Compass

by Deborah Bladon

  I was only nineteen-years-old.

  He was twenty-one.

  Time has been kind to his body. The cut of his expensive suit showcased that.

  The last time I saw him he wasn’t as muscular as he is now. His hips and waist weren’t as trim.

  “I’m going to go home and make my husband dinner.” Natalie studies me for a minute. “I know Gage hurt you, Kate. I can see it. I want you to know that I’ll run interference for as long as it takes but facing pain can be cathartic.”

  Or it can be debilitating.

  I won’t let Gage’s sudden appearance in my life undo all the strides I’ve made.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Nat.”

  “You bet, Katie.” She winks. “I’ll be here bright and early.”

  I can’t promise the same.

  ***

  Mom: What’s the what?

  I laugh as I read my mom’s text message.

  Kate: I’m making dinner.

  Her reply is instant, which is surprising since my mom is always telling me texting is her least favorite way to communicate with me. She prefers phone calls or very long emails.

  I like text messages because we can get to the point in no time flat.

  Mom: Making dinner or putting take-out on a plate?

  I look down at the sushi I picked up on my way home.

  Kate: Busted.

  As she types back a reply, I pop a spicy salmon roll in my mouth. I tap the chopstick on the side of the take-out container as I chew.

  Mom: Invite me to NYC and I’ll cook all your favorites. You must miss my meatloaf.

  I miss sitting on the wooden stool in her kitchen watching her make it. It was our regular Wednesday afternoon routine when I was in grade school. I’d do my homework by the table and she’d gather together all the ingredients for the best meatloaf I’ve ever had.

  Kate: I miss the meatloaf and you.

  I know my mom. Her eyes are misting with tears as she reads the text message I just sent.

  Both of her kids have set out to live their own lives. My older brother, Eldred, and his wife settled in California. They’re a two-hour drive from my folks’ house. I’m a five-hour plane ride away.

  Mom: Say the word and I’ll buy a ticket for the meatloaf and me.

  My mom would know exactly what I should do about Gage. She’d coach me through all of it, but I’m not the same twenty-two-year-old woman who was left by her fiancé just days before their wedding.

  I can do this. I need to do this on my own.

  Taking a sip of lemon water, my gaze drops when another text message pops up on the screen of my phone.

  Mom: I’m there if you need me.

  I smile at the offer.

  Kate: I always need you, but let’s save the trip for your birthday.

  It’s months away and by then, I’ll have put my past with Gage to rest and my mom will never have to know that he stumbled back into my life.

  Our break-up was hard on me, but I saw the impact it had on my parents.

  They gave Gage their blessing when he asked for my hand in marriage. My dad tried to hide the tears in his eyes when I told him that there would be no walk down the aisle. My mom wept when we donated my wedding dress.

  Mom: This year I’ll turn 40 for the 15th time, so a trip to New York is the perfect way to celebrate. Eat all your take-out and brush your teeth. Love you.

  Laughing, I shake my head.

  Kate: Love you too.

  Chapter 8

  Gage

  My fingers roll over the black stone beads on the bracelet that’s been on my left wrist for almost seven years.

  I glance down at it.

  It’s a part of me now. I can’t picture my arm without it.

  A tap on my shoulder draws my gaze back to a guy in a black T-shirt, dark jeans and a shaved head. “You’re loitering. You need to get lost.”

  “You don’t own the sidewalk,” I point out. “I’m waiting for someone.”

  “Your bride?” he questions as he lights a cigarette he pulled out of his back pocket. “You haven’t taken your eyes off the wedding dress shop since you parked your ass here.”

  Technically, it’s my feet that are parked in this spot.

  I’m leaning against a lamppost outside of a record store.

  Who the fuck knew that records were still so popular? He’s had a steady stream of customers since he unlocked the door thirty minutes ago.

  “Are your feet cold?” The guy asks with a laugh.

  I look down at my shoes. They’re black leather oxfords that paired well with the dark jeans and white dress shirt I’m wearing.

  I rolled the sleeves of the shirt up to my elbows because it’s hot as hell out.

  I’m trying to make a good impression, although Katie never gave a shit about what was on my back.

  Your heart is the most beautiful in the world, Gage.

  Her words, not mine.

  She said them for the last time five years ago. I doubt they’ll ever leave her lips again.

  “You’re not the first guy to hang out here because of a case of cold feet.” He taps the cigarette sending the ash to the sidewalk. “I always tell guys like you the same thing.”

  He has no idea what kind of man I am, but I listen because his voice is better than silence right now.

  I spent all night in the darkness of my apartment replaying the day I broke Katie’s heart.

  His hand brushes my shoulder as he points across the street at Katie’s boutique. “If you need to take a breather here, you don’t belong over there.”

  “I’m not getting married,” I say with a quick glance in his direction.

  “Wise man.” He drops the cigarette, smashing the toe of his black boot into it.

  I’m a wiser man now than I was five years ago.

  My gaze wanders to a beautiful blonde in a light blue dress headed toward the boutique. Her hair is loose. The gentle waves are bouncing around her shoulders.

  She’s as breathtaking this morning as she was the first time I saw her on the campus at UCLA.

  “Katie,” I say her name under my breath as my fingers play over my bracelet.

  “My break is over.” The guy from the record store pats my back. “Good luck, man.”

  I don’t need luck. I need forgiveness.

  ***

  By the time I’m at the door of the boutique, Katie’s inside.

  I peer through the glass and watch her talking to a woman wearing a wedding dress.

  From my view of Katie’s profile, I can see the smile on her face. I’ve never forgotten that smile.

  The left side of her mouth inches up slightly higher than the right when she’s grinning ear-to-ear.

  I used to do everything in my power to earn a smile like that from her.

  “Excuse me.” A woman brushes past me on her way into the store.

  I follow on her heel, hoping to hell that Katie won’t glance over, spot me, and take off in a sprint to a place I can’t reach her.

  “You’re beaming,” Katie reaches for the hand of the woman in the wedding gown. “Your grandmother’s veil is going to look perfect with this gown.”

  Her voice is just as I remember it. It’s soft and soothing. She used to read aloud in bed before we’d fall asleep. It was mostly poetry, words written by others that captured what was in her heart.

  The last gift I ever gave her was a book inscribed to her by her favorite poet.

  She was at a loss for words when she ripped the gift open. The only thing I had to wrap the book in was newspaper I found in the hallway outside our apartment and a pink ribbon tucked in one of her dresser drawers.

  “This is beautiful,” she said at the time.

  It was the effort I put in that was beautiful to her, not the day old newspaper or the fraying ribbon.

  “What do you think?” The bride-to-be’s gaze shifts from Katie to me. “I’d love a man’s honest opinion on this gown.”

  She spins in a cir
cle as Katie turns to face me.

  The smile on her face flees as quickly as the pain in her eyes appears.

  “Katie,” I say her name not thinking about what comes next.

  “What do you think?” The woman in the dress repeats. “Will my fiancé think I’m the most beautiful woman in the world when he sees me walk down the aisle in this?”

  I ignore her as I stare into the face of the woman who promised her heart to me on her twenty-first birthday when I dropped to one knee and asked her to spend her life with me.

  “I’m sorry, Katie,” I say what I’ve held inside since I told her that I couldn’t marry her.

  Her gaze falls to my mouth before she locks eyes with me. Her voice comes out in a whisper. “You should go.”

  I should. I’m a fucking asshole for waltzing in here and blurting out the words that should have left my mouth years ago. I could have kept them inside until we weren’t next to a stranger and surrounded by hundreds of wedding gowns.

  I nod. “I’ll go.”

  She turns on her heel and I leave her store knowing that a weak apology can never make up for the devastation I’ve caused.

  I hope to hell I can find a way to explain what tore me away from the life we had planned together.

  Chapter 9

  Kate

  I walk into my bedroom and pick up a soft white blanket. I hold it close to my face and inhale the sweet fragrance.

  “Arleth smells like heaven, doesn’t she?” Olivia asks from behind me. “Sometimes I catch Alexander with his nose in her little neck just inhaling that perfect baby scent.”

  I laugh as I turn to face her. “Your husband is a smart man. Arleth is a little peach.”

  Olivia reaches for the blanket. She tossed it on my bed along with her purse and Arleth’s diaper bag when she got here an hour ago.

  Since then, we’ve been waiting for Tilly to get off of work.

  Olivia fed Arleth while I took a quick shower and changed into ripped jeans and a white tank top.

  I pulled Tilly and Olivia into a group text message after Gage left the boutique this morning.

  It was their joint idea to spend the evening together. Olivia brought sparkling water for herself and a big salad with roasted chicken to share. Tilly is picking up a bottle of white wine for her and me.

  “I put Arleth down in that little travel bed you had tucked in your front closet.” She smiles. “I think she’s beginning to like it more than her crib at home.”

  I picked up the travel bed soon after Arleth was born. I thought Olivia could use it when she goes to visit her husband at the music school he runs. It turns out, Alexander bought a crib for his office there, so the travel bed is in my apartment ready to be put to use whenever Olivia brings her daughter over.

  “I set up the bed close to the window.” Olivia sighs. “I swear that little angel loves sunshine more than she loves me.”

  I smile. “I love how happy you are.”

  Her blue eyes brighten. “Life is good. I’m a very lucky woman.”

  She deserves everything life has gifted her with including her wonderful husband, baby daughter and the job she loves. She’s on maternity leave now, but in a few weeks she’ll go back to her executive position at Liore Lingerie, and Alexander will take Arleth to the music school with him.

  “I want you to be happy too, Kate.” She brushes a strand of her brown hair behind her shoulder. “I know how much it upset you seeing Gage this morning.”

  It was jarring. I didn’t know he was in the boutique until I turned around and saw his face.

  A thousand different emotions collided inside of me all at once. I wanted to scream at him, drop to my knees in sorrow and run out the door. I didn’t do any of those things.

  I told him to go. I’ve waited five years to hear him say he was sorry, and yet when the words left his lips, the pain inside of me didn’t dissipate at all.

  “I still can’t believe he’s in New York.” I pinch my eyes shut. “I thought I’d never see him again and now we’re living in the same city.”

  A chime from my cell pulls my gaze over my shoulder to my nightstand. I dropped my phone there when I took off the dress I was wearing before my shower. “That’s probably Tilly. I’ll buzz her up.”

  “We’ll get you through this.” Olivia hugs her baby’s blanket to her chest. “Tilly, Arleth, and I are your crew. We have food and wine. What more do you need?”

  Peace.

  I had it before Gage showed up and now that I know he’s in New York, the confusion that enveloped me after he walked out of my life five years ago has wrapped itself back around me.

  ***

  “If I were you, I’d call Preston and fuck his brains out.”

  Tilly and I both look over at Olivia. It’s not that she doesn’t curse, but a statement that bold hasn’t left her mouth since she gave birth to Arleth.

  Dinner was delicious. The conversation focused on Tilly’s day at the vet clinic. After Olivia fed Arleth again, she put her down to sleep, and the discussion took a sharp turn in the direction of Gage Burke.

  Tilly weighed in first. Her advice was typical Tilly. She told me to set up a meeting with him, talk through what took him away from me five years ago, and see if the spark is still there.

  I brushed that idea off with a swallow of wine and a roll of my eyes.

  Olivia’s advice is obviously not what I expected.

  “You want me to what with Preston?”

  Olivia dips her index finger into the balled fist of her left hand. She slides it in and out slowly.

  I almost choke on my wine. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “What do you think I’m doing?” She laughs. “I think you should finally have sex with Preston.”

  “Finally?” Tilly grabs my forearm in a death grip. “You’ve been on three dates with him, Kate. Are you telling me that you haven’t slept with him yet?”

  “We kissed,” I say flatly.

  Tilly, Olivia, and I were at a café on Broadway and Seventy-Fourth a month ago. Preston Metcalfe was standing in line behind me. He flirted with me. I responded in kind.

  He’s good-looking with a strong, tall build, and a job in finance.

  More importantly, he’s single and interested in me.

  We’ve had lunch once since then and dinner twice.

  We agreed at the café before he took my number, that we would take things slow.

  So far, we’ve both stuck to that promise. Things are moving at a snail’s pace since we’ve only kissed a few times.

  He hinted that he wanted to go down on me after our last dinner when he said I looked like the most delicious dessert he’s ever seen, but then his phone rang. Someone’s financial emergency stole him away before he could get a first taste.

  “You kissed his cock?” Tilly says with a half-grin. “That’s what you’re saying, right?”

  “You knew Sebastian for weeks before you jumped into bed with him,” I point out with a lift of my empty wine glass in the air. “This is a no judgment zone, Tilly.”

  “He was my roommate,” she says in a rush. “It’s completely different.”

  “You and the sergeant are yesterday’s news.” Olivia pats Tilly’s shoulder. “We’re here to help Kate stay strong so Gage doesn’t drive a bulldozer over her heart again.”

  “She needs to talk to him,” Tilly insists. “They left things unsaid years ago. Until they clear the air, what they had will never be truly over.”

  “It was over when he took his parents’ sailboat out on the Pacific.” Olivia takes a deep breath. “He hasn’t spent the past five years looking for her. A coincidence dropped him back into Kate’s orbit. She doesn’t owe him a thing, especially not another minute of her life.”

  Clearing my throat, I lean forward to tap my fingers on my small dining table. “I’m sitting right here. I get a say in what my next step should be, don’t I?”

  “Talk to him,” Tilly reiterates.

  “Call Prest
on and take it past first base.” Olivia mimes swinging a baseball bat.

  As if on cue, my phone starts ringing. Olivia jumps to her feet and runs toward my coffee table to scoop it up in her palm. Her gaze drops to the screen, a wide smile spreading across her face. “Speak of the handsome devil. Preston’s ears must have been burning. He’s calling and whatever he wants, say yes.”

  Chapter 10

  Kate

  I said yes.

  Six years ago to Gage when he asked me to marry him and last night, I said it again on the phone to Preston when he suggested we meet for a drink after work today.

  The pout on Tilly’s face said it all.

  She was not impressed with my decision to forgo her advice in favor of Olivia’s.

  I don’t know if there’s a future for Preston and me. I do know that Gage is part of my past and right now, I need to keep him there.

  A knock at my office door draws my gaze up.

  “Come in,” I call out softly.

  I know Natalie is on the other side. She locked up just now as I was changing into a black, sleeveless dress and matching heels.

  I piled my hair on top of my head in a messy bun and fixed my make up, finishing up with a ruby red lip.

  “Holy hell,” Natalie says as she opens the door. “You look incredible, Kate.”

  I do a quick spin on my heel to give her the full view of my dress. “You like?”

  “I love.” She laughs. “I take it you have a hot date?”

  “It’s just a drink.” I drop my lipstick in the black clutch purse on my desk. “I’m meeting him in twenty minutes.”

  “Gage?” she asks tentatively. “I’m all for showing an ex what he’s missing, but this takes it to an entirely new level.”

  I take the compliment with a smile. “No, not him. It’s someone else.”

  She scratches the back of her neck. “He’s a lucky man.”

  Preston called himself the same when I agreed to meet him tonight. He’s uncomplicated and our time together has been drama free. He’s just what I need right now as I sort through whether or not I should drag myself through the muddy past I share with Gage.