by Amy Brent
“You know shacking up with a girl might—”
“Don’t you dare,” I said.
“You need to let go of it.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Tyler, you’re letting her—”
“I should’ve let her do more,” I said curtly.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and routed him back to the one conversation I knew would get him off that one. Anything to get him off Ana.
“How does nine at Varnish sound?”
“Oh hell yes. I’m there,” he said.
“See you then.”
I hung up the phone before he could get another word in edgewise. Then, looking around at all the boxes I had yet to unpack, I figured I could start in on a few of those. After getting through ten of them and working up a decent sweat, I looked at the clock and groaned.
It was already seven thirty, and downtown would be packed with traffic and the after-dinner drink rush.
I hopped in the shower and went to go put a suit on, then decided on jeans and a T-shirt instead. The less I could showcase my money, the better chance Brandon stood at hooking up with a girl tonight. Not that I was better-looking than he was, but in my experience, women gravitated toward any man they thought might make good money in his later years.
Jeans and a T-shirt didn’t scream of a good job, of a six-figure salary. It screamed “deadbeat surfer dude” on a good night.
And I wasn’t planning on having a good night.
I knew the second Brandon embraced me that I was in for trouble. He had that smirk on his face that hadn’t changed since freshman year. I always knew when someone had something up their sleeve, but Brandon wore that shit like a badge of honor. Everyone always knew when he was up to something, and he didn’t care.
When he pointed to two girls sitting at the bar by themselves, I groaned.
“I told you I’m not hooking up with anyone tonight,” I said.
“And you don’t have to. Look, see the one on the right? With the beautiful jet-black hair? Her body language is very open, very ready. The one on the left? She’s closed off. Her legs are crossed and her hair is in a high, tight bun. She’s not looking for someone, just like you.”
“Oh, so we cannot look for someone while we fuck each other’s brains out?”
“No, but you can keep the friend entertained while I swoop in on the one that might be available.”
“You were being serious about that game plan thing, weren’t you?” I asked.
“Not until I saw those two beauties when I walked in. And trust me, they’re gorgeous.”
“Nice eyes? I know you have a thing for eyes.”
“Don’t know. They haven’t turned around.”
“They haven’t—Brandon!”
He took me by the arm and pulled me their way. Of course he would have some batshit-crazy scheme up his sleeve for the night. I wrenched my arm away from him as we approached the two women from behind.
I had to admit, he’d done a pretty good job of reading their body language. The one with the black hair did have a more open stance. Her shoulders were rolled back. Her legs weren’t crossed. Her outfit was a little skimpier. The woman beside her was the exact opposite: caved shoulders, crossed legs, jeans and a basic shirt.
Like me.
“I’m sorry for intruding, but I just have to say that seeing the two of you lovely ladies alone tonight makes my heart ache. Would you mind if me and a friend of mine joined you?”
I shook my head and fought the urge to roll my eyes. If that was how Brandon was picking up women, no wonder he had hit a dry patch. The girls looked at one another before they turned in their seats, and the playful grins on their faces told me everything I needed to know about how this encounter would go.
Until their jaws dropped open.
“Brandon?”
“Tyler?”
As I took in the face of the woman in front of me in jeans and a tight shirt, my mouth went dry. Those curves. That thick, dirty blond hair piled high on her head. That doe-eyed stare that reminded me of the crystal-clear waters of tropical islands.
“Ana,” I said.
“Kristi. Wow. You look incredible,” Brandon said.
I nudged him to get him to shut up as my eyes roamed Ana’s body. She locked up instantly. I watched her do it. Every muscle in her body tensed as her eyes locked onto my face in disbelief.
Her thighs had thickened and her hips looked as if they had spread with womanhood. Her bosom moved with every shallow breath she took, and all the memories of losing myself in her curves came barreling back. The way she moaned. The way her plump lips wrapped around my cock. The way her soft arms wrapped around my neck and pulled me in for all those heated, stolen kisses in the shadows of the bleachers during football season.
The way she would always gasp how much she loved me.
“How are you doing?” Ana asked.
Her smooth voice ripped me from my trance, and I did the one thing I had wanted to do for years. I opened my arms to her and gave her a hug. She only hugged me with one arm, using that move where she sort of turned her body away from mine. But I didn’t care. It had been years since I’d felt her against me, and the muscles of my arms screamed out to feel her again.
I leaned over and gave Kristi a pat on the back to try to smooth things over a little, but the awkwardness of the situation hung heavy between all of us.
“It’s been a while since you’ve been back in town,” Kristi said.
“Four years, give or take,” I said.
“Do the two of you frequent this bar?” Brandon asked.
“Never been. This one was Kristi’s pick,” Ana said.
“So how long are you in town for, Tyler?” Kristi asked.
“I’m back here permanently.”
“You’re what?” Ana asked.
My eyes whipped over to hers as her face fell in shock.
“I just opened up my own practice in an office building up the road from here. I started taking on clients a week ago,” I said.
“A week ago?” Ana asked.
“Been in town two weeks, but yes, a week ago.”
“Well, that’s fun!” Kristi said.
Her voice was a little too cheery for the statement.
“Tyler here is a trial lawyer. Setting himself up to be the best of the best when it comes to defense lawyers.”
“So you defend criminals,” Ana said.
“I never take on a client whose story I don’t believe,” I said.
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“You didn’t ask a question.”
“Oh, he’s good,” Kristi said.
Ana’s jaw tensed as anger flared in her eyes. Anger I recognized from the last time I ever saw her, the last time we ever spoke. She had every right to be upset with me after what I had said to her, what I had done to her.
Even so, the slight wrinkling of her nose said there was more to it. With the anger in her eyes, the shock in her forehead, and the closed-off nature of her posture, there was only one conclusion I came to that could be the result of all those reactions at once.
Ana didn’t want me staying in town for long, and I wanted to know why.
“So, what do you guys do now?” Brandon asked.
“I manage Ana’s clothing store,” Kristi said.
“You have a clothing store?” I asked.
“Curvy Belle,” Ana said flatly.
“Wait, what? You own Curvy Belle?” Brandon asked.
“Is that a well-known brand around here?” I asked.
“Only the premier plus-sized store on the West Coast,” Kristi said.
“You’d know that if you ever came home,” Ana said.
“Well, I’m home now. Maybe I’ll stop by and see it sometime,” I said.
Ana started to say something, but Kristi settled a hand on her knee—an action that didn’t go unnoticed by me.
“Congratulations on your clothing store. I didn’t know you had a th
ing for fashion,” I said.
“Why? Because I was a fat, acne-ridden girl in high school?” Ana asked.
“No, because you always found a way to rise above the facade and dig into something deeper.”
“Everyone deserves to feel beautiful once in a while.”
“Though for you, I think it’s a little more than once in a while.”
Kristi’s jaw dropped to the floor as Ana shook her head.
“What was your inspiration behind the store?” I asked.
“Money.”
“Oh, come on. I know you better than that.”
“I promise, you don’t.”
“Okay, how about another round of drinks?” Brandon asked.
“I’m good actually,” Ana said as she set her glass down.
“Me, too,” Kristi said.
“Well, where are the two of you headed? Maybe we could escort you there and make sure you get there safely,” Brandon said.
Really? He was still trying his shtick?
“We’re both a little tired. I think it’s time we retired for the night,” Ana said.
She shot Kristi a look that told me what she had said was an outright lie.
“Yeah, tired. It was nice seeing you guys again. Maybe we’ll see you again at the ten-year reunion or something?” Kristi asked.
“Are you sure you guys don’t—?”
I shot Brandon a look that told him to shut up. It was done, over. The opportunity had been wasted the second they turned out to be who they were.
My eyes panned back to Ana and fell to her swaying hips as she and Kristi made their way to the exit. Even in a ragged pair of jeans and a gray blouse, she looked fantastic, though a far cry away from someone who would be considered a fashionista.
Then again, maybe she was right. Maybe I didn’t really know her at all after eight years apart.
That didn’t mean I didn’t want to see her again, though. I knew they weren’t tired, and I wanted to know why she didn’t want me in town, if anything so I could get closure at least. Though that wasn’t what I wanted. What I wanted was to feel her body against mine again, to stare into her eyes and see my reflection, to kiss those lips and pin her to the wall before fucking her insane again.
Or for the first time. I hadn’t been nearly as strong in high school as I was now.
I’d have done anything to get back into her arms. But first I had to figure out why she didn’t want to be back in mine.
Ana
“He said permanently, right?” I asked.
“He did,” Kristi said as she folded up clothes for a display.
“So that means he’s back in town for good.”
“That’s usually what permanent means.”
“So after eight years, Tyler’s back in town for good.”
“Do we need to take a ten-minute break? You were silent all last night, and now you won’t stop talking about it.”
“What if he finds out about Brody?” I asked.
I looked over at Kristi and she sighed. She finished folding the shirt display we had set out for our summertime rush. Then she turned and locked eyes with me.
“Before we go any further with this conversation, you need to take a deep breath,” she said.
“Okay. Then what?” I asked.
“First? Breathe. In through your nose. Out through your mouth.”
I took two deep breaths in time with Kristi’s demonstration.
“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe he’s back in town,” I said as I let the last one out.
“Well, that was pretty good until the last one,” she said. “Come on, another deep breath.”
“What if he finds out about Brody?”
“Then my question would be, what would be so bad about that?”
“You’re really asking me that question?”
“Yes, I am. The time you convinced yourself would never come is here. I told you Tyler would never truly be able to move away forever. At some point in time, he was bound to come back to his hometown. I told you to prepare for that, and since you didn’t believe me, we have to prepare now. So, out of your mouth, I want you to tell me what’s so bad about him finding out about Brody.”
I was so glad my parents had told me they would keep him for an extra day. He didn’t need to be overhearing conversations like this.
“Because he left, Kristi, after saying some of the most awful things to me.”
“The two of you were eighteen and exploring relationships for the first time. Neither of you knew how to express yourselves.”
“He told me he was glad to be going to Harvard, to be getting away from me.”
“But did you really believe him? Do you really believe it now?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe. I didn’t want a child to hold him back then and I don’t want one to hold him back now.”
“How would having a son hold him back?”
“He’d drop everything he was doing in order to try to make things work. I think at least. I don’t know. Or he might still be an angry eighteen-year-old and tell me he’s happy he left me with a kid or something.”
“So your reasons for not telling him are he’s either the biggest asshole on the planet—which we both know isn’t true—or he’d be so good of a father that he’d drop his life to help raise him?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I said.
“Ana, you’ve been a single mother for eight years. Don’t you want some help?”
“I haven't needed help up until this point and I don’t need it now. Like you said, I’ve done it for eight years. I can do it for eighty more.”
“But do you want to do it for eighty more by yourself?” she asked.
“I don’t need help from him, or from anyone else. I never have and I never will.”
“It wouldn’t be help, Ana. That man is Brody’s father. And your son has a right to know who his father is and choose for himself whether or not he wants a relationship with him.”
“He’s eight. Most of the time he doesn't know if he wants a blue popsicle or an orange one.”
“So you’re telling me you’re going to keep your son a secret from his father because you don’t want to deal with the reality that Tyler may stick around? I know you better than that. I know there’s more to this than that.”
“Then shut up about it until I can sort it out, okay? I’m not ready for any of that. I’m not ready to go to my son and say, ‘Hey! Your dad magically showed up back in town!’ Or go to him and say, ‘Hey! You have a son I never told you about because you said shitty things to me, plus I didn’t want to hold you back because I love you too much!’”
“Do you still love him?” Kristi asked.
I shot her a look, but I also didn’t respond. I wasn't ready to delve into how I felt after seeing Tyler pop up in that bar last night. I wasn’t ready to talk about what it would mean if Tyler stuck around for Brody, because I knew he would. I wasn’t ready to talk about the unresolved feelings I had regarding the way Tyler and I had left things that day after one of the biggest fights we’d ever had, and just three days before graduation.
“You know I love you, Ana. And in the moment I will always take your side. I will always defend and support you. But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with you. I think what you have here is a great opportunity for a lot of things. Healing. Closure. Establishing a relationship between Brody and his father. And I don’t think you’re in the right emotional headspace to deal with all of it.”
“Which is why I stopped talking about it,” I said.
“Just know that whatever you decide, I’ll support you, but I will never lie to you. If I think you’re fucking up, I’ll tell you. I won’t attempt to change what you’re doing, but I’ll always tell you the truth.”
“Which is why I love you. So, with all that love between us, please, can we drop it?”
Kristi nodded and went back to folding clothes, and I made my way into the stockroom to do inventor
y. The second the door closed behind me, his face popped into my mind. He looked so grown up. So handsome. So incredible standing there in his faded jeans and his tight T-shirt.
His face had gone from a boyish handsome to a full-grown handsome. His scruff was neatly trimmed and his piercing green eyes sparkled with delight. His shaggy light brown hair wasn’t shaggy at all but neatly parted to the side in a professional manner. And his body. Fuck. He filled out his clothes in ways that made my skin crawl.
I hated that I had wanted to stay around him at the bar.
Kristi was right. Brody deserved a relationship with his father. And I knew Tyler deserved to know he had a son. But I wasn't ready for any of that. I wasn’t ready to field those conversations and the anger that would come my way. I wasn’t ready to upend the life that had taken me eight years to build simply because Tyler had come swooping back into the picture. Why did it have to change just because he existed? What about Brody’s stability? Or mine?
Didn’t any of that matter?
Ripping open boxes, I started taking stock of things. I keyed new items into the system and discarded the broken-down boxes out back. I enjoyed that kind of work, the kind that required mental capacity as well as physical capacity. I lost myself in that kind of work, the kind that had a rhythm and a rhyme. I knew what was coming and it was predictable even on its worst days.
I enjoyed predictable. I could see predictable coming.
Tyler had never been predictable. Brody had never been predictable.
It wasn’t until I opened the last box in the stockroom that I realized tears were streaming down my cheeks.
Tyler
After spending all day Friday thinking about my encounter with Ana, I decided to go out and do a little scouting. I knew where she worked, and with how anxious she had been to get away from me, I would have to engineer another meeting between us to see her again. I punched the name Curvy Belle into my GPS, and it pulled up a store in the heart of downtown Los Angeles.
Wow. Her shop must have been really successful to have real estate like that.
I pulled up and parked, taking in the facade of the building. The logo for the store was creative: two upside down bells fused together to make the shape of a curvy woman. The storefront was fluid and seductive, which set the tone as I walked in. Racks of clothing meant for bigger women in all shapes and sizes and textures surrounded me. There were patterns and animal prints and designer fashion, some even with a name on them I recognized.
