11:30 a.m., 12 ½ hours…
Gwen
When I first learned August was leaving tomorrow afternoon, I’d willed our seconds to slow down. I’d wanted to stretch our breaths, elongate our words, extend our kisses into forever. Hold his hand and argue with him during the pauses in between. Stare at him to stamp his handsome profile on my brain.
Now everything moved too slowly: my fingers as they traced my mother’s cursive writing, my breaths nearing a catatonic state, my eyelids that couldn’t remember how to blink.
I’d read about this before, how anxiety and stress could produce numbness. I’d researched the effects for my job, to better cope with prospective adoptive parents. The insight allowed me to choose better words when preparing them for the grueling process, had helped me find ways to ease the sting when applications were denied. I’d never experienced this kind of deadening shock firsthand.
I was experiencing it now.
Nine years ago, I crushed August. Because of it, he kept information from me. My father had died. I’d never meet him. I could have siblings. I pushed August away.
Now I was underwater again, my body moving in languid frames.
Blink.
Blink.
Exhale.
Lift head.
Blink…blink.
I’d driven here on autopilot, wasn’t sure how long I’d been parked on this suburban street. It was pleasant enough, trees shading the lawns, some manicured with colorful gardens, others overgrown. One had a basketball net in the driveway; another was littered with Tonka trucks.
The home to my right was nondescript. Gray siding. Red door. Purple potted flowers sat on the concrete step just outside. I didn’t have plants in my apartment. I’d bought one after signing my lease. Then I killed it, over or under watering the darn thing. I had a hopeless black thumb.
I didn’t know the name of the purple flowers taunting me with their prettiness. Whoever had tended them wasn’t a plant killer like me. That person had a green thumb. That person had lived in that house with my father, had maybe given birth to my half-siblings.
Or maybe my father had coaxed those blooms into beauty.
Or his kid had.
Or a stupid gardener unrelated to me had, and the fact that I was still sitting here in this car rereading my mother’s letter as if it would give me the courage to knock on that red door and meet the people who could alter my life had absolutely zero to do with plant growing aptitude.
Inhale.
Blink.
Exhale.
Blink.
Repeat.
I looked down and reread my mother’s letter for the umpteenth time.
Dear August,
I am dying. As a dying woman, I have a request. Below is the name of Gwen’s father. She has always wanted to know who he is. I ask that you be the one to tell her, be there for her when she finds him.
Remember what I told you on Gwen’s nineteenth birthday.
I couldn’t imagine what she’d told him the night of my WTF, but it was the words “be there for her” that snagged my attention. They were an indecipherable code, because my mother had written as though she’d cared what happened to me. As though my mental state had concerned her.
Yet this was the same woman who’d looked me in the eye, and had said, “I never wanted kids.”
That nugget had been offered when I’d caught her staring at a blank TV screen. I’d asked if I could watch Friends, and she’d spat those hateful words. No provocation. She hadn’t been drinking. Pure hatred aimed at me…because I’d come from a man she’d despised, or because he hadn’t wanted me, or I’d stolen her freedom. Having a child at seventeen wasn’t anyone’s life goal.
Whatever the reason, that cutting comment had drawn blood, a wound that hadn’t cauterized. She’d gotten up from the sofa afterward, had walked to the door and left. Hadn’t even closed it behind her. Like she’d been in a trance, locked in her past.
But here, in this letter, she’d asked August to be there for me.
Her diary was on the passenger seat, printed in her youthful lettering, ripe with the memories of a Sunshine Girl who had loved to dance and listen to music and had dreamed of performing on Broadway. A girl who’d fallen in love. Had she wanted kids back then? Had she dreamed of carrying her lover’s child?
I lifted the journal carefully, thumbed through the pages slowly. My limbs were too heavy to move at a normal speed. I stopped on her first kiss again, reread the reverence and excitement in her words. I felt for this girl. I ached to read her happily ever after. I wanted her to find true love.
I cared about teenage Mary Hamilton.
If I weren’t strapped into my seat, the revelation would have knocked me over. A full stone-cold faint. Regret followed, for what she’d stolen from me. If she’d talked to me, had explained about her past, shared what had beaten her down into the shell of a person she’d become, maybe we could have connected, had some form of relationship. All I’d been left with was a shadow of her past.
Still, a hint of hope lightened the heaviness. I didn’t hate my mother. I’d grown to pity her through her words. Not an ideal sentiment, but better. My pulse tapped a faster tune, and my haziness cleared. I should leave this car, knock on that red door, discover if I had a brother or sister, but the diary was on my lap, drawing me in. My mother was drawing me in.
I flipped to where I’d last read the journal, the page about the park bench. The next few entries were typical teenage drama: grumbles about a girl at school who’d ditched her at lunch, choice words about her zealot parents. She mooned over the man she loved. And dance. Always dance.
Then I caught my breath.
Cliff jumping. My mother had gone cliff jumping.
I want to fly, she’d written. I want to be a bird and feel sunshine in my hair and the wind rushing my face. I want to jump off something higher and defy the laws of gravity. It makes me feel alive. Cliff jumping made me forget.
It was the same reason I skydived and bungee jumped and rock climbed, to forget when stressed. Feel alive and fly. But my mother had sneered when I’d share my daredevil stunts. I’d assumed it was judgment, her turning her nose up at my choices. That my love of adrenaline rushes had come from my father.
Maybe Mary Hamilton had been jealous, not disapproving. Seeing me and my life could have turned her hate inward, resentment toward herself for giving up on her dreams. There was no way to know, but my mind drifted to August, the man who’d given me this insight. The man I’d left standing in the street.
I wouldn’t have read these pages if I’d known my father had died. He’d been right about that. My animosity would have kept me from delving into them. There would have been no point.
But I had, and everything was different now. I was clearer. Calmer. Too calm, like an ocean so flat you could see how stranded you truly were.
August had forgiven me my failings. Sincerity had bled through his declaration of love. His criticism had also been honest. You push people away when they start to care too much.
As a teen, I’d let Kayla’s claims infect me. She’d preyed on my insecurities, telling me I dragged August down, and I’d been a willing victim. Belief I wasn’t good enough for him had propelled me to cut him from my life. And I’d just done the same again, had deemed myself unworthy of his love. My self-loathing may have seemed deeper than that, rooted in our sordid history, his presence in my life destined to be a reminder of my faults. My failures.
Those had just been excuses.
I was hurting him before he could hurt me. Protecting myself. Still believing true happiness was beyond my reach.
My gym session with the girls should have taught me otherwise. Rachel’s Law & Order performance had pointed out the fullness of my life. My friends. My physical pursuits. My job. So many good things. I’d earned them all, had nurtured my friendships, had worked hard at CrossFit and placing children in loving homes. If I didn’t deserve August, that would mean I didn’t deserve this goodness, either.
Which was bullshit. Like August had accused.
The childish insecurities I’d thought I’d banished still had power over me, and it wasn’t cool.
I would never meet my father because of the hurt I’d inflicted on August, but pushing him away now was more pain he didn’t deserve. Pain I didn’t deserve. Like I hadn’t deserved a cold mother and challenging childhood. I was better than that. I’d built myself up since then, physically, emotionally. Yet I’d boomeranged back to those insecurities and had brushed August off.
What had I been thinking?
Except the truth was painfully obvious: I hadn’t been thinking. That had been reaction. Knee-jerk. Irrational. Possibly unforgivable.
Desperate to apologize, again, I scrambled for my cell phone, only to find the screen blank. Fuck.
We’d been out all night. I’d rushed to meet the girls, had then booked a flight and met August. I’d loaned my stupid car-charger to a coworker and had forgotten to get it back. Now I was stuck in my Impreza, outside my late father’s house, hesitant to knock on the door or leave.
I could walk up those front steps alone, summon my courage and face whatever greeted me in that house, but all the decisions and outcomes that had led to narrowly missing Ted Mercer’s death seemed unbelievably coincidental. As though the confrontation wasn’t supposed to happen. Maybe that man’s secrets weren’t meant to be dredged up, unknown siblings, or not.
That large uncertainty kept me glued to my seat. I needed to talk to my best friend and Badass PI partner, decide on the smart thing to do, but I couldn’t reach him. Even worse, he might not answer if I called.
Dead phone clutched in my hand, I plunked my forehead onto my steering wheel.
August
Goddamn Gwen for walking away from me. Goddamn me for letting her.
She loved me. That much I knew. When I’d asked her to deny it, her expression had been unmistakable. Her nose hadn’t twitched. Her body had leaned toward me. Her lips had parted in longing…and she hadn’t uttered the words.
Gwen loved me as much as I loved her, but she was stuck in one of her self-loathing spirals, hating on herself, choosing solitude over connection. Thinking herself unworthy.
Resentment toward her mother surged. Mary may have brought us together through her cryptic letter, but she was the reason Gwen was treading water now, shutting down on me. I’d been worried Gwen wouldn’t forgive me for never meeting her father, stealing that precious time from her. In the end, she blamed herself. Typical Gwen. Stubborn Gwen.
And stubborn Gwen was a force to be reckoned with.
This was the girl who’d cut me out of her life with the precision of a neurosurgeon.
Twice.
Still, I should have chased after her. Followed her discreetly, at least. Only an idiot would let his best friend walk into a potentially devastating situation alone. It wasn’t right. I should be with her, not leaning on the park bench from her mother’s journal.
Gwen’s car was long gone. I stood like an idiot, feeling chilled. Lost.
A never-ending line of tourists paid for their Alcatraz tours. I could join them, distract myself for a few hours touring the prison. Instead I searched the bench, as we’d planned. It was fruitless. Mary’s name was nowhere to be found, which meant I could have lied to Gwen. I could have continued my ruse and burned the letter. I could be with her now.
Except Owen was right: I’d always know.
I stood and paced. I checked my phone. The screen was blank.
Fuck.
With all the running around we’d been doing, I hadn’t charged it. Gwen couldn’t reach me. I couldn’t call her. What if she got to the house and panicked? What if the woman who lived there lashed out at her?
When I’d visited last week, the woman had seemed nice enough: in her forties or fifties, brown curly hair, glasses, wearing a T-shirt that read I’d rather be gardening. I’d donned my PI skills and had claimed a client offered Ted Mercer’s name to have his driveway repaved. The woman’s chin had wobbled when informing me of Ted’s passing.
If Gwen told her who she was, that sweet demeanor could shift to sour. Things could get nasty fast. I gripped my phone and cursed under my breath. Screw it. She may not want me with her, but I couldn’t let her do this alone.
The street looked the same as it had a week ago. All except for Gwen’s gray Impreza parked at the curb. I pulled up behind her. She was in the driver seat, her head bent forward. Was she crying? Had she already been in the house?
I tried to unclick my seat belt and pocket my keys while opening the door. All I managed was to jam my elbow. Gritting my teeth, I made it out and reached the side of her car in six long strides.
Her tousled hair hung forward, shielding her face. The journal was on her lap, her head firmly planted on her steering wheel. She didn’t seem to be breathing.
Worried, I knocked on the driver’s window. She jumped so suddenly she whacked her elbow on the door. She rubbed her skin and squinted at me. There was a crease on her brow from the steering wheel, moisture in her eyes. She said something I couldn’t hear.
I rushed to the passenger side and let myself in, yanking the door shut behind me.
She looked like a sad puppy. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, baby. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“But you were right. I pushed you away again, for the same stupid reasons I did as a kid, thinking you’d be better off without me. That I didn’t deserve you.”
“You deserve everything. And you heard my albums—those hate songs? The sad ones? That’s what happens when I’m without you. That’s not better, Gwen. You make me better.”
Her chin trembled. “I shouldn’t have lashed out at you.”
“I kind of deserved it.” Remorse still emanated from her. Only one thing would erase it. I reached over and ran my thumb down the sweet dent in her brow line. “If you’re at fault here, then you need my forgiveness, which I can offer, under one condition.”
She bit her lip, waiting.
“You forgive yourself first.”
Tears pooled in her eyes. Not enough to spill, but her strife was potent. An internal battle waging. Like Gwen, I was my worst critic at times, hating songs that fans loved, kicking myself for concert blunders. Reliving arguments where I should have said this or done that on an angry loop in my head. Accepting ourselves, fuck-ups and all, was no easy feat. Particularly tough when no one taught you how.
I waited.
She sniffled, soft words following. “I have a great life and great friends. A job I adore. Then you came roaring back into my life, and I was that teenager again, feeling damaged and just…not good enough. Not because of you, but when things got complicated, it was so easy to fall back into that role. Hate myself for choices I couldn’t change. Like those insecurities were there, waiting for me.”
I stroked the length of her hair. “They’ll never fully go away. It’s who you are. Like I’ll always be a fixer, wanting to take over and do before asking. My job is to try and hit pause before I act. Yours is to remember how fulfilling your life is, because you’re that woman, too.” Strong. Determined. Sexy as hell.
“Yeah.” She nodded, the movement gaining strength with each lift of her chin. “I am. And I forgive myself.”
A rough sigh pushed from my chest, warmth incinerating my chill from earlier. Thank God my cell had died. If it hadn’t, I could be touring Alcatraz right now, wishing for solitary confinement. I released her cheek and glanced at her father’s home. “Did you go in?”
She shook her head.
“You nervous?” She shook her head again, but her lips moved imperceptibly. I’d forgotten about her silly nervous tic. “I think you are. You’re doing your thing.”
“What thing?”
“That weird movie title thing.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Color pinked her cheeks.
“Your lips were moving, Possum. What word did you use?”
She rolled her eyes and let her head fall onto the headrest. “Sex.”
Now was not the time to laugh. I couldn’t muffle the sound. “You’re nervous about introducing yourself to your father’s family, and you’re reciting movie titles with the word sex?”
“I can’t even believe I’m doing that stupid game again, but then you show up with your stupid hair and stupid face and stupid body.” She gestured absently toward me. “It’s the first word that came up. But don’t get any ideas. There will be no more sex.”
I couldn’t have heard her right. “Like ever?”
She deflated, sprawling as much as she could on her seat. “I don’t know. I’m a walking disaster. We’ve been dating less than a day, and I just broke up with you. I might have siblings. My father is dead. Everything in my life is changing too fast.”
“So just, like, not this minute? In the car?”
She punched me lightly in the stomach. “You know what I mean, August. I need my best friend right now.”
I caught her hand and held it. I did know. She needed a breather. Time to process. Our remaining seconds wouldn’t be spent tangled in bed. There was no curbing my disappointment, but being her best friend meant the world. I kissed her hand. “Whatever you need, honey.”
She brushed her knuckles against my lips, back and forth. The soft touch slipped through my bloodstream, heating my skin. She may have said no sex, but my body had its own agenda. I tensed my thighs. It didn’t help. If I had to choose one word Gwen inspired it would be fever.
Heat from one look. Fire from one touch. Warmth from one word.
My next song would be titled, “Fever Junkie.”
She glanced past me, toward the house. “I get why you waited to tell me, how hard it was to face me after all those years. I also can’t stop thinking about how defining that was, like everything the past day: the journal, us reuniting, learning about my mom. So I’ve been sitting here, stewing over impossible things like fate and destiny, wondering if I wasn’t meant to meet my father.”
The center console kept me from pulling her into my arms. I wasn’t sure she’d want that anyway. I settled on weaving our fingers together. “I’ve never put much stock in the idea of ghosts or the unexplainable, but I do believe in fate, and there’s no denying the events the past couple months have felt…preordained?”
“So it’s not just me?”
“It’s not just you. It still doesn’t excuse what I did. I’m sick about not telling you your dad’s name sooner.”
“I know you are.” She fiddled with my fingers, ran her thumb over my sparse knuckle hair. “It happened, though. Your fault, my fault, my mother’s fault—the reason doesn’t matter. This is the fallout, which brings us back to reality.”
I studied the red door that had her gnawing her lip. “The woman I met was nice, if that helps. She seemed sweet.”
Gwen released a half-groan, half-sigh. “I want to knock on that door eventually, but maybe not now. I want to follow the journal today, learn what I’m dealing with first. Try and discover what happened between my parents. I think I’m supposed to follow those clues.”
I inched closer to her. “Can I come on this journey?”
I didn’t ask where we stood. The no-sex rule could mean she was pulling away, compartmentalizing our relationship into friendship. Best friends. Just friends. Friends who eventually drifted. There was a chance we’d say goodbye tomorrow and never see each other again. If that happened, I’d write a lifetime of sad songs. It wasn’t an option.
She focused on me, and love glimmered in her eyes, giving me hope. “I think you’re supposed to come,” she whispered.
I traced her cheekbone, the smooth slope of her jaw. History and hurt and hope rippled between us. Then I said, “And you’re sure there won’t be any sex?”
A guy had to try. Plus the best way to keep Gwen from anxiously repeating movie titles was to flirt with her, or annoy her. Both had worked as teens.
That (sort of) joke earned me a smile. “Keep your smolder on lockdown, Cruz.”
“Anything for you, Frances.”
Her expression morphed from amused to livid. “No, you did not.”
“Oh, yes, I did.” This was the annoy tactic. Her hated middle name had never let me down before.
Her breathing slowed. Her focus dropped to my chest. “Say it again.”
“Frances.”
She pinched my nipple and twisted. “Jesus fuck, Gwen.” Wincing, I batted her hand away. “What the hell?”
“You know I hate that name.”
“It’s a fine name.”
“It’s the worst name.”
It was also the main character’s given name in her favorite movie. “But then I’m allowed to say, ‘Nobody puts Baby in the corner.’”
Her lips twitched. “You are such a child.”
And she was distracted. Too bad my nipple had taken a hit for the team. I’d do it again, though. Anything for this woman, except walk away from her. There was no way I was leaving tomorrow without knowing we were good. Together. A couple. More lyrics looped through my mind, lines filled with words like passion and addiction and forever, those “Fever Junkie” verses building into a ballad.
Yet there was still a chance I’d lose her.
For now, I’d play by her rules. Shielding my chest, I pulled the diary from her lap. “Where’d you leave off?”