One More Chance (A Bedford Falls Novel Book 3)

by Sydney Bristow

  “I’m not finished,” her sister said, maintaining a steady gaze. “You were my best friend. But you know what, Ashley? Best friends don’t leave without saying why. After you left, I was so…” Tears surged into her eyes, making them glassy. Kelsey opened her mouth to talk, but she faltered on the first syllable of what she planned to say. She looked away to regain her composure.

  Ashley had always known her sister admired her, but she’d underestimated how strongly that bond meant to Kelsey. And right now, watching her little sister coming unglued, Ashley felt her face scorching with shame. How much had her disregard hurt Kelsey, especially at such a young age? Did it damage future relationships? Or her confidence? Maybe her judgment?

  “You were my idol,” Kelsey said. Trails of tears slipped down her cheeks. Far from embarrassed, she appeared glad to explain how important she found their relationship.

  Seeing all the torment in her sister’s eyes made it difficult for Ashley to maintain her gaze, but she did so for one reason: she needed to understand what her disappearance meant to Kelsey. She needed to see the pain she’d caused. And she needed to feel the remorse that now clenched her heart.

  Ashley wanted to apologize, wanted to say that she never planned to hurt Kelsey. But she kept quiet. Because she couldn’t explain away all of the anguish she’d caused. So she did what she hadn’t done in fifteen years: she rushed to her sister and wrapped her arms around her.

  Despite expecting Kelsey to back away in stubbornness, her sister accepted her embrace and clung to her. “I forgive you,” she told Ashley. “You don’t deserve it. But I forgive you.”

  Those words cut deep into Ashley’s heart, slashing away at feelings of inadequacy when it came to maintaining a real relationship. Of course, working in Hollywood, she had plenty of friends. But they were all members of the cast and crew on her television show. They talked and goofed around on set, and since she spent pretty much every waking moment working over the past fifteen years, none of them found their way into her personal life.

  After all, other than her high school romance with Scott, the only other true friendship she ever had was the one with Kelsey. And in both cases, she’d run away. Only now, after giving it more than a moment’s thought, did she realize how truly sad that was. And she only had herself to blame.

  “You’re right,” Ashley said, nodding into her sister’s hair. “You’re right. I don’t deserve it. But thank you.” And at that moment, she wondered what it might be like to repair their relationship. To call Kelsey just to chat. To share secrets or worries or even to seek advice. Nothing had stopped her from calling or emailing her before. But now, after hearing her sister tell her off and only moments later clutching her like she refused to ever let her go, Ashley realized that, unlike her parents, Kelsey wouldn’t hold anything back. She’d speak her mind. Always.

  In Hollywood, where lies are commonplace and rumors are often accepted as truth, Ashley had only two people she trusted: her manager and her agent. But they worked for her, and they didn’t chat outside of business matters. But knowing that a true friend had her back made Ashley smile.

  “Now that we got that out of the way,” Kelsey said, stepping out of their embrace, “how are things going with you and Scott?”

  That question wiped the smile off Ashley’s face. Rather than choose her words with care, as she did with everyone in her life to avoid making statements that might be taken out of context as often happened with the media or fans, she decided to trust her sister. “I don’t know. It was good there for a while… then everything went haywire.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We were getting close.” She could still feel Scott’s lips pressed against hers, could still smell his scent on her. She hoped that one day those two sensations would become permanent fixtures in her life.

  “You’re smiling, so it must’ve been better than just ‘really good.’”

  Ashley, having no idea that she’d smiled, lifted her index finger and thumb to her lips to find exactly that. She’d never met a more intensely passionate man. The idea of feeling his hands on her made her face grow warm. She cleared the image from her mind. Thinking about situations that might never occur again could only do harm.

  Ashley said, “Scott held out hope for us until last Valentine’s Day. Then he gave up on me.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Kelsey said. “He loves you.”

  Ashley wanted to believe that. But why? She’d never been the kind of person to want something she couldn’t have. And although Scott looked more gorgeous than ever, Ashley hadn’t pegged his looks as the answer either. She supposed that wronging Scott, only to learn that he continued loving her, might have had something to do with it. But then, she’d known that all along. Turning on one of his albums would verify that. Then she came to their extraordinary session of lovemaking, and… no, she ruled that out as well.

  True, she’d never experienced a more all-consuming period of ecstasy with another man, and she would love nothing more than to enjoy another torrid hookup… only that last word felt filthy when she applied it to Scott. He wasn’t some guy she just met and decided to have sex with. He was one of the good ones. He was… special.

  That realization caught her by surprise. Only now, after Scott confessed how much he’d loved for her, did Ashley truly believe him. They may have spent the past fifteen years apart, but Scott’s confidence, spirit, kindness, and sincerity remained intact. And she found each of those qualities as covetous as those rock hard abs and chiseled biceps.

  “Correction,” Ashley said, hopes dwindling. “He loved me.”

  Kelsey shook her head. “When it comes to you and Scott, you’re never over.”

  “He looked really serious.”

  “Then he did it to save face, so he wouldn’t appear weak.”

  “Scott? Weak? That’ll never happen.”

  “See what I mean?” Kelsey said. “You didn’t see his eyes light up when I told him that you’d be at the restaurant. Now unless he’s a total asshole who couldn’t wait to tell you off—and I know that he’d never set out to hurt someone—he wanted to see you again.”

  “But he said—”

  “You hurt him, Ashley. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s a man. He’s not going to tell you how you ripped his heart out.”

  “He wrote all those songs.”

  “Exactly. Look at Taylor Swift. She’ll write a song, maybe even a few about a guy she broke up with. But not Scott. He wrote at least a dozen songs about you. He didn’t get over you. He can’t. Ever.”

  The certainty in her tone nudged a half-smile from Ashley’s lips.

  “Did you get over him?” Kelsey asked.

  “He was my first love. I hurt for so long. And I was alone in a huge city with no friends and no job. My hatred allowed me to keep trying to make it as an actress. The only way I succeeded is because I wanted to show him that he’d regret cheating on me. For so long, I felt betrayed. But now I feel like I betrayed him.” She lowered her head, wanting to think of something else, but the same thoughts circled her mind. And because she wanted to trust Kelsey, she decided to voice them: “If I’d only asked him about it, who knows what would have happened between us. Who knows the life we might’ve had. Maybe we’d have gotten married. And had kids. And—”

  “But you didn’t,” said Kelsey.

  “No, I was too scared and too angry, and I hated him so much.”

  “Because you loved him so much.” She paused for a moment. “And you were a coward.”

  “Remind me to call you when I need a pick-me-up.”

  “I’m not going to tip-toe around this. I’m just stating the obvious. You didn’t act like an adult. And look what you lost because you were too full of pride and too afraid to have a conversation.”

  “I get it, okay? You don’t have to—”

  “No, you don’t get it,” Kelsey said, eyes blazing with anger. “You made a
mistake. And the only way to fix it is to talk about it. That’s the only way to move past… the past.”

  The muscles in Ashley’s shoulders tightened. “I get the impression that we’re not talking about me and Scott anymore.”

  “Wow,” Kelsey said. “I guess that MBA really made a difference. Maybe I should have gone to college, after all.”

  “I’ve already told you what Mom and Dad told me. There’s nothing new to add.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m not lying to you. I told you everything they told me.”

  “Then you don’t know the whole truth.”

  “Are you nuts?” Ashley asked, frustration mounting inside her. “Of course, I do. They told me.”

  “Mom and Dad never told me everything you told me. But then, a few nights ago, I was talking with Dad.” She met Ashley’s gaze with a stern expression. “I got the impression that you don’t know the whole story.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  During the art auction at Winter in Serenity, Scott sat on a hardwood chair, like dozens of others throughout the room. One after another, artwork by Picasso, Pollock, Warhol, Monet, Rembrandt, and other famous artists had been placed on easels at the front of the room beside the auctioneer.

  Scott, who had already won bids on three pieces by his favorite artist, Peter Max, waited to see if any other artwork by Max would be unveiled this afternoon.

  Movement at the door caught his attention, and upon recognizing the visitor, Scott sat immobile, shocked at the person who’d entered the room: his brother.

  Gabe Mettle, wearing a black T-shirt that showed off a pair of tattoos on biceps that looked carved from granite, stood in the doorway, staring at the framed artwork on the easel in a mesmerized state.

  The auctioneer said, “We’ll start the bidding on this piece at one hundred dollars. Do I have one hundred?”

  Still lost in the image he stared at, Gabe lifted his hand, face expressing wonder and immense excitement.

  Although startled to spot his brother at an art show, much less the one he attended, Scott glanced at the piece at the front of the room: a canvas portrait of a buxom redhead named Jessica from the film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

  An elderly woman in her nineties, who looked as if it took great energy to lift a hand in the air to acknowledge the auctioneer’s suggested price, glared at Gabe as though no one clad in tattered black jeans and scuffed black boots belonged at an art auction. When the auctioneer said, “Do I have two hundred?” she raised a hand, sneering at Gabe as if daring him to increase the bid.

  Gabe spun around, looking stunned that another person got involved in the bidding process. He spotted the woman and chuckled as if she had no chance of winning. “Double it,” he shouted out, as though he was ordering a cup of beer at a sporting event.

  Lifting an eyebrow in surprise, the auctioneer said, “Excellent,” although his petulant look made it clear that he doubted the visitor could pay for the portrait. “Four hundred dollars to the man carrying the… fashionably torn black leather jacket.” He narrowed his eyes in disapproval before turning his attention back to the older lady. “Do I have five hundred?”

  The elderly woman lifted a manicured hand. A nasty sneer lit her creased face, as if saying: You’re messing with the wrong woman.

  The auctioneer said “Seven hundred. Do I have—”

  “Let it ride,” said Gabe as he walked down an aisle toward his brother. After almost stumbling on a woman’s foot, he turned toward her, displayed his T-shirt, which pictured a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and winked at her.

  Although originally repulsed by his presence, the fiftyish woman did her best to hide a secret smile as she glanced down.

  “Okay then,” said the auctioneer. “Do I have… one thousand dollars?”

  The senior citizen half-raised her hand, acknowledging the new bid.

  After their last “conversation,” Scott never expected to see Gabe again, but his brother now took a seat beside him. He folded his right leg over his left. His clean-shaven face, void of the excess weight he’d put on from his drinking problem during the days they were still in Scrap Mettle, had a healthy, cognizant glow about it, rather than the sickly, oblivious expression of days gone by.

  “Hey, bro,” said Gabe, taking a seat.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Scott, expecting to catch the scent of liquor clinging to him. But the pleasant smell of light cologne drifted to his nose instead.

  “Buying some art. Or trying to. That old woman is starting to piss me off.”

  Scott hadn’t expected such a lack of drama between them. The last time they saw each other, security guards had to separate them, but not before they traded blows. Scott had come away with a bruised rib, while his brother sported a black eye.

  It seemed their conversational skills hadn’t improved much since they last parted. Scott noticed that his brother had also lost the extra weight around his middle section. And the definition in his forearms and triceps showed that his brother had taken his sobriety as seriously as his workout regimen. Once more, just as when they first formed their band, Gabe was lanky and had that laid-back aura of a rock star that didn’t need to impress anyone.

  “Saw the YouTube video of you on stage,” Gabe said. “A restaurant? Seriously, dude? If you’re dying for a gig, I could have reserved you a spot at one of my AA meetings. You could sing about how much of a dick I was back then.”

  Scott appreciated the humor and the honesty in his statements. His brother never openly apologized. Rather, he preferred to allude to things that he could have handled better. “Still bragging about your dick?” Scott asked, trying to meet his brother halfway.

  “I wasn’t referring to my… oh,” he said, breaking into a smile. “Don’t think they’ll be booking us as comedians anytime soon on Fallon.”

  Gabe locked his gaze on the auctioneer. “Let’s make it fifteen hundred,” he shouted before glancing at the woman who’d bid against him. Seeing the woman about to lift her hand to bid again, Scott interjected before the auctioneer had a chance to say a word. “Oh, yeah? I can do this all day. Should we go two large? Yeah, let’s do it. Make it two.”

  “Superb,” said the auctioneer unenthusiastically, clearly resigned to the possibility that Gabe might not be able to pay for the piece of art. “Do I have twenty-two hundred?”

  The woman’s mouth hung open for a moment before she shut it, nibbling on her upper lip in frustration. She nodded.

  “Damn,” said Gabe. “Seriously, woman? What are you going to do with a painting of Jessica?”

  “What are you doing?” Scott asked. “Disney art?”

  “Have you seen that portrait? She’s hot as hell. She’d look great over my fireplace.”

  Unable to pay attention to the bidding war going on, Scott said, “You look good.” It didn’t seem that his brother dropped by to ask for a loan. He’d done that about ten times while they worked together. Only after the seventh or eighth time of handing his brother a few hundred here and a few hundred there, did Scott realize that when Gabe drank too much (which usually meant consuming a bottle of Jack Daniel’s or more during the writing/recording process as well as before, during, and after their gigs), he lacked common sense and his decision-making process had abandoned him. He ended up buying items he’d never use: snakeskin boots, a black leather fedora, a second Harley (because he didn’t recall buying the first one).

  “Dude, Jessica’s incredibly hot!” He leaned toward the artwork as if drawn in by an invisible force.

  “If I had to choose a Disney princess,” Scott said, “I’d go with Belle. Jessica’s too chesty.”

  “Jessica’s no princess. That’s the point, bro.” But then, upon reconsideration, Gabe said, “a princess, huh? Hmm.” Ignoring the snobbish stares and grunts of disapproval around him, he said, “Belle? She’s too bookish. And pretty drab. Plus, does she have any curves? It’s hard to tell. How about Ariel? She’s hotter than Belle. Way hotte
r!”

  “But she’s a mermaid. She’s not real.”

  “So what?” Gabe stared intently at the painting. “That has such a great frame. It’d be a waste to have it hanging in some woman’s house.” He pulled out a thick wallet. “Hope I have enough to cover this.” He flipped through a stack of hundred dollar bills and grinned.

  The auctioneer said, “Twenty-five hundred?”

  The elderly woman grinned at Gabe, as though certain he wouldn’t bid again.

  “You know what?” Gabe said. “I will not let that woman get that painting.” He sat on the edge of his seat and cleared his throat. “Will three thousand cover it?”

  “Three thousand!” said the auctioneer, astonished. “Do I have three thousand three hundred?”

  The old woman prepared to lift her hand, but recognizing the extravagant amount she’d agree to spend on the piece, she caught the auctioneer’s gaze and shook her head.

  Gabe pumped his fist with excitement. “Disney is the best company on Earth: Pixar. Marvel. Star Wars. That chick from Tangled? What’s her name, Rapunzel? So innocent! What about Pocahontas? Are you kidding? Jasmine? Of course! And oh my God: don’t get me started on Elsa. I’d like to take her home and—”

  “Really?” Scott asked. “Are you really talking about—”

  “I was going to say… protect her. She seems so vulnerable and isolated and complicated.” Those statements seemed to put him into a reflective mood: he didn’t appear ready to speak again anytime soon.

  Scott didn’t realize that, in describing the Snow Queen, Gabe might have been really talking about himself. It made Scott realize that his brother truly had changed. As a teenager, Gabe had been contemplative and introverted. When he began drinking, his personality shifted upside down, so that he was shallow and extroverted. Scott let out a deep sigh, glad that the brother he loved had returned.

  Gabe snapped out of his pensive manner. “So, are you kidding me? Of course, Disney. Let’s rock this!”

  Scott looked for signs of insincerity but found none; it seemed Gabe had become a convert of everything and anything Walt Disney.