Back to Yesterday (Bleeding Hearts Book 2)

by Whitney Barbetti

  I chewed on my bottom lip as I considered his logic and looked at him sideways. He was just so goddamn beautiful. With the hard line of his jaw and the brown hair that had grown since I’d last seen him—making my hands itchy to touch. “Fine. But I don’t want to be in your way.”

  “You couldn’t possibly be in my way,” he said softly, even though the car was silent aside from the gentle roar of the engine. He looked at me for less than half a second, but it was long enough for me to see the look in his eyes. “I’m glad you’re here, Trista.”

  But that was what was wrong with this situation. The reason I was in Colorado wasn’t because I was ready, or because we were trying to find ourselves. And for that reason, I wished I was anywhere else.

  Jude pulled his car into a carport and turned off the engine. He waited a second or two, sliding his fingers over the steering wheel. “I think we should go tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I echoed.

  “It’ll be a long night, and he’ll be in a better mood tomorrow.”

  I couldn’t argue with him. He knew Colin better than I did. And given the circumstances, he knew what Colin would prefer. “All right,” I agreed. I opened my door first, not wanting to wait another second inside the car with all the tension thickening our words.

  The air was cool and I sucked it in. It was so much drier here than in Maine, I realized. I’d been gone so long that everything was different—the landscapes, the air, the people.

  Jude climbed out of the car and looked at me over the roof. “Are you hungry?”

  Sliding my backpack over my shoulders, I studied him. He was wearing a flannel shirt, rolled up to the elbows. I thought it was part of his uniform, I’d seen similar flannel shirts on him more than anything else. I realized how awkward it was, with us looking at each other over the roof of the car as the dark swallowed us whole, completely silent.

  I debated my answer for only a minute before my stomach churned. “Yes.”

  He looked at his watch. “I can order a pizza or make something.” He looked up at the building before us. “I’m pretty sure I have eggs.”

  “Eggs are fine.”

  “Great.” He popped the trunk and yanked out my suitcase. “Follow me,” he said as if I had another choice.

  He climbed two flights until he stopped at a nondescript door. The doors on the way up had had some kind of wreath or sign on them, warning against ringing the bell due to sleeping babies or not being accepting of soliciting. But Jude’s was plain, a white metal door with just a small peephole. He unlocked the door and opened it, allowing me to go first.

  I stepped into the darkness and grabbed at the straps around my shoulders, squeezing them, because I didn’t know what to do, or where to move.

  I felt him come in behind me and turn on the light. White lights lit up the place and I glanced around, taking in the black leather couch, coffee table, tiny two-person table in the tiny dining area and the galley kitchen that adjoined it. Despite the simplicity of his decorations and furniture, the place itself looked updated with its dark wood floors, light gray walls, and white and black kitchen. It was clean, neat, and definitely suggested that a male had decorated it.

  “The bedroom’s just down here,” he said, hauling my suitcase down a hallway that his shoulders filled up.

  Following him, I said, “I can sleep on the couch.”

  “I’d already planned on you sleeping in here. It’s better if I’m in the living room, because I wake up so early and will need to move around anyway.”

  I couldn’t argue with that as I stepped into the lit up room. Like the rest of the apartment, it was sparsely decorated and furnished, with the large bed taking up most of the space. There was one nightstand with just a clock and a lamp on it, and I stared at that far longer than I should have.

  One of the many things I’d wondered over the last two years was whether Jude had a girlfriend. He deserved a girlfriend. He deserved more than I could give him. But the one nightstand told me he likely spent his time alone. A fact that both made me strangely happy and also sad, for his loneliness. I dropped my backpack by the bed before I sat on the edge of it.

  “I just changed the sheets,” he threw out as he flipped a light on in the adjoining bathroom. “There are towels under the sink, if you want to shower.”

  I did, which had been the main reason I’d wanted a hotel room. But I nodded at him and he tucked his hands in his front pockets. “I’ll make you some eggs and we can talk for a bit before we go to bed.” At my look of apprehension, he quickly added, “Or we can eat and go to bed. Either way, it’s best if we get a good night’s rest before tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” I met his eyes, only for a moment, but I saw in that brief second just how much he wanted to talk. Probably so he could ask all the things that had been lingering on his tongue since we’d last seen one another. “I’ll be quick,” I said with a cock of my head toward the bathroom.

  “Right.” He left the room and closed the door behind him and finally, blessedly, I was alone.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was freshly showered and clothed in my flannel pajamas when I stepped out into the kitchen where he was sitting, staring at his phone.

  He must have sensed me near him because he clicked his phone off and slid the seat out beside him. “I made them scrambled, if that’s okay.”

  I tucked hair behind my ear as I approached. Wet strands clung to my neck, but I didn’t pull them away. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself.

  “That’s great. Thank you.” I dropped to the seat and scooted in, taking in his plate—still full. He’d waited for me.

  For some reason, that little gesture made me hurt more than anything else—in a good way, but even the good way wasn’t enough.

  We ate in silence, with him sneaking little looks at me that I returned. It wasn’t awkward or even strange, as we quietly chewed our food and contemplated how we’d ended up here, two years after I’d left Colorado and one year after he’d left Maine.

  When we were finished, I started scrubbing the pan he used for the eggs and when he reached around me to grab the pan from me as I finished rinsing it, I tensed up, expecting—unrightfully so—that he’d touch me. And when his hand brushed mine in a way that I knew was not accidental, my knees wobbled against the wooden cabinet.

  “Tired?”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice. His juniper smell surrounded me—reminding me of the trees and our camping trips and everything I’d been trying not to remember so vividly in the last two years.

  “There are extra blankets in the closet in my room,” he said as I dried my hands on the towel.

  I nodded. “What time should I set my alarm?”

  “I was thinking we’d head up there at eight. It’s about ten minutes from here.”

  “So I’ll set it for seven forty-five.”

  We were on opposite sides of the kitchen, leaning against the countertops as we studied one another. I kept waiting for one of us to make the step forward, to envelope the other in a hug that was long overdue. But his hands clenched and unclenched before he shoved them in his pockets.

  “You have to eat breakfast.” He said it with more than a little guilt for me to bear. He wasn’t stupid. He knew about me.

  I shrugged noncommittally. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You have to eat breakfast,” he repeated, his voice flat. He turned around so his back was to me. “Set it for seven thirty.”

  I didn’t like being told what to do, but I couldn’t tell him no. He’d had the look in his eyes like he would’ve grabbed me by the ankles and forced me out of bed. From anyone else, I wouldn’t have put up with it. But I had to oblige him. So I nodded even though he couldn’t see me and dropped the dish towel on the counter. I stared so long at his back, waiting for him to turn around, waiting to have enough courage to carry myself across the three tiles that separated us and into his arms.

  But because that courage never came, and because he stayed with
his back to me, I turned and went into his bedroom.

  I closed the door at first, but on second thought I opened it again. I’d become so used to sleeping in the inn before I’d moved to my apartment, and closing the door because it was the one space that was all mine, that I had closed Jude’s door on instinct. But I wasn’t in Maine. I was in Colorado, in the same place as Jude. I was safe. I was home.

  Chapter Thirteen

  May 2012

  I didn’t want to let go of him for a while. Holding him had been the most peaceful I’d felt in months—it practically radiated from him. “You’re actually here,” I said into his flannel shirt.

  “Mhm,” he said into my hair.

  “Don’t let go just yet,” I whispered, rubbing my face over his shirt.

  “I won’t.”

  I’m not sure how long we stood there, just holding one another. His breath was warm on the top of my head and I could hear each beat of his heart against my ear, where it was pressed against his chest.

  I was the first to pull back, because I wanted to look up into his face. His beautiful, tranquil face. The smile on it caused one to reflect on mine too. He was perfect. A word I didn’t like, because of the expectations it required. But that’s what he was.

  “You look so different,” he said, brushing a thumb along my cheek. I took a quiet delight in that, hoping he’d notice how much weight I’d lost since he had seen me last.

  “I’ve lost weight.”

  But he didn’t look pleased. In fact, he looked concerned. “Are you okay?”

  I pulled away from him just a little, feeling disappointment. “Of course, I’m great. And you’re here.”

  “I am.” But something had changed in his expression as he searched me over.

  “Let me show you around,” I said, changing the subject.

  We hadn’t kissed.

  I tugged him by the hand through the entry, pointing to the reception desk, which he had already seen. I pulled him back to the kitchen, and he looked around as I showed him everything I did throughout a typical day at the inn.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” I said, tugging him along the back staircase. In my excitement, I got a bit winded when I reached the landing, and braced a hand against the wall as I smiled at him.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  I didn’t like that he kept asking me, like he didn’t believe me. “I’m great. I’m just a little excited.” But I noticed that he wasn’t winded at all, and in our hikes together, he’d been the first one out of the two of us to feel the effects.

  “Here’s my room,” I said when we reached the room at the end of the hall.

  “You live here?”

  Nodding, I slid my key through the hole and pushed the door open. “I have ever since July.”

  “Okay.”

  I let him step into my room first, hoping he’d be impressed with the renovations that had happened over the holidays. Not that he’d known how it had looked before. He stepped up to the window soon, looking out over the ocean in the distance, and then he turned around. “Are you happy here?” His eyebrows were pulled together in concern, but I didn’t know why he was so worried about it.

  “As happy as I can be,” I answered honestly. “It’s my home.”

  “Okay,” he said again, but he seemed emotionally distant from me. This wasn’t how I’d pictured our reunion in all the times I’d tried to imagine how it would go down. “And you work here, too?”

  “It’s my only job, yes.” I tucked my hands into my pockets as he sat on my bed. “Are you okay?”

  He ran a hand over his hair as he stared at my desk. “I am.”

  But he wasn’t looking at me, so I knew something wasn’t okay. I wanted him to hold me, to love me the way he had months earlier.

  “I think I’m just tired,” he said with a sigh. I watched as he fell back onto the bed and closed his eyes, feeling helpless to fix whatever it was that was wrong with us.

  So I let him nap, all the while wringing my hands.

  “Hello?” a voice called from the hallway.

  “Shit,” I mumbled, recognizing Charlotte’s voice. I strode to the door and slipped out into the hall. “Charlotte.”

  She was wearing short shorts, much too small for the late spring weather outside, and a tank that slipped off her shoulder. She looked like she’d slept in her clothes and hadn’t brushed her hair in days.

  “You showed up.”

  Charlotte put her hands on her hips. “Did Maura think I’d bailed or somethin’?”

  I walked away from my room and hooked an arm through Charlotte’s to pull her down the hall with me. I wasn’t sure how many guests were checked in on this floor, but I knew it wasn’t professional to have them listen to our conversation.

  “Technically,” I said, once we were walking down the stairs, “you did bail. You didn’t show up on time.”

  “Well, ‘scuse me,” she said on an exaggerated sigh. “It’s not like we’re all booked up anyways.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It was my day off and you didn’t show up when you were scheduled to.”

  Charlotte followed me into the kitchen, the one place we seemed to be able to talk about work without a guest overhearing. “What has your panties in a twist then? It’s not like you were doing my work—I saw you come out of your room.”

  “Because it’s my day off.” Honestly, sometimes trying to speak sense to Charlotte was more trouble than it was worth.

  “Where’s Maura?” she asked, looking around the kitchen.

  “She had to go rescue Chuck.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Where were you?”

  “At Brendan’s. Sorry, we decided to split a bottle of wine and the next thing I knew, I was waking up on his floor an hour ago.”

  “I thought you had a new boyfriend,” I said, remembering very distinctly that she’d told me just that.

  “Yeah, and I do. But you know how ex-boyfriends are.” She smiled coyly as she twirled her hair around her finger.

  The funny thing was, I did know. Because I had one, a sort-of ex-boyfriend, in my room at that moment. “Well, you should’ve called an hour ago, let Maura know you were coming in.”

  She twirled a chunk of hair. “I didn’t know I was going to come in. Brendan had to go to work, so I figured I might as well.”

  She was so exasperating sometimes.

  I grabbed a dish Maura had put in the sink and held it in my clenched fingers. “Figured you might as well? It’s your job, Charlotte.” I opened the dishwasher with more force than necessary and shoved the plate into it. “Honestly, I don’t know why Maura lets you work for her still.”

  Charlotte seemed unperturbed by my anger and jumped up so she was sitting on the counter beside the dishwasher. “Because she loves me.”

  “Yeah, well how do you love her in return?” Maura wouldn’t have put up with this kind of shit from me, so it rose my hackles that Charlotte could get away with just about anything and nothing would affect her negatively.

  “Love is a feeling, not an action.”

  I fully rolled my eyes then. “Don’t quote bullshit on me, Char. I’m telling you—you have a good gig here, and maybe you should respect everyone else’s time more than your own for a change.” I slammed the door on the dishwasher just as I heard boots drop by the side door.

  “Well, look who decided to show up,” Maura said as she pulled her raincoat off and hung it up. “I was wondering where you were,” she said to Char. She turned to me and asked, “Did you get that guest settled?”

  I thought of Jude, asleep on my bed, and nodded.

  “What room?” she asked, coming around and brushing down the side of Charlotte’s hair.

  “Mine.” I swallowed when both Charlotte and Maura looked at me with twin looks of surprise on their faces.

  “Why, pray tell?” Charlotte asked, a glimmer in her eyes.

  “Because he’s my. . .” I tried to think of how to refer to him. He wasn’t exactly an ex-boyfrie
nd, but he wasn’t just an acquaintance either. “He’s a friend.”

  “A he who’s a friend, huh?” Charlotte twirled another lock of hair. “Which one is he, the spurned ex-boyfriend or the something else?”

  “What are you talking about?” Maura asked, swatting at Charlotte to get her to jump off the counter. I gave Charlotte a look that I hoped was threatening enough to have her keep her mouth shut.

  “Nothing,” Charlotte said, rubbing her lips tightly together to keep herself from smiling. “Need help with dinner prep?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Maura said, spinning around. I left the kitchen a second later, annoyed that Charlotte being late was already forgiven, like usual.

  When I returned to my room, Jude was sitting up on the bed, rubbing his eyes. When he looked at me, with that achingly familiar sleepy gaze, it was all I could do not to collapse to my knees.

  “How’d you find me?” It was the one question I wanted an answer to. Everything else could wait.

  “Mila.”

  “I figured that,” I said, coming to sit beside him on the bed. “But how did you figure out Maine, and specifically here?”

  “Your grandfather. I visited him, he gave me one of the postcards you’d mailed him.” He pulled out a postcard from his back pocket and opened it. It was the lighthouse I often visited when I wanted to think. I took the postcard from his hands and ran my fingertips over the edges. “I think your grandpa likes me.”

  I tried to think of the last time I’d spoken to him on the phone. Grandpa wasn’t big on talking on the phone, which was why I sent him postcards, or letters. But I could see my grandpa being keen on Jude, and giving him a clue. Maybe my grandpa had thought I was lonely, or needed something familiar. My adventure wasn’t much of an adventure after all.

  “And you decided to come all this way?”

  Jude pushed a hand on his knee and dipped his head down. “I wanted to see if you were okay. And I’m not sure if you are.”

  When I opened my mouth to say I was fine, again, he shook his head.