Sift

by L. D. Davis

  “Only if you do that whole confused country-hipster thing you do so well.” I gestured at him, moving my hand in a circle.

  “It’s a date, Mrs. Chandler.”

  I wiggled my toes. “I’m not Mrs. Chandler yet.”

  “Baby, since that night you walked into Louie’s bar, you’ve always been Mrs. Chandler to me.”

  As the Beer Bong Bon Voyage Party raged on, I smiled to myself at the memory of that night and the following day. I had no doubts before I said my vows and no regrets afterward. Marrying Connor was one of the easiest decisions I’d ever made in my life. When I’d been with Cade, we’d talked about getting married, but there had always been doubts on my end. Always some reluctance to believe that we could be happy together as husband and wife. I’d always felt like he would have married me just to claim me and to keep me shackled to him.

  I watched as Connor chatted with Anthony and Demarcus. I had a feeling there were going to be some more interesting body shots shortly.

  “Dar,” Cherry hissed my name a couple feet away, where she stood in the doorway to her bedroom. She nodded her head once toward her room, indicating for me to follow.

  “Are you finally gonna admit that you’re in love with me, and you wanna make love just once before I go away?” I teased as I closed the door behind me.

  She wrinkled her nose. “You wouldn’t even know what to do with all of this Cubano special sauce. Come here to the window. I spilled beer all over my shirt, so I came in here to change. I came over here to put the shade down, but not before I saw that.”

  I squeezed into the small space between her bed and dresser with her and peeked out the window. At first, I didn’t see anything—I didn’t even know what I was looking for.

  “What am I supposed to be looking at?” I asked.

  “You see that car? The black Maxima with the tinted windows?”

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  “It’s Caden’s new car.”

  My heart beat skipped once, but I ignored it and looked at my friend.

  “How do you know what his new car looks like?”

  I didn’t mean for it to sound like an accusation, but that was how it had come out.

  Cherry’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling as if the answer were up there.

  “I was…in it.”

  “What do you mean you were ‘in it’?”

  She sighed and met my gaze. “It wasn’t like that. Stop using that tone with me like I’m some kind of ex-stealing puta.”

  I didn’t change my tone. “Are you an ex-stealing puta?”

  Cherry did something she never did. She rambled. Like me.

  “I was at Tattooed Mom on a date a couple months ago, and the guy ditched me, okay? It was a blind date set up by Georgette and the guy kept making little comments about my size. Then he got a pretend phone call, probably from one of his buddies, claimed he had some kind of emergency and left. I had seen Cade on my way in earlier, but we had only acknowledged each other with polite nods. After the piece of shit left, I was taking money out to pay the tab—that’s right, the piece of shit also left me with the bill—and Cade came up to me and asked me if the guy had left. I told him yeah, that it wasn’t a big deal, and I put on my best smile and told him that I guessed it wasn’t true love after all. I started to leave, but Cade stopped me, put my money back into my hand, picked up my bill, and then offered me a ride home.”

  I gawked at her. There were so many questions to ask. Who was Cade there with? How did he know the guy had even left? Was he watching Cherry? What was the car ride home like?

  I pushed all those questions aside, however, and asked the most important one.

  “He was making comments about your size?” I asked incredulously. “Cherry, you’re curvy and delicious!”

  She shrugged one shoulder and tried to act nonchalant, but I could tell that it had hurt her, even just a little bit.

  “I guess he didn’t like my curvy deliciousness.”

  “Aww, Cherry bomb,” I cooed and hugged her. “He probably only had a little dick anyway.”

  We laughed together and then pulled apart. She glanced out the window again.

  “Do you think your husband will mind if you go out there?”

  I snorted. “Of course he will mind, but he won’t try to stop me.”

  Her eyes shifted back to me. “Do you think it’s wise for you to go out there?”

  I sighed. “I think he just wants to say goodbye. I think I can give him that.”

  It was Cherry’s turn to snort. “Sounds a lot like pity. I don’t think Caden Hanes needs your pity.”

  I stared at her. What the hell had happened during that car ride home?

  I looked back out the window. “It’s not pity. I want to say goodbye, too.”

  I turned away from Cherry and the window and started to the door. When I cracked it open a little bit, letting in the sounds of the party, I looked back and found her still gazing out of the window.

  “Will you look after him for me, Cher?” I asked quietly. “Just check up on him for me from time to time?”

  She finally tore her gaze away from the dark window and met my eyes.

  “I don’t want to, but I will. For you.”

  Hmm. Maybe for yourself, too.

  It wasn’t jealousy that I felt, but a residual possessiveness. I didn’t want Cade, not even a little bit, but if Cherry felt anything for him…

  It didn’t matter. If she could make him happy and vice versa, that would be all that mattered, but maybe I was getting way ahead of myself and overthinking. Maybe what I thought I was sensing was wrong.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be back in a little bit.”

  Connor gave me ten minutes. If I wasn’t back in ten minutes, he was coming after me.

  As soon as my feet hit the sidewalk on the side of the building, the driver’s side door of the Maxima opened, and Cade stepped out. By the time I reached him, he was leaning against the passenger’s side door with his arms crossed, waiting for me.

  I stopped a couple of feet away from him. “A Maxima? I never in my whole life thought I’d see you driving a Maxima.”

  He smiled at me. It wasn’t his full on, heartbreaking smile that used to take my breath away, but it wasn’t weighed down with the sadness I’d seen from him the last time we saw each other. I could hardly believe it had almost been a whole year.

  “I sold my Ferrari so I could use the cash to pay some bills for this chick that wants to fucking travel around the world.”

  I grinned. “I’m sure she would gladly give you the money back if she knew how far you have fallen to have to buy a common car like a Maxima.”

  “She better fucking not.”

  I shrugged. “It was worth a shot.” I walked over to the car and leaned on it a foot away from him. “I wasn’t allowed to lean on the Ferrari.”

  He looked at me. “A Maxima isn’t exactly fucking cheap. It’s not that bad.”

  “No, no. It’s not a bad car at all. It’s just, you know, not…you.”

  “It’s temporary. I’ll buy another sporty and fast car that is horrible on gas mileage later.”

  We both laughed softly and then fell silent for a long minute.

  “So, you’re finally doing it,” Cade murmured.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I’m finally doing it.” I looked over at him. “I’m not sure if I’d be able to if it weren’t for you.”

  He shrugged and met my eyes. “If it weren’t for me, you would have been able to a long fucking time ago.” I started to object, but he shook his head. “Don’t deny it, Dar. You don’t have to fucking spare my feelings. It’s the truth, and you know it.”

  “Just because it’s the truth doesn’t mean that you have to speak it out loud,” I whispered.

  “We should always speak the truth out loud, Dar. Maybe if I had spoken the truth out loud a long time ago instead of burying it, I would have been able to let you go a long time ago. We would both be in different places r
ight now. Maybe what happened to you last year would have never happened.”

  One of my shoulders rose and fell slowly. “Maybe. That’s a lot of maybes, Cade. And none of them matter. We are where we are, and…I love where I am.”

  His gaze dropped to my left hand. “Of course you do. As long as you’re happy,” he whispered.

  “I am, and I hope you will be, too. It means a lot to me that you find something or someone that makes you happy. Not that half happy shit that we did. Real, solid, unbreakable happiness. That’s what I want for you.”

  I glanced up at Cherry’s window, and he followed my gaze. No one was there, as far as I could tell.

  “So…you and Cherry?” I asked carefully.

  His head snapped back down, and he stared at me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  I couldn’t hide my stupid smile. “You gave her a ride home after her date dumped her.”

  “That guy was a fucking prick,” Cade growled. “And stop looking at me like that. There’s nothing, I mean fucking nothing between me and Maria.”

  “Ohhh, Maria is it?” I teased.

  He rolled his eyes. Actually rolled his eyes!

  “That woman is fucking crazy, okay? My arm accidentally brushed her tit, and she nearly ran us off the road trying to kick my ass while I was driving.”

  I threw my head back and laughed hard. “Accidentally? Really?”

  Cade looked so angry. “It’s kind of fucking hard not to touch her tits. Have you seen them? They’re everywhere.”

  “Oh, don’t let her hear you say that,” I warned. “I know you don’t mean it like it sounds, but that guy dumped her because of her size.”

  Cade stared stupidly at me. “What’s wrong with her size?”

  “Absolutely nothing. She’s curvy and delicious.”

  He looked away and dragged a hand through his hair. “Yeah, she’s…something.”

  Movement on the corner caught my eye, and I immediately recognized Connor as he started to stride down the sidewalk toward us. Cade saw him, too and sighed.

  “I guess you have to go,” he muttered.

  I moved away from the car and stood in front of him. “Yeah. He gave me ten minutes, and I’m sure it’s been longer than that, but I had to come see ya once more before I left. I had to thank you again. Cade, I really can’t find the words to let you know how grateful I am for what you’ve done.”

  “You don’t need words, Dar,” he said, offering me a small smile. “Just go do what you were always meant to do. That’s all the thanks I need.”

  My voice shook a little when I spoke again. “I will. I promise.”

  He moved suddenly and pulled me in for a hug. “I’m really fucking proud of you, baby,” he whispered.

  Then just as suddenly as he had pulled me in, he released me and stepped back. Connor arrived at my side a second later.

  “Don’t let any fucking thing happen to her,” Cade said harshly to Connor.

  Connor put an arm around my waist and drew me in close. He could have gotten in Cade’s face, but he didn’t have to. He had me, and that was injury enough to his nemesis.

  “I won’t ever let anything happen to my wife,” Connor said coolly.

  I had just enough time to wave a goodbye to Cade and mouth another thanks before Connor steered me away.

  This time, I did look back, but Cade wasn’t looking at us. He was looking up at Cherry’s window.

  Two and a half years later…

  The old woman yelled at me in Portuguese, but I was only able to catch a few of the words, as my Portuguese was rather rusty. Okay, so maybe almost non-existent.

  “Like this?” I asked, feeling hopeful as I handled the thin layer of dough.

  “Yes, yes,” she said, throwing her hands up as if thanking her god that the bone-headed American girl finally got something right.

  It was like that for the next two hours. Sra Graca Vilela shouting orders at me as her granddaughters giggled. Sometimes I got it wrong, but sometimes I got it right. In the end, the pastéis de nata—custard tarts, were perfect. I was barely able to make myself save any to take back to our o apartamento for Connor.

  I thanked Sra Graca Vilela and her family for allowing me into their home and left for the short walk down the o caminho to the tiny one room apartment we were staying in.

  We—Connor and me—had been traveling for most of three years. We were in Evora, Portugal, on the last leg of this particular trip, after gallivanting through Morocco and then Spain for four months. Our first year out in the world, we had stayed in France, sometimes around Paris, but mostly we kept to the smaller villages and communes. We also trekked through Italy during that time, with pit stops in Austria and Switzerland, where I got real chocolate truffles. We’d gone back home for a few months after that first year, and then went to Japan for two months before visiting Thailand and then the Philippines.

  Traveling around the world had the potential to be a very expensive endeavor. Sometimes, especially in the beginning, we were surprised by how quickly we went through some of our combined savings. We had to learn fast how to live without many of the conveniences and luxuries we’d been used to. The suitcases we had each arrived with had been whittled down to nothing more than a couple of large backpacks. Instead of staying in hotel rooms, we rented tiny rooms with beds that barely fit the two of us, with shared bathrooms—if there were bathrooms—and often no use of a kitchen. Sometimes our money went a long way, and we were able to afford a more private space, and our own toilets and showers.

  We weren’t broke, or in danger of being broke, and we always had emergency funds set aside in the event we had to leave unexpectedly, but to keep things that way, we had to take some action. Connor was already working remotely as a technical writer for a London based company by the time we got to Italy, but he had also picked up a few hours a day doing tech support for customers of a big retail company in the states. We carried our own internet with us just in case we went somewhere without service. I picked up small jobs where I could, even though in many cases they didn’t pay hardly anything at all.

  Soon, we would be back in the states. Usually, we stayed for a month or two, three at the most before heading back out, but this time, we would be staying for a good while. We weren’t tired, and there was still so much more to see, but it was just time to settle down.

  “Hey, you,” I said upon entering our small apartment above a noisy bar.

  Connor looked up from his laptop and grinned at me. “Hey, beautiful. How did it go?”

  I reached into my bag and produced the tarts. “Not bad. I’m pretty sure Sra Graca Vilela called me a dumb cow, though.”

  I leaned over and kissed him. My hand moved along his clean-shaven jaw. It had been almost two years since he had shaved his beard, but sometimes his bare skin still felt strange to my touch.

  “For a dumb cow, you sure can kiss,” Connor murmured against my mouth.

  I giggled and then pulled my satchel off and dropped it on our bed before taking a seat next to him.

  “These are delicious,” he said, taking a second bite out of a tart.

  “Yeah, well, I did make them. Don’t forget that Marta and Pedro are having our jantar de despedida tonight,” I reminded him, resting my head on his shoulder.

  “I haven’t forgotten about the goodbye dinner. Don’t you forget that my parents are having a welcome home dinner for us as soon as we get back.”

  “Not immediately after, right?” I asked warily. “I’ll be able to take a nap first and like, shower?”

  Connor chuckled. “Yes, you’ll be able to take a nap and like, shower.”

  “They still don’t know, right?”

  “They still don’t know,” he confirmed.

  What Kirk and Nerissa, my parents, and the rest of our families didn’t know was that we would be staying home for an extended period of time. They all thought that we would be back on a plane to the middle of nowhere in a couple of months at most.


  “I think everyone will be excited that we’re staying,” I said sleepily.

  I felt Connor’s nod. A minute later he closed his laptop and put it and the carefully wrapped pastéis de nata down on the small table.

  “Hey,” he said, gently tilting my head up so he could see my eyes.

  “What?”

  “Are you excited? I’ll be taking you away from all of this. You love being out here, roughing it in the world.”

  Was I excited? I really didn’t have to think about it.

  “Yes, I’m excited,” I told him honestly. “I never thought that I would have done as much we’ve already done. We’ve been to ten countries, Connor. Ten. That’s an amazing feat for a girl coming out of Craigsville, Virginia. We not only lived my dreams, but we lived beyond my dreams. I don’t mind having to settle down. Chances are that this is it, that we’ll never be able to do it again, not like we’ve done these past few years, but that’s okay. We’ve done a lot. We have so many stories to tell and memories to share, and I’ve learned so much. It was the best education I could’ve had. Most importantly, I got to do all of this with you. I don’t have any reason to be sad, especially since we’re going to be starting another new adventure together. I’m excited about that, too, and I’m excited for you.”

  I squeezed his hand, and he took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. He was still smiling, though.

  “I’m excited, too, and nervous. I’m taking on a big risk, and it’s not just my risk to take, but it ours.” He gestured between us.

  One of Connor’s friends owned and operated a growing software developing company out of Baltimore and offered Connor a place on his team. It was one of the primary reasons we were going home. He would have to go to Baltimore for training and orientation for a week or two, but after that Connor would be able to work from home, except for mandatory company meetings in Baltimore once or twice a month.

  It was a risk because companies like that were made and unmade every day. The market was flooded with nearly identical applications for phones and other devices. However, Mac, Connor’s friend, had somehow established some solid connections with some of the bigger social media sites out there. His business was growing rapidly. It could fall just as rapidly, too.