“And?”
“And I’d like to be free to fall in love someday. Get married. Have a family …” When my voice breaks on the last word, Cross reaches for me, but I wave him off.
He gives me the space to get myself together. I shove all those thoughts out of my head, something I’ve practiced long enough to be decent at, and get to my feet.
“You good?” he asks.
“I’m good.” To help the effect, I give him a thumbs-up. “Any advice?”
I watch with amazement as his cup is rinsed and put into the dishwasher. “I have something, but it’ll probably complicate things.”
“Not sure it could get more complicated.” I stand and make my way across the kitchen, shoving my glass in the dishwasher before he can shut it.
“You didn’t rinse it.”
“It only had water in it.”
He scowls, pulling the cup out and rinsing it before putting it back in the dishwasher. “Kallie wants everything rinsed first.”
“Oh, please.” I laugh. “Has Kallie whipped you into a baby?”
“Happy wife, happy life. Isn’t that what they say?”
“Yeah, but she’s not your wife.”
“Yet.” He almost sounds offended. “Anyway, back to you. If you are really in love with Machlan like I am Kallie, then I don’t think you’ll ever stop loving him. Even when she left me, I still couldn’t move on, and I had women throwing themselves at me.”
“Ew.”
He chuckles. “Can’t help I’m a good-looking motherfucker.”
“So. Gross.”
We laugh as he closes the dishwasher.
“What I’m trying to say, I guess, is I don’t think you can convince yourself you don’t love him. Not if it’s real love. Not if it’s like I love Kallie.”
“Yeah, well, maybe it’s not like that,” I lie, my heart squeezing. “Maybe it’s a high school crush that’s unrequited, and it’s time I make peace with that.” I head to the light switch by the refrigerator and look at my brother. “People do this all the time. The percentage of people who marry their first love is actually very low. They survive. I can too.”
He walks by, looking unconvinced. “Get a Plan B together, Had. Just in case.”
“I have one. I’ll hate him.” I flip off the light. “I got this. Don’t worry.”
“I have doubts.”
Following him down the hallway, I feel my spirits dip. Cross flips me a final grin before closing his bedroom door behind him.
Standing in the hallway alone, my thoughts an errant mess, I sigh before heading toward the guest room. “Yeah, well, I have doubts too.”
Five
Machlan
My phone rests next to the napkin holder in the center of my kitchen table. Fashionable from the eighties, each plastic side of it has faint etches of apples in the center. It’s hideous and probably not worth the effort it would take to throw it in the trash where it belongs, but I can’t do that. It was Mom’s.
I stare at my phone like it might hop off the table and gnaw off my leg. My fingers itch to pick it up and call a number ingrained in my brain deeper than any other—one of the very few numbers I actually know. With each passing second, my stomach twists harder until it pulls into a knot so tight I wince.
“Fuck it,” I say and swipe up the device. I ignore the number I really want to call and press her brother’s instead. It’s at the top of the list anyway from when I almost called it an hour ago but hung up before it rang.
As I gaze out the window over the sink, the phone rings once. Twice. Three times. My blood soars through my veins as a hundred thoughts speed through my mind. I snatch my keys off the counter when I hear Cross’s voice come through the line. The keys clatter to the table.
“Hey,” he says. His voice is the equivalent of a blank stare—neutral. Lukewarm. Beige.
“Hey.”
He doesn’t respond, forcing the onus back on me. Fucker. I don’t know what to say. I have nothing to say. I just want him to tell me what I want to know and let me get back on with my night.
As I look around kitchen, finding the half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich and untouched glass of milk, I search for words.
“How’s the gym?” I ask finally.
Cross chuckles. “Shut the fuck up, Mach.”
“Fine. What do you want me to say?” I bark. “Hadley just waltzes into Crave like she owns the damn place and orders a drink like it’s her Friday night routine. Am I wrong for wanting to make sure she hasn’t lost her mind and that she actually made it to your house?”
The line grows quiet as my words die off. With each passing second, I find it harder to breathe. It gets that much more difficult to keep my hands out of my hair and my voice from shouting demands at my friend.
“She’s there, right?” I growl.
“What if she’s not?”
“Then where the hell is she?”
“What if it’s none of your business? I mean, it’s not your business, is it?”
I must’ve misheard him because those are fighting words. Through clenched teeth, my knuckles turning white, I scowl. “It’s always my business. You know that.”
“Maybe I don’t,” he says, energized all of a sudden. “Maybe I agree with Hadley that you need to mind your own business.”
“Maybe you need to mind your mouth, Cross.” I regret the words before they’re even said, but I don’t take them back. “Is she there or not?”
A long pause settles awkwardly between us as I plot ways to kill him after I find Hadley. I hear Kallie whispering, what must be sheets rippling, and the sound of something creaking, then Cross sighs.
“Yes. She’s here,” he says.
“Good.” My entire body sags against the wooden cabinets. “You could’ve just said that five minutes ago.”
“Anything else you want to ask?”
“Not at the moment. I’ll call if I think of something.”
“No doubt.” The sheets rustle again. “If we’re done here, I’m gonna go.”
“Wait,” I say quickly. “Does she seem all right to you?”
“Yeah. Why?”
I think back to the night she called me late, too late, and told me she thought she was dying. How I sped to Bluebird to find her and a couple of people she never should’ve been with toasted on rhubarb moonshine. How I scooped her up and took her home with me and watched her sleep all night. I wiped her mouth after she puked and made her sip water even when she didn’t want to. I was scared shitless. I made her promise that night she’d never drink again.
I’m sure she has. She’s a grown woman. But to come in Crave and order a drink from me prickles at my skin. Why would she do that?
“I don’t know. She never comes into Crave, never drinks. Not after your mom’s accident and the one night she got hammered on moonshine …”
“Yeah, well, how well do you know her these days?” Cross asks, oblivious to the thoughts I just had. “I mean, how much time have you really spent with her lately? People change. People grow up. People make new choices.”
I can barely shuffle a swallow down my throat. She can’t change. I know her. I know what makes her smile and laugh and get so incensed she can’t see straight. I know she prefers strawberry jelly over grape and has never turned down an elephant ear in her life. I know who she is better than anyone, even her, and fuck him for acting like she’s someone different.
“Look, Mach, she’s fine. We just had dinner and a long talk about her plans and what she’s doing with her life.”
“Oh.” I wait for him to tell me the details. He doesn’t.
“She’s in a good place. You don’t need to worry about her.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I work my bottom lip between my teeth as I listen to him and Kallie whisper. Finally, he comes back to the line.
“Sorry,” he says. “I gotta go. Kallie’s getting antsy.” She must smack him because he laughs. “When it comes to Hadley, I got her. She’s my sister. You don’t owe her anything.”
“I …”
“Good night, Mach.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
The line goes dead, the screen lit up like a Christmas tree. I hold the device and stare at the screen. On the other side of that last call is Cross and Kallie … and Hadley.
The phone clatters against the countertop.
My hands go in my hair as I yank on the strands.
As much as I don’t want to admit it, Cross is right. I need to step back. There are reasons, big ones, why things didn’t work out between Hadley and me. Lines were drawn. Choices made. Things decided that would forever change the two of us individually and together, and I can’t forget that.
“Hey. You home?” Peck’s voice calls through the house.
My hands go from my scalp to my cheeks as I listen to his footsteps grow louder across the hardwood floors. “Yeah.”
He enters the kitchen but stops quickly. Scanning the room, he settles his gaze on the sandwich. A snicker pierces the air as he takes a couple of steps toward the table and deposits the black bank bag with a thud.
“It was a good night.” He wraps his hands along the back of a chair. “The register was off ten dollars, but I think it was my fault. Nora got busy, and I had to serve a couple of yuppies from Chicago. They got me talking, and I fucked up the math. I think.” He scratches his head. “Anyway, I put the money in outta my pocket so it wouldn’t look like it was Nora.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to add to your problems tonight.” The chair is whirled around, and Peck sits his ass down. “Nora told me she put in her notice.”
“Yeah.”
“You replacing her?”