A blackbird cawed high above the street, hidden by the glow of the fading sun.
My duffel weighed a ton, so I left it for last and took my other two overnight bags down to my car. I unlocked it and shoved them into the trunk, my stomach flipping as I spun around and saw Thomas standing outside the drugstore next to the same door that led to my apartment.
His plain white shirt billowed in the breeze, then pressed against his lean chest as he straightened the leg he’d bent, his boot joining the other one on the asphalt.
Smiling away the shock that’d frozen my heart, I shut the trunk and walked over to him.
“You’re going home now?”
“Yeah, just have another bag to grab, then I’m off.”
His tongue poked the side of his cheek, his perfect combed back hair shifting as he ran a hand over it. Idly, I wondered how deep my fingers would sink if they were to touch it, to burrow down. How long it’d take for my nails to scrape his scalp.
Jesus, I needed a glass of water or something.
For as much as I’d floated along the unpredictable river that was Thomas Verrone, I’d never actually fantasized about him that hard. Until now.
“I’m sorry I ran off yesterday.” The words carried no sincerity, but I allowed them to mollify the kernel of worry that sat deep.
“That’s okay.” I slipped my hands into my jean short pockets, shrugging. “I guess you had places to be?”
“Unexpected work.” His eyes finally met mine. “That, and you simply unnerve me, Little Dove.”
I swallowed my shaky breath, my chest rattling as I basked in the honest words aided by the serious set to his sharp jaw and hard eyes.
“The feeling’s mutual,” I said, not sure if he’d even heard the soft words as the noise of the city street drowned out most things, including my stampeding heartbeat. “But I, um …” I hesitated, worried that he’d take what I was about to say the wrong way but knowing I had to let him know. If he didn’t already. “Well, it’s been a crazy month. I need some time, patience, but I’d like to maybe …” I stopped talking when a woman stepped outside the drugstore, huge glasses on and familiar red hair.
Thomas unstuck his eyes from me and looked over.
Amelia glanced at us, then dug around in her purse for something.
When Thomas still didn’t look at me, I followed his gaze to where she’d stopped, talking on the phone a little farther down the street.
Thomas smirked at her, making her bristle.
“You know her?” I asked.
“Oh, she wishes I didn’t.” Thomas took a step forward, his hand settling over my hip. “Listen, I was supposed to arrange this with you yesterday.” My thoughts gathered and dissipated, too distracted by his touch. It was the first time he’d held me, even if it was a loose hold, and he did so to bend down and whisper, “Meet me tonight, eight o’clock. There’s a small bridge in Glenning that runs over the creek.”
“I know the one.” My eyes shot to his.
Seeing the questions in them, he rushed to say, “Not for that. I heard what you said, even if I already knew.” A sigh left him. “But still, we have much to talk about.”
His scent rolled into my nostrils as he leaned in, his lips gliding over my cheek. I listened to the sound of his drawn-out inhale, felt the way shivers wracked down my spine, and watched as he stepped away and walked by the drugstore where Amelia had been standing moments ago.
The time on the dash read 7:15.
Thomas’s words had nestled deep inside my brain, unwilling to budge, not after he’d said we had much to talk about. Reasons as to why we had to meet in such a place, at that time, flitted through my mind, then left without a trace as I cast them all aside as ridiculous.
I didn’t understand, and the only way I could was to meet him there.
I realized then, as I made sure I kept watch on the time, that I must’ve trusted him. At least enough to meet him where the water’s shallow but loud, and darkness falls heavy.
As I gazed back out the window to the house where I’d spent months making memories, making dreams, and making excuses, that gnawing, acidic taste of my heart’s pain returned, filling my mouth and my eyes.
It was time to say goodbye.
Miles’s truck was in the drive, and I leaped from my car, quickly sliding the envelope that contained my false happily ever after into the green mailbox before the sorrow had my hands latching onto it, desperate for hope, for any longer.
Back in the car, my hand poised over the keys in the ignition, the tsunami of grief for what-if, for what could’ve been, rocked me. After all our time together—the good and the bad and the beautiful—this was how I was going to leave it?
No.
That wasn’t me. I might have been foolish in blindly trusting a man who always seemed so far out of my reach, but I wasn’t a coward. I unclipped my seat belt, wrenched open the door, and plucked the envelope out of the mailbox.
The porch light flickered on as I raised my hand to knock. Noticing the door was ajar, my hand fell to my side as I took a step forward.
“… may be so, but I’m your fucking wife. Don’t I get a say?” a woman shouted, her voice, her pain, barreling down the hall to escape the cracked open door and lock my feet in place.
“I’m tired, Milo. Tired of the lies, of feeling like I’m losing you every week you spend with that child. You’re getting nowhere anyway. Please, just go back to HQ and end this.”
Milo?
Tears of desperation coated every word she hollered, but I definitely wasn’t hearing things.
Torn, I looked back at my car, at the street, only just seeing the black SUV parked a few houses down.
“No, fuck that. You knew. You knew what this would involve.”
My mind screamed at me to go, to leave. It’d connected the most important dots, but my heart was still unable to comprehend such insanity.
So I pushed the door open and walked inside.
Miles, or Milo, growled, “You fucking pushed me into this as much as Anthony, Shell. And don’t you dare say you didn’t.” I’d never heard him sound so angry, so upset, but that didn’t stop my feet from carrying me down the hall to the living room. It was what he said next that did that. “I told him we should leave her alone. We didn’t need to go this far, and you disagreed. And now that we have, that I have, you’re compromising everything by being here.”
The envelope slipped from my hand, fluttering to the tiled floor. The floor we’d never got around to buying rugs for. The dining table mocked me from where it sat next to the window that faced the backyard, waiting to one day be expanded for more visitors.
And as they saw me standing there, right outside the living room, the audacity to look shocked by my presence, it was apparent I was the visitor here.
Amelia, or Shell, cursed and glared with wet eyes before storming right past me, the front door slamming in her wake.
“Jem,” Miles rasped, his expression one of utter terror.
“I came by to …” I stopped, blinking down at the ground to where the envelope sat and made a gesture to it. “Yeah.”
Then I turned and raced out the door. Miles’s feet slapped against the tiles as he came after me.
With my keys already in the ignition, I peeled out without even checking for cars and battled the urge to throw up the whole way back to my apartment.