None of the words are making sense. I know what they are telling me, but I don’t understand. He told me he was coming home. I suddenly remember the email. I have the email. It’s in my pocket. It came to the doctor with me today. It comes with me everywhere I go.
“Stop it,” I scream at the top of my lungs, silencing the voices in my living room. This isn’t right. They made a mistake. It wasn’t my Charlie. They have him confused with someone else.
“Please, just stop. You’re wrong. He was coming home.”
I pull out the paper, waving it around, shoving it into the chest of the senior officer that’s been doing all of the talking.
“He. Was. Coming. Home. He said so, right here. It’s right here. Just read it.” I shove the letter into the officer’s chest with each punctuated word that leaves my mouth.
I collapse against his huge body, sobs taking over my body. He gently pries the piece of paper from my hands, folds it back up using the worn pattern etched into the paper, and presses it back into my hand.
“I’m sorry ma’am.”
Celeste pulls me from his arms and walks me down the short hallway to my bedroom. “Get in bed, Andi. Let me get them out the house. I’ll be back in a second.”
I can feel her hot tears dripping on my cheek as she’s speaking into my ear, and then she’s gone.
Everything is gone.
I have nothing.
Chapter Eleven
Miller
I hide out in my room all day. I’m a coward, I know, but the scenarios I’m imagining don’t play out well for me. I’m mentally prepared for either Cappy or Andi’s mysterious husband to come over here and kick my ass when they hear about what happened between the two of us last night. I should have never let that kiss happen, but the tequila’s not completely to blame. I’m fairly certain I would have let it happen sober. Hell, I would probably let it happen again, even though I know it’s wrong.
I need to get out of here before the bar opens. I’m not scheduled to work tonight. The problem is, I just don’t have anywhere to go. I think about going to McSharry’s, the Irish Pub everyone here raves about, but I need to stay away from drinking and women. I should go for a run. It’ll be getting dark soon, but I’ve been running here enough so I know I can do it in the dark without a problem. I’m getting changed when I hear a knock.
I open the door and brace for attack. The last person I expect to see is Andi, leaning against the wall and pulling on her lip when I throw open the door. When she hears it open, she drops her hand and gives me a timid smile.
“Hey.”
“Can you come with me?” she asks, her voice reserved and shy. This is new. “I need to talk to you.”
“Sure,” I tell her, confused at what’s going on. I need to apologize so this tension in the air will go away. I don’t like this hovering around us. It makes it hard to breathe. “Andi, I’m sorry about last night. I told you tequila was a bad idea.”
She shakes her head, but doesn’t respond. We walk around the building and she leads me to a truck I’ve never seen before. She unlocks the doors and tells me to get in.
“It’s Cap’s truck. We need it to get where we’re going.”
“You’re not going to kill me and stash my body somewhere, are you?”
“That’s a bit dramatic just because we kissed, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know, Andi. You running away from me last night was a bit dramatic. You should have stayed so we could have talked about it.”
Those eyes of hers are blazing again, but she doesn’t have a reply. She drives for a while, taking us further through Fairhope than I’ve ever wandered in my explorations and to a residential section of the town that I’ve never seen. It’s hard to see in the dark, but acres and acres of green pastures are laid out in front of us, wrapped in three rail horse fences. Sprawling mansions and beautiful barns are scattered throughout. We get to a section of the fence with a gate and I expect her to stop the truck and kill the engine, but she doesn’t. She hops out of the truck, engine running, and fiddles with a lock. She gets back in the truck a minute later and drives through the open gate and along the fence line. When she gets to a spot she’s satisfied with, far off the main road, she parks the truck and gets out.
“What is this place?”
“This is where I come when I need to get away. I stumbled upon it when we first came here. I like to come here to clear my head, look at the stars, and just be.”
“Should I take it as a good sign or a bad sign that you’re sharing it with me?”
“I need to talk to you. Last night proved that we don’t do so well in the bar, so this seemed like the best place.”
She hops in the bed of the truck, spreads out a worn quilt and motions for me to join her. As she’s getting settled, she explains how she stumbled across it.
“This isn’t actually part of Fairhope, but Point Clear. This is their Polo complex. There are several different fields here. They have games three days a week for their Polo league, plus a huge fundraiser each year. They’ve raised millions for various charities around the state.”
All very interesting, but I doubt Andi brought me here for a history lesson on the town. I want her to get to the point of this little excursion, but I don’t want to push her.
She starts fidgeting, so I get the feeling that she’s about to give me some explanations about last night. As soon as the fingers of her right hand start twirling the gold band on her left hand, pulling it on and off her finger, she launches into her story.
“I met my husband when I was eighteen. I was in a bar with Celeste. I literally ran into him, took one look at him, and told him I was gonna marry him.”
She’s smiling at the memory. Tears are shining in her eyes, but she looks so happy, lost in her thoughts. I feel like an intruder, like I shouldn’t be hearing this, or seeing her react to their relationship.
“It was a fast, crazy, whirlwind romance. Six months later, we were married. My family cut off all ties with me. I was a disgrace to the family. They couldn’t believe that their daughter got married at eighteen, much less to a Navy SEAL who was eight years older than her. That was not the future they had picked out for me. So, I had Charlie and I had Celeste. They were all the family I needed.”
She stops, pulling at some loose threads around the borders of the blanket. I don’t urge her to keep talking. She can take all the time she needs. There’s a rock sitting in my stomach. The second she mentioned the SEALs, coupled with the fact that I’ve never laid eyes on her husband, I realized where this story was going. In fact, I don’t even want her to finish it.
“I had almost a full year with him to myself. We almost made it to our one year anniversary before he was deployed that first time. I was a mess. I didn’t think I would survive it. If it wasn’t for Celeste, I don’t think I would have. When he finally came home, it was bittersweet. I loved every second, but I couldn’t stand the fact that I knew he would be taken from me again. And he was, so soon after. It was a torturous cycle. I’d have him back, but then he’d be taken from me again. It’s like when you’re a kid, those last few weeks before summer vacation ends. You want to enjoy them, but you know they’re ending and school’s starting again. I felt so bad for having those feelings. He tried to warn me. The first time I met him, he told me I wouldn’t be able to handle it, but I put up a fight and he gave in.” She whispers so softly, “Some days it’s so hard, I wish I would have just listened to him.”
I pull her into my arms and let her cry. “You don’t have to finish this for my benefit, Andi.”
When she gets her tears under control, she tells me, “I just wanted you to know why I reacted like I did last night. I haven’t kissed anyone since I lost him two and a half years ago. It scared me and I was angry at myself for doing it. Angry for doing that to him.”
“I understand. We’re both dealing with some pretty heavy stuff. Mine doesn’t come close to comparing, but I get it.”
“
Ghosts,” she whispers, running her fingers lightly across my knuckles that are still very much swollen and angry from a few nights ago.
I give her hand a squeeze.
“Not all ghosts are dead,” I whisper into the crown of her head.
She pulls out of my arms and looks up at me. “I want us to be friends, Miller. I don’t want what happened last night to make things awkward. I like you, I just can’t go there with you. I’m not capable of anything like that right now. I don’t think you are either.”
She deserves so much better than what I’m capable of giving right now. She deserves so much better than me.
I shake my head. “No, I don’t think I am.”
“I want you to tell me about her.”
I don’t want to tell her. I hate talking about Lucy. It’s hard enough just having to think about her. But I take in a huge breath and do it anyway. If Andi can tell me about her husband, I can tell her about Goose. My situation pales in comparison to what she’s had to go through. I lie back on the old blanket, lace my hands behind my head, and look up at the night sky.
“I have been in love with the same person my entire life. We’ve been inseparable since we were kids. We were the very best of friends. We’ve been friends, lovers, roommates, and everything in between. I watched her almost die, waiting for a kidney transplant. I kept her alive, helping her with home dialysis every night. I watched her fall in love with someone else while she was in the process of dying. I’ve listened to her give me the ‘I love you, but I love him more’ speech countless times. And, I left the only home I’ve ever known because I can’t stand to see her with him.”
“I’m so sorry, Miller,” she whispers, resting her body next to mine and wiping at tears I didn’t realize were leaking from my eyes.
We lie on that tattered blanket together, in the middle of those abandoned fields, crying, holding on to each other, letting our emotions go in the darkness of the night.
When it’s time to leave, we untangle ourselves from each other’s arms. I brace for the impending awkwardness, but it never comes. I actually feel like some of the weight I’ve been carrying around all these weeks has been lifted, thanks to Andi. I get the feeling that she feels better, too. There’s lightness in her eyes that wasn’t there before. I didn’t realize how much sadness was present, but I do now that a bit of it is gone.
I help her to her feet and proceed to shake out the blanket and fold it up so we can put it back in the cab of the truck. As we walk back to the front of truck, she starts talking again.
“So, why here?”
“What do you mean?” I ask her.
“You just decided to come to Fairhope on a whim? Do you know anyone else here?” she asks.
We get settled into the truck and she pulls onto the road. I take a minute to study her face in the moonlight coming through the window. I might as well tell her the real version of events and not the G-rated version that Cappy got.
“Nope. It’s all thanks to a one night stand and a gas station attendant.”
She looks at me and laughs. “What?”
“I’d been driving around aimlessly for a while, staying in random places. I wasn’t sure if I would ever stay somewhere more than a few nights. But, I met girl whose name was Hope. I kind of had an emotional breakdown while I was with her. It was quite embarrassing. Anyway, she got me to tell her about what happened, tell her why I was on this path of destruction. She was the first person I had said anything about it to. The next day, I asked a guy working at the gas station about somewhere to stay. He suggested this place. I figured someone was trying to tell me something. I mean, a girl named Hope and a town called Fairhope. It can’t be a coincidence.”
She pulls out that radiant smile, making my heart skip a few beats.
“And it certainly can’t be a coincidence that you met Cappy and he introduced you to me.”
“And why is that?” I ask, returning her smile. I can’t help it. She’s beaming and it’s contagious.
She grabs my hand. “Because my name is Andrea Hope. Well, Andrea Hope McCall was my maiden name.”
“I guess us meeting each other is fate, Andrea Hope.”
“Call me that again and I will punch you,” she says.
“Why?”
“It’s such a girl’s name,” she tells me, rolling her eyes.
“You are, in fact, a girl,” I point out.
“I know, but I don’t act like one. Andi suits me better, don’t you think?”
What I think is that I’m going to have a very difficult time keeping this girl at a distance. I think that Andrea Hope would be a good distraction for me. But she made it perfectly clear that we wouldn’t be going there. She’s still just as devoted to her husband as she was the day they exchanged their wedding vows. I have to respect that. If all we can be is friends, then that’s what we will be.
“Yeah. I think Andi suits you just fine.”
Chapter Twelve
Miller
I honestly don’t know what I would do without Andi Bankston. Over the next few months, she becomes my lifeline. We develop an invaluable friendship; one I wouldn’t know how to survive without. She’s an amazing woman. Between caring for Charley, working two jobs, and maintaining a household, she still takes the time out of her crazy life to try and fix mine.
Those trips to the polo fields become our therapy. The bed of my truck and Andi’s worn quilt act as a psychologist’s couch. The glow of the stars replaces the harshness of an office light. Crickets chirping take the place of the sounds of a pen scratching across a pad of paper, recording our innermost thoughts and emotions. On the nights that we both work at The Shipyard, we head out there in my truck after the bar closes and lay in the bed of my truck, under the stars, letting everything out. She’s heard every single detail of my life with Lucy, and I’ve heard every single detail of her life with Charlie. I am in complete awe of her. I don’t know how she’s continued on day after day, especially those months after he was killed. She’s by far the strongest woman I know.
Sometimes, in those moments we share in the back of my truck, I forget that she’s not mine. It’s been a constant battle lately. The more I’m around her, the more I want to be with her. I know I can’t handle anything more than a physical relationship, but the need for her is getting stronger and stronger.
Our conversations don’t always revolve around our hurtful pasts. We talk about what we want to do with the rest of our lives. During times like these, I have to refrain from rolling over on that old quilt and kissing her. I catch myself reaching for her, desperate to touch her, and I have to roll back at the last minute, looking like a complete fool. We are very affectionate with each other, but it’s in a way that I would be with any friend that’s a girl. One that’s married? No. But I just can’t keep my hands from reaching out to Andi and brushing her hair from her face, or pulling her into my arms for a hug, or rubbing my hand up and down her thigh. We tend to gravitate towards each other, the pull undeniable, especially when we’re in the back of my truck on that worn out quilt.
On one of those nights, she convinces me that I should go back home to get the rest of my stuff that I left behind. She convinces me that I’m stronger now, that I can handle being back there and around the people that I left those months ago.
“Let’s go this weekend. Celeste and Cappy can handle the bar. I don’t have another shift at Page & Palette until Tuesday morning. We can make it a long weekend.”
“You want to come home with me?” I ask, a little shocked. It’s not going to be a walk in the park.
“Miller, I told you I would. Don’t you remember?” she asks, grabbing my hand and rubbing her fingers over my scarred knuckles. I remember every detail of that morning after I flipped out. I remember that dream I had. It replays in my mind on a daily basis, as does the real kiss we shared.
“I remember. I didn’t think you were being serious. It’s not going to be a very pleasant trip, Andi. I don’t know how I’m g
oing to react to being back there, and I’m not sure I want you to be a part of that.”
Her face pales, hurt replacing the smile that was there just a second ago.
Shit. “That’s not what I mean. I don’t know if I want you to see me like that.”
She lifts up my hand and rolls her eyes. “How much worse can it get?”
“That was just from a phone call.” I can feel myself getting worked up over my next thought. My hands grow clammy in Andi’s grip. “What if I see her?” I whisper.
“You don’t have to. You’ll make sure you won’t see her if you’re not ready to. You can just go, get what you need, and leave. Besides, didn’t you say you wanted to go check on Maggie and her mom? You don’t have to see Lucy. Charley and I will come with you. It’ll be fine.” She pulls on that lip and looks at me, smiling. “Miller, us just having these kinds of conversations is huge. You’re so much stronger than you used to be. We got this.”
The next morning, I run my usual route and wind up in the park. I make my way over to Cappy and Charley at the swings. Her giggles can be heard from clear across the park. It reminds me of Ava. Despite my anxiety over returning home, I get excited at the idea of seeing her this weekend.
“Miller,” Charley yells, raising her arms for me to lift her out of the confines of the swing.
I pull her from the swing and hug her close. She wraps her arms around my neck, but wiggles away from me a few seconds later, running towards the slide.
“Mornin’, son. How was your run?” Cappy asks.
“Good,” I tell him.
“You seem much better these days, Miller. Does that have anything to do with my daughter-in-law?” he asks, patting my shoulder.
And there it is. I’ve been waiting to have this conversation with him. I knew it was only a matter of time before he would bring it up. And, of course, it would be today, when I came to ask him about working this weekend so I could bring her and Charley home with me.
The Promise of More: The Home Series, Book Three Page 8
