Easy Reunion

by Jerald, Tracey

  Leaning forward, our hands still clasped, I brushed her fingers with my lips. “I love you had that,” I admit.

  Her brows lowered in question. I clarified my response. “The whole college experience.”

  “If it weren’t for Angel and Darin, I honestly don’t think I would have,” she admitted. “I was too withdrawn. It took a long time for me to build up my confidence.”

  “Well, just so you know, you can always cook for me anytime. I’m definitely not as high-maintenance as any of those college guys” I teased her gently.

  She laughed, before shoving my hand away.

  Now, staring down at my phone, even with the thrill of success still racing through me, I wish I didn’t have to attend the party at Cafe Amelie. There’s nothing more I’d like to do than spend the night enjoying a quiet evening with Kelsey. Eli’s words ring through my head. Before I know it, I’m typing, How about joining me for a last-minute work event?

  Tossing my phone on my desk, I lay my stack of files down. A few moments later, it pings with an incoming text. Can you be a little more specific? Is this the kind of event where I need to find a black-tie dress in under an hour and kill you later?

  I burst out laughing. I should have known to have been more specific to a writer. You have an incredible imagination.

  Within seconds I get her reply. And the ability to do mean things to you in print. Remember that, Ry.

  With a grin, I type, We just closed the big deal we’ve been working on. The company is paying for everyone involved to go to a place near the office called Cafe Amelie. We’ll all be in work attire.

  Congratulations! Is this the Chinese/Italian food on your suit deal?

  I snort out loud at her response. I’m never going to live that down. Yes. It’s finally done.

  Let me know when and where to meet you. I’m about to start typing when another text comes in. And Ry, I’m so thrilled for you. I know you worked hard for this.

  The warmth of her words steal through my body and my soul.

  The way they always have.

  Quickly, I look up and then paste in the address to Cafe Amelie in our chat before I begin to tie up a few loose ends so I can celebrate this incredible success for all of Bayou Enterprises.

  * * *

  A few hours later, I’m standing with a glass of bourbon in my hand when a vision glides into the courtyard. Amid a sea of suits of black, dark blue, and dark gray, the silvery gray of her sleeveless dress stands out like a beacon. My breath catches as her hair gleams like luxurious mink under the lights strung overhead as her head swivels from right to left. Then all the breath leaves my body when our eyes meet. I almost fumble my drink when she slowly smiles at me as she continues to weave her way through the bodies to make her way to where I’m standing.

  “Hey,” Kelsey says breathlessly. Reaching up, she brushes a kiss on the underside of my jaw. “Sorry I’m late. It was impossible to find parking.”

  My arm slips around her waist as naturally as breathing. “I’m just glad you were able to make it.” I curl her close for a one-arm hug.

  “If this party is anything to go by, it seems my earlier congratulations were fairly lukewarm,” she teases. “Either that, or is Cafe Amelie code for the employee cafeteria?”

  I let loose a laugh that has several people turning their heads. “With the amount of time we all spend eating here, we should negotiate an employee discount,” I tell her. “You look…beautiful isn’t the right word, Kelsey. Luminescent, perhaps?”

  Her head ducks shyly as a stain of color brightens her cheeks. “I…thank you. I hoped this would be okay. I looked online to see what people normally wear here. It wasn’t much help.” She frowns, making her so adorable. I want to kiss her, claim her, in front of everyone here so they know she’s mine. But I can’t. I don’t have that right. Not yet, anyway.

  The hand still holding my drink comes up next to her face. I run my thumb along her jaw. Her eyes flare in response. The heat between us has been simmering. Each time we’ve left each other, my lips have met hers in some way: a sweet brush, a quick press, or a delicious taste that leaves me aching for more. I want nothing more than to sink inside her luscious body again, but I owe her everything before that. Well, as much of it as I’m able to surrender.

  So, after the barest of caresses, I’ve walked away with nothing but Kelsey on my mind, every moment, every second.

  Leaning down, I brush her nose with mine. A puff of air escapes her lips. “Have dinner with me tomorrow night at my place? I was going to ask you to dinner tonight before the party came up—somewhere quiet so we can talk. And then I got your text.”

  The black of her pupils eclipses the gray of her eyes as they dilate. We’re suspended in our own world, lost in this moment, in each other. Centuries of time could be racing by us and I don’t think either of us would notice. She steps closer, her curves fitting all my hollows. Her whispered “Yes” sets me aflame.

  I barely restrain myself from bending her back over my arm to show her what she does to me. Instead, I step back. Loosening the band I have around her waist, I hold my arm out for her to slip hers through. “Come on,” I grate out.

  At her quizzical gaze, I lean in slightly. “It’s either introduce you to a few of my colleagues or do something completely inappropriate.”

  “Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Her voice is rich with laughter.

  “For now, Kels. For now,” I growl softly, as we approach one of the lawyers on my team and his partner, who works in marketing.

  The wicked smile she sends me tells me she wholeheartedly agrees.

  Chapter 23

  Kelsey

  The next night, I pull up to the address Ry texted me. I’m surprised at how close of a drive it is to Angel’s. I didn’t know he lived in the same general area of town. The homes on his side of the park are stunning but have such low turnover, my real estate agent has had a difficult time finding one for me to purchase—even a fixer-upper.

  Parking my car in the circular drive, I briefly sit to admire it before sliding out. The decor screams New Orleans to me with the herringbone brick on the driveway, the immaculately painted wood railing on two levels accenting the Confederate blue paint. I don’t see a historical plaque, which surprises me, as I approach the front door that’s, oh wow, lit by gas lamps.

  Someone went through a hell of a job restoring this place the right way, I think admiringly.

  Before I ring the discreet brass bell, I do a quick check of my outfit. Even though Ry said casual, I decided on a pale blue silk dress to set off the royal blue heels I bought the day I went to Head Over Heels. Just like the first time I tried them on, these shoes were made for my feet. With a silver bracelet my grandparents gave to me gleaming in the twilight, I’m about to announce my arrival when the door flies open.

  I’m startled when Lisa steps out. “Hey, Kelsey! Good to see you again. You look beautiful.” She leans in and gives me a quick hug, which I automatically return. “I’m just on my way out. I’m meeting up with someone special.” She wags her eyebrows, which causes me to burst into laughter, relaxing me when I didn’t know I needed it. “If you go straight back, Ry’s in the kitchen. Ignore the mess.” Blasting me with a friendly smile, she scurries past me toward the cute blue Mini parked on the street.

  My head is reeling. I take a deep breath. The intimacy of the evening is sending shock waves through me. Ry cooking dinner for me at his home? Never in the juvenile fantasies I had about this man did I ever contemplate something like this being so incredibly sexy. Then I remember his words. I had planned to ask you to dinner—somewhere quiet so we could talk…

  With an anxious stomach that hopes it can consume some of what he’s going through the trouble to cook, I cross over the threshold and close the door just as Ry comes forward dressed in an open-neck button-down and dress slacks. He looks as if he just stepped off a live cooking show, not as if he’s been the one to slave over a hot stove. I sniff the air apprecia
tively; something smells delicious. “I thought I heard Lisa talking with someone.” He leans against the back of one of the couches, intuitively giving me space to absorb the fact we’re alone in his home. It’s our first time together in a nonpublic place since our night together in Savannah.

  Since I’m still gripping the knob of the front door from where I just shut it, we’re a good ten feet apart. I exhale entirely before replying. “I was just about to ring the bell, but she told me to come in. She’s like a whirlwind. Does she always have that much energy? I don’t recall being much older than her, but I’m pretty sure I feel…” I pause for breath to find Ry smiling at me.

  “Ancient? That’s the way she makes me feel most of the time. My little sister has enough energy for four people. It’s a good thing she volunteers at the center. I think the kids are the only thing that can tire her out.” Pushing away from the back of the sofa, he walks toward me, his hand extended. “You offered to cook dinner last night. Do you enjoy it?”

  I shrug. “I do. I’ve never had many complaints.” I can’t help the way my heart skips a beat as he closes the distance between us.

  “Come on. I’ll give you a quick tour, and then you can tell me if there’s anything you don’t want in your pasta.” His hand touches mine before he gives it a quick squeeze.

  “Wow, a classy joint. I can custom order off the menu.”

  Winking at me and giving me a quick tug, Ry says, “You have no idea. Now, let me tell you about the house. Despite it looking like it’s historical, it’s a fairly new build from 2004. The owners lived through Katrina and subsequent storms. They decided they were done with New Orleans. Despite the number of years since then, I still got it for a steal.”

  “Was the house damaged?” Hurricane Katrina was the most destructive storm to strike the United States in recent history. It wouldn’t surprise me if I were given a litany of items that needed to be repaired. I’m shocked when Ry shakes his head.

  “Not a single thing. The owners just decided they didn’t want to live with the uncertainty anymore, so they moved back north.” His voice takes on a note of empathy. “Despite my Realtor telling me I could have likely negotiated more, I couldn’t do it. This was my dream home, Kels. They were a lovely retired couple who had just put the finishing touches on it when Katrina hit.”

  Despite the years and the emotional distance we need to resolve, I still know the boy I fell for lives inside the man standing next to me. “Where do they live now?” I ask casually, as I run my hand over the back of the warm brown leather sofa that dominates the room.

  “North Carolina,” he answers immediately. I begin to smile, but his next words wipe that right off my face, leaving me free-falling from a multitude of feelings. “Chad Zhang—you might remember him from the swim team. He’s a Realtor up there. When I contacted him to explain the circumstances, he and the other Realtor reduced their commissions to get them in a home that’s perfect for them.”

  I remember Chad Zhang. While not as overt in his distaste for me as others were, he still didn’t save me from any of the bullying that drove me to the brink of my sanity levels time and time again. Pulling slightly back, I dig my shoes into the plush area rug. “What are we doing?” I whisper suddenly, interrupting Ry’s explanation that the porch wraps around the front and both sides of the house.

  He stops and turns to face me. “What do you mean?” Confusion is written all over his handsome face. It hurts, physically hurts, to look at it. I duck my head so my hair falls to cover my face. Warring emotions of fear and pain come crashing into me.

  This was why I left that morning in Savannah, why I keep running away. I don’t want to live in the past. I don’t want to make promises. I don’t want regrets. I don’t want to feel things I’ve long ago learned to lock away and subdue. I want to feel confident and successful—the things I could never feel while I was being tormented every day in high school.

  Even by this man.

  I quiver. “I thought I could do this, but I can’t. I have to go.” His expression is shocked, allowing me the chance to rip my hand away. I start to walk purposefully back to the door when a strong arm wraps around me from behind.

  “Will you come with me to one room long enough for me to explain?” Ry’s words are a breath whispering across my head.

  I want to shake my head in denial. I want to refuse him, but flashes of the time I’ve spent with this Rierson Perrault cause me to pause. Stepping away, I turn around and say, “I reserve the right to walk away, Ry.”

  “And all I can do is pray to God you don’t. Please, give me a chance to show you something. It might help…maybe you’ll understand.” Ry steps forward and takes my hand. Bypassing the dining room, set for an intimate dinner for two, we pass through a set of double french doors into a study lined with bookcases. Dropping my fingers, he invites, “Feel free to look around.”

  I take him up on it. Because this, this is the room that feels like the Ry I’ve had the chance to get to know: smart, sharp, intense. Masculine. Dark wood plays off bright light streaming in the windows. There seem to be hundreds of books interspersed with family photos. I pick up a silver-framed photo of him and Lisa taken on the beach. It doesn’t look too old. “When was this taken?” I turn and face the picture toward him.

  Ry smiles. “We went out to Tybee Island with Mom and Dad for their anniversary a few years ago.” There’s a soft look that comes over his face whenever he speaks of his sister.

  I can’t help but smile. “You two seem close.”

  He nods. “We are. I’d do anything for her, Kels.” There’s something profound in that statement, but I don’t touch it right now. Turning, I place down the frame and continue my turn around the room until I stop dead.

  “The worst thing that’s happening to you is the best thing that will ever happen to someone else. All you can do is move past it. After all, if life were meant to be easy, I’d have already won the game.” I read my own words aloud. Words etched on a piece of glass sitting in Ry’s study. Words I used in my first book, Betrayal.

  “I thought you didn’t know who I was?” I turn to him accusingly, my lips trembling.

  “What do you mean?” Ry’s long stride brings him to me. He runs a finger down my cheek.

  “I used these exact words in my first book.”

  “And you also gave them to me the first time you helped tutor me. Did you think I’d forgotten?” His deep voice holds a note of poignancy I’m not sure I can handle.

  I begin to shake my head back and forth. No, there’s no way he’d remember that. “How?” I whisper helplessly. I was sure he’d forgotten about all of the times we spent talking, all of the moments after he’d be done with practice and he’d come to me smelling like chlorine with his hair slicked back. After I’d finished helping him with writing, Ry would open up to me. At first, I thought it was some trick, but he never asked me anything about myself. Eventually, we’d talked about everything and nothing, our hopes and our dreams.

  We’d become friends.

  “I didn’t forget a thing. I cherished the time we spent together. And I sacrificed more than you know to hurt you that day.” The look on his face is terrible as if he’s reliving every horrible moment of graduation day along with me.

  “Did you?” I whisper, turning away from him and staring into words that I wrote when I was sitting alone on a Saturday night in the sweltering heat of the Georgia summer, imagining what it would be like if I were an average teenager, not an obese one who had lost all semblance of her self-esteem due to the systematic hell she was put through for so many school days. “Did I really mean so much to you back then? How could that be when for all those years, my memories were of you doing this to my heart?”

  Lifting the delicate glass, I hold it in my hands. It’s as fragile as my hopes once were. And then, I smash it downward against the floor—just like he broke my heart into bits on graduation day—before I run for the open door with tears flooding my eyes.

&n
bsp; I don’t make it that far.

  His strong arms wrap around me, holding me. His voice is broken in my ear when he grates out, “They threatened Lisa. It’s the only reason I hurt you. I went to tell you the next day, but you were gone.”

  I struggle against him, wrenching out of his arms. Moving away from him, I back up against his desk until I can’t move any further. “What the fuck could they have threatened her with that would be so damn awful you would do that to me?” I lash out at him.

  The sun from the square transom windows over the built-in bookcases pours down on him, beaming in warmth where I feel none. Ry slowly approaches me until his body fits itself against mine. His head drops down until his mouth is against my ear.

  “I had to hurt you that day because they promised me they would take turns raping my baby sister as part of her soccer hazing when she played varsity for Forsyth. That’s what I traded shattering your heart for.” His breath is jagged against my ear. “And you know what, Kels? I’m sorry, but I’d make the same decision again tomorrow. And the next day.” His lips brush my cheek, gentle in its apology for hurting me and unabashedly proud.

  I yank my head back in shock. My lips begin to tremble when he lifts his hand to my face. Now I understand. And he’s right. He did the only thing he could because I know they would have done it without blinking an eye. After all, look at what they did to me? “Dear God in heaven. What kind of monsters lived inside the walls of that school?” But then, I already know that answer. I just thought they were only hurting me.

  My hands, which had been resting lightly against Ry’s chest, slide up around his neck. I lean in and let out the first sob.

  For his sister.

  For him.

  And for me.