“Give me that phone.”
“Nope. Not until I see what he says.” I closed one eye so the screen came back into focus. “Thank God. I can’t stop thinking about you. And that perfume you wear. Every time you walk by my office, I can smell it. It’s driving me crazy.” My eyes widened. “Damn, Todd.”
“Give me that.” She snatched away the phone and read the screen for herself. “What do I do?”
“You meet him for lunch tomorrow. And you get fucked,” I said with an emphasis on the u sound until it was obnoxious to even my drunk ears.
“You are gross.”
“I got fucked today. Like wow. Eyes-roll-back-in-your-head fucked. I recommend it.” My eyes sud
denly teared up. The breaking up part I didn’t though. Not at all.
But that wasn’t my sister and her Todd dude. No, he was definitely a nice guy. And I’d remembered the big ol’ hearts in his eyes for her when I’d crashed their little post-sex snack time with all the handsy stuff.
The way Myles had been with me.
The doorbell rang and I blinked back tears before I turned into a blubbering mess. I flung open the door. “You saved the day, kind sir.”
The pizza guy stared at me. “It’s just pizza.”
“Sometimes that’s all you need.” I signed his slip and gave him a ridiculous tip before taking the box and shutting the door.
Pizza wouldn’t make everything better, but at least the tears had stopped. Fixing my sister’s love life would have to do.
Even if I couldn’t fix my own.
I set down the pizza. “Now, tell me more about Todd.”
12
Myles
After I dropped off Felicity, I had nowhere to go. I’d cut ties from all of my Baltimore properties when I left. A shitbox apartment I’d been sharing with our drummer wasn’t worth paying to keep up. Especially since neither of us had any designs to come back to Baltimore.
All I had was the house.
And it wasn’t even officially mine.
The paperwork was done, just in the hands of banks and lawyers. I had more than enough to buy it outright, but banks actually tended to steer you clear of that. Investment, blah, blah, credit, blah.
So I had a mortgage.
Insurance.
Paperwork out my ass and phone calls to make.
What was I doing?
Sitting in the middle of my empty living room with my battered keyboard case sitting in front of me on the carpeting. Stickers and decals from dozens of different cities were layered over each other on the pebbly black surface. The handle had two chips on it from falling out of our bus numerous times.
