If Only

by A. J. Pine

  “I don’t know, but she showed me a picture of her daughter who looks almost my age. Does that help?”

  They both laugh.

  “Let me finish. I have to admit I do find her words to be wise indeed.” I start to laugh as I say it. Elaina pushes my shoulder.

  “Hey! Don’t rush philosophy. This is an important little nugget of wisdom, though I’m not sure Daniel will relate.” I look at him, but he’s clearly not fazed. “I only served her one pint, so I’m not sure what provoked her to say this, but after only a few sips, she leaned over the bar and motioned for me to come closer. In the thickest Scottish brogue I’ve heard yet, she said, ‘Oh, lass. I don’t recommend wearing a wee thong backwards. The place it’s lodged itself now is something dreadful!’”

  Daniel backs away from the bar, his hands up in surrender.

  “You win. I’m out. I’m off to pour whisky in my eyes to try to burn away the image you’ve given me.”

  “Did I mention she was a large woman?”

  Elaina can’t contain herself, which I love, because when she really gets to laughing, she snorts.

  I yell down to the end of the bar where Daniel is stacking glasses. “You’re not going to share yours? What if it’s better than mine?”

  “You win!” he calls back, not turning to face me, and I fear I may have scarred him irreparably.

  “All right then, I’ll finish up back here, and you two can get going on those tables.” I throw a wet rag at him, and it hits him square on the back of the neck. I wait for a moment to see if he will retaliate, but he doesn’t. Instead, he picks up the rag in one hand, his pint in the other. Back still to me, he raises the pint in a gesture of “cheers” before heading out to the tables to help Elaina.

  An hour later, when I can barely keep my eyes open and it’s finally time to go home, Elaina and I find one of the few remaining taxis that wait around for the after-pub crowd, which now includes me. We say our good-byes to Daniel, who lives in town and gets a ride regularly from one of the cooks.

  “He’s not bad, you know,” Elaina says as the taxi starts to pull away.

  “I know,” I say. She means Daniel. “But I can’t, Elaina. I can’t be with one person because the person I want doesn’t want me. Already tried that.”

  She sighs but doesn’t say anything. Instead she reaches her hand across the seat and wraps her fingers around mine.

  “I’m fine.” I try to persuade her. She squeezes my hand, so instead I admit, “I will be.”

  When my alarm goes off the next morning, I’m disoriented. It’s still dark out, and according to my clock, I’ve only been asleep for an hour. And it’s Sunday. I press what I think is my snooze button on my phone and then realize what I’ve done. I’ve hung up on Sam. SAM!

  I dial her back as quickly as I hung up on her.

  “Brooks! What the hell? You’ve been ditching me for a week now!”

  She’s right, and I don’t lie to her. “I’m sorry.” Then I look at my clock. I’ve barely been asleep for forty minutes. “Is this my punishment, waking me in middle of the night?”

  “Yes, actually. It is. I miss the shit out of you and can’t stay mad at you, so the least I can do is wake your Scottish ass in the middle of the night. Did I wake you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ve only been asleep for about three-quarters of an hour, so you got me right when the heavy sleep hit. Well played.” Not that she could have known. It’s been so long since we’ve done anything other than text, I’ve hardly told her anything about my life, let alone that I started a new job. Guilt washes over me. I know nothing about her life, either.

  “Hot night, I take it then?”

  I sigh. I’m not going to sleep for a long, long time now. I tell her everything she’s missed from New Year’s Eve up through tonight.

  “Well, I guess that’s all of it.”

  She’s quiet for a few seconds.

  “Damn, Brooks. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’ll figure my shit out, eventually.”

  “No.” Something in her voice changes. “I mean, I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t think I follow.”

  “Brooks, I pushed you into this, this whole new-you thing, this whole re-lose your virginity thing. I thought you could have this exotic year where you did things you’d never do back home, where you could reinvent yourself, and I don’t know. I thought I knew how to make you happy, and I screwed up because you’re halfway done and you’re fucking miserable. And I woke you on purpose at four a.m.”

  She’s so far away, but I can picture us in our tiny room in the dorm, her lying on the top bunk pouring all of this out without having to look at me because that’s the only way she won’t cry. But now, with the safety of thousands of miles between us and no chance of us being eye to eye, I hear her breathe back tears.

  “Sam? Shit, Sam. Are you crying?”

  I don’t hear anything, and I’m scared the connection is lost. I call to her again. “Sam?”

  “You know I don’t fucking cry, Brooks.”

  She waits for me to disagree, but I don’t give her the satisfaction.

  “Fine,” she continues. “One time. But you were leaving me for a year. Now I’m just fucking pissed that I’m quite possibly the worst best friend you could have chosen.”

  I wait for her to continue.

  “I didn’t just sleep with Eddie. I’ve been dating him for almost five months.”

  There is total silence as she waits for me to make the connection. I don’t think she’s breathing. I can’t help but laugh when I say his name.

  “Eddie? The bartender?” I tease more than taunt. “You are dating Eddie the bartender?”

  I’m not judging Eddie for where he works. Clearly pub-type establishments are well-known in these parts too, as are bartenders. I think the bartender might be Eddie’s last name.

  “Yes,” she says quietly. “Eddie the bartender.”

  As it sinks in, I realize it’s not so funny. I’ve been trying to be who I thought Sam was, to do what I thought made her happy. “Eddie the bartender who you had a one-night stand with days after breaking up with James? Eddie the bartender, the fling that made me think you could separate love from sex? That Eddie the bartender?”

  “I’m full of shit, Brooks. There. I said it. I am full of shit when it comes to guys. I made it seem like it was a fling with him, but the truth is I liked him from the minute our conversation morphed from asking for a cheap-ass beer to talking about our affinity for John Hughes movies, which most definitely happened before I slept with him.”

  I yawn, fighting to stay lucid. What I can’t do is stay mad at her. How can I fault her for finding what I’ve been wanting?

  “So you are apologizing to me for liking a guy before sleeping with him and because now you are dating him? Am I hearing you correctly?” My eyes are so heavy.

  She groans in mild exasperation. “No, dammit. I’m apologizing because I made you think I was something I wasn’t. I broke up with James because something was missing. Things happened with Eddie because something was there that I didn’t know I wanted. Don’t get me wrong. The sex is great, but I feel like shit because I sent you there with a false sense of what your purpose was.”

  I have purpose?

  “Yes,” she says, answering my thought. “You do have a purpose, but it’s not for me to tell you what it is. I think your parents had the right idea, giving you this year to figure your shit out.”

  “That’s only half true. They are giving me a year to figure out that I want to be a teacher.”

  We both laugh, knowing that’s the decision both of them would love me to come home with.

  “Is that what you want?” she asks, a question I don’t think either of my parents has asked.

  “I want to figure out what makes me happy.”

  “Then figure it out.”

  She makes it sound so simple.

  “What if I find out I wa
sted their time and money? What if I wasted my time playing it safe with a major because I knew I’d be good at it?”

  “You’ll never know. Not until you admit to yourself what you want. Stop trying to fit into whatever mold you think everyone wants you to fit in. That includes me. Figure your shit out, and then go after it.”

  I smile through my exhaustion, knowing at least one decision I’ve made since coming here is mine and mine alone, but it’s the one thing I’ve been avoiding telling her for over a week.

  “I’m staying, until August.” She’s going to hate me.

  “I know.”

  She knows? Is that why she called, to let me sweat it out for the whole conversation, already knowing what I’ve been too scared to say?

  “You know? But how?”

  “I called your mom a couple of days ago. I was worried because we hadn’t spoken in so long and wanted to make sure you were okay, that you weren’t avoiding me. She was afraid you were and that she knew why. So she told me.”

  Please don’t ask me what I think you are going to ask me.

  “Were you? Avoiding me?” she asks.

  There’s no point in anything but honesty. “Yes. I was afraid you’d hate me.”

  “Do you really see me as that selfish? Shit, Brooks. I’m envious of what you are doing over there, but I’d never begrudge you one damn minute of it. You got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now go to sleep. It’s got to be almost five a.m. for you.”

  Shit. It is. “Good night,” I say through what is the largest yawn in existence. “Or, I guess, good morning.”

  “Good morning,” Sam says. “And good days and future nights to you after that.”

  Smiling, I end the call, laughing that Sam can still shock me after I thought I knew her so well. Perhaps I need to pay better attention to the people I think I know.

  Valentine’s Day

  “Do we find happiness so often that we should turn it off the box when it happens to sit there?”

  E. M. Forster

  A Room with a View

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Stepping out from behind the bar, I decide to wipe down the empty tables, which are many because it’s only two p.m. But it’s two p.m. on Valentine’s Day, which means the drunk, the lonely, and most likely the horny will be entering soon.

  “Hand it over.” It would sound like a command if the rhythmic lilt of his accent wasn’t so lovely.

  I turn around to face Daniel, hand outstretched, waiting for me to give him what he’s asking for.

  “No,” I say. “I need it.”

  He grabs the rag from my hand.

  “Jordan. You’ve wiped down the bar, and the tables, and then the bar and the tables again, and no one has had the chance to dirty them yet. Relax. It’s just a class assignment.”

  He knows better than to make light of my anxiety, lest I direct my crazy at him, but I can’t help it. The crazy, that is.

  “If I don’t keep myself busy, I’m going to keep thinking about it, and if I think about it, I’m going to implode, and then you will have to clean more than the tabletops. So really, I’m doing you a favor.” Hmmm. I would go so far as to say I’ve made a logical argument.

  “Jordan, listen.”

  He sits me down in the booth I was about to clean and joins me. His green eyes bore into mine not with accusation or admonition, but with a gentle concern.

  “You were going to have to do this sooner or later. Better to get it over with when you can have a shot in one hand and a pint to chase it if you need. It’s just a kiss.”

  It’s not just a kiss.

  Knowing I had to come in to work early, Oliver had the brilliant idea of having our Much Ado rehearsal here before things got busy. Then anyone who wants to stay and celebrate their love lives, or drink away the lack thereof, can stay.

  “No one objected,” I tell Daniel. “Not when Oliver insisted that we rehearse the kiss. In an entire month, we’ve somehow managed not to practice that part, and now I get to do it with an audience.”

  Daniel looks around. “Jordan, there’s no one really here yet.”

  “You’re here. And trust me, Elaina will be here. Strangers would be easier, but you both know how I feel about Noah. That makes it all the more mortifying.”

  He shakes his head as he crosses his arms. “Don’t be daft. We’re your friends. We don’t aid in mortification. We do quite the opposite, really.”

  I try to force a smile because sweet Daniel means well, and I want him to know I appreciate his friendship. But there’s nothing he can say to make this any better.

  “I’m sorry, Daniel. But where Noah and I are involved, nothing is just a kiss.”

  He hands me back the rag, and I clean.

  Oliver arrives by two forty-five, no doubt appeasing his ego by showing up first so he can take control. He spots me wiping down the tables, and I usher him to the booth.

  “If it starts getting a little more hectic, this should shelter us from any unwanted noise.”

  He appraises my seating selection before sitting down. I’m sure he’d love to veto it and choose another table so he can say he chose it, but he knows there’s no better table than this.

  I excuse myself and head back behind the bar to dispose of my overused rag. Because she closed the bar last night, Elaina comes in later than us. I’d think it would suck to work on Valentine’s Day while dating, but Elaina’s perfectly happy to have Duncan meet her here later so they can snog their socks off across the bar. Basically, their usual Saturday night.

  Her pace quickens as soon as she comes through the door. “Did I miss it? Did you kiss him yet?”

  I don’t dignify her ridiculous enthusiasm. Instead I grab the tray of pints I’ve poured and head back to the table. Phillip and Emily are here. We’re missing one.

  As soon as I pass out the drinks, Noah walks in. Immediately my heart sinks because the way he’s dressed indicates he’s ready for more than a read-through. He’s got plans tonight.

  His dark jeans are snug enough on his thighs before relaxing the rest of the way to the ground. Instead of the fisherman’s sweater I always picture him in when I think of Noah in this place, he wears a black button-down fitted over his midsection and tucked into his jeans above a black leather belt. Other than New Year’s Eve, I’ve never seen him dressed like this. He’s a T-shirt, fleece, and jeans kind of guy, at least that’s how I’ve always thought of him, casual and laid back. When I see that despite his date-like attire he’s still wearing Chucks, I have to suppress the hint of a smile.

  And yes, I have thought about him over the past six weeks. How can I not when I see him every other day, when I have to rehearse with him every Saturday? Despite the measured distance between us, we are too often in close physical proximity. It started out awkward, but habit breeds comfort, and things have been easier with us lately, in class at least. We still avoid each other in social situations and make concerted efforts not to leave class at the same time to walk back to Hillhead. That part is still hard.

  “Hey,” I say. “You look nice.” Six weeks ago I would have teased him for dressing up. Then again, six weeks ago, he would have been dressing up for me. So instead, I infuse my tone with sincerity because, there’s no question. He looks good.

  He smiles, but not with his eyes. “Thanks.”

  As he sits, I hand him the second to last pint from the tray, the last one, of course, is for me.

  Oliver raises a glass. “To Beatrice and Benedick!”

  I’m about to drink to his cheesy toast but am interrupted by mild-mannered Emily.

  “Hey,” she whines. “What about Hero and Claudio?

  Oliver gives her the look that I love, the “Oh, you poor, poor thing” look that in a flash tells Emily she doesn’t know this scene at all.

  “While I admit this scene gives us a lovely reunion between Claudio and Hero, the attention really belongs to Beatrice and Benedick—two characters who have forsworn
love but loved each other all along despite themselves. This is the kiss that proves that. This is the kiss that practically ends the play. This is the kiss that shows how foolish it is to hold back anything when it comes to love!”

  Emily’s mouth hangs slightly open, and Phillip stares, but they aren’t looking at Oliver. They are looking at me and Noah, and neither of us smiles.

  “Shit, Oliver,” I finally say. “No pressure.”

  God, if he only knew.

  We start with a table read, during which I catch Elaina out of the corner of my eye. She’s on a step stool, a tote bag hanging over her forearm, fastening something to the ceiling above a table across the way. She repeats the action at each table until she gets to ours, subsequently halting our rehearsal. No one can to concentrate while she stands above us. With her black hair pulled back into a long, low ponytail, a lock of grown-out fringe keeps falling in her face as she tilts her head up to…holy shit. She’s hanging mistletoe.

  The whole table looks at me because apparently I am in charge of the crazy Greek on the ladder.

  “Elaina?”

  She finishes and climbs down.

  “Jordan.”

  “What are you doing?”

  She opens the tote bag and tilts it toward me so I can see all of the sprigs of the plant that, no doubt, will adorn the ceiling above every table.

  “I am hanging the mistletoe.”

  She is not.

  “Why are you hanging thee meesle toe?”

  She glares at me before continuing, hating when I mock her accent.

  “Because. It is Valentine’s Day. Doesn’t it make sense to encourage the snogging on this holiday?”

  She cannot be serious.

  “That’s a lovely idea,” Emily says dreamily, looking at Phillip. I knew it. Hero really is falling for Claudio. Sweet, shy Phillip doesn’t say anything, but a slow smile spreads across his face.

  “Yes, it is lovely, but we’ve already got plenty of encouragement for kissing right here.” Oliver flourishes his script at Elaina, but she shrugs and moves on to the next table.

  “Can we finish the table read? You do all realize that this is my break, right? And I’ve barely started working.” I’m getting impatient. Anxious and impatient. I want to get this over with and get back behind the bar where I can nurse a pint and not think about why Noah is dressed like he is, because it’s not for me.