Chapter 23

Valentine

Two weeks later…

“This is just pathetic,” Aubrey says as she stands in the doorway to my bedroom and stares at me with judgmental eyes and perfectly coiffed blond hair. “Even your dog is depressed.”

Jeremy sits in a chair by my bedroom window, one leg crossed over the other. His elbow rests on the arm of the chair and his chin sits in the palm of his hand. “Aubrey’s right. You’re just pathetic.”

I choose to ignore both of them but make a mental note to change my locks when they leave. I flip carelessly through a fashion magazine, my dull eyes not really taking anything in.

“At least she’s dressed,” Aubrey says to her husband.

“And it appears she washed her hair,” Jeremy adds.

“The apartment is a disaster,” Aubrey comments, and then walks back out of my room but calls over her shoulder, “I’m going to clean the kitchen.”

I don’t say anything, just flip through the magazine. I’m in my bed but I’m sitting up in it. Cross-legged with yoga pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. My feet are bare and I’m sure I need a pedicure. But hey, at least I’m not hiding under my covers, sleeping for twenty hours a day, which admittedly I did when I first returned from Alaska.

Since then, Jeremy’s been coming by almost every day trying to poke me back into some type of normalcy. I refused to budge, only getting out of bed to feed Sassy or myself.

This lasted three days and then Jeremy brought in the big guns.

Aubrey.

Knowing I despised her.

That evil, evil man.

That first day, she came into my apartment and sat in the same chair Jeremy is occupying and told me in painstaking detail about every single minute of her honeymoon with Jeremy. And I mean every detail.

It was so awful it forced me out of bed and I hid in the bathroom until she left.

But those two weren’t giving up on me. Every day they came by, and I could tell Aubrey was getting a kick out of it, because sooner rather than later, she was pissing me off and I was actually snarling and cursing at her at times. She’d just look at me smugly and say, “Wow…you actually have some color in your cheeks. Well done.”

Finally, I look up at Jeremy and tell him sincerely, “You two can stop coming over. I’m fine.”

He just arches an eyebrow at me.

“Seriously,” I tell him. “I’ve even made plans to have lunch with Jennelle Barstow tomorrow and then we’re going to go shopping.”

“Are you lying to me?” Jeremy asks suspiciously.

“No,” I say truthfully. “I’m sick to death of this apartment, and I’m tired of moping over Logan. I’ve got to move on.”

“Going to reopen Valentine’s Couch?” he asks, but then Aubrey calls in from the kitchen, “Val, can I throw away whatever this is in the green container in the fridge? It looks disgusting.”

“No,” I yell back. “That’s Sassy’s. Raw moose meat.”

I can hear Aubrey say, “Ewww.”

Whatever. The one thing I took away with me was that Sassy looked and acted the healthiest she ever had since I’ve had her, and it could have just been the clean, crisp air, but it could have been the unusual raw food diet I had her on. Fortunately, it was nothing to find a boutique grocer who would special order the stuff for me and deliver it.

“Valentine’s Couch?” Jeremy asks again.

“No,” I tell him without a trace of sadness or regret. “That’s gone forever.”

Which I know isn’t exactly true. Once something is on the Internet, it’s forever. But before I even left Alaska, as I sat at the Ketchikan International Airport with April, who kindly saw me off, I logged onto my Web host and deleted my entire domain. I obliterated Valentine’s Couch with just a few key taps. While it was something that I enjoyed and kept me amused, it was also something that cost me very dearly and I couldn’t even bear to think of those articles I wrote about East Merritt and its people, and most especially Logan, remaining live.

“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” Jeremy says softly. “Want me to go out to Alaska and kick his ass for being such a prick to you?”

“No,” I say glumly. “I deserved it. I had no right to ever put those things out there.”

“Oh, bullshit,” Jeremy says as he sits forward in the chair. “It’s what you did, Val. It was your job…your shtick. You wrote an advice column that was shit for advice but was so fucking funny everyone read it. You never did anything with malice, and as far as Logan goes, you were respectful of him. You may have given a little too much detail, and you apologized for it, but you were respectful. Period. End of story. If he doesn’t get that, he’s a moron.”

I just blink at Jeremy after he finishes his tirade. “Respectful? I embarrassed him.”

“Big fucking deal,” Jeremy says with a shrug. “Now everyone knows he’s got a big dick. He’s probably strutting around East Merritt now.”

“And probably has every female in Alaska after him,” I say morosely. “Now that they know he hands out orgasms the way Willy Wonka handed out candy.”

“Maybe you should call him,” Jeremy suggests. “He’s had time to cool down. Maybe he’d like to talk to you and he’s too scared to reach out since he was such a tool when you parted ways.”

I glance down at the magazine on my lap for a moment, and then sigh. When I look back up at Jeremy, I ask him, “Know what the last thing I told him was before we parted ways?”

“That you loved him?” he guesses.

“I said that, but that wasn’t the last thing. I told him I loved him and then I told him I didn’t deserve him.”

Jeremy doesn’t say anything, so I push my chin out and look at him expectantly.

“What’s your point?” he asks with confusion.

“I don’t deserve him.” I articulate each word. “After what I did, I do not deserve someone like him. I’m where I’m supposed to be and he’s where he’s supposed to be. Time to move on.”

“Fine,” Jeremy says as he raises his hands and stands up from the chair. “You seem to have everything under control. Lunch plans and shopping tomorrow and firm acceptance of lost love. I think our work here is done.”

Jeremy starts to walk out of my room.

“Wait a minute,” I say, and he stops, looks over his shoulder at me. “Aubrey going to finish cleaning my kitchen?”

Jeremy just rolls his eyes and leaves. Within moments I hear both of them walking out of my apartment and shutting the door behind them. With a sigh, I toss the magazine onto my night table and roll off the bed. I pad into the kitchen, Sassy following along, and I prepare her dinner of raw moose meat. I feel only slightly nostalgic as I do it.

While Sassy eats, I boot up my laptop, which hasn’t been turned on since I left Alaska, intent on perhaps ordering takeout. I take a few moments, finally deciding on a Lebanese restaurant down the block that delivers. My gaze drops down to my email icon and I see I have a grand total of 732 emails waiting for me.

Jesus. It will take me forever to go through them.

Well, food will take at least an hour to get here, so I take a deep breath, sit down on my island stool, and pull up my email. As expected, most of them are from fans of Valentine’s Couch, wondering where my blog went and expressing serious concern about me. This makes me feel bad, and I should at least send out an announcement to my newsletter database that I’ve retired the blog.

I read each email, some causing me to get a little misty-eyed, but the hateful ones I delete.

Doesn’t bother me, though. I learned in this business you have to have a thick skin.

I open the next email, noting it was sent just four days ago, and my hand freezes over my laptop at the subject line. There’s just one word: Logan.

I then see the email is from his sister Tabby Burke. I obviously didn’t get to meet Tabby, but I sure knew about her. Logan told me all kinds of stories about his entire family, and one of my regrets from all of this was that I didn’t get to meet them. Still, I hesitate to read the email, because I suspect it might not be nice.

But then curiosity gets the better of me and I give in to it.

Dear Valentine,

I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet a few weeks ago. Things just got really crazy, in a really bad way. They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, and right now I’m really regretting having told Logan about your blog. I should have waited until you came to Seattle with him so I could meet you. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt, and judged you for myself. For that, I’m really sorry, because I’m the one who showed Logan, and well…as you know…he was extremely pissed off.

In case you’re wondering, he’s not mad anymore.

And if you’re still inclined to read on, I want you to know…well…he’s not anything anymore. He’s not my funny brother who texts me throughout the day. He hasn’t called in to check on our parents since his visit. And he won’t answer his phone. He will, however, respond to my emails and they’re short, terse, and frankly…assholish.

I’m afraid my brother is taking this really hard.

I know you think that might not be your problem, but I kind of hope you will think it is. I personally believe Logan is acting this way because his heart is broken that you’re not there. I’m going out on a limb and guessing yours is the same way.

I believe this can all be fixed.

I really hope you get this email. I obviously did some research on you and found out you shut your blog down. That tells me a lot about you.

I really want my brother to be happy. I think you’re the one to do it, but we have to get his head out of his ass first.

Want to help me?

If so, give me a call. My number is below.

Sincerely,

Tabby Burke

I stare blankly at the laptop for just a moment, then I read Tabby’s email again.

Then I read it one more time.

Then I call Jeremy, and I read it to him.

His advice: hurry the fuck up and call Tabby.

I wait for my dinner to arrive, then hurry up and wolf it down. I pace around my apartment, letting the food digest and working up the courage to call Logan’s sister. She seems so positive, but I’m afraid to have hope.

Finally, I sit down at my kitchen island, take a deep breath, and dial the number she gave me.

She answers on the second ring.

“Hi, Tabby? It’s Valentine…So, what’s the plan?”

She laughs into the phone and it’s a delightful sound. “I am so glad you called me. Now…here’s what I think you should do.”