by Devney Perry
“Karson?” she whispered before I could hang up.
“Yeah?”
The other end of the line was silent other than her breathing.
“Clara?”
“Was it real?”
I closed my eyes. “It was real.”
“It’s been a long time, and I worried that maybe you were just a teenage boy and I was just a teenage girl and sex was . . . sex. Please don’t take offense at that. We were young and I wouldn’t blame you but—”
“It was real.”
She went quiet again.
“You still there?”
“Yeah. Sweet dreams, Karson.”
Then I’ll dream of you. “Good night, Clara.”
Chapter Twelve
Karson
“What made you change your mind?” I asked Clara. “About coming along.”
“Aria.” She glanced over from the passenger side as we rolled down the highway. “She asked me if I’d regret it in ten years. At first, I said no. But it nagged at me and I realized I need this closure.”
“I can relate.” I needed this closure too.
With Temecula. With the junkyard.
With Clara.
The top was up today to keep the wind and sun from August’s face. And the exhaust. The trip from Elyria to Temecula was about an hour but if we hit traffic, it could take considerably longer.
So far, the road hadn’t been too crowded, likely because it was midmorning on a weekday.
August was playing his Nintendo, something that must be a treat because his eyes had gone wide when Clara had handed it to him. I suspected that Gus had been given a lot more video game time on this trip simply so the adults could talk without interruption.
“I think a part of me wants to go back just to remind myself of how far I’ve come,” she said. “Or to remind myself that I won’t ever have to go back.”
“I felt the same when I moved to Temecula. It took me weeks to work up the nerve to drive to that side of town and when I did, it was at night. I parked outside the gate and just stared inside. Told myself I never had to survive those kinds of days again. So I get it.”
She looked over again and smiled. “I know. Aria told me that if there was any time to go, it would be with you. She didn’t want me going alone.”
“Truth? That’s why I’ve been avoiding this meeting. It was hard enough going back when Lou was there. Since he died, I only went once. And that was after his lawyer told me about his will. I drove up, left the car running, went to the gate and put a new padlock on the chain. Didn’t even go in.”
“So no one has been there in years?”
“No.” I sighed. “I pay the electric bill every month. That’s it.”
“You said you went into his shack. Did you ever go look through the yard?”
I squirmed in my seat, not wanting to admit this was a weakness. That a place full of rusted cars and metal parts had so far gotten the better of me. “Couldn’t do it.”
“Then we’ll go together.”
Was that why I’d never gone back? Because I’d been waiting for Clara to come with me?
She looked beautiful this morning. Her blond hair was pulled back into a braid that hung down her spine. The sheer cream blouse she wore was embroidered with lacey flowers. Beneath, a silky camisole clung to her frame. With a pair of jean shorts, she looked casual. Comfortable. Sexy.
I hated how the last word popped into my head with one glance at her toned legs. I hated how she’d walked out of the hotel lobby this morning and my heart had stopped. I hated that what I wanted most was to take her hand just to see if her fingers still fit between mine like they had when we were younger.
I hated myself for the thoughts running through my mind.
How fucked up was it that Holly had been the one to suggest this trip? While she was at work today, I’d been struggling to keep my mind off Clara.
Good thing was, the junkyard would be a distraction. Just setting foot in Temecula was sure to be strange for Clara again. Hell, it was still strange for me and I’d lived there as an adult.
Clara’s phone rang in the purse at her feet. She bent to pluck the phone out and smiled at the screen. Then she held it up for me to see.
Londyn.
“Want to say hi?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
Clara hit the screen, putting it on speaker, then held it up between us and let me answer.
“Hey, Lonny.”
“Oh my God.” She gasped at my voice. “Karson?”
My heart twisted. “It’s me.”
“It’s you. I can’t believe it.” Her voice trembled. “Clara? Are you there too?”
“I’m here.” She smiled, shifting sideways. “We’re in the Cadillac. Karson is driving us to Temecula.”
“Temecula? I thought you were going home today. I was calling to get the full scoop on Karson.”
“Little change of vacation plans,” Clara said. “First Temecula. Then we’ll go home. Want me to call you later?”
“No way. I can’t wait that long. It’s been torture for the past two days. Tell me everything about Karson.”
“Uh . . . I’m still here,” I said.
“Good,” Londyn said. “Fill in any blanks. And keep your eyes on the road. That car is nearly as precious as your passengers.”
I chuckled. “I see you still love bossing me around.”
“Hey, when you’re good at something, why quit?”
Clara giggled. “Okay, what do you want to know about Karson?”
“Is he still handsome?”
“Yes.” Clara’s eyes darted to the seat, but I caught the flush rising in her cheeks. “He looks like Karson, just all grown up. He’s got a short beard.”
“A beard.” Londyn groaned. “No. Not you too.”
“What do you mean, not me too?” I asked.
“Brooks grew one and I hate it. Which I made the mistake of saying, so now he won’t shave. He likes it because when he kisses Ellie it makes her giggle. But he has such a sexy jaw I hate that it’s covered up with all that hair.”
“In my defense, my beard usually only lasts a month, then I shave.” I chuckled. Hearing her talk about her husband and daughter made my heart swell. “Are you happy, Lonny?”
“So, so happy.” The smile in her voice filled the car. “Clara, what’s his house like?”
“It’s beautiful. It’s white with warm touches. It’s close to the beach. And clean, obviously. This is Karson we’re talking about.”
I barked a laugh. The girls always teased me for being the cleanest one in the junkyard. Not that they were messy, but I think they’d thought the token male would have left his things lying around. Except when you were living in dirt, the least you could do to take care of it was to put it away.
“Were you surprised? By the Cadillac?” Londyn asked.
“You could have knocked me over with a feather,” I answered. “What you did is nothing short of a miracle. But this car is too much.”
“Shush. It was as much yours as it was mine.”
“You put a lot of money into it. Let me pay for it.”
“Never.”
“Londyn—”
“Oh, look at the time. Gotta go. Drive safe. Clara, call me when you get home.”
Clara giggled. “I will.”
“It was good to hear your voice, Karson,” Londyn said. “Expect a phone call from time to time.”
“I look forward to it. And Lonny? Thanks. I’m not sure what I did to deserve this car I’m driving.”
“You were the rock.” Clara spoke for Londyn. “You were the glue. You saved us all when you found that junkyard.”
“And that’s why I want you to have that car,” Londyn added. “Because if it makes you smile every time you get behind the wheel, then maybe you’ll remember that you made me—us—smile through the hardest days. You deserve a lifetime of smiles. So take that car, drive it, and be happy.”
My throat burned as Clar
a ended the call. She dabbed the corners of her eyes, then, as I’d expected, she twisted to look at her son.
August looked up and smiled before going right back to his game.
She drew strength from him. He rooted her. She anchored him. They relied on each other.
Once upon a time, she’d been a constant for me too.
My North Star.
“I’ll have to get everyone’s contact info from you,” I said. “Now that I got to talk to Londyn, I’d like to say hi to Gemma, Kat and Aria too.”
She nodded, her fingers flying over the phone’s screen. “I’ll text you their numbers.”
Clara had been right about driving the Cadillac. It was a dream and every minute behind the wheel made me love it more. The hum of the engine and the gentle whisper of the wind took the place of any conversation as the miles disappeared beneath the tires.
Neither Clara nor I spoke of the question she’d asked me last night.
Was it real?
For twelve years she’d doubted the answer. Was it real?
Clara had been as real as the stars in the sky and the dirt below my feet. But at nineteen, I hadn’t realized how much she’d meant. As a friend. As a lover. The sex had been incredible. Maybe I’d blown it up in my head because I had been nineteen and a guy and, well . . . it was sex. That had been fairly top of mind at that age.
When I’d walked away from the junkyard, I’d had no idea that Clara would stick with me. I guess I’d thought it would be like my breakup with Londyn. Just time to move on. But Clara had always been different, hadn’t she? She’d always been there, like a quieter version of my conscience.
When I’d stop to catch a pretty sunset, I’d wonder if she was watching it too. When I’d sell a house, I’d hear her applause. When it was time to move on to a new town, I’d hope beyond all reason that I’d bump into her at the grocery store.
Now here she was.
If this was the universe’s idea of ironic timing, it was a sick fucking joke.
Why now? When I’d finally decided to let go of the past. When I’d finally settled down in the town I planned to live in for the rest of my life. When I’d found Holly, the first long-term girlfriend I’d had in over a decade.
Time always seemed to be working against Clara and me.
As we reached the outskirts of Temecula, my hands tightened on the wheel. Tension crept up my spine, stiffening my shoulders and arms.
Clara fidgeted in her seat. Every minute she’d shift, tucking a hand under a leg or twisting to stare in a different direction.
Our exit approached and I dragged in a long breath, then hit the turn signal. Here goes.
“You okay?” I asked as I eased off the freeway.
“I don’t know yet. Ask me later.”
There was so much worry in her face, not even the large sunglasses could disguise it. Coming back here was always hard, especially after moving away. But my own anxieties vanished at the fear on her face.
I’d been here before. I’d lived here again. This trip was for Clara, and like Aria had said, she shouldn’t do this alone.
“Where do you want to go first?” I asked. “Hotel? Or junkyard?”
“You said you wanted to check on the junkyard before your meeting tomorrow.”
“Yeah, but we don’t need to go there right away. We can get settled first at the hotel. Ease into this.”
How people did this commute every day, driving in and out of California cities, was not for me. Most of the properties I sold in Elyria were for people who worked one, sometimes two hours away.
“I think . . .” Clara clasped her hands on her lap. “I think let’s go to the junkyard before I chicken out.”
“I’ll be right here with you.”
She looked over and some of the worry lessened. “I know.”
I aimed the car in that direction. The hotel I’d booked was on the opposite end of town, next to the parks where they often launched hot air balloons. Maybe August would get to see one today or tomorrow.
Clara’s nervous energy was palpable, growing with every block. Maybe August felt it too because he put his game down.
“Where are we going?” he asked, his eyes tracking my every turn of the wheel.
“To a place where Karson and I used to li—visit. A place we used to visit when we were younger.”
“As kids?”
“No.” She glanced behind us, giving him a soft smile. “Not as kids.”
Adults would have called us kids. To August, a kid was probably someone his age. And the moment we’d run away, we’d stopped being kids.
“Is it a playground?”
“It’s the junkyard.”
“Oooh.” He nodded. “With the broken stuff.”
“With the broken stuff,” she whispered.
Beyond the worry in her expression there was pain. Pain for the loss of her parents. Pain for the life she and Aria had lived.
Pain from being part of the broken.
The moment I pulled onto the road, Clara wrapped her arms around her middle, sitting stiff and rigid. Her eyes darted everywhere, taking it all in. “It looks different.”
“The developer,” I explained.
Gone were the other run down homes on this deserted road. No more fences to contain barking dogs. No more overgrown bushes. The street we’d traversed countless times was now a collection of barren lots. There was a spec home in the middle of construction, the crew pounding at nails on the roof. Side streets were being added to separate the land into square blocks.
A blank slate.
And at the end, the place we’d called home.
“I wondered if this road would ever change,” Clara said. “There were days when I wished it would be swallowed in an earthquake. Others when I hoped it looked exactly the same just in case I ever needed it again.”
I lifted a hand from the wheel, wanting to take hers, but I stopped myself and raked that hand through my hair instead.
Then, before either of us was ready, we were there.
The grasses around the junkyard’s fence were as thick and unruly as ever. It looked unchanged from the day I’d left it behind. My heartbeat pounded in my ears as I slowed. Clara had her hand on the door, gripping it tight, like she wanted to keep it closed.
I did a quick U-turn so we could park on the same side of the street. Then I stopped us in front of the gate and put the Cadillac in park.
Clara stared out her window, seeing past the rusted chain and padlock to the mess beyond.
“We—”
She was out of the car before I could tell her we didn’t have to go in.
I stayed in my seat and looked back at August.
His eyes were glued to the window. To his mother. “What’s she doing?”
“Just looking.”
Clara walked to the gate. She put her hands to the chain link, her fingers splaying between the holes. She stood there, her spine straight. Then she shoved away, and as quickly as she’d gotten out of the car, she was back in it, shaking her head. “This was a bad idea. I can’t . . .”
“It’s okay. Let’s go to the hotel.”
Her chin fell. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We’ll come back tomorrow. And if you don’t want to, that’s fine too.”
Clara nodded as her shoulders curled forward.
I put both hands on the wheel, holding it so I wouldn’t hold her, and got us the fuck away from the junkyard.
“I’m sorry about earlier.” Clara pushed her sunglasses into her hair and turned to face me. “I didn’t expect to feel so much. I thought once I saw it that I’d want to go inside.”
“No need to apologize.”
She gave me a sad smile. “I didn’t expect it to hurt so much. Not having Lou there. Isn’t that crazy? We didn’t even know the man.”
“Yeah, we did. We knew what mattered.”
Lou had cared for us in the only way he’d been able. He’d given us a shelter. He’d given us protection.
And he’d given us his secrecy. I couldn’t have asked more from the man.
“Mom! Watch this one!” August jumped with all his might from the edge of the pool and did a spin before splashing into the water.
“We’re in that stage. The watch me stage.” Clara smiled and clapped for her son as he surfaced in the pool. “He’d live in the pool if he could.”
“All right, I’m going in.” An hour in the heat and I was ready for a swim.
I stood up from the lounge chair and stripped off my T-shirt. I tossed it away, glancing at Clara only to find her attention was on my torso. My chest. My arms. My abs. Unless I’d forgotten how to read attraction, there was lust in her eyes.
Christ. She wasn’t making this easy on me.
Like she’d heard my thought, she ripped her eyes away, dropping her focus to her lap.
That was my cue to get the hell in the water. In three long strides I was at the pool’s edge. I dove in, giving a long kick as I surfaced beside August.
He laughed, his arms spread wide with his water wings on his biceps helping to keep him afloat.
“Want to play a game?” I asked.
“Okay!”
Then I spent the next hour launching him into the air and crashing into the water. He laughed, we both did, every time.
Clara never moved from her chair. She stayed, watching. At first, she’d done it with a smile, but as the afternoon went on, the happy look on her face vanished. She almost looked . . . sad. Why would me playing with her kid make her look miserable?
Finally, after his fingers were pruney and the sunscreen Clara had smeared on him had most certainly worn off, she dragged her son to their hotel room to shower and get dressed for dinner.
They had a suite with a couple of bedrooms. My single was across the hall and we met in the lobby an hour later.
Much like last night at the restaurant in Elyria, August stole the show. He told me all of the things he wanted for his upcoming birthday and how he was having a pool party at Brody and Aria’s house with six friends from his school. The kid was an exceptional buffer.
Every time I looked at Clara, every time my gaze lingered on the long line of her neck or the pretty shape of her ears, August would demand my attention.
