GRACIE
“WELL, JUST LOOK AT ME, making new friends on my very first trip to town. Can’t wait to meet the rest of your mates and feel the love.”
I give him a closed-mouth smile and watch as his lips twitch while he fights his own. I’m shaking on the inside. I’m not a big fan of confrontation, but at the same time, I don’t take shit from anyone, either. I grew up with no brothers or sisters to fight my battles for me and learned to stick up for myself a long time ago.
I can’t say that I’ve ever been bullied, but I’ve been in situations where the mean girls have laid into me verbally. It’s been years since I’ve been in a physical fight, which was all Kimmie’s fault, but what I lack in height and experience, I make up for with my mouth. I’m good at giving evil looks and dishing the shit when the occasion requires, and this occasion definitely required a massive serving.
I’ve no clue who Misty is, or her connection to Koa, but I wasn’t just gonna sit there and listen to all that bollocks. My inner Essex Bird reared her head, and there was no stopping me. At least it didn’t end with us rolling around on the floor. That would’ve just been tacky, and seeing as I only have one hand to fight with right now, I most likely would’ve lost.
A waitress appears at the table, pours coffee into the mug that’s already sitting in front of Koa, and places a bottle of water in front of me.
We both offer up a thank you, and she pulls out her pad to write down our orders.
“You guys know what you’d like to eat. Breakfast is about to wrap up, so I need to get this in quick.” She pauses, then adds, “Hey, Koa, how are you?”
I watch as he looks up from his menu and his smile finally breaks free.
“Rebecca? Hey, how are you? How’s Drew?”
“He’s good. We have three boys now, and they all have football practice up at the high school this morning. So, he goes there, and I come here.”
“Three boys? What ages?”
“Eleven, fourteen, and sixteen.”
“How ’bout you? You got two, is that right?”
Two?
He never mentioned two kids.
I look up from my menu and catch him staring at me, saying, “Yeah, I’ve got two.”
There’s a long moment of silence before I ask, “Could I have the omelette, please? Can you add spinach, avocado, mushrooms, and extra cheese to that, as well? Thanks.”
“Sure thing,” Rebecca replies. I smile, and she takes the menu from me.
“I’ll have the breakfast special with the lot, please, Bec.”
“Coming right up.”
She turns and leaves the table. I fiddle with my napkin. This whole situation is weird, and I suddenly feel awkward and unsettled.
“I went to school with Rebecca and her husband Drew. Grew up with them. Sorry, I should’ve introduced you.” His voice interrupts my thought process, not that I’d got very far with it.
I don’t know this man. I mean what the actual fuck am I doing here, and why the fuck did I just get a little stab of jealousy at the way Rebecca smiled at him? And what’s the fucking deal with Misty the stripper, or prostitute, or whatever the fuck she is, warning him away from his ex?
And why the fuck do I even care?
“As what?” I ask, throwing down my napkin and attempting to unscrew the lid on my bottle of water as I do.
“Huh? What do you mean as what?”
Don’t go there, Gracie. Don’t go there. Don’t go there. Don’t go there.
“What would you introduce me as, your lodger, your guest, the girl you cried on and whose arms you fell asleep in last night?”
I went there.
He sits back against the red vinyl seatback and picks up his napkin.
We both watch as he twists and untwists the napkin around his finger. He has beautiful hands, the backs are smooth, his fingers long, but they have callouses on them. From what? I don’t know.
“I should apologise for that, Essex, but I won’t because it felt good.”
“The crying or falling asleep in my arms?”
He smiles and throws his napkin at me. I throw it back, and it lands straight in his coffee.
“Oops?” Is all I have. And even that I offer as a question, but he’s still smiling at me.
“Both. Both felt good.” My heart picks up its pace and begins to canter in my chest. I watch as he scoops the soggy napkin from his coffee and hand him mine to place it on. All without making eye contact with him.
“You throw like a T-rex.” I can hear the smile in his voice, but I still don’t make eye contact.
Come on, Gracie. Get it together.
“I’m not good with my left hand.” Yeah, that ain’t really what I would call getting it together.
I suck in my cheeks and do my best to fight a smile.
“Really? You do better with your right?” My gaze finally meets his, and he’s full-on grinning at me.
“Fuck you, Cowboy,” I say quietly.
“Right here? Before we eat or after? Or maybe we should just skip breakfast and eat each—”
“Here you go, guys. One omelette with extra cheese, mushrooms, spinach, and avocado and one breakfast special with the lot.”
“Thank you,” we say in unison.
“I’m Rebecca, by the way. That was rude of me earlier, not introducing myself. Koa, that’s your doing.”
“Yeah, sorry ’bout that. All my fault, and I did apologise.”
“That’s good to know.”
I watch their exchange and then offer, “Gracie, I’m a friend of Koa’s visiting from England.”
“England? Oh wow. You two meet through the band? Koa’s quite the celebrity around these parts.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard.” I leave my answer at that, not wanting to share that I’m shacking up with a total stranger.
She pauses for a second, realises that I’m not going to say anything else, smiles, and tells us to enjoy our food.
We eat in silence for a few seconds, and then, me being me, I have to say what’s on my mind.
“Do you not think that was a little totes inapprops?”
I watch as Koa chews on what Rod always refers to as ‘old ladies clit’ but is, in fact, what passes as a dry, crispy, excuse for bacon in America. His analogy is the reason I always stick to eggs when I travel here.
“Do I not think what? Do speak English.” He says the last part in what I think was another attempt to sound English. He fails.
“What you said about skipping breakfast and eating—”
“Lunch. I was gonna suggest skipping breakfast and eating lunch instead.”
I shake my head and give him my best eye roll.
Rebecca reappears, asks if we’re all good, and tops up Koa’s coffee as she asks if I’m sure I wouldn’t like any. I once again decline, and she leaves. I learned my lesson about the coffee they serve in the States the hard way. Or maybe I should say the runny way? Yep, it goes straight through me.
“There’s something I wanted to ask you.”
I take a swig of my water as Koa sips his coffee, watching me with those brown eyes of his over his mug.
“No, I don’t swallow on the first date.”
Coffee sprays the table as he chokes and splutters. I throw my head back and laugh, doing nothing to help him. When he finally regains his composure, he gets up and collects more napkins from the counter.
He sits back down opposite me and begins to wipe up the mess he left behind.
“Not swallowing implies that you do suck, though.”
I shake my head.
“I don’t suck or swallow on the first, second, or third date, Cowboy. And just so we’re clear, taking me to breakfast does not count as a date, so get any ideas you might have regarding me or my mouth and any suck, spit, or swallow action out of that dirty mind of yours because it ain’t happening.”
I eat the last mouthful of omelette that I can manage, well aware that he’s watching me. Yeah, I give all the old bollocks about not giving it up on the first date, but looking at him in all his fineness, I so would.
“Can we please stop talking about sucking, spitting, and swallowing?”
“Course we can, Cowboy. What was your question?”
I tilt my head back and sip on my water, making sure to swallow hard so that my throat moves. When I’m done, I circle the bottle with my swollen right hand and screw the lid on with my left. I may then stroke the bottle up and down, maybe once, twice or twelve times. When I’m entirely sure I have Koa’s full attention, I use my ring finger to wipe non-existent drops of water from each corner of my mouth. And then I slowly lick my lips.
“Question, Koa, what was it?”
His eyes shift from my mouth to meet mine, and he clears his throat.
“So, huh, yeah.” He fumbles, shifts in his seat, and clears his throat again.
“What we discussed before, about interiors? I was wondering, if I were to let you stay for free at Emily’s place while the renovations are done, would you give me some help with the interior stuff? Usually, after I’m done with renos, I have a company come in and dress them, but I’m not sure that I wanna sell the old place yet.”
“Why would you wanna sell it? Didn’t you say that your dad built it?”
He nods. “I did, yeah. Before I was even born.”
“Do you need the money? Is it a financial thing?”
He shakes his head and puts his knife and fork down, not having touched even a half of what’s on his plate.
“Fuck no. I earn decent money flipping houses and what the band brings in alone has me set up for life.”
“Then why sell?”
He puffs his cheeks and blows out a breath. His fringe moves, which has him raking his fingers through it in an attempt to push it back from his face.
“This town holds a lot of memories for me. Not all of them good.”
I nod, totally understanding where he’s coming from.
“The tree where it happened is gone. Had to be chopped down after the accident, but I still have to drive past that spot every time I come in and out of town. And it’s not just me it affects, I have to think of Kai, too.”
“I thought he lived with your mum?”
Mention of his son reminds me of what he’d said earlier. Two kids.
“That’s just a temporary thing. Kai decided he didn’t wanna go to college, wanted to learn a trade. So, I took him on as an apprentice carpenter. Money’s not great, but he’s learning a skill that will eventually bring him a good living if he sets his mind to it.” He takes a sip of his coffee and continues. “He’d been doing great until I got a knock at the door late one Friday night. It was Nelson.”
“The same sheriff who showed up to rescue me the other night?”
He gives me a look before saying, “Yep,” and wrapping both his hand around his mug. “My legs almost gave out from under me when I opened the door and saw him standing there. I can’t, even to this day, put into words the fear that had a grip on me so tight that I couldn’t bring myself to say a single fucking word.”
“Koa.” His name comes out on a whispered breath as I imagine the scene.
I reach my hand out across the table, and he takes it in his. It’s an unconscious action. Once again instinctual, reaching for someone who so obviously needs comfort at that moment.
“Nelson must’ve seen the terror, panic, whatever written on my face and started straight away by saying, “He’s safe Carmichael. He’s in the back of my Ranger. A little shook up, but he’s safe.”
I pull my hand away from his, lace my fingers together, and stretch them up and behind my head in an attempt to let more air into my lungs, but it hurts my wrist, so I bring them back down to the table.
“He’d been here in town, hanging out with a few of the other apprentices and a bunch of girls. They’d been drinking down by the river. Instead of waiting their turn for a ride with the DD, one of them thought he’d be smart and drive back into town after drinking all night. Kai decided it’d be a good idea to ride with him. Austin, the boy driving, only got about a mile before running his truck off the road.”
He puts his coffee mug down and stares at it for a while before looking back at me.
“Neither of them were wearing seatbelts, but Austin was so drunk he couldn’t even keep his foot on the gas. They drove off the road and through some bushes before hitting a tree. They were more scratched up by the bushes once they fell out of the car than by the accident. Unluckily for them, a witness had called for assistance and Nelson was the first on the scene.”
“So, you sent him to your mum’s for punishment.”
“Yeah, pretty much. And for my own peace of mind. I was so fucking pissed at him. After going through what he did with his mom, I thought I could trust him to be a little more responsible.”
“I can imagine.”
“He thinks he’s there for a year, but we’ll see. I believe he learned his lesson as soon as he sobered up, but I’m his dad, and he needs to know that fuckin’ up has consequences.”
Imagining Koa as a dad does all kinds of strange things to my heart, and my ovaries, if I’m honest.
“You told Rebecca that you have two kids, how old’s the other one?”
He blinks a few times, which tells me he’s thinking about his answer.
“Four.”
Fuck. That’s a new one. A baby still.
Wife?
“Boy or girl?”
“Oh, she’s a girl all right. No doubt about that. Four thinking she’s twenty-four. She’d love your hair and your nails, probably your tattoos, too.”
I thought I had his relationship status covered, that was before I knew he had a four-year-old, though, so I dive straight in and ask what I need to know.
“Where’s she live?”
“She’s in Aspen with her mom. My ex-wife.”
Ooooookaaaay. So another ex-wife?
“Another ex, how many exes and kids do you have?”
“Just two. Two wives, two kids.”
“Just two.” It’s not a question, just a statement, I suppose. I’m trying the words out on my tongue. Two ex-wives. Two kids.
“Wasn’t the way I thought my life was gonna go, but it is what it is.”
“What happened?”
He shrugs and looks around the diner.
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
He bloody does. I need—no, I want to know. Everything.
“Met Lucy at an after-party for one of our shows we played in Georgia. She was cute, funny, and gorgeous. Convinced me that the whole relationship thing was worth giving a second chance.”
A different waitress, not Rebecca, comes over and clears our plates, and we remain silent as she works.
“We got married, and Lucy was pregnant three months later. I thought we were happy. I bought us a house in Aspen. I bought her a new car, clothes, jewellery. I bought her anything she wanted. I came home from a tour one time, and there was a lawyer at my house, waiting to serve me divorce papers. Turns out, all she was after was a paycheque for the next eighteen years.”
Didn’t know Lucy. Didn’t wanna, but I suddenly had the urge to slap the bitch.
“Please tell me you had a prenup in place. Everyone here has a prenup, don’t they?”
“Not everyone, but yeah, I did, but she still did well out of it. I wasn’t gonna fight her. If that was what she wanted, then that was what I’d give her. The only thing I did fight for was my little girl. She wanted full custody.”
Wow, I don’t have kids, but after going through what he has and losing one, I can only imagine how much that must’ve hurt.
“So, you don’t see her, your little girl?” My nose tingles as I ask.
“I do. I had to make some changes, but I fought and won joint custody. My daughter comes to me every other weekend, two weeknights and we share school holidays.”
My left hand is pressed against my chest in an attempt to slow my racing heart.
“So why, what were her reasons for wanting the divorce?”
He starts to put his jacket on, so I do the same.
“She didn’t love me. She married me for my money. Had a child with me to guarantee an income for the next eighteen years. She moved on with a record producer friend of mine just a few months after our divorce was settled, they got married, but that ended just a year later.”
“Wow.”
“Oh, it gets better. After the record producer dumped her ass for a younger model, she came begging and crying back to me.”
“Whaaaa?”
He chuckles, but it’s not the funny, haha kind. It’s the “I know, right?” kind. “Now she’s with the head of the real estate company that sold us the house I bought for her, someone I went to school with in fact.”
Rebecca appears with our bill, and I attempt to pull my card from my wristlet, but he’s faster and insists on paying.
We say our goodbyes to Martha and Rebecca and head outside.
“So carry on,” I insist. Obviously being female, I’m gagging to know the rest of this story.
The blue sky has gone, hidden behind a blanket of grey and white clouds, snow falling lightly from them.
We stand outside the diner facing each other, people jostling us as they pass by. He reaches out his hands and places them on my shoulders, pulling me closer to him and out of the way of an elderly couple, both with walking sticks, allowing them room to get by.
Once they move around us, his hands remain in place, and I look up at him.
“She fucked me over, Essex. She claimed I couldn’t take care of my daughter because of touring with the band. She tried to take my little girl from me, she attempted to take Kai’s baby sister from him. Fuck, she’d already gotten the house and a decent monthly payout, there was no way I was gonna let her have any more.”
He licks his lips and looks past me. When his eyes land back on mine, they’re different. The emotion that had been evident as he told his story last night and over breakfast were now gone. Replaced with something I couldn’t quite read.
“I gave up my music because of her. I abandoned the band, so I wouldn’t have to tour anymore. I went back to work for my dad’s construction company that I’d invested in, grown, and expanded. I bought a new house, I fixed it up, turned it into a home for Kai and Malia, and I went to court. I won joint custody, so when she came crying back to me, begging me to see her, to hear her out, I didn’t even take her calls. I had everything redirected to my lawyer and let them deal with it. My only concern was for my little girl. The impact all of this upheaval was having on my daughter. Once I threatened Lucy with court action and another custody hearing, she backed down.”
“But why, I don’t understand? Why would she divorce you, marry someone else, then try to come back to you?”
“Money. She’d met her match with Aaron Cohen, the producer. She had been his third wife, so he was an expert with the prenup, and she left with exactly what she came in with, and that was what she got from me. I heard a rumour they were both fucking around on each other from the very beginning. Tried to look into it in case I needed the evidence to gain full custody of Malia, but it wasn’t what I really wanted, the battle I mean, not my daughter.”
I let out a long breath through my nose and shake my head.
“Fucking hell, Koa, somebody should write a book or make a film about your life. I thought TOWIE was where all the drama happened. Someone should make a The Only Way is Aspen show. Do they have a Housewives of Aspen?”
I get an entirely blank stare.
“You’ve no clue what I’m banging on about, do ya, Cowboy?”
“I ain’t got a Scooby, Essex.”
A little of the light returns to his eyes, and we both smile for a moment.
“I’m so sorry all of that has happened to you. I can’t believe women like your exes actually exist.”
“Me, either. Fucked over twice by two different women. No way in hell will that ever be happening again.”
I feel his words. I physically feel them hit me. They land right in the middle of my chest, and they squeeze it tight, so tight that it hurts.
I don’t know why his words are painful.
I’m confused as to why they leave me hugely disappointed.
He’s a stranger. But isn’t everyone when we first meet them?
I look at him in silence for a few moments, wondering what it is exactly I’m expecting from him, from our relationship, if that’s what our association can be called.
Despite my brain’s tendency to go off on a tangent and to tell itself unbelievably fantastical stories, I haven’t actually allowed that to happen with him. Yeah, he is hot, as fit as fuck, and I’d most definitely consider the possibility of shagging him before I leave. I mean, why not? We’re both adults, and there’s definitely chemistry between us. That’s been apparent since the get-go. But none of that explains the hollowness in my belly or the tightness in my chest.
“The drugstore’s this way, let’s go get something for that wrist of yours and then we’ll find a phone store.”
I nod and follow him.