Elaine blew out a breath. “It’s weird to think of what could have been. If the explosion never happened and you’d stayed. If you’d been here all along…”
“I never would have met Autumn.” Blake said the words automatically, and his heart climbed into his throat. “She definitely would have been better off. Not me, though. I’m better for having known her, even if it was for too short a while.”
“This is the girlfriend?” Elaine rubbed her hands together. “Now we’re getting to the good stuff.”
Blake raised an eyebrow. “My decade of angst wasn’t the good stuff? Tough crowd.”
“Look at you, laughing at yourself.” Kevin tapped the necks of their beer bottles together. “Back in Rockaway for an hour and you’re already getting your sense of humor back.”
“Did I ever have a sense of humor?”
Elaine hummed. “Sometimes…it was kind of weird. But it counted.”
Blake smiled, even though it hurt. “Right.”
“That day I saw you in Manhattan—”
“What?” Elaine snacked Kevin in the chest. “You didn’t tell me about this.”
“It was man to man stuff,” Kevin shot back.
“Oh fuck off.” She waved at her husband, looking disgusted. “Continue.”
“Thank you,” Kevin said, not without a truckload of sarcasm. “When I saw you in Manhattan, there was a girl in the hallway. Blonde, about yay high.” He gestured to his shoulder. “That’s Autumn?”
“Yeah.” Holy shit, talking about her with these people who used to know him better than anyone…even just broaching the subject was cathartic. If someone had warned him a couple months ago that locking himself away was bad for his well being, he would have scoffed. Now he knew it was true. He’d needed his people. He had…people. “Yeah, that was her. I beat up her ex-boyfriend tonight.”
Elaine whooped. “Atta boy.”
“She left with him.”
Kevin winced. “Ohhh boy.”
“Yeah.” Blake massaged the bridge of his nose, marveling over the fact that he’d sunk so deep into jealousy over Ian it felt like an extension of him, just sitting on his shoulder like a hundred-pound tumor.
“I was never like this over Jodie. I realize now that the anger was at me for not seeing it coming. What she did. And I’m back in that place right now—just fucking angry at myself. But the consequences are worse. Much worse. She’s…it for me.” Blake exhaled, then filled them in on what he’d done at the variety show, volunteering Autumn without consulting her first. “No surprise to anyone, I did things on my own timeline. I didn’t…”
“Communicate with her.” Elaine waited, but Blake wasn’t sure for what. “Ask her what she was thinking. What she wanted.”
Blake frowned. “No.”
“Why not?”
“What if she told me she wanted something—”
“That wasn’t convenient for you?”
“Yes,” Blake returned sharply. “What if she never realized how strong she was? What if she never got on a stage and lived her dream? That might have sent her back to Australia. I needed her to stay. I needed…” Blake stared down at his beer. “Fuck.”
Elaine made a big show of crossing her legs. “I bill by the hour.”
Kevin snorted. “She only knows the answers because I do the same thing. I forget to look her in the eye and ask what she’s thinking.”
“It’s easy to do when your head is up your ass.” Elaine chuckled. “Ah, I’m guilty of it myself. We don’t want to hear what we don’t want to hear. It’s human nature.”
“I decided what she needed.” Blake set down his beer. If he drank another drop, he was going to be sick. Sicker than he already was, which was saying something. Where was Autumn now? Did she hate him? “Kind of wishing I’d taken the train here yesterday.”
Elaine stood and leaned down to give Blake a hug. “Give her some time to cool off, then go apologize. And for the love of God, listen to her. That’s an order.”
When Elaine straightened, Kevin put an arm around her shoulders. “So this is it, huh? You’re done making us feel like shit?”
Blake looked around the room, wishing he was in bed with Autumn, smelling her hair as sleep hit him…while at the same time, feeling pretty damn lucky to still have his friends. “I guess I have no choice, since I need to sleep on your couch.”
It took Blake hours to finally fall asleep and when he did, he woke up to an earthquake. Although he hadn’t experienced very many of them, he couldn’t recall squealing being a part of the scenario. A sharp object gouged him in the stomach and he jackknifed on the couch, toppling a…child onto her back?
“Who are you?” Another little girl screeched, holding a throw pillow at the ready to bash him in the face. “Dad!”
The pillow connected and Blake saw stars.
“Hold on now…” He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs from his brain. “I’m a friend of your parents.”
“Nope.” Another girl—bigger than the others—tapped her foot. “We know all their friends. You’re, like, a vagrant or something. Mom!”
“If I’m a vagrant, you shouldn’t be engaging with me.”
Another pillow was swung at his head, but he ducked in time to avoid it. “Kevin!”
Laughter trailed down the stairs, revealing his old friends, dressed in their bathrobes. “Girls,” Elaine said, wiping tears from her eyes. “You were trained better than this. Why aren’t you waterboarding him?”
Kevin reached one of the girls and swung her up onto his shoulder. “Ladies Donahue, meet your Uncle Blake. He’s a crabby piece of work, but for some reason, we put up with him.”
Elaine winked at Blake. “You’ll be seeing him around more often. So let’s feed him and make him feel at home.”
Just like that, he went from enemy of the state to object of curiosity. Blake wasn’t allowed to get up from the couch until he’d answered several questions from each girl about his place of residence, his favorite foods and what he wanted to be when he grew up. In order from oldest to youngest, they wanted to be a dolphin trainer, a Kindergarten teacher, a YouTube star and a bow maker. By the time he was allowed to get up and enter the kitchen, both cats were asleep on his lap and he couldn’t get up anyway, so Elaine handed him a bowl of cereal over her daughters’ heads while they all settled in to watch something on the Disney Chanel called Descendants. Within the hour, he found himself settling disputes about which girl got to recite which characters’ lines and weighing in on which of the male leads was cuter.
Blake looked up to find Elaine and Kevin smiling at him from the doorway. He rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help but acknowledge he’d done the right thing coming to Rockaway last night. How long had he needed this sense of home without realizing? There were loose ends inside him that were connecting and growing solid…even as his heart remained in tatters.
Had he figured out how to offload his baggage too late to fix things with Autumn? God, even having a speck of hope was miles from the state of ruin he’d been in last night. After the block party, he would go home and knock on her door. If she refused to open the door, he’d let the whole building know he was in love with her. Whatever the consequences of that were, he would accept them, even if she didn’t love him back.
It was unbelievable how long it took to get a house of seven people ready just to go outside. Hours of crying and bargaining and rejecting of clothes, Kevin, Elaine, Blake and the four girls walked outside to help their neighbors set up for the block party. Same as always, the set up amounted to mismatched folding chairs, a bouncy castle and a couple of rolling barbeques. The block began to fill out and by noon, every house had emptied into the street. Music pumped from multiple sources—some traditional Irish, some Journey and Bob Seger—and hoards of children tore through the crowds like packs of wild dogs. Blake found himself concerned when the Ladies Donahue were out of sight, but Elaine told him to relax, that the girls had hundreds of babysitters looking out
for them.
Blake ran into several people he’d grown up with, all equally shocked to see him in the neighborhood. He really did want to focus on what they were saying to him, but his mind continued to drift back to Autumn. He didn’t want to be rude, but an anxiousness churned inside him, urging him to get back to Manhattan and repair the rift he’d created between them. After talking to Elaine and Kevin, he wanted to look her in the eye and beg for her thoughts.
What did she want?
Would she let him help get it for her?
Would she stay?
A tap on the shoulder distracted Blake from his thoughts. And he turned around to find his ex-fiancée staring back at him in shock. Blake waited for…something to happen inside of him. A kick of the nostalgia he couldn’t seem to stop experiencing since getting off the A train. Sadness or anger or regret over how he’d handled the situation. But as he looked back at the redhead who’d softened into maturity and finally embraced her ample height with heeled sandals, the strangest thing happened. Blake found himself laughing.
He laughed, because they’d been kids who’d made mistakes. Because they were adults now and there were bigger, scarier things in the world than their break up. Because he’d wasted time being angry and thinking himself superior when the easy way out of that shitty pit of quicksand was to just leave it behind.
“Jodie,” he said with a nod. “You look great. How are you?”
She sputtered, but recovered fast. “I’m well. I just…never expected to see you here. How…?”
The answer to how he’d gotten there was too long—and he couldn’t bring himself to talk about Autumn, so he went with simple. “I just got on a train.” A little girl ran up and clung to Jodie’s leg, the strawberry of her hair giving away their relationship at once.
“Is she yours?” Blake asked.
“Yes,” Jodie said, with a slight unevenness to her voice. “This is Brianna.”
“Dad is getting me a hot dog!”
“Ooh. Yum.” Jodie smoothed a hand over the little girl’s hair, while still looking right at him. “It’s not…it’s not the same guy. I’m not sure why I’m mentioning that, except I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
A punch of surprise caught Blake in the gut. He’d always assumed Jodie had married the doctor, but she hadn’t. She’d had a child with someone else. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that—but there was regret in him. Regret that he hadn’t been more sensitive to Jodie, despite the fact that she’d been unfaithful. In her early twenties she’d been with no one but him. If he’d been easier to talk to, maybe she would have told him marriage was too much, too soon, especially when she hadn’t explored yet. So many pitfalls in his life could have been avoided just by asking questions. Communicating. He didn’t intend to make that same mistake again.
Please God, just let his little Australian give him another shot.
“What about you?” Jodie asked, seeming more comfortable now that Blake hadn’t hung a scarlet letter around her neck and openly mocked her. “Is there a girl?”
“Yes.” His throat grew tight. “I wish she could have made it.”
Jodie pressed her lips together, her eyes bright. “I’m sorry, Blake,” she whispered. “No hard feelings?”
He shook his head. “None.”
Blake watched Jodie carry her daughter toward a man and accept a hot dog from the three he was carrying, the three of them looking happy. Content. For the first time in his life, Blake could see himself in their position. An arm around Autumn’s shoulder while one of them fed a child. A tall, moody one, or a funny blonde with hazel green eyes.
Did Autumn want that some day?
He’d have to ask her.
Blake was jostled from his thoughts when the cell phone in his pocket buzzed. His mouth went dry when he saw the caller ID. Autumn.
“Hey, Fun-Size,” he answered, dying to hear her voice. But it wasn’t Autumn’s that spoke, it was an unfamiliar man who sounded stressed as he tried to yell over the sounds of traffic and sirens. “Hello, sir…?”
“Autumn,” Blake shouted into the phone, his lungs seizing.
“Sir, there has been an accident. I was told to call you…”
Blake was demanding Kevin’s car keys before the man even finished his sentence, sprinting to the vehicle parked one street over in deference to the block party. What he’d just heard was a roar in his head.
No, no. Please don’t take her away from me. I’ve just figured out how to do this right.
CHAPTER 18
The text came at four in the morning. Autumn was awake to hear it arrive. She was lying on her back dreading the shift that was due to begin in a few hours, knowing her eyes would throb and her head would be puffy and stupid. The familiar ‘bing!’ was a welcome distraction.
Please, she begged as she scrabbled beneath her pillow for her phone. Sweet Lord, please let it be Blake, safe and sound and missing me.
With a jolt of excitement, she saw it was a text from him. She opened it with trembling fingers, confused even within her elation. Blake never texted. He barely called. He was old school ‘we agree to meet at this place and time and then we show up, without all this unnecessary electronic technology using.’ When she’d shown him some of the memes Owen had sent her, he had seemed genuinely baffled by the concept: picture messaging a person you spent forty hours a week with dumb jokes? For fun?
Her heart plummeted as she read the first line of the text, ‘Hi honey, this isn’t Blake…’
“Fuck,” she muttered.
‘…but don’t worry, I’m an old friend of his. I’m Elaine from Rockaway, where Blake grew up. Your man’s with us tonight, he’s fine. He’s on our couch snoring like a friggin’ bear, which was how I managed to steal his phone…’
Though still genuinely baffled, Autumn grinned. “What even is this message, lady I’ve never met?”
Elaine seemed to be thinking along the same lines. ‘…I’m hoping I don’t freak you out here but Blake talked to us about you tonight and while it’s very clear he fucked up—I swear to God if my husband did that to me he’d be sitting down to piss for a month—it’s obvious you two have something special. I don’t know you but something tells me you’re as hung up on him as he is on you. If that’s true, then I also know I’d want to find him as soon as possible and make things right. That’s why I’m reaching out. We’re having a block party up here tomorrow and I think you should come and surprise Blake. Maybe slap him a little for being a clueless asshole, but come see him too. I’m sending you a dropped pin as soon as I figure out how to do it…’
Autumn’s phone buzzed, showing Elaine had indeed just figured it out.
…I hope I get to meet you tomorrow! Blake’s always been an odd duck, but he’s a good man and he deserves to be happy. Ps. I need to hear why he popped your ex, Blake wouldn’t tell me anything. If you come tomorrow we can talk it over with some wine.’
“Elaine,” Autumn whispered. “You sound great.”
She locked her phone and lay back, considering what she’d just been told. A block party? Like, one of those American street fairs? And Blake was going? She smiled at the idea of her big man wading through the crowd eating a hot dog. Of course she would go. She would ask her boss to leave early, catch a Lyft to Rockaway and throw herself into Blake’s big, bear arms. She would ask him to forgive her for calling him a coward, then come hell or high water, they would make up. She yawned, her tiredness hitting her like a fog. Secure in the knowledge she would make things right, Autumn fell dead asleep.
Five hours and four coffees later, she wasn’t nearly so confident. From the minute Happy Paws opened its doors, she and all the other staff had been smashed with clients. There was some kind of doggie stomach virus going around and the waiting room was full of extremely miserable shih tzus and their even more miserable owners.
Autumn pushed through her lunchbreak, desperate to cut down the waiting list, but even without taking any breaks, her chances of h
er getting out early for the block party seemed as likely as flying to the moon on the back of a fucking swan.
As soon as she sent away a gloomy spaniel owner with a script for doggy antibiotics, she got another hysterical Persian owner insisting her cat had eaten her ‘caffeine pills’ which, after some gentle prodding, turned out—as it always did—to be MDMA. As soon as she got a moment’s respite, Autumn pulled out her phone and checked the time. Her pulse spiked as she realized the block party had already been going for an hour. Elaine hadn’t said anything about Blake’s state of mind. What if he left the block party and hit the road? Went where she wouldn’t be able to find him? The temptation to just grab her shit and bail was so strong.
She let out a shaky breath trying to remind herself that ditching her job for Blake would mean the sack, which in turn would mean her work visa would be invalidated. Although, if she didn’t go to Blake, she might not get to be with him, which meant she didn’t need her stupid job. The situation was a complete fucking catch 22. As her next client knocked on the clinic door, Autumn ran to her bag and pulled out her first edition copy of The Little Princess. She left it propped on her desk, looking at it every time she was sure she was going to go insane. It was a reminder that Blake cared about her and probably wouldn’t leave the block party with the intention of going off-grid in South America. Probably.
She was skulling from her water bottle, having just assessed a hamster with epilepsy, when Isabella came gliding into her room. She looked lovely as a spring morning, as usual, and was carrying a large takeaway cup. Autumn almost moaned at the scent of fresh espresso. “How are you holding up?”
“Good,” Isa said in her ethereal voice. “Have you taken your break?”
Autumn shook her head. “I can’t. I have like, ten more clients lined up before I can leave.”
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