Chapter Thirty-Two
Coffee is the nectar to cure stress if coffee doesn’t work try wine.
—Tensanne to Ronnie
Tensanne
Present Day
GAPING UP AT the sprawling mansion that holds so many memories from years ago, I take a deep breath.
“Well, don’t just stand there, Girl. Get your ass over here and give me a hug,” Ronnie calls in her thick southern drawl. I smile that it hasn’t lessened over the years, moving to where she is standing in the open door.
“Yes, Ma’am. Mrs. Mayor,” I reply wrapping her in my arms.
After a long embrace, we walk into the same living room where Kohl and I danced, the memories flood my brain and bring tears to my eyes. I put all these memories in a box for a reason and being back here is slowly letting them leak free. My time in this town may have been short lived but it impacted the rest of my life.
“Sit, sit,” she insists.
Taking a seat on the sofa, I let out a long exhale.
“Does it feel strange to be back?”
“A little, I guess. I never thought I would come back here and I’m not sure it’s where I want to be; but, in a few months, I’ll be back home.”
“This is your home for now and I’m going to enjoy every minute of having you here,” she smiles. “Come, I’ll show you to your room so you can freshen up. Then we will go grab some dinner.”
Following her up the winding staircase, we pass the room where Kohl and I came together for the first time. Stopping I put my hand against the door seeing images of Kohl’s body in my mind. His smell, the feel of his skin, his taste invades me in an explosion of memories.
Melancholy washes over my body. Though I fight to keep the emotion hidden, the sadness must show on my face.
“Have you followed his career?” she whispers.
Shaking off the glum feeling filling my heart, my lips tip up into something I hope resembles a smile. “No. Honestly, I have no idea what has become of him. I know he went to play for the Pacers but that’s all.”
“He suffered an injury a few years ago. A knee injury ended his basketball career. I lost track of him after that until he came back here to coach,” she replies, her mouth set in a grim line.
Looping my arm with hers, “That’s the past, Ron. Now, where’s my room?” I cheer, fighting the depressed feelings I have inside. I have perfected the art of faking it over the years. I can feign happiness better than anyone on the planet and that’s what I’m doing now.
Once I’m in my room, alone, I wash my face in the restroom. Catching my reflection in the mirror, a strong, independent woman is staring back at me. I’m a successful psychologist, a published author and the mother of four wonderful children. My body is exactly as it should be, curvy, voluptuous and all mine. Glaring hard into my own eyes, I can still see the naïve, insecure girl hiding in the depths. The one who wanted love needed acceptance and risked it all on a belief. Coming back here brought her back to the surface. With a deep breath, I shove her right back down where she belongs; buried and safe from the harshness of the world.
Pulling the pieces of myself back together and putting my happiness mask back in place I leave my room to have dinner with my friend.
A sliver of happiness fills my hardened heart on the walk to her car, her driver opening our doors. I always kept a soft spot inside for Ronnie. She’s one of the two people in the world, other than my kids, that I let past my hardened shell. My friend Erika being the second.
“I still can’t believe you’re the Mayor, Ron. Do you like it?”
“It’s not exactly what I wanted to do but I love the people and I love this town. It only seemed right to take over after Daddy passed away,” she says her bottom lip quivering.
Taking her hand, “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I’m a horrible friend.”
“I understand, Ten, I do. You were in the middle of a huge trial study and you couldn’t get away. The flowers you sent were beautiful.”
I’m thankful for her understanding but hate myself for not being there for my friend. I loved her dad and I truly wanted to be here when he died but my fear of the past created the lie I fed her about not being able to stop the work I was doing.
The driver stops in front of the familiar little restaurant with the outdoor picnic tables and retro diner style insides.
“Let’s get our greasy food fill,” Ronnie grins her infectious smile that I can’t help but smile back at. A genuine smile from the happy nostalgia this restaurant holds.
With full bellies, we take a walk down the street. Everything is still the same. Some of the shops have changed over the years but it’s still a little, sleepy college town.
Glancing to my right, I gasp at the flashing neon palm in the window of Sit and Read for A Spell. “Holy shit, that place is still open?” I ask a force drawing me to the front of the store.
“Yes, it is; and they still have some of the best Indie books on the planet.”
“You still go in there?” I asked feeling my eyes widen.
“Of course, I do. I have to feed my paperback addiction somehow,” she sasses with her hands on her hips.
“Amazon, E-Bay, author websites. There are many other places you can buy books, Ronnie,” I say, bewildered that she would spend so much time in the place that began my descent into sadness.
Shrugging her shoulders, “Do you want to go in?”
“Hell no, I don’t want to go in. Have you lost your damn—”
“Hello, Tennie Girl,” a deep voice behind me rumbles softly, causing cold chills to travel from my head to my toes. A voice that used to make me shiver, make me scream in ecstasy and warm me to my core.
Turning, I come face to face with Kohl Black and the years have been very kind to him. Where once was a boy, now stands a devilishly handsome man with the same piercing blue eyes that roped me in all those years ago.
* * *
Kohl
Present Day
She’s coming back, is the text that came through hours ago, from Ronnie. The words I can’t stop staring at. The words I don’t have a response to.
Tensanne is coming back. I haven’t seen her since that morning I begged outside her door. Now she will be here.
I left college shortly after the video went viral. After chasing down every version of it and having it removed, I took my chance in professional basketball.
I knew she left, too. I knew her mom came and got her. The last genuine smile I ever had was the one that lit up my face when Ronnie told me her mom had gotten her memories back.
I fought my urge to text, call, write and stalk her every day. I hoped my final letter to her would send her back into my arms but it never happened.
I tried to forget Tensanne Craig, with all her lush curves and magnified, mesmerizing eyes. I pushed her penchant for random facts to the back of my mind with every woman I sunk inside of. No matter how many women I went through, she never left my thoughts. No woman was her, no matter how hard I searched no one drew me in like she did.
I kept track of her career through the internet. She never had social media but her articles in the medical journals and her studies made headlines. She had made impressive strides in finding a cure for Alzheimer’s.
I never knew for sure what town she ended up in but every town I went to, I searched for her. I scanned every face in the stands my eyes sweeping each person, knowing my soul would recognize her immediately. I thought I saw her once. A woman with soft brown hair, curves in all the right places was in the stands at one of my games. Her back to me, while I was rubbernecking to make sure it was her, staring until I could see her face, I tripped on the court. My body crashed to the floor with my leg bent in an unnatural way and when she turned, I realized it wasn’t her. My basketball career ended with two broken bones and a torn ACL, I never took the court again.
I drowned my sorrows in alcohol after that, attempting to drink away my pain. The pain of losing my ability to do what I loved and the pain of losing the fragment of happiness I had for a few months with a girl who altered my life.
Then, one day, the last person I would ever expect offered me a job. Chase Masters showed up at my door. When I walked away from college to pursue my basketball career, I left everyone and everything behind me except my memories of Ten. Chase became a head hunter for the NCAA and he offered me the head coaching job at JSU. He wasn’t quite the dick I remembered him being. He had been humbled by a wife and kids, joking that she carries his balls around in her purse.
I took the job and came back to Jalapa State University to coach the Fighting Berries. Veronica is the mayor and she just sent me the text telling me the girl I have been longing for is coming back. The girl who has held me under her spell for twenty years would be within my grasp and this time I wasn’t letting her go without a fight. She would not slip through my fingers again.