Chapter 3

 

“Well, that was a quick exit,” Mom said after piling the porch swing into the back of the minivan. Luckily, the guy who helped her wasn’t Jordan, or I might have run screaming all the way down Hwy 6 to our house.

“Mom, that was Jordan freaking Webber, the guy who I dated for two years. Who was too good to stay in Texas and had to go to freaking New York.” I tried not to yell, but I could feel the tension building in my neck.

I never thought I’d see him again, and the weird thing was, I thought I would be angrier. But by the way my heart was fluttering in my chest; I knew I was actually almost happy to see him. No matter how much he hurt me when he left; I couldn’t deny the fire that still burned inside me for him. Something that never happened in the time I’d been hanging out with Joey.

“Yes, I do remember him, dear. That’s why the way you acted surprised me so much. Especially since I was pretty sure you wanted to go to New York with him. I’m still surprised you never ended up there.”

“Are you serious right now?” I turned toward her, trying not to whine or sound like a little girl. But this was the woman who had told me she wouldn’t pay for art school unless I minored in art at a state college. I had no desire to do anything but photography—still don’t. And I didn’t take her up on the offer. Part of me wishes I would have. Then things would have been totally different. Then again, would they? Dad would have still cheated on Mom with a lady from the country club, and I would have probably still ended up back here taking family portraits. Maybe. I didn’t want to go back and daydream about a life that could have been with Jordan and New York. That and my head was still hurting too much to daydream.

 “Sometimes, we follow our hearts, and it works out for the better, and sometimes, you end up getting a big divorce settlement to buy a fixed-up house and a porch swing,” she said with a wink.

“Real romantic, Ma.”

“Well, at least we got our porch swing out of all that, and you can help me get that installed this afternoon,” she said. A good way to change the subject.

“I have lunch plans with Teagan and Christy,” I replied weakly. I hated to ditch my mom when she wanted to hang out, but the girls had been away at UT Austin, and I hadn’t seen either of them since December. I also had to talk with someone who wasn’t my mom about what went down with Joey. Maybe this was all a sign that I was supposed to end up with Jordan. Or that I needed to lay off the alcohol. Maybe a little bit of both.

 

***

 

 

Friendship wasn’t a huge town, but since I lived in the middle of nowhere, it still took me about fifteen minutes to drive downtown. Which gave me way too much time to think. Every song that came on the radio was about old flames and romance, so after about the fifth person crooning about the one that got away, I just turned it off.

I found a spot in front of the boutique a few storefronts down from the Main Street Cafe. Teagan was already sitting outside at one of the wrought-iron tables with her obnoxiously large sunglasses on, and her long reddish-brown hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail. She always looked put-together while I still hadn’t changed from this morning and was still in a dusty tank top and shorts with my hair probably sticking out all over my bun. I should have probably changed or showered after we got back from the estate sale, but instead, I took a nap. That helped my headache a bit more, and so did the gallon of coffee and two aspirin.

Teagan peered over her menu and then dropped it down once she saw me. “Well, who do we have here? Abbey Dillinger! I do declare!”

I rolled my eyes and sat across from my dramatic friend. “Enough with the Southernness. I’m hungover, and Mom dragged me to an estate sale. I need water and like fifty more hours of sleep.”

“Oh, look at my little lush!” She giggled. “So are you going to regale me with your latest find from the flea market? Your mom still using your dad’s divorce money for her love nest with Sofie White’s dad?” She leaned in, putting her chin in her hands as if what I had to say was the end all, be all of information.

A waiter came over and set two glasses of water in front of us and then looked down at his notepad expectantly. I wasn’t going to discuss Joey’s breakup or my meeting with Jordan in front of this guy, so I waited for him to take our order and even waited for an extra few beats to discuss something else.

“Okay, before I explain, is Christy joining us? I don’t want to explain this all twice,” I asked, making sure no one was staring at us.

Teagan laughed so hard she snorted and had to cover her mouth before she shook her head and took a deep breath. She put her hands on her lap. “Girl, you haven’t seen Christy’s Facebook posts? Girl went crazy!”

“What?” I asked, widening my eyes and leaning in.

“Well, she’s always been off, but like, I guess she couldn’t take not being Queen Bee when we started at UT, so she tried to buy people, and it was really sad. Freshman year, she got every girl on our floor in the dorms this really nice bracelet and invited them to a dinner at this local restaurant. But literally, like two people showed up.”

I blinked slowly. “I remember Christy talking about that, but she made it seem like everyone was there …”

Teagan rolled her eyes. “I thought maybe she’d just stay a little humble when we went into sorority recruitment … but nope. I think they only let her in to meet an Asian quota or something. She moved out of the house sophomore year and got her own apartment. I seriously thought she would transfer or drop the house but nope again. From what I hear, she’s still home every weekend.”

Teagan raised her eyebrows expectantly after her last sentence.

I took a long sip of my water. Christy was home a lot, though she didn’t exactly tell me why. She had also mentioned taking a break from school—because she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life—but her parents wouldn’t let her. I always wondered if something else was going on, but I didn’t push it. “Yeah. I’ve seen her quite a bit.”

“Well, before the semester was over, she went on this big long rant about fakers and liars. People called her out in the comments, saying she was the biggest fake of them all and people were only friends with her in her small-town high school because they were afraid of her bitchy mom and her dad had money. After that, she hasn’t posted anything else.”

I widened my eyes. “Holy shit. I didn’t see that!”

Now, I was itching to get to my phone. I wasn’t into drama, but this was definitely a nice change of pace from my own shit. And Christy really was one of my best friends. I made a mental note to check Facebook and to text Christy.

“Okay, enough about Christy. This is depressing. Tell me about your morning with your mom and things with Joey. Are you all still whatever you are?”

“Well, there’s not much to say about Mom, and Joey ended it with me last night. Hence the hangover …”

Teagan’s eyes widened. “Holy shit. You and Joey broke up? For real?”

I shrugged. “I guess it’s considered a breakup, but is it really a break up if you’re just friends with benefits?”

“Did he say why?”

I laughed, but there was no humor in it. “He said he was screwing other girls, and one might be pregnant. Like seriously! As if my life isn’t weird enough. He just said it so casually and then told me I didn’t need to make a scene about it. I don’t even know if I’m sad or what I should feel about it.”

Teagan cleared her throat, taking a sip of her drink before responding. “Well, it sounds like you’re better off if he’s going to have some baby mama drama. So let’s not waste our energy on him. Tell me about the flea market or estate sale or whatever your mom dragged your hungover ass to. Take any good pictures or find something pretty?”

“Well, I did find something …” I played with my straw, pulling it in and out of my drink.

“And what was that?”

I bit my lower lip and looked down at the table. “It turned out the house we went to actually belonged to Jordan Webber’s grandparents.”

I looked up after hearing Teagan gargle and almost choke on her water. She held her hand to her chest, her eyes watering as she locked on me. “Jordan Webber? As in your weirdo ex-boyfriend with the tattoos who always carried a sketchbook?”

“The exact one.”

That wasn’t how I liked to think of him, but the description was pretty accurate. He transferred to our school in the middle of our sophomore year. Teagan thought he was sexy in a dark and mysterious way with his shaggy hair and a tattoo at sixteen. She asked me to talk to him for her in gym class. He said he preferred brunettes over redheads, and shortly after, we started dating. I think Teagan always held a grudge against me for that, but he definitely wasn’t her type. He was the kind of guy who liked to spend his weekends playing acoustic guitar or at an art museum, and Teagan preferred to spend hers dancing and getting trashed.

I thought he was my penguin—as stupid as it sounded. I always felt so alone in the tiny town full of jocks and cowboys. We would go for long walks, and he would draw flowers while I took photos. Then we’d lay in the grass, and he’d discuss his dream to move to New York. I always went along with it because I thought it was just a dream. I didn’t think he’d actually apply to art school there or graduate early. I didn’t have the grades to get into a good art school or graduate early, but that didn’t stop him from leaving. All those dreams turned into a reality for him, and I was left in small town, Texas.

“So he’s the perfect revenge sex!” Tegan squealed, and I swore the old couple at the table behind us glared.

I rolled my eyes even though the thought of maybe loving and leaving Jordan did cross my mind. “I’m not saying that I’m just going to drop everything for Jordan. It’s not like he did that for me,” I muttered the last part.

Teagan leaned in, blinking her big brown eyes slowly. “So what are you going to do then?”

“There is nothing to do,” I snapped more harshly than I intended. “He was the one who left me. I couldn’t care less if I ever see him again.”

A lie. I couldn’t admit it to Teagan when I couldn’t admit it to myself that a part of me did want to see him again. No matter how badly he hurt me, the hole he left in my heart was filled when I saw him again.

“But will you end up seeing him again? You said you were at his grandma’s house?”

“I don’t know … I guess it’s possible. He said he was staying here for a while. But I live far enough out of town that I might never see him while he’s around.” I shook my head, thinking of ways I could possibly avoid him. Maybe he’d stay away from the main places I went. Maybe.

 

***

 

Somewhere between catching up on Teagan’s life at school and her sneaking in questions about my sex life, which was weird as hell, Mom texted to ask me to stop at the hardware store and pick up a new set of chains for the porch swing.

Benny’s Hardware store was right on the way from the cafe to our house. It was a little bit more expensive than the big box stores, but they didn’t provide customer service like Benny’s did.

I pulled in front of the small green building with the hand-painted sign. Benny’s bloodhound slept by the screen door entrance. That dog went everywhere Benny did and was as much of a fixture in town as the old town hall.

A bell dinged over the door, and the old man at the counter slowly spun in my direction.

“Afternoon, Miss Abbey,” Benny said with his deep Southern drawl. As far as I knew, the old man with his floppy white hair and thick glasses lived in northern Texas his entire life, so I had no idea where the deep drawl came into play.

“Hey, Benny.”

The store wasn’t very big at all; in fact, the selection was pretty minimal. If someone wanted nails, screws, bolts, or a hammer, they could get that. But not much else. Benny once told Mom and me that it used to be his grandfather’s general store, and before that, it was a candy shop. Mom always appreciated a guy who had a penchant for history, and I felt like I grew up in the cedar smelling shop.

“Your ma working on another project?” He leaned on the counter.

I nodded, making my way over to the counter as the floorboards creaked underfoot with each step. “Yeah, she’s working on a porch sw—”

Before I could finish my sentence, the bell dinged over the door. Benny lifted his head to greet the new customer. “Afternoon, young man.”

Not many people under the age of forty who weren’t lifelong residents usually came into the store, so I glanced back to see who it was that Benny didn’t know by their first name. I caught the outline of someone close to my age with bulging biceps and a lopsided smile, and that was when I had to do a double-take.

“Jordan? What are you doing here?” I tried to keep my mouth from hanging open, but it had to be down to the floor. While I still looked and smelled like hell, Jordan looked even better than he did earlier—all freshly showered with his t-shirt clinging to what was definitely an eight pack.

Jordan took slow, tentative steps, sauntering like an old cowboy. “Dad and I were fixing a door that came off the hinge and didn’t have everything we needed, so he sent me here to pick up some supplies.”

A likely excuse. I put one hand on my hip. “Uh-huh, and you couldn’t have gone to Rockwall like everyone else?”

His lopsided smile had turned into an all-out grin. “So now you own Benny’s? I guess a lot has changed the past few years.”

I wanted to say something back—something snarky and witty—but I couldn’t do anything when he looked at me with those gorgeous blue eyes like I was the only person in the room.

“Forget it,” I muttered once I got my voice back. I pivoted around him and threw the screen door open, making the bell clang so loudly it practically flew off the doorframe. The bloodhound stirred from his slumber and stood in attention, moaning as I ran past him.

“What’s your problem, Abbey?”

“My problem?” I whipped my head around so fast I practically had whiplash.

He was standing only a foot away from me, his chin tilted down and his eyes big and glossy like a puppy. I gulped. It was hard to yell at him when he was looking so incredibly sexy with his white shirt clinging to him like a second skin and the hint of a smile still on his lips.

“You left me, Jordan. You left, and you have a life in New York. I have a life here too.” I stood as tall as I could, trying not to let my knees buckle underneath me. I flitted my eyes to the ground before looking back up at him. His stare never left my own; crisp and blue, he had the most gorgeous eyes I’d ever seen.

“Are you still taking those beautiful scenery photos?”

I faltered, adjusting my foot from one heel to the other. “More like school photos and some sessions on the side. But you know, I’m getting my name out there. Someday, maybe I’ll have a studio in town. Being the only photographer around helps.”

“Didn’t think you were the family portrait type. I always saw you more like one of those girls who climbed a mountain for the perfect shot,” Jordan said, his eyes shining.

“Well, I guess you don’t really know me,” I muttered.

He frowned. “Maybe it would be nice to catch up then. Can I buy you a coffee or something? Mom says the Forever Sweet Bakery is pretty good.”

“I know; I work there,” I blurted without thinking what I was saying. Shit, if I really didn’t want to see him, I shouldn’t have told him.

He was so close; all it would have taken was for me to lean forward and forget everything. Just kiss him and pretend that nothing ever happened. “No wonder it’s so good if you’re the one working the counter.”

“I can’t do this, Jordan. I’m with Joey now,” I said without thinking. We broke up. Sort of. Whatever we did, we weren’t together, but it sounded better to say I was with someone.

Jordan’s eyes bugged out from their puppy dog form. “Joey Bianchi? From high school?”

I nodded, taking one step backward. The lie getting deeper now. “The very one. I’m sorry, but you left; I couldn’t wait around for you to come back from New York.”

He kept his eyes locked on me, not saying a word, just staring.

“It was good seeing you, Jordan, but I have to go.”

I turned as quickly as I could and hopped in my car. Mom would just have to go out and get the chains herself; there was no way I was going to try to get past Jordan and go back into Benny’s. If I had to stare at his beautiful smile any longer, then I would probably forget all about Joey or the fact that a part of my heart was still broken.

But as I looked in my rearview mirror and found him standing there with his eyes locked on my car, I knew that I could never forget him.