Love's Encore Series (Books One and Two)

by Miranda MacLeod

  She hoped that would discourage any more questions, because she was all out of answers.

  That hadn’t been acting, method or any other type. Of that, Cecily was sure. She had no idea what it was, but it wasn’t anything she’d learned in class. It was something urgent and primal, that had taken over her senses and left her shaken to the core. As she followed Rorie through the crowd toward the door, she no longer noticed the heat or the crowd, no longer cared if Rorie’s ex had seen them or what she thought. She was too busy trying to figure out how to navigate through a world that had suddenly shifted beneath her.

  Chapter 16

  The walkway was illuminated solely by the faint glow of a distant streetlight as Rorie approached the big, white colonial house in Darien for the second time in a week. The porch light was off, and the front windows dark, but a single lamp shining from a window near the back told her that Cecily was home. She pressed the glowing doorbell button firmly. Cecily wasn’t expecting her tonight, so simply knocking might go unheard, or provide her with a convenient excuse not to answer. And much to her annoyance, Rorie found that she really wanted Cecily to answer, to invite her in.

  Since they spoke in her office, the thought of seeing Cecily at the gala had consumed her thoughts. That, and a mental image of the last time they’d danced together, which had kept her up well into the early morning, tossing and turning as the memory played continuously in her head. When Cecily skipped the gala last night, she should have taken it as a sign. Instead, she was standing on her doorstep.

  “Hey!” The door swung open and Cecily stood in a patch of light in the entry hall, blinking into the darkness. “What are you doing here?”

  “You weren’t at the party last night and Susan told me you were sick. I thought you might need some of this.” She held up a plastic bag just the right size to hold a pint of ice cream.

  “Is that Cherry Garcia?” Cecily’s eyes grew wide as she looked at the bag.

  “What else? Please don't tell me you've gone dairy free or something since college.”

  “Don't be ridiculous. Besides, this would be purely medicinal, which doesn't count anyway. But,” Cecily added with a groan, “I have a confession. I’m not really sick. I just told Susan that to get out of going last night.”

  “You know, I kind of figured that was a possibility, so I brought this, too.” Rorie held out a plastic DVD case. “A highlights reel of Bailey and Phinn from Who Wants to be a Bride? You said you hadn't seen it, so I had a friend in LA who worked on the show put it together for me last week.”

  “You didn’t!” she squealed. “I confess, I’ve been dying to see it!” She stepped aside to let Rorie in.

  “Are we heading down to the screening room?” Rorie asked.

  “We probably should since you brought me the super special Hollywood insider edition, but do you mind if we don’t?” Cecily replied. “It’s just, it’s kind of a hassle and there’s a little TV in my sitting room we can use.”

  “How very middle class of you,” Rorie teased. “Sounds perfect.”

  Cecily led the way to a cozy room at the back of the house, just off the kitchen. “We’ll sit in here. Make yourself comfortable and I’ll find some spoons for the ice cream.”

  Rorie looked around the room, which was the first spot in this massive house to look exactly like she’d expected. Cozy and feminine, with pastel colors on the walls and a subtle scent of lavender in the air, it reflected Cecily’s personality in a way that the rest of the house did not. There was a fluffy knitted throw crumpled in a heap on one side of the floral loveseat, and a half finished glass of wine next to an open paperback novel atop a wooden tray on the ottoman. Cecily must’ve been reading back here when the doorbell rang, and Rorie had a sense that it was far from the first Sunday night she’d spent that way; alone, in this room. It was infinitely nicer than the hotel room where Rorie currently passed most of her evenings, but alone was alone in either case.

  Is that why I came here? She wondered, settling into the space on the loveseat opposite Cecily’s blanket. She sighed as she sank back into the pillows, which were down-filled and welcomed her into them like a warm hug. Am I just lonely? She was used to lonely. This felt like something else, and that worried her. It’d barely been a month since Cecily had walked through the scene shop doors, and back into her life, and during that time she’d been through every emotion in the book. Twice.

  Anger. Exhilaration. Fear.

  Hope.

  Hope was the one that made her the most nervous. Her relationship with Cecily had teetered on a razor sharp line between inevitable and impossible from the very beginning. Even now, she couldn’t be certain on which side they would land. Admitting to that uncertainty, admitting there was a chance for anything other than failure and ruin, was like pinning a target on her chest, right above whatever fragments of her heart remained after the first time through. And hoping for anything more than friendship was beyond foolish. Those choices had all been made long ago, as cold and unyielding as the band of gold on Cecily's left ring finger.

  A smart woman would get up right now and run.

  Rorie stood—and walked to the television. She fiddled with a few buttons until the screen lit up and the tray for the DVD player popped open. She put the disc inside, closed it up, and sat back down to wait for Cecily’s return.

  Like a complete idiot.

  “Got us some spoons,” Cecily announced, holding them up as she entered the sitting room. “And I found hot fudge. It took me an extra minute so I could microwave it, but it’s just the right temperature and gooeyness.” She plopped herself down on the loveseat and wriggled to remove the blanket from beneath her with one hand while she offered a spoon to Rorie with the other. She stared at the ice cream container, which Rorie had placed on the tray beside the wine glass, a wrinkle creasing her brow. “I guess I should get some bowls …”

  “No, don’t bother,” Rorie assured her, picking up the carton and placing it in the narrow space between them on the couch. “We can just share it like we always do.”

  Is it really right to say ‘always’ if it’s been almost twenty years?

  But time was an easily-forgotten detail when everything felt simultaneously immediate and eternal between them. Were they middle-aged women or seniors in college? Lately, Rorie was having trouble remembering.

  “So, just press play?” Cecily asked, pointing the remote at the TV.

  “Yeah,” Rorie said, digging her spoon into her side of the ice cream. She scraped most of the chocolate chunks onto the other side. They were Cecily’s favorite.

  The opening credits rolled, complete with cheesy theme song accompaniment. A rapid montage flashed across the screen with a dizzying array of contestants from the first episode, followed by Bailey and Phinn meeting for the first time.

  “Aww,” Cecily said, taking the ice cream carton from Rorie as she spoke. “Look how cute they are together! They have great on-screen chemistry.”

  “Yeah. They were the fan favorites from the start. Sometimes people are just in sync from the beginning.” Rorie reached for the ice cream, smiling at the three extra cherries that had appeared on her half. She drizzled them with hot fudge straight from the jar. The perfect food. “Oh, yum,” she sighed, sucking one of the chocolate-covered cherries into her mouth from the spoon. “I never eat stuff like this.”

  Cecily shifted her gaze from the television screen to the tips of Rorie’s stockinged feet, which rested on the edge of the ottoman, scanning languidly along the length of her body. Rorie could practically feel her eyes raking over every curve, forcing her pulse into an irregular, stuttering beat.

  “Obviously,” Cecily said, with an uplift of her brows and downcast glance that telegraphed pure desire.

  Rorie’s breath caught in her throat, and along with it a fragment of gooey fudge-covered cherry. Very smooth. For a moment she couldn’t breath, and it seemed the height of unfairness that she would meet her demise at the hands of a woman who li
terally took her breath away. But then she managed enough of a cough to clear her throat and drew several shallow breaths, punctuated with more coughing.

  “Should I get you some water?” Cecily asked. She looked concerned, but the way she held her hand up to cover her mouth made it obvious that she was attempting to hide her amusement, too.

  She’s enjoying this, damn it. But their attraction was just a game to her. It always had been.

  Cecily hopped up, returning a moment later with a glass. When she sat down again, she was much closer than before, her body radiating waves of heat like a furnace. Rorie took the glass, brushing Cecily’s fingers with her own as she did, and blinking as the light from the television glinted off Cecily's wedding band. She tilted the glass back, draining the water in a single go. It soothed the tickle in her throat, but did nothing to relieve her distress.

  “Oh, it’s the chapel scene,” Cecily announced, turning her attention back to the screen. “Oh. Oh my.”

  Rorie shifted uncomfortably, not from Cecily’s continued nearness this time, but from the events playing out on the television. “This part’s a little hard to watch.”

  “I feel so bad for them,” Cecily remarked. “And a little bit like I’m intruding. Which is weird, because I know millions of people watched this on TV, but it feels so personal.”

  Rorie nodded. “It feels different once you know them. Plus, you're Bailey's new BFF now,” she teased.

  “I know you’re joking, but I kind of am. A friend, anyway. Or maybe more like her mom. I don't know, but I guess I kind of understand her.” Cecily watched the screen silently for a moment, her shoulder resting against Rorie’s. “She loved him, you know. She still does.” Her voice was sorrowful and soft, hardly more than a whisper.

  Rorie swiveled to face her, breaking the contact between them as she did. “She made a choice.” It sounded harsher than she intended, but she didn’t regret it.

  Cecily swallowed. “She made a mistake,” she countered, as if pleading with her friend to see the difference.

  “It’s still a choice, even if it was the wrong one. It doesn’t change anything.”

  They stared at one another for a moment, both smart enough to know that they were no longer talking about Bailey and Phinn, and wise enough not to acknowledge it.

  Cecily looked away first, her attention landing on the silver watch on Rorie's wrist. “I'm surprised you kept it. Considering.”

  Rorie looked down, too, at the reminder of Cecily she'd carried with her every day for eighteen years. She shrugged, downplaying the significance. “It was a lot nicer than anything I could afford. I've gotten used to it and never saw the need to replace it, that's all.”

  Cecily smiled a small, sad smile, then leaned forward toward the dirty spoons and empty ice cream carton on the ottoman. She tidied them up distractedly, adding them to the tray with her discarded wine glass, then taking Rorie’s glass from her hand and adding it to the mix. “I’ll just go put these in the kitchen,” she said, and hurried off.

  Classic Cici, Rorie thought. Always running away.

  It was a good reminder. This wasn’t college any more. Rorie put her hands to her head, massaging the ache in her temples, and sighed. Whether you called them choices or mistakes, the fact remained they’d happened a lifetime ago. And what was the result? For Cecily, it wasn’t such a bad life.

  Rorie looked around the room, this room that Cecily had decorated in a similar style to what she'd favored in college. What she'd failed to notice before was the sheer expense of it. Like the rest of the house, price had simply not been a consideration. That was the type of life Cecily had been raised to expect. Rorie felt a bitter taste in the back of her throat. Clearly it had been worth more to her to surround herself with nice things than with love, and that's exactly what she'd ended up with. This was what was most important to her.

  So that pervasive loneliness Rorie’d detected earlier? It was her own damn fault.

  She drew in a deep breath, and the scent of lavender tickled her nose. That smell never failed to make her melancholy. She breathed in a second time anyway, almost reveling in the ache it produced. That feeling of loneliness she sensed was surely more a projection of her own life than a reflection of Cecily’s. Rorie was the one who never settled down, who went where the jobs took her. She was the one so afraid of being abandoned again that she never let anyone get close enough to get the chance.

  Rorie closed her eyes, and the image of that golden wedding band taunted her. Cecily had a husband. She had a son. She had friends, many of whom Rorie had met the evening before at the gala. They were vapid, frivolous friends, the grown-up equivalent of the sorority girls Cecily’d grown weary of in college, but they were numerous. If she didn't like the type of people who surrounded her now, it's not like she hadn't known what to expect going in.

  Rorie clenched her fists in frustration. The bottom line was, Cecily was bored. She’d grown bored during her last year of college, and she was bored now that her son was almost grown. She wanted something exciting, and both then and now, that’s what Rorie was for her. She'd never been more to Cecily than part of a role she was trying out. Something to amuse her, and then discard. But after eighteen years of failed relationships, Rorie wanted more than that, and she would never get it here.

  She rose to retrieve the DVD from the machine. She would head back to her hotel tonight, and throw herself head-first back into her work tomorrow morning. She’d be home in LA in another four weeks, and when she left, she and Cici would part as friends. And then maybe that would fix her issues and she could finally move on. She hated to admit it, but Susan had been right. She’d allowed what happened in college—Cecily leaving—to define her for far too long. She squared her shoulders in determination. It was time for that to change.

  This time we'll part on my terms.

  “You leaving?” Cecily asked, returning from the kitchen and leaning against the open doorway.

  Rorie nodded. “I think I should. I really just came by to check on you and bring you the DVD. Gotta be at work early in the morning.”

  Cecily smiled tentatively. “I’m glad you came by.” The way she said it hinted at her realization that they wouldn’t do this again.

  “Well,” Rorie added after a pause, “I figured I should wish you a happy birthday.”

  Cecily laughed in surprise. “You remembered it’s my birthday? How on earth?” Just the hint of the old southern accent peeked through in her words.

  “Well,” Rorie glanced away, “it was sort of…memorable. The last time.”

  She could almost feel the damp Louisiana air and the way Cecily's body had slid against hers as their lips met that night, and she cursed herself for not having the resolve to at least pretend to forget. She wondered if it haunted Cecily the way it haunted her. But why would it, when it had meant nothing to her?

  The two women stood frozen as the seconds ticked by, until they both realized at once that it was time to move. To move on. Rorie took a step toward the open doorway at the same time Cecily shifted to let her pass, and as their bodies passed within inches of one another, the sound of a lone chord from a guitar echoed through the room, freezing them both in place again.

  The DVD player had shut off and the television, smart technological device that it was, had kicked up a music playlist in its place, just as it had been instructed to do in some factory in Japan where its preferences had been set months ago. Why that particular song was in the rotation at that particular moment in time defied explanation, though neither Rorie nor Cecily looked for a reason. From the moment the first note played, they’d moved entirely beyond reason.

  There’d been that shock of recognition at the moment it played, and then Cecily’s expression had transformed in an indescribable way that managed to convey the depth of emotions within her that no number of words ever could. She slumped forward a little, and Rorie did too, unable to hold herself upright as everything she thought she’d come to understand shifted in
to something unrecognizable. As the song continued to play, they held each other up, swaying wordlessly. Rorie breathed in the faint scent of lavender that surrounded them, and tasted the saltiness of both their tears as her lips connected with Cecily’s. And it was as though no time had passed at all.

  Chapter 17

  Thunder rumbled in the distance as they made their way across a wooded section of campus toward Cecily’s dorm. The moon was not quite full, but between it and the occasional flashes of lightning from the impending storm, it was just bright enough to pick out the path. Patches of fog hovered ghostlike around the tree trunks, and clumps of Spanish moss dripped from the branches overhead. The area was pleasant and pretty during the day, but shrouded in mystery tonight. Not unlike Cecily, Rorie thought. She’d barely said a word since they left the party, leaving Rorie completely in the dark as to exactly what was going on back there.

  Whatever had happened between them, confusion didn’t begin to describe Rorie’s feelings about it. One minute they were playing a game to get back at her ex, the next they were in the middle of the most passionate kiss Rorie’d ever experienced. Her body still hummed from the all-consuming, unexpected exhilaration of that kiss, a kiss that Cecily had initiated, and escalated, all on her own. Rorie would swear to that fact. She may have daydreamed once or twice about kissing Cecily like that, but she never would’ve had the guts to do it. The odds of rejection were much too high, and Rorie didn’t have the protection of pretending she was anyone but herself. Wasn’t that something actresses learned to do, what Cecily had done?

  But could it really have been an act? It had felt all too real from where she stood. Nearly knocked her off her feet. She had no idea what to do about it, and Cecily’s sudden silence provided no clues.

  “Are you sure you’re okay with walking?” Rorie asked, searching for any topic to provide a break from her own thoughts.