Manhattan: A Small Town Friends-to-Lovers Romance (Becker Brothers Book 3)

by Kandi Steiner

  Maybe mudding hadn’t been the best idea, but today was a win.

  And I’d take it.

  “We should go to Blondies,” I shouted over the music.

  Mikey seemed a little lost in his own thoughts, but he shook them away, offering me a smile. “Okay.”

  “You alright?”

  He watched me for a long moment, like he was looking for something, but then his gaze found the road again and he nodded. “Yeah. Just a little tired.”

  I smiled mischievously, leaning forward to crank the radio up. “Nothing a little dance party can’t fix!”

  One eyebrow climbed on Mikey’s face as we pulled up to the first stoplight in town, and I mouthed the words to “Don’t Ya” while holding a fake microphone. My shoulders shimmied and shook, hips wiggling, and I even did a hair flip for some added drama.

  He laughed at that, shaking his head when I leaned over the console toward him and stuck the invisible microphone in his face. He pushed my fist away, so I leaned out my car window and sang to the car next to us. It was an older couple, and they smiled and bopped their heads along, encouraging me.

  “Get back in here, crazy girl,” Mikey said, tugging on my tank top until I was firmly seated again.

  “Only if you sing with me!”

  I shoved my fist back in front of him again, and he stared at me, still not cooperating. But when the light turned green and I shrugged, about to lean out the window again, he grabbed my wrist in his hands and belted out the chorus into my invisible mic.

  Laughter rolled through me, and I shimmied and sang along, passing the microphone between us like we were doing a karaoke duet on stage. When the song ended and we made the turn on Main Street toward Blondies, I held up my hand for a high-five, and Mikey slapped it as he fought against a smile.

  “Nerd,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Don’t act like that wasn’t fun.”

  He didn’t respond, and I wished I hadn’t been so fixated on him that I missed what was being said on the radio. I wished I hadn’t been tracing the bridge of his nose, the plumpness of his bottom lip — the one I used to tease him and say was his broody boy pouty lip. If only I hadn’t been cataloging the way his hair dried when it was wind-blown, or the olive color of his sun-kissed skin, or the way dusk touched the green in his eyes, maybe then I would have heard the announcer on the radio say which song was next before it was too late to change it.

  “… New from Nashville, it’s Bailey Baker with her brand new, debut song — ‘Mama’s Front Porch’.”

  All the blood drained from my face, the laughter gone immediately, and I watched as every muscle in Michael’s body tightened at once — his fists around the steering wheel, his shoulders up to his ears, his jaw, his chest. He was as stiff as a board as the first few notes of the song played, and as soon as her voice blasted through the speakers, my hand jutted out and hit the power button, leaving us blanketed in silence, but for the other cars on the road.

  He didn’t relax even an inch.

  His eyes stayed on the road, and when he drove past Blondies, I didn’t even bother telling him. Because I knew.

  That was it. The night was over.

  “Hey…” I tried, reaching for him. But as soon as my hand touched his forearm, he shook me off, and I pulled away like I’d touched a hot stove.

  “Don’t.”

  I swallowed, because I didn’t know a single thing I could say in that moment that would fix what just happened. No matter what I had to offer, nothing could erase the fact that the only girl he’d ever loved, the only girl to ever break his heart, now officially had a song on the radio.

  And he’d have to hear her, no matter how badly it hurt.

  He pulled up to the curb in front of my house, not even bothering to put the car in park. He just sat there, hands wrapped around the wheel, eyes losing focus somewhere in the distance as he waited for me to get out.

  “I don’t want to leave you like this.”

  “Like what?”

  I swallowed. “I don’t know…”

  “I’m fine,” he said curtly. “Like I said, I’m tired. I just want to go home and get some rest.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Goddamnit, Kylie!” he screamed, beating his fists on the wheel before he gripped it again. He turned and pinned me with cold, hard eyes. “Please, for Christ’s sake, just stop trying to fix me or save me or make me happy again or whatever it is you’re trying to do and just leave me alone.”

  The stinging hit my nose first, and my bottom lip trembled before I rolled it between my teeth. “I’m your best friend,” I reminded him. “Best friends don’t leave each other to drown in their own misery.”

  He blew out a breath through his nose like a dragon, finally putting the car in park before he ran his hands over his face. When his palms hit his lap, he turned to me, marginally calmer this time.

  “Kylie, please,” he said, and my heart cracked just like his voice did as he fought back emotion. “I need to be alone right now. Please.”

  Everything inside me told me to reach for him, but if I was his friend like I’d just pointed out, then I knew reaching for him wouldn’t be for him.

  It would be for me.

  It didn’t matter what I wanted right then. It didn’t matter that I wanted him to let me in, to let me help, to let me hold him and comfort him and take his pain away.

  Because he just told me what he needed, and I had no other choice but to give it to him.

  I swallowed, nodding with my lip still pinned between my teeth as I gathered my bag and towel and draped them both over my shoulder. I turned, hand on the door handle, words I wanted to say lodged somewhere deep in my throat. But I ignored them, tugging on the handle and stepping out of his car, instead.

  As soon as I shut the door again, he was gone.

  Kylie

  I’d never stared at my phone more in my life.

  I had the screen memorized, every color in the sunset I had set as my background, every number and letter that lit up on it when it was locked — the time, the date, the provider and battery life. I even catalogued the three hair-line cracks I had in the screen protector, and the way they made a sort of wishbone shape.

  But no matter how I willed it, Mikey wouldn’t text or call me back.

  It’d been four days since our day at the lake, and I hadn’t heard a single word from him.

  A heavy sigh left my lips as I locked my phone again, this time flipping it face down on the middle couch cushion and pulling my attention back to the TV screen. The History Channel was running a Civil War miniseries — one Dad had been counting down to — and so my evenings had been filled with the blood and gore and treacherous history of our nation’s past.

  Which, admittedly, was somehow less depressing than the current state of my own life.

  Staying busy was the only thing keeping me afloat that week. I spent my days at the nursing home and my evenings making dinner for Dad. Then, we’d plop down in the living room and watch the show while I scribbled more ideas in my adventure notebook, wondering if I’d get the chance to try any of them or if my time had passed.

  “Your sighs tonight have been powerful enough to steer a sailboat, Smiley,” Dad said, eyeing me from his recliner — the same one he’d had my whole life — before his attention was on the screen again.

  I sighed to drive the point home. “I’m sorry, just a little distracted.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  I shook my head, but a commercial came on the television, and Dad muted it, putting his full attention on me.

  “Is this about your gap year?”

  I picked at the fraying strings on the end of my hoodie, ones I’d chewed up throughout the years of wearing it. All of my hoodies were victims to my nervous chewing habit, and they all wore the scars.

  “You know, you don’t have to wait to go to college,” he said when I didn’t answer. “Your mom took that year off because she needed to, bec
ause she wanted to. You know what you want to do, and that you want to go to college,” he reminded me. “And you could still get in for spring semester, if you started applying now.”

  “It’s not that,” I said on a long exhale. “I mean, I’m still not sure what to do with my gap year, but I know I want to take it. Not just for mom,” I said, though that was a driving force. “But for me. I can’t explain it, but I feel like it’s what I’m supposed to do, like there’s something I need to learn, or some place I need to go or see before I go to college.” I frowned. “It’s weird, like a gut feeling that makes no sense but that I trust implicitly.”

  Dad smiled at that. “You got that from your mother. She used to call it her sixth sense. She would get a gut feeling about something and there was no talking her out of it, no matter how crazy it seemed.” He chuckled, looking at me like he saw her, instead. “That gut feeling saved us from one of the biggest pile ups on I-65 the year after you were born.”

  “Really?” My heart squeezed, a soft smile finding my lips at the thought of having something in common with Mom. Any time Dad told me that — you look like her, you sound like her, she did that, too — it warmed me from the inside out. I longed so badly to have her in me, to be a way she could live on.

  He nodded. “Tell you what, I never questioned her gut feelings again.” Dad watched me for a long pause. “Alright, if it’s not the gap year, then what is it?”

  I shifted. “Rhymes with Nike.”

  “Ah,” Dad said, as if now that I’d said it, he felt like he should have already known. He sat back in his chair with a thoughtful pause. “Sad that he’s leaving?”

  I nodded.

  “Still trying to get him to stay?”

  My mouth popped open at that, but Dad just smirked. “How did you know?”

  “You’re not as sneaky with that notebook as you’d like to think,” he said, nodding to the offending object in my lap. “Had it open all dinner. Can’t fault me for being a nosey old man when you leave stuff like that for the taking.”

  I chuckled. “Dad! That’s invasion of privacy,” I teased, but another sigh left me as my eyes fell to the notebook. “Not that it matters. The two adventures I’ve convinced him to take so far both blew up in my face.”

  “The lake day seemed great,” he countered. “Lorelei called me to tell me how thankful she was to you for organizing it all.”

  “It was great,” I said. “Until the car drive home, when the stupid radio played Bailey’s song.”

  Dad blanched at that. “They’re already playing her on the radio?” He shook his head. “She’s only been in Nashville for… what… five months?”

  “Eight,” I corrected, because yes, I’d been counting. “But yeah, it seems pretty fast. Mikey said the label that signed her was obsessed with her, that they couldn’t wait to get her album recorded.” I shrugged. “I guess she’s making waves over there.”

  Dad was quiet for a long moment as I picked at my hoodie strings. “Well,” he finally said. “I’m sure that was hard for him, but I’m also sure he appreciated the lake day. And that he had fun.”

  “He hasn’t texted me since then,” I confessed, staring at my phone. “Hasn’t returned my calls, either.”

  “Give him a little time, he’ll come around.”

  “Tomorrow is June ninth,” I said, peeking up at my Dad to see if he understood why that was important. His frown told me he did. “I can’t leave him alone.”

  Dad nodded. “Well, if I know anything about Mikey, it’s that he loves you.”

  My heart ached, for a reason I wasn’t ready to tell Dad yet.

  “And he will be happy to see you tomorrow, even if he doesn’t realize it at first.”

  “I’m not even sure he’ll let me through his front door.”

  “You’re my daughter,” Dad said. “And you won’t take no for an answer. That’s one of the most special things about your love and your friendship.” He pointed the remote at me. “It’s relentless.”

  I chuckled, glancing at my phone again as Dad unmuted the television. The miniseries stole his attention, and I thought about what he said, wondering if my relentless friendship would save me or drive the final nail into my coffin tomorrow.

  I’d find out soon enough.

  A mixture of determination and fear swirled within me like a stiff current as I wiped my sneakers on Mikey’s door mat the next evening. The sun was still warming my back, even though it was just past seven, and that was one of my favorite things about summer time. The days were long, the evenings full of promise instead of darkness.

  It’d been a long week, namely because Michael had ignored me for all of it. Giving him space when all I wanted was for him to talk to me had been tough, but what had made it worse was knowing this day was coming at the end of the week. I wished he would have broken the ice before now, but he hadn’t, and regardless, I wasn’t leaving.

  The constant ache that had lived in my chest all week was one I was used to. I’d experienced it the first time I realized I was in love with Michael, that I wanted more, but didn’t know how to tell him. It’d been twice as bad when he started dating Bailey. I couldn’t even be sure I’d ever been rid of that ache in the two years they’d dated, only that I’d gotten used to it, welcomed it, gave it a home to live in.

  But for the past eight months, it’d been me and Mikey again. It had been so close to normal, to the way things used to be… and somehow, maybe, with a promise of more.

  Until Saturday night.

  My ribcage was suffocating as I remembered the look in his eyes when Bailey’s song came on the radio. An entire day of fun was wiped away in just seconds, with just one song from one girl who held the key to everything for him.

  And as soon as he’d driven away that night, that ache I’d said goodbye to came right back, climbing into the bed of my chest and making a home again.

  The days had blurred together, filled with long hours of volunteering at the nursing home and long evenings of watching TV with Dad. Our conversation from the night before floated back to me, and I held onto my father’s words, to his promise that everything would be okay in time.

  It was Thursday, and for five long days, I’d left Michael alone.

  But tonight was different.

  He didn’t get to have space tonight.

  The screen door squeaked shut behind me when I stepped into the living room, and the sight of Lorelei at the dining room table with her hands wrapped around a glass of white wine nearly broke me. She was in robin’s egg blue pajamas and her rose-pink robe, hair tied up in a messy knot, eyes long and tired as they stared at the liquid in her glass. Her reaction to me coming inside the house was delayed, but bless her heart, she forced as much of a smile as she could through the tears — the ones dried on her face and the new ones forming in her hazel eyes.

  “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” she said on a sniff.

  I offered her a sympathetic smile back, setting the basket I had in my arms down on the table. My hands were a little shaky as I pulled out the small bouquet of flowers I’d picked out for her first — daisies and carnations, two of her favorites — and immediately grabbed her favorite vase from under the kitchen sink, putting the oven on to pre-heat while I was in there.

  Lorelei just watched me with wide eyes, not saying a word until I’d cut the stems and arranged the flowers the way I wanted them. I sat them down in front of her on the table, refilled her glass of wine with the bottle next to her, and went back to my basket.

  “I brought some lasagna for dinner,” I said, pulling the large, glass casserole dish out. “It’ll just take an hour in the oven to heat up. I know you’re probably not hungry, but I’ll put it in now, just in case.”

  She still stared up at me with those glossy eyes as I returned to the kitchen, popping the dish in the oven and setting a timer. When I got back to the table, Lorelei squeezed her eyes shut, letting a river of tears run loose down her cheeks. She buried her face in h
er hands for just a split second before she was up out of her chair and in my arms.

  “I know, I know,” I said, hugging her tight and fighting against my own urge to cry. “It’s okay.”

  For a long while I just hugged her, smoothing my hand over her back to bring as much comfort as I possibly could. When she finally pulled back, her eyes were freshly red and puffy, and she sniffed, wiping at her nose with the sleeve of her robe.

  “You are an angel, Kylie Nelson. Do you know that?”

  I smiled. “Not an angel. Just a friend.”

  Lorelei shook her head, sitting back down at the table carefully and reaching for her wine. She took a sip, took a breath, and then smiled at me as best she could again. “He’s in his bedroom.”

  I frowned, nodding. “I’ll come grab the lasagna in an hour, okay? Let me know if you need anything.”

  She reached out for my hand and squeezed it, then I grabbed my basket with shaking hands, striding toward the bear’s den.

  I didn’t bother knocking on Mikey’s door, just let myself inside. It was dark and depressing inside that little room — the navy blue curtains pulled shut to block the last of the sun’s light from breaking through. The only light was that from the television, which flickered between dark and light with each action scene that passed over the screen. Clothes littered the floor, empty soda cans and snack wrappers littered his desk, and then there was him — sitting on the bed with a black hoodie on, the hood up and covering most of his face, Xbox controller in his hands.

  He didn’t take his eyes off the screen when I came in. They were long and worn just like his mom’s, and little greasy tufts of his dark hair spilled from under the hoodie and over his forehead. He looked sort of menacing with the light of the TV hitting all the hard edges of his face — his long nose, his square jaw, the thick Adam’s apple that protruded from his neck.

  He looked like he was about to rob a bank.

  He also looked like the saddest boy in the whole world.