Cade
Bliss.
I swear, every time things get remotely good, the universe puts me back in my place.
“Hey, Bliss. Garrick.”
The two of them crossed the room toward us, and Max whispered, “Who is that?”
“Remember the alternative Thanksgiving plans I mentioned?”
“The ones better left in the past?”
I nodded and stood to greet my friends. I shook Garrick’s hand, and gave Bliss an awkward one-armed hug.
“I didn’t end up going back to Texas. Sorry I didn’t tell you. Things changed at the last minute, and I decided to stay.”
Bliss asked, “Your grandmother got better?”
I cringed. “Yeah, she’s good.”
“Why didn’t you come over for Thanksgiving, then?” She gripped my arm, and I took a step back out of her grasp. I watched her face fall and could see the pity that she was so bad at hiding. I could just imagine the scenario going through her head—me, home alone and miserable for the holiday. Of course, that had been my plan until Max blew into my life. I opened my mouth, unsure of what excuse I was going to use. Was I sick? I could have been sick.
Then Max said, “He was with me.”
She slipped an arm around my waist, and on instinct, I put my arm over her shoulder. She pressed close to me and held out a hand toward Bliss. “My name is Max.”
Bliss’s eyebrows disappeared underneath her side-swept bangs, and I saw her eyes scan Max’s tattoos and outfit. I tried to see what she was seeing, imagine what Max must look like to someone who didn’t know her. When I looked at her, all I saw was the black bra that showed through her ripped white shirt, and I decided it was better if I kept my eyes off her for the moment.
Bliss shook Max’s hand, a little in shock.
Garrick recovered faster. He greeted her, “Lovely to meet you, Max.”
When she heard Garrick’s accent, her eyes met mine, and I knew she had put the pieces together. She smiled up at me, and I tried to express my gratitude in a look. Her smile widened, so I thought she understood. “Max, this is Bliss. We went to college together. And this is her boyfriend, Garrick.” I left out the part where he’d been our professor. Things were weird enough already.
“It’s so nice to meet friends of Cade.” She nudged me playfully. “I was beginning to think he’d never introduce me. Did he invite you guys to see the show tonight?”
“Actually”—her band mate, the one with the punk bow tie, stepped up—“I invited them. Garrick is a friend.”
Max said, “Oh, I didn fingernails scrapeH19ifferent’t realize you knew Spence.”
This Spence was looking between Max and me like the world had spun off its axis. I didn’t blame him. With me in my button-down and her looking like a rock goddess—we didn’t exactly match. He pinned me with a stare and said, “And you are?”
Max jumped in. “This is Cade, my boyfriend. Don’t act like I haven’t been talking your ear off about him, Spence.”
“Right.” Her friend nodded. “Cade.”
I decided it was time to help Max carry the burden and asked, “What did you think of the show?” I looked down at Max and said, “She’s pretty amazing, isn’t she?”
She leaned up and placed a kiss on my cheek, no doubt leaving a print of her ruby red lips against my skin. I knew she was pretending, but damn she was good at it.
“It was . . .” Bliss tore her eyes away from me and smiled at Max, “It was awesome. You have a great voice.”
Garrick said, “How come you haven’t introduced us to Max before now, Cade?”
Max answered, “Oh, well, we’ve not told many people. We wanted to take things slow, spend some time with just the two of us before broadcasting it to the world.”
Bliss smiled up at Garrick and placed a hand against his chest. “We can definitely understand that.”
My eyes zeroed in on the ring on her finger. He’d done it. He’d proposed, and she’d said yes. I expected to feel some kind of pain, maybe longing, but those feelings never came. There was discomfort, sure, but if anything, seeing the ring on her finger only caused generic emotions—the same ones I felt every time another friend changed their marital status on Facebook or announced they were pregnant. It was the unsettling shock of feeling like everyone around me was moving at a speed I just couldn’t match.
That was the first moment, standing there facing them with Max by my side, that I really started to question what I’d felt for Bliss. Shouldn’t this hurt more? Or was I too distracted by Max’s body next to mine?
I felt like I was standing on a precipice, seconds away from discovering a truth about myself that I didn’t particularly want to learn.
Max’s hand around my waist squeezed tighter, and I tore my eyes away from the ring on Bliss’s hand. I cleared my throat and forced a smile. “I see she said yes.”
Garrick beamed, a smile so bright and happy that it was painful to look at. “She did.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “To both of you. I’m really happy for you.”
Bliss bit her lip, then gave me a soft smile. Her eyes went a little glassy. Her voice was soft when she said, “Thank you. That means a lot.”
There was a beat. Another one of those moments when the winds shifted, time turned, and life started again in a new direction. I didn’t know about anyone else in the room, but I could tell Bliss felt it.
Maybe it was because we were both actors. Maybe it was just because of who we were. But I could see in her eyes that she knew, too. This was the end of a chapter.
We were moving in different directions, and every minute put us another mile apart. Regardless of what my feelings for Bliss had been, there was too much history between us to ever ?” she askedre” drinkgo back to how we were. I’d thought that if I could just get over the pain, then everything else would fall back into place. Well, the pain was gone, but the rift it had caused between us remained.
Funny how four years of friendship could be so completely devastated by one moment of more than friendship. Bliss was the one piece of my old life that I hadn’t had to say good-bye to when I moved to Philly. College had been like home to me, the big family that I’d never had. But that home didn’t exist anymore. And trying to hold on to it through Bliss wasn’t good for either of us.
All the memories and feelings that had connected Bliss and me had frayed until we were connected only by a flimsy, dying thread. It reminded me of an empty theatre after the play had ended, the audience had left, and the crew had cleaned up. The last one to leave turned out all the lights, and left a solitary ghost light in the otherwise darkened space. As we stood there, stiff and awkward, that last thread, that last light, gave way.
Bliss took an uneven breath, and pressed her lips together in a way that I knew meant she was trying not to cry. I took a page out of Max’s book and slowly inhaled and exhaled.
“Well, we should go clear our stuff from the stage,” Max said. “Cade, babe, do you think you could help? Our drummer had to leave.”
I blinked and looked away from Bliss. “Sure. Sure, I can do that.”
I looked at Garrick, then Bliss, and said, “It was good to see you both. Congratulations again.” I shook Garrick’s hand, and this time I gave Bliss a real hug. She pressed her cheek into my chest, and her arms squeezed tight around my middle. She mumbled something that sounded like “Burning out,” and then released me. She was blinking rapidly, but I could still see the tears gathering around the corners of her eyes.
“Good-bye, Bliss.”
I felt surprisingly numb, like a wound that had been cauterized. Maybe it would hurt more later. Or maybe I was just learning that even the good things from our pasts still only belonged in the past.
“Good-bye, Cade.”
Spencer walked the two of them out, and I was left alone with Max. I took a deep breath and sunk back onto the couch.
Max stood above me and said, “I don’t evsteppeend inside the r