Falling for Her

Book Description

 

Neil Driscoll has no intention of looking back. He’s got a trajectory in mind and he’s sticking to it, whether it ruins other people’s lives or not. He’s worked hard to get where he is and has no intention of stopping, not for anyone. Not for anyone or anything, that is, aside from a tragedy that drives him to the home he has come to hate. He vows to stay for as short amount of time as possible, however, and has no intention of breaking that vow, even when a chance encounter throws his entire world off balance.

Fay Turner has never left home and has no intention of doing so. Why would she, when home has everything in the world she could ever want? Her life is predictable and she likes it that way, right up until a surprise encounter turns everything upside down in a matter of moments. When two old lovers come together again, will it rekindle something long believed lost or will the time between them prove too large an obstacle to overcome?

Chapter 1: Fay

 

“Oh my God!” I said. “Don’t do that kind of thing to me, Courtney! You know I hate it when you do.”

“That’s right.” Courtney grinned at me from the space where she’d suddenly inserted her face in between me and my book. “I do. Which is probably why I do it. You realize that, don’t you?”

I rolled my eyes at her and pushed her head out of the way, gently enough so as not to hurt her but hard enough so that she knew I meant business. Or at least, hopefully she knew I meant business. Courtney Paige and I had been best friends for literally as long as I could remember. Such a long-lasting friendship was mostly a good thing, but it also had the unfortunate effect of giving her the ability to see right through me. She knew when I was actually angry and when I was just kind of annoyed, like right now.

Courtney knew I was just mildly annoyed, not actually pissed off at her. She allowed herself to be physically moved, but she showed no signs of actually leaving me in peace so that I could continue reading my book without interruption.

That was really too bad because I had a feeling the story was starting to get to a really good part, where the hero would finally tell the girl he’d been pining after how totally in love he was with her, and had been for years and years. I was a sucker for that kind of thing.

I probably would have gone right on reading for the rest of the day if I hadn’t been so rudely interrupted. Courtney, on the other hand, was a different story altogether. She had never been much of a fan of reading, and she seemed to have a particular hatred for the romance books I completely loved.

Courtney frowned at me, pretending to be stern. “Um, little lady, you do know that we’re at work, right? I mean, technically, that is?”

“Right,” I said. “What’s your point?”

“Well, I guess my point is that this is a diner, not a library. Do you really think you should just be sitting there at the counter, reading a book like you don’t give a shit who sees you?”

“Are you kidding me?” I asked, laughing. I grabbed a napkin to use as a bookmark before shutting my book. “You’re actually drinking a beer right now. We’re at work, as you so lovingly reminded me, and you’re drinking a beer. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Totally different.” Courtney grinned before taking another long swig off of her longneck bottle. “Not even in the same ballpark.”

“Oh yeah? And how do you figure? I mean, how do you justify that drinking a beer on the job is more professional than reading a book while we wait around for even one customer to come in? I would really love to know.”

“Hmm, beer is part of the food industry? So at least I’m sticking with the correct genre? Sure, let’s go with that. Besides, it’s time for you to stop reading that crap anyway. You’ve got to know that by now, Fay. You aren’t a dreamy little girl anymore. You’re twenty-six years old, for Christ’s sake. Don’t you think it’s time to grow up some?”

And there it was. The thing at the heart of this recurring fight about my voracious reading. It wasn’t the actual reading Courtney had a problem with so much as the subject matter. She made no secret about objecting to my choice of entertainment. She hated romances. She didn’t just dislike them, but hated them. She hated them as if they had somehow managed to personally offend, even though they were only inanimate objects.

They were just stories. Just things I used to pass the time and add a little magic to my life. But to look at the scowl Courtney wore on her face now, you would think I was reading about Hitler.

She hated them like someone would hate the mean girl who bullied them in high school. I had never really been able to understand her hostility toward romance novels, despite her loud explanations for it. Explanations she was going to offer up all over again, by the look of it.

“Fay, you’ve got to stop filling your head with nonsense, okay? I mean, for real. What do you think it’s doing to your brain, filling it with so much crap?”

“But it’s not crap,” I insisted.

“Oh yeah? How do you figure? You aren’t telling me you think those stories are all realistic, are you? Because if that’s the case, we’ve got bigger problems than I thought. Like, ‘call the men in the white coats’ problems.”

I shook my head. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. Of course not. But stories don’t all have to be one hundred percent realistic to be worth reading.”

“But they aren’t worth reading. That’s my point! It’s all crap because life doesn’t work that way.”

The ringing of the little bell over the front door of the diner interrupted the momentum of Courtney’s impending tirade. At least, for the moment. We both looked up, mildly surprised at the intrusion, seeing as how people rarely ate in our little hole in the wall. Courtney took the man a menu and got him started, leaving me to mull over the things she’d been saying to me once again.

She kept trying to dissuade me from continuing my love affair with my romance novels. Over the years, she’d told me how stupid my fascination with these love stories was so many times, I couldn’t possibly have kept track. Not even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t. I couldn’t think of a more depressing thing to keep a tally of.

Her basic argument was always the same. What was the point in getting myself all worked up and moony over a concept that didn’t exist it real life? What was the point of getting attached to the idea of happily-ever-afters when I was never going to get one of my own? In short, Courtney thought I was setting myself up for failure, and her constant nagging at me was her way of trying to protect me.

She meant well, and because of that, I never got angry at her about this old argument. It was the reason that I didn’t get angry with her right now. She was trying to look out for me. Her heart was in the right place. After the death of my mother, who’d raised me all by herself, Courtney was the only one who was willing to step up to the challenge.

“See, here’s the thing,” she said in her always just a little bit too loud voice, as if there had never been a break in the conversation. “You’re setting these expectations, Fay. You’re setting these expectations for yourself, and they’re never going to be met. You don’t know what it’s like out there, sweetie. Men aren’t walking Prince Charmings. Not even close. The sooner you get that idea out of your head, the better off you’ll be. And hey? Maybe you’ll finally be able to get rid of the V-card! God knows you need to before you hit thirty. Can you imagine?”

“Courtney!” I hissed. My cheeks flamed up a hot, bright red immediately at her mention of my lingering virginity. “Come on!”

“What?” She laughed, hopping up on the diner’s front lunch counter and swinging her legs nonchalantly. “It’s not like there’s anyone here to listen.”

“Um, aren’t you forgetting about something?” I asked in a whisper, cocking my head in the direction of our one customer.

“What, that guy? He’s not listening. Old guys don’t give a shit about the kind of stuff people like us talk about. Anyway, don’t try to change the subject. The point is, the sooner you get this fairytale idea of love out of your head, the better. We live in Ashville, Alaska, Fay. There aren’t millions of men walking around just waiting to sweep us off our feet. And there aren’t a bunch of things to amuse us everywhere we turn. Smoking, partying, those are the only things here to help pass the time, and they aren’t bad things, either. That’s all I’m saying, lady. The sooner you get rid of this romanticism of yours, the sooner you can come join the land of the living. And I’ll be right there waiting for you when you do, ready to throw you a fucking party!”

Courtney hopped back off the counter and headed to the back, presumably to take inventory or some other equally tedious thing. I smiled and shook my head, opening my book back up in spite of everything Courtney had just said. Almost instantaneously, I was caught up in the drama of the story again. So caught up that I didn’t even notice when our one patron approached the part of the counter I leaned up against. It was only when he cleared his throat bashfully that I looked up with a start, letting out a little gasp of surprise when I did so.

“Oh!”

“Sorry,” he said quickly, his face bashful and as red as mine had been at the mention of my virginity. “I didn’t mean to startle you, miss.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s quite alright. Is there something I can get you?”

“Um, well, no. Not exactly. It’s just that I overheard your conversation with that other one, the one who’s trying to convince you that love is bullshit.”

“Oh, you heard that, did you? I’m sorry about that. I’ll make sure that our silly conversation doesn’t interrupt your meal again.”

“No, it’s not that. I just wanted to tell you something. I wanted to tell you that true love isn’t what she says. It’s real, and it’s out there. Take it from an old man who’s lived through it himself. That’s all.”

I thanked the man profusely. I was strangely touched by both his words and his willingness to go out on a limb and say them to me. I tried to go back to my book, but I found that it was now all but impossible. Whether I wanted them to or not, my thoughts traveled back in time, back to the only boy I’d ever loved. Back to the moment all those years ago when I’d offered my heart up to him, and he’d chosen to walk away instead of taking my simple and all-important gift.

Chapter 2: Neil

 

Most people considered me to be a very young man, at only twenty-six years old, but I was also a man that had been described as too serious, on more than one occasion. I’d heard these comments, of course, because generally, people who talked behind the backs of others weren’t all that discreet. I’d heard the whispers, and the people calling me an asshole, or saying I was willing to walk all over anyone and everyone to get what I wanted, and I couldn’t have cared less.

I didn’t give a shit because their opinions didn’t matter. Their opinions weren’t the things that had gotten me almost all of the way through law school. They hadn’t ensured that my grades were at the top of my class across the board. They weren’t the things that had gotten me out of my bullshit tiny town, either. And they weren’t going to be the things that made me one of the top lawyers in Connecticut once I passed my bar exam. People’s opinions only mattered to those who were too small-minded to think for themselves. That had never, and would never, be me.

“Mr. Driscoll! There you are! I was wondering if you’d be here. Some of the others were saying you were far too serious to come to something as frivolous as a party, but I knew better. I was sure you would come, and now, here you are.”

I turned, scotch in hand, and saw one of my professors approaching. I’d had plenty of teachers over the last three years, and after the two or three scotches I had already slung back, this particular one’s name escaped me. It had the potential to create an embarrassing situation for me, but seeing as the older gentleman seemed to be a fan of mine already, I was sure I could slide through whatever conversation he wanted with me, without him ever knowing I wasn’t sure exactly who he was.

“Hello, sir,” I said. “Good to see you! And I’m not sure what you’ve heard about me, but I never turn down a good party. My father always told me it was important for a man to know how to work hard and play hard, and that’s a rule I’ve always made a point of following.”

“Excellent! Excellent, my boy, but please, there’s no need to call me sir. Not now that all of your classes are over. Please, call me Dan.”

I nodded and smiled, happy to see that I’d learned his name without him ever being wise to the fact that I wasn’t sure who the fuck he was. I listened to him talk, making sure it looked like he was getting my undivided attention. In reality, I checked out the room to see who I might be able to take home and fuck tonight.

I had no interest in a relationship. God forbid some clingy chick try to nail me down into a long-term thing. Decent women had tried and failed to do that. No pussy was that good.

During my time at Yale, I’d banged more than my share of ladies. I saw no reason to stop now. It always amazed me how some of the world’s most intelligent women could turn into mindless fools over a man. Especially when they thought they might be able to trap him.

I made it clear to them from the beginning that all I wanted was some fun between the sheets. But still, some of them couldn’t understand. It was a massive turn off. If anything, it only made me more eager to ditch their asses. I’d sent more than one crying woman home with her soaked panties in hand. It was their own damn fault for thinking they could change me.

“So, what do you think?” Professor Dan asked. “Are you going for sooner rather than later?”

“Good question,” I answered smoothly, taking a second to make sure I was right about him asking me when I planned on taking the bar. “And may I answer your question with another question?”

“Smart boy,” the professor also known as Dan said with a twinkle in his eye. “No direct answer. Spoken like a true attorney. I suppose most people will take their exam as soon as possible. Impatient to get to work, and all of that. Perhaps you don’t have that same concern? Given your unique set of circumstances and all.”

“My circumstances?” I asked, actually paying attention now.

“But of course. Your father runs one of the most successful oil companies in the world. One of the most successful companies in the world period. Sitting comfortably in the top two hundred fifty companies for what, years now? Let’s just say, I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to forego law in favor of taking over the family business. Nepotism gets a bad rap, but sometimes it’s the best decision. The best decision by far. Why not start out with something you already know for sure is going to be a success?”

“Right,” I said, faking a laugh. At that moment, I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t a fan of Professor Dan in the slightest. “I can see how a person would think that. As for me, though, I think I’ll take my chances doing the lawyer thing.”

“Really?” he asked me with a look of skepticism so smug, I wanted to reach out and physically smack it off his face. “Is that so?”

“It is. Besides, my father is never going to retire. It would be pointless for me to try and make plans around taking over the family business. He’s going to be heading that company up when he’s a hundred years old. I have to figure out something to keep me occupied in the meantime.”

“Ah, one of those,” the good professor answered in a commiserating tone. As if he could even come close to understanding what I was talking about.

He went on to talk about who the fuck knew what? He droned on and on, as if I gave a damn what he had to say. Law school had been good to me, but one thing I most definitely wouldn’t miss were the pompous asses who oversaw our education. I had put up with them while in class, because getting top grades was more important than anything else. Now that I didn’t need them anymore, I was having a bitch of a time pretending to tolerate the company of the professors mingling with the students at this party. A man could only fake a smile for so long.

I was more than a little grateful when I saw my buddy Alastair approaching us with a very serious look on his face. Alastair was originally from London, but he’d been living in the States for many years. I had met him our first year at Yale, when the two of us had quickly established a system of looking out for each other and helping the other out of unpleasant, seemingly endless conversations.

I had no doubt that his serious, almost grief-stricken, expression now was a part of that ruse. I made a mental note to buy him a beer later on, once we were free of all these stupid professors who couldn’t seem to let us go, now that we were on our way out of Yale’s door and headed out into the real world.

“Neil,” Alastair said in a low, serious voice as he put one hand on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, mate.”

“What’s the trouble?” Professor Dan asked pompously, immediately going into control mode. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Alastair repeated, really putting on a good show, one worthy of an Oscar in my humble opinion. “It’s terribly rude of me to interrupt. It’s just, there’s a phone call for him. About his father.”

“I better take this,” I cut in with my own grave tone, doing my best not to crack a smile and ruin the whole show. “Please, excuse me.”

“Of course! Of course, Neil. Please let me know if you need anything.”

The good professor turned to go. After watching to make sure that he was well out of sight, I turned to Alastair with a grin spreading across my face. Unfortunately, it was a grin that never made it to its full potential. My friend’s expression had not changed. He looked afraid and sad and a little bit like he was going to throw up. Nothing that suggested he was just trying to help me out of a bad conversation.

“What’s the matter, man? You look like shit.”

“I wasn’t bullshitting you,” he said. “There was a phone call. You weren’t near your phone, and it kept ringing. So I picked it up.”

“Okay, so what’s the problem?” I asked.

“It’s your father, Neil. He’s gone. He’s passed away.”

Chapter 3: Fay

 

“Where the hell is the waiter?” Courtney asked. “Can’t he tell I’m going to die here if I don’t get my drink?”

“I’m pretty sure what you need is a glass of water, by the look of you.”

“And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

I laughed. “Are you really going to make me say it?”

I took a sip of my coke and mentally thanked my lucky stars that I wasn’t suffering from the kind of hangover Courtney clearly was. I was well aware that most people thought I was a bit of a goody-goody, but that was something I was definitely okay with. Especially if it meant that I didn’t have to feel as shitty as Courtney did during one of her legendary hangovers.

One of those hangovers had her so terribly cranky at the moment, cranky enough that she poked her lip out at me, like she used to do to her parents when we were little and she wasn’t getting her way.

“Fine, go ahead and make fun, Fay. At least I know how to have fun.”

“Do you really consider this fun, though? You don’t look like you’re having fun. You look like you feel terrible.”

“You may be right,” Courtney answered with a sly little smile, something I was glad to see. It meant that any chance of us getting into a fight had most likely passed. “But I had a hell of a good time last night.”

“Did you now?”

“Yeah, I did!” Courtney practically shouted, taking a moment to nod appreciatively at the waiter who had finally brought her an impressively large glass of wine. “We were all at Rocco’s place. You’ve been there, right?”

“You know I haven’t,” I smiled, totally used to Courtney’s attempts to draw me into her world. “But I’m glad you had fun.”

“Things got really wild. You know they always ask about you, right?”

“Sure,” I laughed, already completely sure of where this conversation was going. “I think you’ve told me that before. I find it hard to believe, seeing as he’s never spoken to me. Not even in high school. But you’ve told me.”

“He hasn’t spoken to you because he thinks you’re hot!”

“Shh! Come on, Courtney, keep it down, will you? You’re embarrassing me.”

“It’s not like the five people in here need me to tell them that you’re hot. Everyone thinks you’re hot. Most of them also happen to believe you should stop being so uptight.”

“Courtney, come on. You know I’m not going to change everything about the way I live my life because some guy named Rocco thinks I’m cute.”

“Not cute. Hot. But okay, fine. I get it. All I’m saying is that you should at least think about letting your hair down a bit.”

“I know,” I said, sighing. “You’ve told me. Believe me, if I ever decide to conduct a complete overhaul on the way I live my life, you’ll be the first one to know.”

“Oh, I better be! Or else I’ll have to kill you.”

The two of us lapsed into silence for a couple of minutes, each of us concentrating on our appetizers and thinking our own individual thoughts. It was something I was sure would have made plenty of people totally uncomfortable, but for me, it didn’t seem like any kind of issue whatsoever. Courtney was like a sister to me, had been since before I could even remember, according to my late mother. There was nobody in the world I knew better and nobody who knew me with that same kind of depth.

There wasn’t a whole lot to our little town, and I knew that was something that really got to Courtney sometimes. For me, a town that not only had the beauty of Alaska but also had a friendship like the one I had with Courtney was a pretty great place. This was what I was busy thinking about when Courtney spoke again and totally derailed all of my thoughts for the rest of the night.

“You know, there was another pretty interesting topic of conversation last night.”

“I’m sure there always is,” I said, trying not to take the bait.

“Right, but I think this was one you might find of particular interest.”

“Okay, I’ll play along. What was the topic of conversation?”

“Neil Driscoll.”

It was pretty clear to me that Courtney had been going for a dramatic effect with the way she delivered her news. If that was the case, it totally worked. She delivered the news right as I took a bite of my salad, and I almost choked on a leaf of lettuce. It was so noticeable that our waiter actually approached our table, apparently prepared to thump me on the back until I stopped choking.

“No!” I managed to get out, completely mortified at the thought of him drawing even more attention to the scene I was making, “No, I’m fine, really. I’m sorry, it just went down the wrong way, I guess.”

“Are you sure?” he asked uncertainly, looking from me to Courtney and then back to me again. “You were turning pretty red.”

“She’s good,” Courtney interjected, taking mercy on me and doing the talking for me. “I just said something at the wrong time. You know how it goes.”

“Sure, sure, I know. Still, just wave if you need anything ladies, all right? Seriously, anything.”

I gave him what small smile I could manage. Courtney thanked him before the two of us fell silent while we waited for him to be totally out of earshot. Once I was reasonably confident that he wasn’t paying attention to us anymore, I looked at Courtney closely, trying to figure out if this was some kind of a weird joke, or if what she was telling me was the truth. When she didn’t crack at all, didn’t even blink, I knew she was telling the truth. For whatever reason, the conversation at her party last night had turned to Neil, the only boy I had ever said “I love you” to.

“Sorry, Fay. I honest to God wasn’t trying to mess with you. I just thought you would want to know.”

“But why were people talking about him? He hasn’t been back here in almost ten years, Courtney.”

“He came up because of his dad.”

“What about him?” I asked, trying to ignore the little shiver that went up my spine at the mention of Neil’s father. Neil and I had dated for most of high school, and by the time he left, we were pretty hot and heavy. His father had never been anything but cold when it came to our interactions.

The Driscoll family was beyond wealthy, and my mother had always told me that it was their wealth and our lack thereof that made him that way. But that didn’t make his chilly treatment of me any easier to take. I never had trouble getting along with people and getting them to like me. Neil’s father was the exception. Even after Neil was gone, the weight of his father’s dislike had been heavy on my shoulders.

“What about his dad?” I asked again. “I’m surprised that anyone at Rocco’s place would have much to say about Mr. Driscoll. I don’t think he ever had much to say about many of us.”

“He definitely won’t now. They were talking about him because he’s dead.”

“Dead? What the hell? How, Courtney?”

“I guess he had a heart attack. I’m not really too sure, but I know he’s gone. Neil just kind of came up because of that.”

“Is he okay? Where’s the funeral going to be held?”

“In Texas, I think,” Courtney said. “At least that’s what I heard.”

“That would make sense. That’s where most of Neil’s family lived while we were together. I would be surprised if they’d left. Jesus.”

“You all right?”

Courtney looked genuinely concerned now, and I assured her that I was just fine. In my heart, I wasn’t too sure. In my heart, I felt like I was being torn in half. I tried hard not to think about Neil too often, especially since I was sure that he wouldn’t even know me now if he saw me. Hearing him brought up this way made it so that he was the only thing on the planet I felt capable of thinking about at all.

Part of me was sure that I should just pick up and make my way to Texas. I should figure out where the funeral was and go there to be his support. His mom had died when he was a baby, and even though he hadn’t come back to visit his dad, I knew he was the only family Neil felt he had left. Now he would be alone in the world, with nobody to stand by his side and grieve with him.

On the other hand, it was entirely possible that I was the biggest idiot in the world for even thinking something like that. It had been eight years since Neil and I had seen each other. He was both incredibly good looking and unbelievably rich. The idea that he wouldn’t have found a girl to stand by his side was stupid and naïve. I knew it full well. There was nothing to be done by me, nothing but lie awake that night and think about Neil and the life the two of us might have had if the world had been a different place when the two of us had still been young.

Chapter 4: Neil

 

Texas always had a confused and mixed place in my heart, and I suspected it always would. It was the place of my father’s birth, the place he called home for the whole of his life, regardless of where he was actually living. I had grown up in Ashville, Alaska for my entire life. That whole time, my dad referred to Texas as his home anytime somebody asked. Hell, he would make sure to let people know he hailed from Texas whether they asked or not as if it gave him some kind of leg up on everyone around him.

There had been times when I was younger when I found myself actually jealous of the state, wishing my dad would talk about me with the same reverence he used for his home state. At the same time, the family ranch had always been one of my favorite places in the world to go to. I had many childhood memories of family vacations at that ranch, and they were things I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have traded for all of the world.

Because of those fond memories, being back at the ranch for the first time in almost a decade for a funeral made it feel even more like hell. I was here for my father’s funeral.

I stood beneath the endless Texas sky and listened to my father’s funeral service. The whole scene felt surreal. I was twenty-six years old, but until I had actually seen the jar of ashes my dad had been reduced to, a big part of me still believed he would live forever, just like a little kid would.

It was stupid, and I knew it, but stupid rarely stopped people. It sure as shit hadn’t stopped me. Even while spreading his ashes into the strong Texas wind, I’d hardly been able to believe that what I was doing was real. I had hardly been able to believe that my dad was actually dead.

“Jesus, Neil,” Brent said. “I don’t know what to say. I’m really sorry to hear about your dad.”

With a great deal of effort, I focused my eyes on Brent Faulkner, the man who had been my dad’s go-to person for as long as I could remember. He had always been my dad’s number two, essentially the next in line when it came to the business and the company.

For that reason, some people probably thought I had it out for him. That I considered him a rival or something. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. I liked Brent, and I’d always liked him. Even during the years when I thought everyone else around my dad and me was a complete asshole.

Brent had always been nice to me, and I hadn’t ever gotten the vibe that he was trying to do anything shady. I was glad to have him there with me at the funeral, especially because he was the only one there that I could stand at all. That was a pretty fucked up thing to think, considering that most of the other people standing around beside me were technically family. But it had been a long time since I’d considered them to be anything of the sort.

When I looked at them, I was reminded of that scene towards the beginning of the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Everyone milling around the casino lobby was a giant reptile dinosaur thing, and nobody could see it but the totally fucked up Johnny Depp character.

I hadn’t seen any of them in a hell of a long time, years probably, but I would have been happy never to see them again. I didn’t even have to talk to them to know they weren’t really at my dad’s funeral to pay their respects. They were there to grovel. They were there to offer fake condolences, and then see what kind of piece of the pie they could get their hands on. Even thinking about it made me want to kick somebody’s ass, which made focusing in on Brent all the more important.

“Hey, man, thank you for coming.”

“Of course, Neil! As I said, I’m very, very sorry. Last time I checked, everything was fine with your dad. This heart attack came as a surprise to everyone, I think. I know I always thought your dad was going to outlive us all, and my guess is that everyone else did, too.”

“I think you may be right about that,” I mumbled, looking around at the people who were family, according to blood. They felt a lot more like enemies.

“Don’t worry about them,” Brent said in a low, mistrustful voice. It made me feel better, just because it seemed to so closely mirror my feelings for the vultures circling my dad’s grave. “I already had nice chats with a couple of them.”

“Oh yeah?” I answered as nonchalantly as I could manage, feeling a wave of hatred run through me so strong it made me shiver. “Want to tell me a little bit about that?”

“Let’s just say there were a few people with a little more interest in your dad’s financial situation than they had any right to have. They had some questions for you, and I decided to step in and answer them instead. I hope that’s all right. Please tell me if I overstepped.”

“Jesus, no. Thank you, Brent. I’m going to wind up in jail if they try to milk me for money now. Do you know how long it’s been since any of them have seen my dad? I don’t think they’ve even spoken with him, for Christ’s sake.”

“No,” Brent said slowly, the tendons in his neck popping out a little as he spoke and simultaneously surveyed the little clumps of my family members standing around and eyeing us. “Unfortunately, that’s not true. I happen to know that first hand.”

“Tell me.”

My jaw clenched before he even started talking. By the time he was done, I was ready to set the whole worthless group of my dad’s remaining family on fire and take whatever consequences might come to me.

There was no doubt in my mind that if we were still living in the kind of society where justice was primal and in our own hands, I would be able to do whatever the hell I wanted to those assholes without having anything happen to me at all. Brent had several examples to give me of my dad’s charming family, but they all amounted to the same exact thing.

Over the years they had made as many attempts as they could get away with to take as much from my dad as they could get. Sometimes, Brent had been able to talk him out of it, and sometimes, he hadn’t been, but the requests had been there consistently. Those requests were the only times dad’s family had ever bothered to keep in touch with him, which solidified their spot as complete assholes in my book.

It did one other thing for me as well, something I had been kind of uneasy about in my own mind before coming to Texas to lay my father to rest. There was no question that I was going to have to go back to Alaska, at least for a little while, and that was a truth I was just going to have to find a way to live with. When it came to my dad’s company, though, my mind was well on the way to being made up. It would be my company, because that was what my dad wanted, and I knew it. But Brent would be the one to run it, and that was a good thing to have figured out.

It meant I could get the hell out of Ashville sooner, rather than later, and there was nothing I could think of that I would want more. The only thing that came close to competing was getting out of Texas and never coming back. That was something I was going to achieve the moment I left the ranch and drove my shitty rental car to the nearest airport. I was going to get on a plane, do my duties in Ashville, and then I was never going to fucking look back.

Chapter 5: Fay

 

Neil grabbed my face and pulled me to his mouth. His kiss was full of passion and lust. He paused, pulled back and looked down at me. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Neil asked me.

I nodded my head. “Yes.” I said.

Neil grabbed my head again. His soft lips felt so much better than I had remembered. His tongue circled mine. I found my body began to respond in ways I hadn’t realized would happen. My panties felt wet and my nipples were hard. They brushed gently on the fabric of the white t-shirt I was wearing.

Neil slid a hand under my shirt. Guiding it up my stomach and to my breast. He grabbed it and I could feel his fingers finding my nipples. He squeezed and twisted it just a bit. I was surprised that it felt so good when he did that. He continued to kiss me, tasting me. He slid his hand back down my stomach and down to the button and zipper of my pants and undid them both. He slid his hand down farther, into my panties and then I felt his fingers on my clit. He began to move them up and down slowly and then around in circles.

“Mmm, Neil.” I moaned against his mouth. He pulled apart and helped me remove my jeans and shirt.

“You are absolutely perfect.” He said, observing me. Looking over my entire body. His eyes on me made me feel hot and bothered. “Lay on the bed.”

I walked the few steps over to my bed and got on. I laid down in the middle and looked at him. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as I had never done this before. I watched him remove his pants, his dick was huge. Bigger than I had imagined.

I watched him climb on the bed between my legs. He grabbed my panties and slid them down my legs.

“You don’t need these.” He said and flung them across my room. He looked at me as he reached down and with his thumb, proceeded to rub my clit hard and fast.

“Oh my God.” I said. The pleasure was intense and my body was involuntarily jerking as he continued to rub around my clit. He slowed his movements and took his hand away, leaving me wanting more.

“I want to taste you.” He said and I watched as he laid down in between my legs and pressed his mouth to me. He began to lick my clit. The feeling was absolutely sensational.

“That feels so good.” I said. He increased the speed at which he was licking me now. He moved his head as he moved his tongue, pressing so there was some force behind it. He stopped and looked at me. “You taste so good, but now I just want to feel you. Are you sure, this is okay?”

I nodded my head. “Yes, Neil. Please let me feel you.” I said, almost begging him. I was so turned on and wet. I wanted to feel more of him, all of him. I needed to feel every bit of pleasure he could bring me.

Neil laid down next to me. “You should get on top. That way you can go at your own pace.” He said.

I gave him a small nod and then straddled him. I slowly lowered myself onto him. I felt the head of his dick at my whole, pressing, trying to get inside. I lowered myself a little farther down and I felt him enter me a little bit. I braced myself for the pain as I lowered myself even more, but there was no pain. Only pleasure.

I lowered myself all the way onto him and I gasped from the pleasure.

“You’re so tight.” He said.

I moved my body up and down, bouncing on his large dick. It was an almost indescribable pleasure. The feeling of him fully inside of me, my body moving with his, was amazing. It was pure ecstasy.

“This feels so good.” I said to him as I leaned forward and placed my hands on his chest to get a good grip. I moved my body up and down, allowing myself to slide on his dick.

Neil wrapped his arms around my back and pulled me forward. He began to fuck my pussy with his dick. He moved himself so quickly that I thought he might burst through me. And then he stopped. “Bend over” He said to me and I nodded my head in response. I moved myself off of him, which was almost torturous. I wanted to keep riding him

I bent over in front of him and I felt him slide a finger inside of me. He moved it around, slowly causing me to wiggle my ass a little bit. He pulled his finger out and then I felt him pressing into it.

He leaned into me and whispered, “Tell me how bad you want it.”

“So bad, Neil. I want it so bad. Please fuck me.” I begged.

Neil pushed and I suddenly felt him inside of me. He moved his hips, thrusting in and out of me. He started moving faster and faster. He had me calling out, my body was tensing.

“I’m gonna come.” Neil said as he thrusted harder and deeper inside of me.

I felt myself getting closer, a build-up of pleasure that had been slowly building up for years now. I felt myself on the edge of the most beautiful orgasm ever and suddenly I rolled my head back, closed my eyes, and began moaning so load. I was having my first official orgasm and it was the best feeling of my whole entire life.

 

The sound of my alarm going off, startled me from my sleep. I sat up, disoriented and reached for my clock to shut the noise off. I was panting and sweaty. But I felt so relaxed. I thought about the dream I had just had. I was having sex with Neil. It had felt so real, though I wasn’t really sure what sex felt like, I had an idea. I was also, ninety-nine percent sure that I had just had an orgasm from a dream.

It had been almost two weeks since Courtney had told me about Neil’s father passing away. I hadn’t been able to get the conversation out of my head. I hadn’t been able to get Neil out of my head. It was more than a little bit unnerving after spending years trying to achieve that very thing.

Even now, trying to get ready for work, I could feel him in the back of my head, trying to make his way up to the front again. It was a place he’d occupied for quite some time, for several years after he’d made what he liked to call his “escape” from Ashville. It felt shockingly natural to let him come right back to it again. That was something I couldn’t let happen. It was awful, what had happened to his dad, but that didn’t make him any more a part of my life now than he had been before Courtney had told me what happened. I would do well to remember it.

“You’re just being silly, Fay,” I whispered to myself, feeling downright foolish, and also aware that I was going to be late to work if I didn’t get my ass in gear. “Cut it out.”

I nodded to myself, as if my pitiful attempt at a self-reprimand was actually going to do any good, and hurried out of my front door. I managed to get out and get the door locked before it caught my eye; the thing that completely stopped me in my tracks.

“Oh my God.”

My voice sounded flat in my own ears and some vague, far away feeling part of my brain wondered if I was in some kind of shock or something. The voice wasn’t present enough to really gain any traction. It was even less authoritative than the voice I’d used to reprimand myself, which seemed like a dismally impressive thing to be able to say.

The light I saw in the Driscoll house was enough to make me feel like I had been hit by a bus, or something even more destructive. The house I was living in was the house I had grown up in, left to me when my mother had suddenly passed away when I was eighteen years old. It was also the house that had a prime view of the Driscoll residence, which sat high up on a hill I could clearly see from my front porch.

I had seen light pouring out of its windows plenty of times over the years, which only made sense, seeing as it was where Neil’s dad continued to live after Neil moved on and never looked back. There hadn’t been any lights on since Mr. Driscoll had passed away, but that didn’t mean anything. Or at least, it didn’t have to mean anything, although it could have.

“No,” I hissed at myself, actually starting to get a little pissed at myself by that point. “It doesn’t, okay? It means nothing. Now get to work.”

I nodded to myself as if somebody else had given me the instruction instead of it having been delivered by me, to me. I headed to my car. I was acting like a complete basket case. I knew it, and I didn’t like it one bit. There was absolutely no reason to think a stupid light in the Driscoll residence meant that Neil had come home.

They’d had a housekeeper for as long as I had known them, and it only made sense that she would be there to help clean the house up now that he was gone. Then there was the business manager, a man whose name I couldn’t remember at the moment, but who would very likely be there to help put the elder Driscoll’s home in order. There were all kinds of likely explanations and not a one of them involved Neil.

That was only wishful thinking, and what made it sting was that the thinking was based on a person I didn’t know anymore. Neil and I had been in a relationship that had meant more to me than I liked to admit, but that had been in a whole different life. We didn’t know each other now and never would again. A death in his family wasn’t going to change that. No matter how many romance novels I read.

***

“Hey, girl! For a minute, I thought you really weren’t going to show up!”

“Hey, Court, I’m sorry. I guess I got off to a slow start.”

“Please!” Courtney laughed, pulling on the old sweatshirt that indicated to me she was about to head into the walk-in so that she could take some inventory. “I was about to throw you a parade. I’m pretty sure you haven’t ever done even one slightly irresponsible thing since we’ve known each other. If you’d skipped work, it would have shown me that there’s still help for you yet. Besides, it’s not exactly like this place is hopping, you know?”

Courtney looked around the diner with a sour, bored expression on her face, and I followed suit. Busy definitely wasn’t a word you would use to describe the place, that was for sure. As was more often the case than not, there wasn’t a single soul inside of those four walls aside from us.

I laughed, not because I was trying to be mean, but because it was just another example of how completely different the two of us really were. She looked at the empty diner and saw it as proof of how boring Ashville was. Although, I had a sneaking suspicion that if the opportunity to leave ever actually presented itself, it was one she would decline. I looked at the empty diner and saw an opportunity. I saw an opportunity to regain some of my mental footing, an opportunity to get my bearings again, once and for all, after the stupid funk the news about Neil’s father had put me into. It was just an example of life going on as it normally did, and who didn’t need a thing like that from time to time?

“I’m going to the back.” Courtney broke into my thoughts with a tone so dramatically morose it started me laughing all over again. “You’ll be okay up here on your own?”

“Of course, I will.” I smiled, pulling my much-hated romance novel out of my purse. “Just like always, right?”

“Oh, brother!” she groaned, shaking her head as she made her way to the walk-in, shaking her head until I couldn’t see her anymore, and probably continuing to do so even once she was out of sight.

I smiled to myself again and opened to the place where I’d left off in my book, ready to lose myself in the love affair of people who felt just as real to me as Courtney did. I loved that feeling of getting lost in the lives of others, loved it so much that I almost didn’t hear the sound of an engine idling outside.

Once the sound penetrated my thoughts, I hardly looked up. Our business wasn’t the only one in the immediate vicinity, and I was almost positive that whatever car was outside was not intended for us. It was only once I saw the truck that the panic began to set in. Because I knew that truck.

It had been years since I’d seen it pulling up to the front of the diner, but I would know it anywhere. I knew its occupant without ever having to catch a glimpse of him. For a moment that seemed to stretch out into forever, I froze, completely unsure of what the hell I was supposed to do now. Then my body just sort of took over. Without giving it any kind of conscious thought, I hit the ground, book and all.

I did so before I ever saw anyone step out of the truck’s cab, giving me a marginal amount of hope that I hadn’t been seen, and well before the little bell above the entrance gave its merry clang. I could have murdered that bell for sounding so happy when I felt pretty close to certain that I was going to either throw up, have a panic attack, or possibly do both at the same time.

“Hello?”

The sound of the voice shot through the diner like a bullet might have done, sounding so loud in my ears that I had to fight the urge to clamp my hands over them. I wasn’t actually a child, all evidence to the contrary, and if I’d allowed myself the luxury of covering my ears, I wouldn’t have been able to hear what came next. I needed to do that in order to know when I was safe. It was either that, or never leave the safety of the floor behind the front counter again.

“Hello?” the voice called again, a bit of uncertainty and maybe some annoyance as well detectable now. “Is there anyone here? The front door is open. You know, normally a sign that a place is open for business? Any chance that’s true here?”

I cringed and waited for it to be over. It was amazing how quickly things could go from one way to another. Only minutes ago, I had just been dipping into my book, ready for what would most likely be a day of reading without a whole lot else. Now, I was on the floor hiding for my life. Or at least, it felt like I was hiding for my life, which to me was pretty much the same thing.

“What the hell, dude? Why are you yelling? There’s somebody right—”

Courtney, who had come storming out of the walk-in with a look of total murder in her eyes, stopped and surveyed the scene she found in front of her. I could only imagine what it must have looked like to her, and I felt my face grow hot with what was surely the worst blush I’d ever blushed in all of my life.

She then looked from me to the disgruntled looking man waiting to be served and then back at me again. I shook my head vehemently, desperate for her to help me maintain my anonymity, all the while sure that I was sunk. When Courtney smiled, I felt my heart leap into my throat and would probably have tried to crawl away if I’d been able to move quickly enough. Except that I was not only not able to move quickly enough, but in the end, found that I could hardly move at all. Courtney reached down and grabbed the collar of my flannel shirt with one freakishly strong arm, and I was powerless to resist.

I was brought back up from underneath the counter like a fish being reeled in from underneath the water, my face still so hot I was sure it would burst into flames. She’d brought me up so that I was facing our customer, too, taking away any last chance I had of somehow hiding my identity. I closed my eyes briefly, willing my heart to slow its beating and my mouth not to say anything ridiculous. Then, I looked straight into the eyes of the one and only Neil Driscoll.

“Holy crap. Fay. I had no idea you were still working here.”

“I was going to ask you if you knew her,” Courtney said in an amused voice, making a point of not looking at me so that she didn’t have to see my glare of death. “But it looks like you saved me the trouble.”

“It looks like I did,” he said.

“And now you see that there was somebody up here all along. She just wasn’t where you could see her.”

“I can see that. Or rather I can see her. Now. You know what I mean, I think.”

“I do,” she laughed. A laugh that made me wonder if she could feel how painfully awkward everything had gotten in the last thirty seconds. “I really do. Now, do you two think you can manage without me, or is somebody else likely to go missing? Because I’m like, right in the middle of inventory. But if you guys need a translator, I can stay.”

“No, that’s all right,” he said. “Go back to what you were doing.”

Courtney raised one eyebrow, and I could see exactly what she was thinking. She remembered Neil from when we were growing up. I knew she did. I also knew she had never been his biggest fan. She had always thought he was “too stuck up to live,” and the way he was now giving her permission to do what she was going to do already was definitely not helping her to change her opinion.

For a minute, I was sure she was going to say something in retaliation. I was so sure she would, in fact, that I was actually relieved when she headed to the back again, leaving me alone with the elusive Neil.

For a second, I just looked at my hands, one of which was somehow still holding onto my book. I wondered what in God’s name I was supposed to do. Just an hour ago, I had done a decent job of convincing myself that Neil would never be back in Ashville. Now, here he was, standing in front of me like he’d never left at all.

There were differences, of course, the same way there would have been with any person I hadn’t seen in going on nine years. He had a fancier haircut, and the way he was dressed made me think he could have just stepped out of a Brooks Brothers’ ad. But the eyes were the same.

Those blue eyes that had always made me feel like I was falling were still the same, except for the fact that the way they looked at me was mighty different from the way they had before he’d left his Alaska life behind. My hand flew up to my locket, which was tucked safely away beneath my shirt. I wondered what kind of thoughts were going on behind those beautiful eyes. I was wondering so many things that I couldn’t seem to land squarely on any single one of them. Instead, I stood there like a hollowed out person who’d lost her brain when she wasn’t looking.

“Fay. I didn’t know you would still be working here.”

“Yeah, well, nothing much changes around here,” I answered quietly, feeling whatever dignity I had left slipping away at his second mention of the fact that in almost a decade, I hadn’t gotten anything aside from my diner job. “But I guess you knew that.”

“Sure,” he answered amicably enough, maybe even a little bit embarrassed, which was something I wouldn’t have minded a bit. “I guess I did.”

“I saw a light in in your house earlier. I’m still living in the same house. I didn’t think it would be you, though. I mean, the thought crossed my mind, but I didn’t think it would be you.”

“I didn’t think it would be, either. I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I inherited the house, and there’s a whole lot more to getting things all figured out than I expected there to be. It seemed like coming back for a while made the most sense in the end.”

“I heard about your dad,” I said in a low voice, furious for myself with the sudden feeling that I might actually start to cry. I dug into my palms with my fingernails, to make sure that didn’t happen. “I’m very sorry. I thought about sending my condolences, but then I realized I wouldn’t have had the first idea of where to send them. So, you know. I didn’t.”

“That’s all right. It’s sweet of you, though, to think about it. Thanks, Fay. I appreciate it. Unfortunately, I should also be going.”

“Going? Didn’t you come in here for a meal? Or, why did you come in here?”

“Just a coffee to go will be fine, actually. I’ve got a lot of shit on my plate, and I’m not trying to stay in Ashville for the rest of my life.”

“Of course. Hold on.”

I poured him his cup of coffee with hands that were undeniably trembling. How many times had I done this exact same thing over the course of my life? Enough that when I’d first begun giving him drinks to go, they had been cups of coke or hot cocoa instead of coffee, back before he was grown up enough for a drink as mature as that.

Back in the day I had all but lived for the times when Neil would come in to see me. I had loved the way he had always made me feel like the most important, special person on the face of the earth. And now? Now he was like a stranger, only worse. A stranger wouldn’t have had this uncanny ability to hurt me the way that Neil was, to hurt me without even trying. And he wasn’t even doing anything! He was only acting like we were strangers or distant acquaintances, which was exactly what we were now. All I knew was that I wanted him to go. Out of all of the times I had imagined the two of us seeing each other again, it had never once played out like this.

“How much do I owe you?” he asked.

“Nothing, please. Let’s just consider it a gift from an old friend.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure, I’m sure,” I answered in an overly bright voice, knowing that I would never be able to work the register in my present state of agitation. “Least I can do, right?”

“Shit. Well, thanks. I don’t have anything to do for you in return. But we should get together before I leave, you know? We should do some catching up. Maybe I can buy you dinner or something, or what passes for dinner in this place.”

“Yea, if you have time. That might be nice.”

“All right, good. I’ll see you around, Fay.”

I nodded at him, feeling both relieved and sad when he was finally out of the diner and getting back into his truck. It was a nice enough offer, his idea of us going to dinner, but I wasn’t an idiot, or at least not a total idiot. Not as far as I could tell.

The dinner suggestion had been his way of getting the hell out of dodge as fast as he could. Nothing less and nothing more. For all the things that appeared to have changed about the guy, there was something other than his eyes that seemed to be the exact same as it had been when he’d gone and never looked back.

His desire to be as far away from little old Ashville as he could get was exactly the same as it had been when we were still teenagers. Although I wouldn’t have thought it was possible back when I was still an eighteen-year-old girl, Neil’s dislike of Ashville seemed to have grown instead of decreasing.

I’d heard the saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder” plenty of times. Everyone had. For Neil, the opposite seemed to be true. Absence seemed to have made his heart grow colder, towards Ashville as a whole, and undoubtedly towards me. I was nothing more than some silly little townie, and there was no way seeing me again was on his agenda.

My hand flew back up to my locket, and for just a minute, I could see the Neil that had been mine. The Neil that I had loved so completely. Then my hand dropped back to my side, and that image was gone, leaving in its wake the version of Neil I had just seen. This man was all work and no play for sure. If I saw him again before he left, I would be so stunned, someone could knock me over with a feather.

My guess was that seeing me again would only drive him to get his work done faster so that he could leave his past behind for good and get on with whatever fancy life he’d created for himself out there in the wide world.

“Well that was a trip and a half, am I right?” Courtney asked.

I turned to look at Courtney, who was beginning to look a little blue from all of her time in the massive refrigerator. I shrugged my shoulders in a gesture I hoped looked at least a little bit nonchalant. Not only was I not sure what to say, but I also wasn’t sure that I could trust my voice. Whether I wanted to be or not, I was kind of bowled over by what had just happened, and I needed some time to regroup.

“Come on, Fay. Don’t be mad, all right? I know you just wanted to hide from him, but really, why the hell should you? This is our diner. Not his.”

“I know. I’m not really sure why I was hiding, to tell you the truth.”

“Because you were surprised? Or who knows? Maybe he’s just like one of those guys in your books. What do they always get called? ‘The one,’ or some shit like that? Maybe he’s that, and your body just reacted.”

“Um, doubtful, Courtney.”

“No shit, it’s doubtful. Now come on, pour a girl a cup of coffee before she freezes to death. I swear, I can’t even feel my nipples anymore!”

And just like that, the strange and unexpected appearance of Neil was behind me. My real life came rushing back with full force. If there was one thing Courtney was good for, it was reminding a girl where she was. I poured her coffee, handed it to her, and the reached out and gave her an impulsive hug. It was something she would normally have shrugged off with a string of curse words, but this time, she let the hug slide. It wasn’t until we got an actual customer that I let her go. By that time, I was starting to feel a lot better. It had been a fluke, seeing Neil, and one I was sure I wouldn’t have to repeat.

Chapter 6: Neil

 

 

For a few terrifying seconds, I didn’t have a fucking clue where I was. All I knew was that the sun was way brighter than I felt like it should have been, and my head was pounding with the kind of hangover only whiskey was capable of giving me. When the culprit responsible for your hangover was the only thing you recognized for sure upon waking, you knew you were in trouble. This was something I had never known before, but I sure as shit did now. It wasn’t a lesson I was pleased to learn.

“Christ,” I groaned to myself, hearing how pitiful and weak my voice sounded and feeling powerless to fix it. “What the fuck happened last night?”

I lay there tangled up in my sheets and feeling like I might freeze to death if I didn’t get myself up to turn the heat to an acceptable level. I did my best to piece things together. It wasn’t just last night that needed piecing, either. There were whole days, at least a week, that was so disjointed that it took me a minute to remember what they had been and why.

Once I got everything settled in my own mind, I had the distinct displeasure of finding that things actually felt worse, instead of better. This wasn’t all that unusual when a person woke up from a night of heavy drinking, but knowing that didn’t make me feel any better. With things the way they were now, it was going to take a hell of a lot to make me feel anything close to kosher. It was going to take more than I thought the shithole town of Ashville, Alaska had to offer me.

That was it. The thing I couldn’t escape no matter how much of my dad’s extensive bar I spent my solitary nights trying to drink up. I was back in Ashville, and although I spent a lot of time and energy reminding myself that it wasn’t permanent, there was a part of me that felt like time had slid backward and taken me back to the place I’d spent all of my adult life trying to get away from.

Not only that but my dad was dead. He was dead, and the state of affairs he’d left behind wasn’t going to take only a couple of hours to sort through. Forget a couple of hours; it wasn’t going to take a couple of days. If I managed to get the fuck out of Ashville within a month, I would be doing well. No amount of lying to myself could change that fact. I was here, and I wasn’t going anywhere. In less than a week of being home, I had already managed to get myself into exactly the kind of shitty situation I had come home hoping to avoid.

“But how the fuck was I supposed to know?”

I grumbled the words to myself as I forced myself up to a sitting position. I chugged down the large glass of water I had apparently left myself the previous night before passing out cold. I was dimly aware that talking to myself wasn’t the best development ever, but after days of being almost exclusively on my own in a house with twelve bedrooms and eight full bathrooms, it was a habit I had just seemed to pick up.

Things felt too empty otherwise, and since I had no intention of throwing any parties or making any friends, talking to myself so as to hear an actual voice seemed like the best of a whole bunch of shitty options. And although I was the one making it, it was a legitimate point, legitimate enough that I said it once more for good measure as I stumbled from the bedroom that had been mine when I was a teenager to the shower that was calling out my name.

As I let the water pour over me, I also allowed my thoughts to limp along back to the previous afternoon, to the encounter that had led to my impressive solitary bender on my dad’s favorite, pricey liquor. I didn’t want to go there, or at least most of me didn’t, but I didn’t seem to be able to stop myself, either. In some sick act of masochism, the encounter with Fay was the only place my thoughts wanted to travel. With me being as tired, drained, and worn down as I was, I was fucking helpless to stop them.

Maybe it made me an idiot, but it had never occurred to me that Fay Turner might still work at the local Ashville diner. Quite honestly, it hadn’t occurred to me to think about whether she still lived in the tiny town where fun and ambition came to die. I had thought about her plenty after I had first moved away, but over the years and after getting into bed with more women than I was prepared to count, she’d sort of lost her place in my mind.

She’d been relegated to a new spot, a spot so far in the back of my other thoughts and memories that when I had seen her yanked up from beneath the diner counter, I had felt like I was looking at a ghost. If I hadn’t still had my wits enough about me to realize that it would have made me look like a complete moron, I would have just turned and hauled ass out of there.

Shit, I would have driven right back to the tiny airport and gotten onto my little plane and headed back for Connecticut if I’d been able to justify it to myself. I would have done it if it hadn’t been for the fact that it wasn’t Brent’s job to clean up the shit my dad had left behind. And if I hadn’t wanted to be one hundred percent sure that none of dad’s asshole family managed to weasel their way into something they didn’t deserve.

Even so, seeing Fay again had almost been enough for me to give up all semblance of responsibility and head out, back to the life that actually belonged to me instead of the shit show it had so recently been replaced with.

The first thing I had thought when I’d looked at Fay was that she hadn’t changed at all. Even after nine years, I would have recognized her anywhere, which I was sure was something I wouldn’t be able to say about most of the people in town.

I was the kind of person who made forgetting into a job when I wanted something out of my head. That was exactly how I had treated tiny Ashville just as soon as I had managed to make my escape. Fay, though, she was somebody I wasn’t ever able to forget, even if I hadn’t realized I remembered her until I saw her again. Even her mannerisms were the same. The way she compulsively tucked her hair behind her ear, or the way she played with whatever piece of jewelry she had on that day.

The second thing that had occurred to me upon seeing the ghost of my girlfriend past was that she was fucking beautiful.

She always had been. She’d been beautiful in a way an eighteen-year-old boy just couldn’t appreciate. Getting a little older had only managed to accentuate that in her. Her hair was long and full. The kind of blonde that only came from spending hours and hours out in the sun. Her eyes were a deep green that almost looked fake. They were so thoughtful that they actually made me nervous when they landed on me. She was every bit as beautiful as any girl I’d seen since abandoning my hometown.

Realizing that had made me squirm while I was standing in front of her and trying to figure out how to get away. It still made me squirm while I stood underneath the shower. Because when I had left Ashville, I had left all of it, my girlfriend Fay Turner included. I had left with promises to write, to call, left telling her that I would visit her just as soon as I got myself situated in college. What I had actually done was call twice and send one stupid letter before leaving her behind and letting her go. I hadn’t ever told her it was over.

I wasn’t sure if I hadn’t had the balls for that conversation back then, or if I’d just decided she wasn’t important enough to deserve a proper goodbye. Either way, I hadn’t given her one. I had just gone and thought about her very little, until standing face to face with her again. I was lucky she hadn’t punched me in the face right then and there. I should probably have been grateful about that. Instead, I was even more ready to get out of town. If I had to go through another impromptu meeting like that one, I would kill myself.

“I need to get the fuck out of here,” I growled to myself as I toweled off and slipped into what I had quickly come to think of as my Alaska clothes. “That’s what I need to do.”

I needed to get out of town, but that wasn’t an option. I decided that the grocery store would have to do. I piled into my truck once again, a heavy feeling of reservation on my heart this time.

For starters, after seeing Fay, it was now impossible not to remember that I could see her house down in the valley below my own. When I looked at that house, I remembered all of the meals her mom had made us before she died. I remembered how close to going all the way we had come that summer before I left. It made my stomach do a weird little flip flop when I thought about those times. I slammed my truck door and revved my engine as if the sound of it would be able to drown out my own stupid thoughts.

I headed down to the town’s only grocery store. That flip-floppy feeling only got worse the further into town I got. By the time I got inside the small store, I figured there was a fifty-fifty shot that I was going to throw up. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the whiskey or my nerves.

Getting out of the house was necessary, as was getting some actual food to put in the house instead of just having booze. But being in the grocery store felt a whole lot like playing with fire. Who the hell knew who I was going to run into while I walked through those aisles?

It wasn’t like Fay was the only person I had just up and left, although she was probably the worst of it. I’d done the same thing to every person I had ever known. There was a very good chance that they wouldn’t all be as gracious about it as Fay had been. I wasn’t really itching to get into a fight right there in the grocery store. I also wasn’t sure that it was something I would be able to avoid. Almost everything I had done since arriving in Ashville felt like a giant misstep, and it looked like this was going to be more of the same.

“Driscoll!” a voice boomed out from behind me, the timing of it so perfectly matched with my thoughts, it might as well have been in a movie or something. “Holy shit, Driscoll! Is that you?”

“Yeah,” I answered dismally, talking before I even started to turn around.

I didn’t know who this guy was, but I was sincerely hoping it would be somebody I could talk down. I really did feel like shit, and although I was in what I liked to consider fairly decent shape, I didn’t think it would take much to knock me out flat at that moment. I was so ready to get my ass kicked, actually, that when I got myself turned around and saw somebody walking toward me with a smile on his face, I had trouble believing that was the person calling my name.

I squinted at him and realized that this was somebody I knew. He was coming right for me, his arms opened wide like he wanted to give me a hug instead of punching me in the face.

“I fucking knew it was you! I know I already said it, but holy shit, man! It’s fucking good to see you, brother!”

“Jesus, Eli? Is that who I’m looking at right now?”

“As I live and fucking breathe, man. How the hell are you?!”

Eli was a couple of inches taller than me, despite the fact that I stood at a respectable six foot three. I let him swallow me up in a bear hug that drove the air from my lungs. He even bounced me up and down a couple of times.

What with the hug and the amount of profanity flying around, we were still making a scene, but it wasn’t a scene that involved somebody telling me what an asshole I was. So, I was more than willing to take it. Besides, Eli was a dude I was actually happy to see. I hadn’t thought about him any more than I’d thought about anyone else I’d left behind over the years. But seeing him brought back a flood of memories of all of the trouble we’d gotten into together. Also, as girly as it felt to admit, even to myself, it was good to find that I still had a friend in town. Not a friend I had kept up with, but a friend. That was worth something for sure. He clapped me on the back one more time and then let me go, grinning at me widely and shaking my hand.

“Seriously, brother. It’s been a lifetime, right?”

“Yeah,” I answered, painfully aware that I was being let off lightly. “I guess it has, hasn’t it?”

“Sure as shit has. Hey, man, I heard about your dad. I’m sorry to hear. Sucks.”

“Shit, you’re telling me.”

“Guessing that’s what you’re doing back in town?” he asked.

“Pretty much. He left me the house, and there’s a bunch of stuff I’ve got to take care of with the business. Everything’s way out of order, and I guess I’m supposed to put it all right again.”

“That sounds like a bitch.”

“You’re not lying. But hey, you get to catch up with old friends, right?”

“True, that’s true.” Eli nodded thoughtfully. “Speaking of which, how long are you gonna be in town, do you think?”

I shook my head. “Shit, at this rate? At least a month? A month if I’m lucky. There’s a good chance it’ll be longer. You know how these things go.”

“Me?” Eli laughed, an honest laugh that made me legitimately happy to see him again. “No way. I run a barber shop, dude. I don’t have a fucking clue what it’s like to try and handle everything you’ve got going on. But I’ll tell you what; I know what I’d like to do if you think you’ve got the time.”

“Lay it on me, man. The shit I have to do is going to take a long time, but it doesn’t take up a lot of time, if you catch my meaning.”

“I guess so. And that’s good! That means you’ve got time to come out for a drink or five tomorrow night. What do you say? Feel up to it?”

I surprised myself by telling him that yes, I was pretty sure I did. I still hated being back in Ashville, and I didn’t see that ever changing, but I was also surprisingly happy to see an old buddy. The idea of getting out of the house for more than just groceries had an appeal I couldn’t ignore. Besides, it wasn’t like I was likely to see Fay there.

I was remembering more about her all of the time, including the fact that partying had never been her thing. If any place in Ashville was safe, it was probably a bar. It had the added benefit of meaning I would have a night where I wasn’t drinking alone. Seemed like a win-win to me. Considering I was in Ashville, that was something I was happy to take.

Chapter 7: Fay

 

 

“So, are you ready to talk about it yet?” Courtney asked.

“To talk about what?” I asked. “I never said there was anything I didn’t want to talk about.”

“Sure, I know, but I think I know you well enough to know when you aren’t ready to have a conversation about something. Which you weren’t earlier. Which is why I’m wondering if you’re feeling up to it now.”

I stopped my sweeping, sweeping both me and Courtney were both technically supposed to do in order to get the diner cleaned up. In reality, I did it all by my lonesome. Courtney sat up on the countertop, her favorite place to be, with one of the diner’s beers popped open.

This was pretty much her nightly ritual, and one I almost always pretended to disapprove of. On this particular night, I just wasn’t feeling up to it. Honestly, this had felt like one of the longest days of my life. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been so relieved to flip the open sign to closed.

I didn’t think there was anything that could have made me feel any more pitiful and low, but part of me had spent the whole day after my strange meeting with Neil expecting to see him again. Every time I’d heard a car engine, my eyes had flown to the big plate glass windows lining the front of the diner. I was sure that it would be his old beat up red truck once again.

There had been exactly five sets of customers that afternoon, and every time the bell rang, I was sure it would be Neil. My stomach would drop at the same time as my heart leaped up into my throat. My mind raced with all of the things I would say when I saw that it was him. Except that it had never been him, not any of the times when the bell had rung.

Of course, it hadn’t been him, I would admonish myself after each disappointment. Why the hell would he come back in here after the first time? It wasn’t like he had looked happy to see me. The more I’d thought about it after he’d gone, the more sure I had become of what his true reaction had actually been. Mortification.

He’d taken one look at me and been absolutely mortified. He hadn’t been able to get away from me fast enough. Courtney was right, although I didn’t want her to be. I hadn’t been ready to talk about anything, and I wasn’t sure that I would ever be ready, either. That face to face with Neil had made me feel like complete shit. I was pretty sure it was something that would take a little while to recover from.

“Um, Fay? You still alive there?”

“What? Sorry, yes. I was just thinking.”

“Clearly. The question of the hour is whether or not you want to talk about it. Because I know I would.”

“It was just so weird!” I practically shouted, answering her before I was even sure that talking about Neil was something I was up for. “I mean it was weird, right? Or was that just me?”

“Oh no, not just you. It was like being in an episode of the Twilight Zone. My question is, though, whether or not you thought something like that was going to happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, his dad died and all. Did you think he might be coming back because of that? Not forever or anything like that. That would be idiotic. But for a little while?”

“I don’t know,” I answered quickly, lying through my teeth and hoping against hope that Courtney couldn’t tell. “All I know is that it totally threw me off.”

“I bet,” she answered sympathetically. She finished her beer and opened another one, as if she were at home and not at the place where she supposedly worked. “I mean, you guys were like, totally in love, right?”

“I don’t know. I thought so. But that was before he bailed. So what do I know?”

“Asshole. I mean really, what kind of a prick does that?”

“I think a lot of people, actually,” I said.

“He’s still a prick, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t care how hot he is.”

“He is pretty sexy, right? I mean, it isn’t just me being nostalgic?”

Courtney shook her head. “No, he’s definitely hot. But still. Prick.”

“Do you know that I used to stare at his house out of my bedroom window?”

“Um, you might not want to tell people that, babe,” Courtney said with a laugh and a little wink. “It makes you sound a little bit like a creepy stalker type.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. It was nothing like that. I mean, even before I was old enough to think about Neil at all. I would stare up at his house, stare up at all of those lights, and I would try to imagine what it would be like to be that rich. My mom was always on my case for leaving even one light on; sometimes even if it was in the room I was in.”

“Sure, didn’t everyone’s parents do that?” she asked.

“Nope, not Neil’s dad. I would look up at that house, and sometimes it would look like every light in the house was on at the same time, just because they could be. It looked like stars to me, Courtney. It looked like a little crop of stars caught in a net and brought down to earth, just for me. That’s what I would think about when I was little and looking at the Driscoll house. I would think about stars.”

We both lapsed into silence then, Courtney from her perch on the countertop and me sitting in one of our empty booths. I wasn’t sure what she was thinking about, but I was busy thinking about a life that didn’t even come close to existing anymore. I was thinking about back when Neil’s house looked like it was full of stars, and my dreams of what might lay in store for him and me still felt real enough to touch.

“Okay, sister, enough is enough,” Courtney said.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

I wasn’t sure exactly how long Courtney and I had been sitting so quietly. All I knew was that it was now totally dark outside. I could somehow still tell that Courtney was either restless, annoyed, or both. When she jumped off the counter and chugged what remained of her beer in what looked like one long sip, I settled on both.

I knew she was probably annoyed by how sentimental I was being, seeing as she had always hated it when I got like that. At the same time, she was the one who had asked me to get that way. It felt unfair and a little bit out of character for her to be pissed.

Because I couldn’t figure her out, and because I had already asked for her meaning, I waited. I waited to see what she would say, hoping that she wouldn’t choose this moment to pick one of our very rare fights. Fighting was something I was never much of a fan of, but on this day? On this day, I was pretty sure I would just lay down on the floor and die rather than get into a yelling match with my best friend. I was too drained, too far gone within myself for a thing like that.

“Enough!” she cried, making it sound like more of a banshee cry than a word. “Enough of this! Enough moping around and acting like the whole world came crashing down because of Neil freaking Driscoll.”

“I’m not moping,” I answered sulkily, feeling absurdly hurt that she would say something like that to me. Despite the fact that moping was exactly what I was doing, “You asked me what I was thinking about, right? I mean you asked me if I was ready to talk about it, and so I talked. Next time, I’ll just try to remember to keep my mouth shut.”

“No! Come on, Fay, get real. You totally know that’s not what I meant, or at least you should know. And it’s not just you moping, either. It’s both of us, and it’s stupid. Hence, the enough is enough comment, which I definitely stand by. You and me aren’t just going to sit around and feel shitty, Fay. Not for even one second more.”

“Okay,” I answered uncertainly, starting to get the distinct feeling that Courtney was up to something. “Well then, what did you have in mind instead?”

“We’re going out, sister. And before you say no, just don’t.”

“Don’t? Don’t what?”

“Don’t say no, of course! You don’t like to go out and get messed up, and I respect that.”

“Ha!” I shot back, starting to feel halfway decent for the first time since seeing Neil. Maybe even since hearing about his dad and wondering if I was going to see him. “You do, do you? If what you do is considered respect, then I would seriously hate to see what your version of disrespect looks like.”

“You know what I mean,” she said, waving me off impatiently and looking like she was starting to get legitimately excited now. “And don’t try to change the subject. You don’t really go out, and that’s cool, but tonight you’re going to. I’m putting my foot down, Fay. I’m not taking no for an answer, and you know how freaking stubborn I can be. You can do this the easy way, or the hard way, but you’re coming out with me.”

“You know what?”

“No, what?” she asked me suspiciously. Her eyes actually narrowed as she got into the stance she reserved for getting her way at all costs.

I laughed again and reminded myself that as bummed as I had been feeling all day, I still had it pretty good. I had it very good. I had a lifelong friend that loved me enough to put up with my bullshit and pull me out of my funks, even when I didn’t want to be pulled. She was trying so hard to make me to feel better and doing it the best way she knew how. I could have kissed her for it, but instead, I gave her my biggest, flashiest grin, and returned the wink she’d given me earlier.

“Oh man, I think I know what,” she said giddily, actually jumping up and down with her tentative, but building, excitement. “But I don’t want to get my hopes up too high! Just tell me, why don’t you? Tell me, and put me out of my freaking misery!”

“Yes, that’s what. You want to go out, and I say yes. Let’s do it.”

***

And that’s how I came to be sitting in one of the back booths of one of only two bars in all of Ashville. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been there before, because I had. I wasn’t a nun or anything. I wasn’t such a square that I couldn’t go out and have a drink. Although if Courtney had been able to read my head enough to know that I even thought in terms of the word “square,” she would have shaken her head in disgust.

Still, it had been an oddly difficult day, and I couldn’t help but feel a little bit bowled over by all of the noise and lights in such a relatively small space. It looked like half of Ashville was there, and that was something I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by. It definitely made me glad to be in a booth that was at least a little bit removed from everyone. When Courtney happily announced that she was headed to the bar to get us drinks, I was equally glad I had brought my book along.

I was well aware that a bar wasn’t exactly a conventional place for a person to read a book, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do with myself while I just sat there alone. I could have gone up with her to get the drinks, but I was pretty sure we would have lost our booth if I’d done that. I didn’t want that, either. So it was the book and my nose in it, and for a surprisingly long time, too. The fact that most of Ashville seemed to be trying to get a drink meant that the wait time was nuts, which only made me feel more vindicated in having my book out in the first place. It was a little piece of comfort in an otherwise unfamiliar scenario.

“Uh uh! No freaking way, Fay! No! Absolutely not!”

I looked up, sure that the look on my face was similar to the look a dog wore when he knew he’d been caught doing something he was absolutely not supposed to do. What I saw was Courtney, still at least a couple of feet away from our seats and balancing what looked like enough drinks for six people. She had been in the process of pushing her way through some of the throngs of people when she’d caught sight of my open book. The moment she had seen that, she had shouted out her disapproval.

Unfortunately, when she did that, at least a half dozen other people turned to see what she was yelling about, some of whom snickered when they saw me. I put the book back in my purse, beginning to wonder if going out with Courtney had been all that good of an idea after all.

When she slid a full drink and two shots of some kind of pink liquid in my direction, I was almost sure it had been a mistake. Still, when she held out one of the shot glasses reserved for her, I clinked it like I was supposed to. I slung it back in one sip, following Courtney’s lead, and then fought off a spasm of coughs immediately after.

“Oh, Lord! We really do need to get you out more often, don’t we? That’s only one of the girliest shots around, Fay. This is the kind of thing you start off with in high school and work your way up.”

“I think I’m good sticking at this level. And why are there so many people in here, anyway?!”

“Because it’s Saturday night, Fay! This is what people do on the weekends! Welcome to the world, lady.”

“Hold on, don’t get ahead of yourself. I never said I was going to make this a habit or anything, okay? Let’s just take it one night at a time.”

“Sure, we can do that. Only do me a favor, will you?”

“Maybe,” I answered slowly, knowing Courtney well enough to know that accepting her requests for favor at point blank was right on level with writing a blank check for a bank robber. “It depends on what it is.”

“Nothing big, I promise. Just look over at the bar, will you? A quick look, nothing long and languishing. Just look over there, and tell me what you see.”

I did so, on the verge of telling her she was a crazy person when I stopped cold and felt my mouth drop open. If Courtney hadn’t reached out and physically turned my face away, I would probably have just gone on staring like a total idiot. Instead, I looked down at my hands, saw the second shot sitting there waiting for me, and slammed it back.

“Neil,” I said in a flat voice that sounded very far away from where I was. “It’s Neil. I should have known.”

Chapter 8: Neil

 

 

“Hey, man,” I said. “Remind me to drink here more often, will ya?”

“What, at Elie’s Place?”

“No,” I laughed, three whiskeys in and starting to feel pretty fine. “In Alaska. You have no idea how much cheaper this shit is here than it is in Connecticut.”

“Brother,” Eli said around a shockingly loud belch. “If I never go to Connecticut, not once in my whole goddamn life, I think I’ll be able to die a happy man.”

“Nah, come on. Don’t get me wrong. Everything is stupid expensive there, but it’s a great place to live.”

“Oh yeah?” Eli asked, giving me a sideways glance that made it clear he didn’t believe me for even a millisecond. “Why don’t you give me one good reason? Give me one good thing Connecticut and New York and all of those fancy places have that we don’t have here in Ashville.”

“Well, for starters, we’ve got more than one bar.”

“We’ve got two, actually, but I get your point.”

“See?” I asked, laughing. “There you go. Easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Hold on there. I didn’t say I agreed with you. For starters, you only need one bar to get the job done. Second off, you already said the bars in your new neck of the woods are stupid expensive. So why would I want to go and drink there?”

“Alright, fine. Point taken. But there’s more of everything, Eli. There’s more restaurants and movie theaters. The apartment buildings. Pretty much everything. Anything you think of that you could get here, you can get somewhere else, but ten times better.”

“I hear ya. I do. But tell me. If we were to go outside and take a look at what there was to see, would you be able to say the same thing?”

“I’m not sure I follow you,” I said slowly, although I was almost sure that I did and knew that he’d managed to find an exception to what I considered to be a hard and fast rule. “Every place you go has air, Eli.”

“Nah, brother, not the freaking air. I think you know that, too. I’m talking about the view. You look out there and tell me there’s land that pretty every place you go. And shit, why not throw the air into the package, too? You can’t tell me that the air in New York City is anything close to as sweet as this. Not even in your fancy Connecticut. Go on, try it. You tell me it’s as good, and I’ll tell you that you’re a liar.”

“Well, I did go to law school,” I answered with a grin, willing to back down when I was beaten, but not wanting to have to come right out and say it. “So lying is kind of what I’ve been trained for.”

“I gotcha. At least I think I do.”

“What about you, man?”

“What about me? I just run my little barber’s shop, like I told you earlier.”

“Sure, I know that. I just meant, shit, I don’t know. Do you ever think about getting out of here? Do you ever think about getting out of Ashville?”

“Me?” he asked me with such a genuine look of surprise that I almost felt stupid for asking the question in the first place. “Why would I want to do a thing like that?”

“I don’t know. Because there’s a whole world out there. There’s plenty worth seeing, worth doing, outside of Alaska. Believe me, I’ve seen enough of it to know it’s basically endless.”

“I don’t think that’s the way it would work for me, man.”

“But why? I guess that’s what I don’t get. Why not?”

I had a feeling I was starting to sound something on the abrasive side, and there was a part of me that knew the best move at this point would have been to drop it and drink my drink. The thing was, I couldn’t seem to make myself do it. I knew it wasn’t my place to grill Eli the way I was, especially since I hadn’t bothered to be his friend in almost ten years. But I couldn’t make myself drop it, couldn’t make myself let it go. I needed to know.

I needed to know how a guy, how anyone, any of the people laughing it up around me in one of two town bars, could stay in Alaska and be happy about it. I needed to know how they could make the choice to live in a town, to make that choice every fucking day, and for it to be the same town that I still had nightmares about winding up in again.

“I don’t think there has to be a real why, Neil. Or let’s put it this way, it’s not something I’ve got the words to tell you the reason for. It’s my home. It’s the place that makes me feel easy in my heart. The idea of living someplace else, it just doesn’t sit well with me. You understand?”

“Yes and no. I believe that’s the way it is for you. I also believe it would drive me fucking nuts to have to be here any longer than absolutely necessary. I need to be out there, you know? I need to be out there where it feels like life is really happening.”

“Sure, I believe that. But tell me, brother, what about the women?”

“What about them?” I asked casually, signaling the bartender’s attention for another round and taking my sweet time answering a question, the meaning of which I knew damn well. “They’ve got women everywhere. You know that.”

“Shit, Neil, you know what I mean. You said everything’s better in places that aren’t here. Does that same thing go for the women?”

“Chicks are chicks, Eli. As far as I can tell, that doesn’t change much from place to place.”

“Now that one, I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with. Some chicks are chicks. Some might as well be goddesses.”

“Oh man!” I laughed, a laugh that felt surprisingly good after how tightly wound I’d been ever since receiving the news of my father’s death. “Goddesses, huh? It sounds like you’ve been with a different kind of woman than me, Eli. I can’t say I’ve ever met a woman I would call a goddess before.”

“No?”

“No, can’t say that I have.”

“How about Fay Turner? You remember her? If my memory serves me correctly, the two of you were practically married when we were all still in school. Or when the two of you were still in school, anyway. I dropped out at the end of tenth grade.”

“I wouldn’t say anything close to married, Eli,” I answered in what I hoped was a light tone, feeling most of the levity that had been building up inside of me evaporate at the mention of Fay’s name. “There was never a ring or anything like that. We were just kids, man. You know how it goes.”

“She was fine though, right? She was definitely hot.”

I didn’t say anything in response, only sipped on the new drink the bartender had brought me. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to something like that. A part of me wanted to kick his ass just for talking about her, but that wasn’t right. When she had been my girl, sure. Anyone talking about how hot Fay was would have learned not to disrespect our relationship in front of me. But she hadn’t been my girl for a hell of a long time.

Besides that, Eli was probably trying to fuck with me by talking about Fay. Call it the lawyer in me, but there was a certain glint in his eye that made me think this was more than reminiscing. And he kept looking over one of my shoulders. I got the distinct feeling that something else was going on. I didn’t want to ask, though. Whatever he was trying to get at, I didn’t want to get roped into it. I’d been having a good time with Eli up until now. I didn’t want to ruin the night with thoughts about the past.

I decided that I wasn’t going to say anything else until Eli changed the subject, apologized, or did something to try and explain himself. Finally, once the tension had really started to build to a noticeable level, Eli laughed a little and clapped me on the shoulder with a meaty palm.

“I’m only fucking with you, brother. I couldn’t help it. Just a little ribbing for knocking my hometown.”

I nodded. “My hometown, too, Eli. Don’t forget that. It’s not like I’m a tourist.”

He shrugged. “After all of this time, you kind of are a tourist. But anyway, I was also just wondering what your thoughts were on her. Fay that is. You know, seeing as she’s sitting right over there behind you.”

“What?” My pulse raced faster than I wanted to admit. I suppressed the urge to whip my head around to see if he was telling the truth. “Are you fucking with me again, Eli? Because I gotta say, man, not too cool.”

He grinned and shook his head. “Nope, not a joke. Not this time, dude. She’s right over there with Courtney. You remember Courtney? Anyway, Courtney and I fuck around from time to time. So I tend to notice her when she’s around. And seeing as Fay never comes out to the bar, she’s pretty easy to spot as well. Plus, almost every guy in here is looking at her right now. Makes it hard to miss her.”

Against my better judgment, I looked over my shoulder in the direction Eli had been looking, off and on, for the last couple of minutes. It might have been coincidence or fucking fate. It might have been all kinds of things I didn’t pretend to understand, but when I looked in her direction, she was impossible to miss. She was looking right at me.

Our eyes locked for half a second, and she ducked her head the instant they did. There was no doubt in my mind that she’d been looking at me. It was dim in the bar, but I thought I saw her start to blush immediately after I looked in her direction. I had to smile at that, despite the fact that I was almost ready to get up and sprint out the door.

All of a sudden, I remembered that Fay had never been able to hide it when she blushed. Her face was so perfectly creamy that it looked like she’d never stepped foot outside, even though I knew she was one of the most outdoorsy girls I had ever met. Her pale complexion made it painfully easy to see it when her face went red. It was something I’d always liked about her.

Remembering that made me think about our shitty meeting in the diner. I’d bailed as soon as I’d seen her. Just the sight of Fay awakened uncomfortable feelings inside me that I didn’t want to deal with. Opening up those old wounds seemed like more trouble than it was worth. But maybe that wasn’t quite fair to her. The two of us definitely had a history together, and she didn’t look particularly pissed to see me, after all.

“What do you say, man?” Eli asked loudly, speaking up so I could hear him over the ever-rising din of the strangely honky-tonk Alaskan bar.

“What do I say to what?” I asked back.

“You feel up to going over there with me? I know you don’t have any time for women, or at least, that’s the way you make it sound. But it’s been a while for me and Courtney, and she’s the best piece of ass I’ve ever had. She strikes me as a little bit crazy, which is something I appreciate in a girl.”

“Yeah, man, if that’s what you want to do. I can play wingman.”

Eli nodded at me in agreement. Although, I thought I saw a little look there that said he thought I was bullshitting if I was trying to convince him that part of me wasn’t heading over to that table for me. The two of us got up to go.

Almost immediately, our places at the bar were swallowed up, making the impromptu decision feel like a disturbingly final one. For the time it took us to walk from the bar top to the little booth Courtney and Fay were holed up in, I felt like I was walking through no man’s land. There was always the chance that my ex would still freak out, tell me what a piece of shit I was, and make it clear that she only wanted me to drop dead.

But when I looked at her again, I saw those deep green eyes on me again, saw the renewal of that blush, and I knew that I was okay. At least I was pretty sure, which was enough to get me into the booth, sitting beside Fay as if our separation had only been for a week or two, instead of something approaching a decade.

“Hey,” I said quietly, hoping I sounded more confident than I was feeling. She was the only woman who could still make me feel unsure after all these years, and I didn’t like it. This was the old me, not the man I’d become since leaving this town far behind me. “I didn’t really expect to see you again so soon.”

“No, I guess I didn’t either,” she said hesitantly, gripping her drink as if it would disappear if she let it go for even a minute. “Even though we both know this is about the smallest town in the whole world.”

“Actually, it’s not.”

“Oh no?” she asked with one eyebrow raised, a look she’d given me many times when we’d been in school together and she thought I was planning on doing something stupid. “And what makes you so sure about that?”

“I looked it up once,” I said.

“You did not!” she said with a smile on her face. “I totally don’t believe you.”

“I sure as shit did,” I said, laughing. I felt a little bit dizzy with how natural this conversation was feeling. “Just to see. It turns out there are a couple of places that are smaller. But not many.”

“That’s completely nuts,” she said, shaking her head.

“It may be, my dear, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

“Okay, then tell me where? And I don’t mean just the name of the town, either. Don’t think for one minute that I don’t know how easily you could just make something up. I want the name, location, most famous person that ever came from there. Whatever you’ve got. Lay it on me. I want the proof.”

“Would you believe me if I said I forgot?” I asked, grinning.

“Oh Lord, Neil. You’re just a mess, aren’t you?”

We fell into a kind of silence then. I wouldn’t have gone so far as to call it a comfortable silence, it wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever sat through. Probably the most uncomfortable thing about it was the fact that Eli and Courtney were loudly making out across the table from us. His hand was already up her shirt and clearly planning to get as much exploring done as possible.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Fay and I sat there silently, both of us gripping our drinks now and sitting close enough to be almost touching. All of a sudden, it hit me that maybe I should apologize. I’d done something that pretty much everyone would agree was shitty to her, and she was sitting beside me, having the grace not to make a fuss about it. It made me want to get to know her again. The drinks and the fact that she was even sexier than ever didn’t hurt that cause, either.

I wanted to kiss her. All at once, the urge to press my lips to hers overwhelmed me. I wanted to see what she would be like now that she was a woman, instead of a girl. It probably made me an asshole, but hey? What didn’t these days? I was actually reaching a hand toward her, ready to make a move and see how far I could push things, when she shifted in her seat and grabbed her purse. She glanced over at Courtney, opened her mouth to say something, and then looked back at me.

“I hate to say this, but I think it’s time for me to go.”

“No, come on,” I said. “You don’t need to do that. I was kind of thinking that we could talk some more. See how life has changed us. I think I want to see more of you.”

“You want to see more of me?” she asked, her voice quiet and unsure.

“I do,” I answered her, sure that I’d said just the right thing to get her where I wanted her. “I really fucking do.”

“Well, that’s not a bad thing, but it’s also not going to happen. At least not tonight. If you want to see more of me, you know where to find me. But right now, I’m going to say goodnight.”

Then she was gone. There I was, sitting at a table with an old buddy I hadn’t seen for years and Fay’s best friend. Despite being lip-locked with Eli, Courtney shot me a very enthusiastic middle finger.

That was enough for me for the night. I got up, leaving behind a couple twenty dollar bills to pay for my drinks, and headed home for the night. Watching Eli and Courtney while I just sat there, was a little sad.

When I got home I could see Fay’s house. It was dark inside her house so I couldn’t actually see anything she was doing. And though I couldn’t figure out if I was being creepy or not, I couldn’t help but think about what she might have been doing.

She was gorgeous. Even after all of these years, the girl still looked the exact same as she had when I had left all those years ago.

The thought of how she looked and what she might be doing was turning me on. I had an erection within seconds of even thinking her name. I couldn’t help it. Not only did she possess a certain innocence about herself. But she also, had a maturity that no one our age really did.

I thought about how she had acted tonight and I wanted nothing more than to turn back the clock, grab her arm, pulling her back onto the seat and kiss her beautiful mouth. I should have done it and now I was kicking myself for not doing it.

So instead, I went into the bathroom. The one place I knew I could help ease what was definitely turning into some blue balls.

I turned the shower on “hot” and undressed. I stepped into the shower and then began to run my hand along my cock.

Fay’s body had always been a dream to look at. She was fit but she had curves in all the right places and I pictured what it would be like to undress her and look down at her naked body as she lay beneath me. I pictured her trembling as I fucked her into oblivion.

I pictured her bending over in front of me in the shower. Showing me that perfect ass. I could make her go crazy with my dick. I’d fuck her hard, fast and deep. She wouldn’t even know what hit her when I made her come.

“Oh Fay.” I moaned as I moved my hand up and down my hard cock. I wanted to feel her more than anything. I wanted to get inside of her and feel that sweet pussy I knew she had. I gripped a little harder, the water falling over me, and began to move my hand up and down the length of myself, faster and faster.

I wanted to come, I needed to come. I wanted to feel her come all on me. I wanted to hear her calling my name out in pleasure as I held her legs up in the air.

I leaned against the shower wall, to regain my balance so I wouldn’t fall over and I jacked off even harder. I felt myself getting closer and I pictured Fay on her knees before me. Taking me into her mouth all the way and sucking. I pictured her moving her perfect head back and forth on my hard dick.

I started moaning as I found my release and began to come. It was a pretty intense orgasm that seemed to last longer than normal. And when I came down, I really couldn’t stop picturing Fay’s face. Which made it hard not to get turned on once again.

Chapter 9: Fay

 

 

“Hey, bitch!” Courtney exclaimed. “I’m glad to see you’re alive!”

“Me?” I asked in confusion. “Of course, I’m alive. I’m the one who went home early, remember?”

“Of course, I remember. At least, I think I do. Now get inside the car. It’s fucking freezing. This is Alaska we’re living in, in case you forgot.”

I got into the car laughing, seeing my breath as almost a solid thing as I did so, and not caring even a little bit. It was true that I had a little bit of a headache, which didn’t surprise me. The relatively small amount I’d had to drink the night before was still a lot for me. Other than that, I was feeling pretty good. In fact, I was feeling pretty great, although I didn’t want to let myself.

I didn’t want to get my hopes up, but at the same time, I couldn’t stop replaying my brief encounter with Neil in my head. I’d probably replayed it a thousand times before I was actually able to fall asleep the night before. I continued thinking about it after contacting Courtney and telling her that I couldn’t get my car to start. I was so into thinking about the way Neil and I had interacted that I almost didn’t bother to bring my book with me, even though I was headed to work and the book always came with me when I did that. I hadn’t become any less interested in my reading, but I was also close to positive that I had something else to do my entertaining today.

“Whew!” Courtney said. “Pretty interesting night, huh?”

“Interesting?” I repeated, looking sideways at Courtney to see if she was trying to mess with me or something. “Sure, I guess you could say that.”

“Hey, how come you’re using that tone?” she asked me, pouting. Her eyes focused on the road, and I thought it was probably safe to sneak a look up at Neil’s house before we pulled out onto the road, and we lost sight of it altogether.

“What tone?” I asked distractedly, wanting her to keep talking, but not actually putting all that much energy into listening. “I’m not using a tone.”

“Um, I beg to differ. You most definitely are. It’s the tone you use with me when you think I’ve been up to no good.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure we both know that you have, but I don’t care. I’ve always liked Eli.”

“Shit, I’m not talking about that,” she shot back. “I’m up to that kind of no good plenty. You sound like you think I did something sneaky. That’s what I’m getting at.”

“No, I’m not saying that,” I said frowning. “But now that you mention it.”

“Just what? Spit it out, Turner. You’re killing me!”

“Did you do that, somehow?” I asked. “Like, did you get Neil to come to the bar?”

“Ha! Nope, but it worked out pretty perfectly, didn’t it? I totally wish I could take credit for it, believe me, but no deal. Just a freaking happy coincidence, at least for me.”

“What do you mean, at least for you? Why not for me, too?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like things went very far. You got up and left him sitting there like a total jackass!”

“And what was I supposed to do instead?” I asked in annoyance.

“Oh, I don’t know, go back to that massive house of his? Not to be insensitive or anything, but it’s not like there’s anyone else there to have a problem with it anymore.”

“Courtney!” I almost shrieked, actually kind of horrified. My voice was loud enough to make Courtney wince. “That’s a terrible thing to say! And it shouldn’t surprise you that I didn’t go home with him. It’s not like him being back in town magically changed who I was, right?”

“Right, but come on! Isn’t this sort of the one you’ve been holding out for? After all of those freaking Prince Charming kinds of books, isn’t he yours? The ridiculously hot ex comes back into town under tragic circumstances? You both happen to be in the right place at the right time? Tell me that isn’t the perfect scenario for you to pop your cherry.”

“Sorry, but no.”

“What more do you want, Fay?”

“For him to prove it’s about more than just getting me into bed, for starters. He was drunk, Courtney, and I was, too. If we’re even going to think about going there, I’m going to need a little bit more than that.”

“Like what, a diamond ring?” she asked.

“No, but some conversation might be nice. A little bit of time to get to know each other.”

“But you two dated all through high school!”

“That’s right, and that was years and years ago. I mean, after all this time, we need to get to know who we are now. I told him very clearly that if he wanted to see more of me, he knew where to find me.”

“Yeah, well don’t get your hopes up, lady. I wish I were wrong about this, but I don’t think men like the one you’re holding out for exist. Not even when they’re hot exes.”

“They may not. Then again, they may. We’ll just have to see.”

I thought I was doing a pretty good job of sounding sure of myself, but inside, I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. The night before, I had felt so good about what I was doing. I’d felt sure that it was the right move. But in the cold, gray light of the next day’s afternoon, I wasn’t so sure.

Neil had probably only been expressing interest in me because he was drunk, and he knew I might still have an emotional tie to him. Maybe he was also a little bit surprised that I hadn’t freaked out on him yet. If that was the case, he wasn’t the only one.

Even though I was the one living inside of my own head, I still couldn’t quite understand how it was that I was so okay with the fact that Neil had completely bailed on me and was now acting like nothing had ever happened at all. I was maybe a little extra cautious, but whether or not I should have been, I found that I couldn’t make myself be angry. Part of me even wanted to be angry. It felt like it would have been a hell of a lot safer than whatever it was I was doing instead, but I couldn’t do it.

What I could do was make myself half-crazy. Courtney and I opened up the diner. I waited to see if Neil would come and see me, or if it had only been his drinks talking. Courtney’s words kept replaying in my mind over and over again, like a tape on a loop. I couldn’t help wondering if everything she’d said to me was right. Maybe it had always been right, maybe all of it had been, and I had only been wasting my time on stupid dreams of life being a certain way that didn’t really exist.

“Hey! Hey, dreamy, pay attention!”

I looked up so suddenly that I almost dropped the salt shaker I had in my hand. Courtney, who had actually done some work for a change and wiped the tables down, was groaning and laughing at the same time. Jesus, I really did belong in one of those fairytale movies, one of the ones where the main princess was so full of daydreams that she could hardly navigate the world around her.

I had been so busy thinking about Neil and whether or not I had played things the right way that I had managed to dump a not inconsiderable amount of salt all over the counter top. I cursed to myself under my breath. That struck Courtney even funnier than the spillage itself and got her laughing in earnest.

I began to set about cleaning my mess up. I was so wrapped up in what I was doing that I completely ignored the sound of the door’s bell dinging. Courtney stopped laughing and, instead of greeting our customer, remained totally silent. That was odd, so I looked up, already on the verge of being pissed off at her for making my afternoon harder than it needed to be.

“Neil!” I exclaimed.

“Fay,” he said, smiling. He looked tired and a little worse for wear. But somehow, he managed to look completely gorgeous all the same. “Did I come at a bad time?”

“What? No! No, you didn’t. We’re just getting everything set up.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the salt go inside of the shakers and not on the countertop?” he asked with a grin.

“Ah, is that where I went wrong?” I said, feeling embarrassed. “Good thing you were here to tell me.”

“Definitely,” he agreed, smiling wider as he took a seat right in front of where I was still trying to clean up my mess. “Dodged a bullet if you ask me.”

“Well that’s good. Don’t want to do the opposite.”

Neil laughed a little, and then there was silence. I could feel him looking at me while I looked down at the salt. At the same time, I could feel Courtney’s eyes boring into the side of my face. It was such an intense stare that I was sure that giving her super powers would have meant my death. I wanted to look right back at her and tell her to back off already. She cleared her throat and tapped the coffee machine.

“Oh!” I said.

“What?” Neil asked, sounding like he might be genuinely considering my well-being. “Is something the matter?”

“No,” I said, scrambling. I wished that I was a much better liar than I really was, for probably the thousandth time over the last couple of days. “Just a cut on my hand that salt didn’t help with at all. Also, can I get you something? Another cup of coffee?”

“Nope, I already had my coffee for today.”

“Something else then?” I asked. “Are you still a Dr. Pepper fan?”

“I am, but I don’t want one of those, either.”

“All right, but we’re reaching the end of the things I know for a fact you like. Maybe it would be easier if you just told me what you’d like?”

“I came here for you, actually,” he said.

“For me? I don’t get it.”

“You told me last night that if I wanted to see more of you, I knew where to find you. You did say that, right? Please tell me I didn’t hallucinate that because that would be so embarrassing.”

“No, you didn’t. I just, I guess I didn’t expect you to show up here.”

“That’s fair,” he said. “Is it that you didn’t want me to show up? You can tell me if that’s it. I’m a big boy, I can handle it.”

It was such a shockingly honest question that it caught me completely off guard. The Neil I had known before he’d left Ashville for good had always had his eyes forward. He’d always been looking to move forward. It was the thing that had made him almost frighteningly ambitious, but it had also made him sort of blind to the way the things he did affected other people.

I didn’t have time to sit down and think it all through with him sitting there and looking at me. It didn’t help that Courtney was staring me down from behind. But I was pretty sure there had never been a time that Neil had asked me anything that pointed to any level of introspection. I didn’t think that he had ever asked me something as simple as whether I wanted him around or not. It wasn’t a bad question to be asked, but I also had no idea how I was supposed to answer it. I was so thrown off that I was actually grateful when Courtney spoke up for me.

“Nope, not to worry, Neil. There’s no issue there.”

“You sure about that?” he asked Courtney, laughing like it was no big deal but not quite able to get rid of the weird little shake his voice had taken on. “I can’t say this is how people usually act when they’re happy to see me.”

“Well, she’s not your average girl, now is she? You’ve known her for as long as I have, buddy. You should know that full well.”

“You’re right about that,” he said. “She’s certainly not average.”

Even though we were smack dab in the middle of Alaska, I felt myself growing hot all over. The way he talked about me gave me goosebumps. And those eyes. It felt like his eyes were reading everything about me, and I was sure he hadn’t blinked once since this strange conversation began. I’d told him to come and find me if he wanted to see more of me, not to try and take me home from some bar. Now that he’d actually done it, I had no idea what I was supposed to do. You would have thought he was a total stranger, and in a lot of ways, he kind of was. I had no idea what I was supposed to say, stranger or not. I wasn’t even sure what he wanted. So far, he hadn’t told me anything aside from the fact that he’d come there to see me and only for that. Once he made it clear that he didn’t even want something as simple as a Dr. Pepper, I was pretty much at a loss as to what I was supposed to do.

“So are you going to ask her out or what?” Courtney asked.

“Courtney!” I practically shrieked, totally mortified that she would come right out and ask a question like that.

She was talking like I wasn’t even there in the same room, which made me feel like a total idiot. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Apparently, whatever was going on here didn’t even need to involve me. I was almost afraid to look at Neil. I didn’t want to see what his face must look like with Courtney talking to him like that. When he spoke, I was about ready to go back to hiding behind the countertop, just so that I didn’t have to be a part of whatever awful thing was about to happen.

Neil grinned. “You know? That’s what I was trying to get to, but I guess I can see your point. I wasn’t doing a very good job, was I?”

“I don’t know,” Courtney answered in that sly, falsely innocent voice she had, that always made me think she was up to no good. “That sort of depends on how many months you were planning on taking to do it. If you were trying to really draw it out, then you’re right on track.”

“All right, all right. I see what you’re saying. Do I have your permission then? To take her out?”

“My permission?” Courtney asked gleefully. “Oh man, I like the sound of that. I wish more people would ask me that kind of thing.”

“Um, guys?” I interjected. “You know I’m standing right here, don’t you?”

Courtney only laughed again, which was good for lightening the mood. But it also kind of made me want to kill her. Neil had the good grace to flush a little, which made me feel better for some weird reason. If I was going to be uncomfortable, it only seemed fair that somebody else had to be also. He cleared his throat and looked at me again, this time with his eyes that were serious enough to bring my goosebumps back.

“I’m sorry, Fay. I’m not doing a very good job of this. If you want to know the truth, I don’t spend much time asking women out.”

“Ha!” Courtney snorted from behind us, making her opinion on the truthfulness of that statement easily known.

I thought Neil might look away from me and go back to bantering back and forth with my friend, but this time, her words didn’t even faze him. As far as he was concerned, she might not even have existed. Nobody did, aside from me, which was a pretty weird feeling when I reminded myself that this was Neil Driscoll I was talking to.

“Fay?” he asked.

“Hm?”

“I came by because I wanted to ask you to come to dinner with me tomorrow night. No pressure or anything. I realize it’s short notice, and you might already have plans.”

I waited for Courtney to expel that snort of laughter again. I was so sure it was going to happen that I was pretty sure I could hear it, even though she kept quiet. I wasn’t sure if he was pulling my leg when he said he didn’t spend much time asking women out, but I was positive that however much experience with it he had, I had even less. After Neil had left, I had pretty much bowed out when it came to going on dates. It wasn’t an intentional decision, but it was what had happened, whether it had been planned or not. The fact that it was Neil doing the asking now made things feel so surreal that I couldn’t even manage to get my mouth open. Once again, it was Courtney who came to the rescue and gave the answer I couldn’t seem to give.

“She’d love to. Pick her up at seven, okay? And don’t be late, whatever you do.”

Chapter 10: Neil

 

 

“What the fuck? What the fuck is going on with me?”

I stared into the mirror at myself, trying to figure out why my nerves were such a mess. What I had told Fay was true, or at least, I considered it to be true. I hadn’t spent a whole lot of time asking women out, at least, not to take them on dates. But asking a woman out to dinner wasn’t the only way to spend time with her, and when it came to spending time with women, I was a bit of an expert.

I had honed my skills over the years so that I hardly even had to talk to most women to get them into bed with me. It was almost as easy as breathing. That made me see the dating part of things as pretty much pointless. Honest to God, I wasn’t even sure why I had asked Fay to go to dinner with me the way I had. I knew that I hadn’t liked her telling me she wouldn’t spend any more time with me after the bar. I knew that much. I knew that I’d lain awake thinking about her, too.

I’d woken up the previous morning and showered, dressed, and gotten into my truck before I had even really figured out what I was doing. Even when I had been sitting at the counter right in front of her, I hadn’t really known I was going to try and take her out. The words were actually out of my mouth before I had time to think about them, and then I had been waiting to see if she was going to let me take her anywhere after everything I had done.

Just a date, man. Cool it, okay?

I nodded to myself, intent on taking my own advice if it killed me. It was just a date, and it was with a girl I had been on plenty of dates with before. I had known Fay for almost all of my life, and if I’d taken off for a year or nine, so what, right?

She had obviously forgiven me enough to hang out with me again. Unless she was planning on letting me have it in the middle of the restaurant, which seemed unlikely. It was also probably exactly what I deserved.

These were the things I tried not to think about and couldn’t get out of my head while I finished getting myself ready. I downed a whiskey while I waited for it to be time to show up at her front door. It was kind of killing me that I could see her house from my front porch. I couldn’t stop wondering what was going on inside of her head. Since I had gotten ready too early, I was left with too much time on my hands to think things through that didn’t need thinking on.

By the time I got into my truck, I felt like I had somehow turned into a girl when I wasn’t looking. I was acting like somebody I didn’t recognize, and since I couldn’t figure out why, I blamed it on the town. I had known that being in Ashville was going to mess with my head, and here it was, doing exactly that.

That had to be the reason I felt as messed up as I did. I felt nervous the way I might have when I was still a kid, watching the pretty girl living down at the base of the hill. It was just another reminder that I needed to get out of town as quickly as possible. Fay was a great way to pass the time, but she wasn’t going to make me stay. This time was no different than the time I’d left before. As soon as I could get my shit together, I was gone. I just had to hope that was something she already understood.

“Hey, stranger,” Fay said.

“Hey! Shit, sorry. I didn’t even come up to the front door.”

While I had been sitting in front of Fay’s house in my truck and contemplating just what the hell was going on here, Fay had quietly emerged from her house, making it all the way to my partially unrolled window before I noticed she was there. I was definitely off my game. Getting a look at Fay didn’t help me to regain it.

I had already seen her a few times since returning to Ashville, but this was the first time I was seeing her where it wasn’t a surprise for her, and the first time when she’d been able to get herself ready the way she wanted to. Even after all these years, I thought she was beautiful, no matter what. But tonight, her confidence was sky high, and I could tell.

Everything about her was sexy and sweet and crazy seductive. Again, like a high school kid, I could feel myself hardening in my slacks at the sight of her. It turned out to be a good thing I hadn’t gotten out of the car to greet her. The last thing I needed was for her to see an erection popping up to greet her.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, laughing. She seemed totally oblivious to the mess going on inside of my head. “It’s not like you had much of a chance of sneaking up on me. I could see your truck coming down the way.”

“Ah, so you were spying on me, huh?”

She laughed, then headed around the truck and let herself in before I could even pretend I was going to get out and open her door for her. In thirty seconds, she was sitting beside me, her hand landing briefly on top of my own before she fastened her seatbelt. She gave me one of her million dollar smiles.

“Not exactly spying, Neil. This truck is older than God, you know? I could practically hear it starting in your driveway.”

“Hey! This truck is the best! What did I use to call her?”

“Oh brother,” she groaned, laughing again in a way that made me want to kiss her right then and there. “Bess? Jess? I don’t really remember, but I know I used to be jealous of her. Isn’t that crazy? You had me jealous of a truck, Neil!”

“I know,” I laughed, surprised by how quickly the two of us were falling into being comfortable again, but relieved all the same. “How great was that?”

“So great that you owe me this dinner. That’s for sure. Now, drive on, sir. I’m kind of starving.”

“Your wish is my command, sweetheart. Let’s go.”

Dinner was a blur. It may have been the wine. We had plenty of it, and there was a surprisingly good selection, given the fact that we were stuck in Ashville. But the wine wasn’t the only reason dinner flew by in a haze. It was her.

It was Fay. She sat across from me in a little black dress. A deep v in the front made it difficult for me not to stare down her dress. Her skin was smooth and tanned, making her green eyes sparkle brighter and her almost white blonde hair shine all the more.

As we ate, we talked. My concerns that she might be out with me to publicly chew me out had been completely baseless, which was a pleasant surprise. I was actually kind of disgusted with myself for having thought it about her, once I had gotten the chance to spend some actual one on one time with her. Just because I was a jackass didn’t necessarily mean that she was, and from what I could tell, she wasn’t anything close to that.

It was probably what I deserved, although I was working hard not to think about that. But it wasn’t what she was giving me, which made me one lucky son of a bitch. By the time we were done with dinner, something that took almost three hours, I felt almost high from my contact with her. It was so bad that I couldn’t think of anything to say in the truck on the way home. I just drove in silence while she continued to keep up the conversation for the both of us. Finally, when we were parked outside of her house, she turned to look at me, a slight frown creasing her otherwise perfect face.

“Hey, Neil? Did I do something wrong?”

“Wrong?” I asked quickly, wondering if this would be the moment where she finally asked me what the fuck I had been doing all of those years ago, vanishing without even trying to give her an excuse. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been pretty much silent since we got into the truck. I was just wondering if I said something wrong. I know sometimes I talk too much when I get nervous.”

“No,” I answered just a little bit too roughly, causing her to clam up immediately, which wasn’t what I was going for at all. “No, Fay, nothing like that. I was just thinking, I guess.”

“Thinking about what?”

“Thinking about how good it is to see you. Honest to God, Fay, it is.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” she said quietly. All of her former chattering immediately vanished. “Better than I thought it would be, actually.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear that. Because there’s something else. I’ve been sitting here thinking about, too.”

Without giving myself the time to really think about it, I leaned forward and took her face in my hands. There was a moment when I was sure she would pull away and finally let me have it for all of the shit I’d pulled. But she didn’t do anything like that. At first, she didn’t do anything at all.

I thought I was going to have to end the kiss feeling like a complete asshole, but in the end, it didn’t wind up being that way at all. After sitting there stock still for a couple of seriously long seconds, I could feel her starting to soften at my touch, one inch at a time. Then she was kissing me back, melting into me. It was everything I could do not to try and pull her dress off of her, right then and there.

It was the strangest sensation. In some ways, I remembered this feeling. I remembered what it was like to taste her tongue on my own. Then in some ways, it was a totally new thing. It was unlike any experience I had ever had with a woman, and it made me want her more than I had ever wanted a female before.

I kissed her so that she would know that, and I kissed her so that my intentions were clear. Although I could feel her wanting me back, after a couple of very hot and intense moments, she pulled away from me. Her face was flushed, her breathing fast and shallow. I could tell that she wanted me, could see it on her, and yet when she spoke, it was to tell me no.

“I should go inside,” she said softly, her voice breaking a little at the end. “But thank you for such a lovely dinner.”

“Don’t go inside. Come up to my place. We can have another drink, talk some more.”

“Talk, huh? Is that what you think we’ll do?”

“I don’t know. I just know that I don’t want this night to be over yet.”

“I know, me either. But it’s best for me to go inside. We can see each other again if you like. I know I would like that.”

“Yeah,” I answered, doing my best not to let her hear the annoyance that was creeping into my blood. “I would, too. I’ll come by the diner, okay? We’ll make some plans.”

“That sounds wonderful. Goodnight, Neil.”

She kissed me again, immediately inflaming me and making me want to redouble my efforts to get her to come back to my place. And then she was gone. I spent the night alone, and it was a very long time until I was able to get to sleep.

Chapter 11: Fay

 

 

When I heard the knock on my front door, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I had hardly slept at all the night before. As a result, I’d fallen asleep on the couch while I was supposedly cleaning the living room. Even this much-needed sleep was broken and unsatisfying.

It seemed like, whether I wanted it to or not, my mind kept going back to last night. It kept going back to Neil, which made it hard to calm down enough to get any rest. My pathetic excuse for a nap was the closest I had come so far, and it was cut woefully short by the rapping at my door.

“Hello?” I called out uncertainly, my voice sounding pathetically weak in my own ears. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Courtney, bitch! What’s the matter with you? Did he drug you or something? Because I swear to God, if he did I’ll go up there to his big fancy house and kick the shit out of him. I don’t care how rich he is!”

“Hold on, I’m coming. And stop yelling about kicking people’s asses!”

I pulled myself up to a sitting position, trying to adjust to, or at least ignore, the feeling of dizziness that came over me with the movement. Part of me would have liked to have just ignored the knocking altogether, shove a pillow over my head, and get back to sleep, but I also knew that wasn’t really an answer.

Courtney wasn’t the kind of girl to just give up and go away. If I didn’t let her in, she was likely to just kick the door in and see what the hell was going on with me. I pulled the door open, squinting against the glare of the sun as it hit the snow, and then winced when Courtney started her yell-talking all over again.

“What the hell, lady? Do you know how long I’ve been out here knocking?”

“No, but judging by how shrill your voice is, I’m going to guess it’s been a little while. I know how good you are at being patient.”

“You’re damn right it’s been a while! Also, you sort of look like shit, you know it? What happened to you last night?”

“Ugh, I’m not really in the mood for your friendly critiques this morning, Courtney. If it’s all the same to you.”

“Who said anything about morning, girl? It’s the afternoon.”

I couldn’t help it. My mouth fell open when she told me that, and the look on my face must have been a pretty comical one, because the edge she’d had to her ever since I’d opened the door vanished. In its place was a general sense of merriment over my confusion and distress.

She started inside, and I stepped out of the doorway, shivering in the cold air the open door had let in. I tried to figure out how I had slept so late. It was totally uncharacteristic of me, but then again, pretty much everything I had been doing for the last couple of days was out of character for me. So why should this be any different?

“You coming?” Courtney called out to me, already almost all of the way to the back of my house and headed towards the porch. She didn’t bother to turn and look at me as she spoke but waved a little baggy over her shoulder, making her intentions clear. I rolled my eyes but followed her nevertheless. If we had lived in a bigger town in a different kind of place, the idea of Courtney smoking weed on my back porch would probably have given me a coronary, but Ashville was a different kind of place than most others.

Smoking weed wasn’t the kind of thing I chose to do, but it also wasn’t something people ever got in trouble for if they kept themselves in check. There was literally zero chance of some cop showing up and asking her just what in the hell she thought she was doing. So I would sit with her while she smoked, just like I had been doing for years.

We settled into our accustomed seats on the screened-in porch that had always been one of my favorite places in the world. I waited while Courtney lit up, sitting silently and staring out at the snow-covered land I loved so well. We stayed quiet that way for some time, her filling my porch with the sweet, herbaceous scent of pot, and me trying very hard to get a handle on what it was I was feeling. I’d been trying to do that same thing ever since he’d walked into the diner without knowing it was me he would find there. It had only gotten harder as the time ticked by. Honestly, I was grateful for Courtney being there. There had been very few times in my life when I had felt the kind of confusion I was feeling now, but having Courtney there as a sounding board always helped me to feel better.

“So girlie, for real. What happened last night? The two of you went out?”

“We did indeed,” I said. “He came to pick me up and everything, Court. You would have been proud.”

“Ha! Sorry, but it’s going to take a lot more than that to make me proud of that boy. Don’t forget, I’ve known him for a while, too. I remember the way things were when he left. I was younger than you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember.”

“I know, but come on. You wanted me to go out with him, right?”

“That’s very true, I did. I’m glad you did, too, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to fall all over myself with how awesome I think he is. At least, not right away.”

“No, I get it,” I said. “But it seems like something’s different about him, Courtney.”

“Oh yeah? And you’re sure that’s not just because you’re glad to have him home? I’m not trying to be too hard on you, Fay, but you know how you are. You would forgive anyone just about anything. It’s one of the things I love about you, but it also scares the shit out of me sometimes. I don’t want anyone hurting you. That’s all.”

“I know that, and I love you for it, but I don’t think I’m wrong on this. At least, I hope I’m not. I can’t put my finger on it, at least not yet, but it feels like something about him is different now. I want to figure out what that something is.”

“Are you thinking he might be the guy?”

“What guy?” I asked.

“Come on,” Courtney scoffed, somehow managing to look uncomfortably authoritarian despite the massive inhale of smoke she took in while she spoke. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Is he the guy? You’ve been waiting all of this time, and we both know how in love you were with Neil. Have you basically been waiting for him?”

I wanted to tell her no, because I didn’t want that to be what I had been doing. I liked to think that I was stronger than that, that I wouldn’t have allowed my girlhood heartbreak to have such a long-lasting effect on my life. The thing was, I wasn’t actually so sure.

I hadn’t been waiting to have sex for religious reasons, and it wasn’t like I was attached to the idea of getting married before I did the deed. But still, I had waited all of this time, and I wasn’t even sure what I was waiting for. Maybe Courtney was right, and it had been him all of this time.

Just the thought made me tingle all over, and I wondered if Courtney could see my thoughts written all over my face. With how long she had known me, I was almost sure that she could, but thankfully, she had the wherewithal not to rub it in my face. She just sat there smoking, waiting to see what I would say next. It was only after I asked my question that she showed any kind of feeling at all, and when she did, it was a look of genuine surprise.

“What’s it like, Courtney?”

“Like? What’s what like?”

“Oh, so now you’re asking the questions you know the answers to? Come on, Courtney, don’t make me ask you in a bunch of different ways. I’ll die if you do, and I really want to know the answer.”

“You’re asking me what sex is like?”

“Yes! That’s what I want to know. That’s the million-dollar question.”

“It’s a hard one to answer. I guess some of it depends on who you decide to do it with. It’ll probably hurt some. I won’t lie to you about that, but then it’s something I don’t really know how to describe. It’s like falling, you know? It feels like falling, but in a good way. It’s warm and hot and makes you shiver all over. If you’re with the right guy and he takes it slow, you’ll start to enjoy yourself real quick. It’s one of the best things in the world, if you want to know the truth. Why do you think I do it so often?”

I laughed, trying not to be embarrassed by the answer to the question I had almost been too shy to ask. I wasn’t sure what kind of answer I was expecting to get from her, but the one I got was a whole lot more thoughtful and less vulgar than I had thought would come out of her mouth. It left me daydreaming about something I had never even done before, which made the timing of my ringing phone pretty fortuitous.

“Hold on. I’ll be right back.”

I made my way inside, my head still full of the things Courtney had just told me. I laughed out loud when I saw who was calling me.

“Hey there,” I answered, that odd tingling feeling still running through me. “Were your ears burning?”

“Hey yourself,” Neil said in a voice that let me know he was smiling on his end of the phone. “And I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Never mind. Just ignore me. I’m just being silly. What’s up?”

“What’s up is, I’m sitting here in my empty house, and it occurred to me that I’d like to see you again.”

“Sure,” I said, in what I hoped was a light, casual voice. Something that would make my excitement a little bit less obvious. “What did you have in mind?”

“Depends. Are you available tonight?”

“I could be, depending on what you’re thinking.”

“I was kind of thinking that I’d like to make you dinner.”

“Make me dinner?” I asked. “Like, you’re going to cook for me?”

“That’s kind of the idea, yeah.”

“You sure about that? I don’t exactly remember you being a master chef or anything. No offense.”

“None taken. But don’t count me out just yet, Fay. I might have learned a thing or two since we were in high school, you know? I might even be able to make something you enjoy eating.”

“You’ve got a deal, but only if you let me bring the wine.”

“It’s a deal, babe. I’ll see you tonight.”

Babe. After I had given him my yes, Neil had hung up the phone about as fast as a person could do, but he’d called me babe right before he did. That was something new about him. Something new for sure. He’d never called me anything like that when we’d been in high school. It was a new kind of smooth, and it scared me.

It made me wonder what other slick tricks he’d picked up out there in the wide world. The thing was, it didn’t scare me enough to make me want to call him back and tell him I’d changed my mind. In some ways, it only made me want him more. Everything I had told Courtney was true. There was something about him, and there was no way I wasn’t going to find out what it was.

“Hey, Courtney?” I called down the hallway, my voice shaking just like the rest of my body.

“What’s up? You sound weird?”

“Looks like I’m going to need your help. I’ve got a date at the Driscoll house tonight.”

Chapter 12: Neil

 

 

“Ouch! Fuck!”

I dropped the knife I was using to chop herbs into the sink, having to draw on pretty massive reserves of strength in order to keep from hurling it across the room. My claim of being able to cook hadn’t been a lie. I’d taken some classes in Connecticut and had actually gotten pretty damned good in the kitchen. But tonight, I was acting like I’d never even seen the inside of a kitchen. It was pretty fucking bad timing. Fay was going to be here any minute.

The nerves had started almost immediately after I had gotten off the phone with Fay, and they hadn’t let up for even a little bit. For some reason, the fact that she was going to be inside of my house, just the two of us, was making me feel insane. Everything I had done since getting off the phone with her had felt like an accident waiting to happen.

I had almost slipped in the shower, catching myself with one arm and pulling a muscle in my shoulder for my trouble. Once I was out, I had cut myself shaving, and now I had cut myself again while cooking. The only thing I had working in my favor at this point was the fact that I was just about done with the cooking, which allowed me to relax for about five seconds.

The sound of a tentative, shy knock on my front door put me right back in the state of nerves I’d been in all afternoon. I wished that I had taken a shot or something before she got there. Not enough to get a buzz on, but enough to calm my nerves. No time for that now. I could practically see her moving from foot to foot while she waited for me to come let her in. I took a deep breath, reminded myself that I was Neil fucking Driscoll and not some dumbass guy who couldn’t deal with the ladies, and opened the front door.

“I brought the wine!”

She practically yelled it at me as she shoved the bottle in my face. Then, she turned bright red and brought the bottle in close to her again. I had been right about one thing, which was that she was at least as nervous as I was. I may have been getting myself more and more rattled as the hours passed by and the time when we were supposed to meet drew closer, but she had been, too, which made me feel a hell of a lot better.

It also sent a surge of affection through me for her, and instead of letting her stand there feeling awkward and weird about herself, I pulled her in towards me, kissing her right on the lips like we were dating. The cold, practical part of my brain reminded me not to start thinking that way. We were just two old friends, making the best of an unexpected situation. There was most definitely an expiration date on this, but I filed it away for later. Now that she was here, I didn’t want to do any more thinking. I just wanted to soak it up and see where this night might go. My desire for her hadn’t diminished any. If anything, it was stronger. I looked at her in her faded jeans and close fitting white t-shirt, and blood rushed to my cock. She looked damn good, and I was fucking ecstatic to have her in my house.

“Oh my God, Neil! It actually smells amazing in here!”

“Actually? Aw, come on, Fay. Are you telling me you didn’t think I could pull a dinner off? That hurts me. I can’t believe you would doubt me like that.”

“Please, are you kidding me? I’m not even convinced yet that you didn’t just order in.”

“Order in from where Fay? This is Ashville. There’s no decent place to order food from, let alone lamb.”

“Okay, two things. First, lamb? Really?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why? Shit, are you a vegetarian now or something?”

“Please,” she laughed, leading me into my own kitchen and sitting down at the massive island where the two of us would eat. “Are you kidding me? Never. Not in a million years. I’m just surprised by how fancy it sounds, that’s all.”

“Jesus, don’t scare me like that. So, what’s the second thing?”

“Nothing, really. Just try and lay off of Ashville a little bit, maybe? I know it isn’t your home anymore, but it’s still mine.”

“Right. You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“I think it might just be best if we tried to leave Ashville out of everything, you know? We never did agree on it, and there’s no reason for us to agree on it now. But we’re having a good time, right?”

“I sure am,” I said.

“Me too. And I want it to stay that way. So I think staying away from the subject of Ashville is probably best. What do you say?”

“I say you have yourself a deal, Fay Turner.”

“Good!” she said, relaxing. “Awesome, I was hoping you would say that. Now, what do you say we drink on it? Open up this bottle of wine and let’s eat. I’m starving, and the food you made really does smell amazing. I can’t lie about that.”

***

After we ate, Fay began gathering up the dishes from the island.

“Come on, Fay, stop it,” I said. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll get it later. Or I can just have dad’s house keeper come by. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Fay answered smartly, the sarcasm in her voice so rich that I could imagine just what her face would look like, despite the fact that she had her back toward me. “I just bet she’s been at home waiting by the phone for you to call her, just hoping she can come and do some more cleaning.”

“Ouch,” I said, grinning. I took a step toward her, wondering how close I could get before she realized I was there. “You’re really taking me down a peg or two, huh?”

“Just telling it like I see it, Neil. Besides, you’re the one who cooked. It only makes sense that I be the one to clean. That’s the way it works. And I’m not afraid of some hard work. I’ve washed plenty of dishes in my life, and I’m sure I’ll wash plenty more. I’m perfectly capable.”

“I don’t have any doubts there, Fay. From where I’m standing, you look more than capable to me.”

I was so close now that I could have easily taken her into my arms, and Lord knew I wanted to. I only held back because before I did anything, I wanted to be sure she wanted it. I wanted to know that she wanted it as badly as I did, and that I wasn’t about to get shot down hard.

She stopped what she was doing, flipped the faucet off, and then stood looking out the window for a minute, not saying a damn thing. I would have given a good deal of money to know what she was thinking in those moments, but I kept my mouth shut. She was going to come to me, or there was going to be nothing at all. I wasn’t going to feel like the asshole in this scenario. No matter how easy a role that was for me to fill. When she finally turned to look at me, I could see her breasts rising and falling quickly, could see how flushed she was. Her body was telling me that she wanted it every bit as badly as I did. Now all I needed was to hear the words.

“You want to kiss me now, don’t you?” she asked.

“Am I that obvious, Fay?”

“You are. That, and it’s what I want. I was sort of hoping you felt the same way.”

“Well then, in the interest of full disclosure—”

“Oh God,” she said with a trembling little laugh, wiping her hands on her shirt and making it start to look almost transparent in the places where it was wet. “You’re such a lawyer.”

“You’re right. I am. Or almost. But in the interest of full disclosure, I’m looking to do a whole lot more than kiss you, Fay. I feel like if I don’t take you to my bed, it’s going to kill me.”

“Then I should probably tell you something, too.”

“Anything, Fay. You can tell me anything you need to say.”

“I’ve never been with a guy before. Not like you’re talking about, anyway. The furthest I’ve ever been with a man was with you, before you left.”

Maybe it should have given me more pause, hearing a thing like that. Almost every man knew that there was something special about sleeping with a virgin. Something that just wasn’t there when you slept with a girl who had been with a dude before. When you took a virgin to bed, you were taking on a responsibility that wasn’t there with other girls, and responsibility wasn’t something I was interested in having.

Maybe it should have stopped me, at least for a minute, to cool down and think about things, but it didn’t do anything of the sort. Instead, I closed the last small gap of space that remained between us and took her into my arms. All it took was one kiss, and any chance I had of rational thought was gone. I lifted her into the air, the weight of her in my arms only turning me on even more, and carried her toward the bedroom.

Whatever ability to protest either of us had was gone. It was the two of us and the heat that had lain dormant between us for almost a decade. There wasn’t anything short of the devil himself that could have put a stop to that.

Chapter 13: Fay

 

 

Neil put me down when we reached his old bedroom. Standing in there with him brought back so many memories. I felt like I was eighteen again.

“You are so beautiful,” Neil said and took a step closer to me.

I smiled up at him. “Thanks.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked me. There was concern in his voice.

“Yes, I’m sure.” I said, reaching my arms up and wrapping them around his neck, gently pulling him into a kiss.

Neil opened his mouth, and his tongue entered mine. I had missed the way he kissed me. His soft lips on mine, his tongue moving around with mine. He wrapped his arms around my waist for just a moment before he grabbed the hem of my shirt and began to slide it up. I pulled back some so he could slide it up over my body and head. He tossed it to the side, and I felt a little exposed, standing there in my bra and jeans.

“Take these off,” he said as he tugged on one of my belt loops with his finger.

I undid both the button and the zipper, and then slowly slid them down my legs. Now I was standing in front of him in just my bra and panties. I felt shy, but also, I felt sexy, standing there before him, almost naked. The look of desire in his eyes turned me on.

“You are beautiful,” he said again.

“I know. You already said that.”

“I just can’t help it, Fay. You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on.”

“Neil, shush,” I said and put my lips to his.

He gripped my hips with his hands and pulled me into him. As we kissed, I felt his hands exploring my body. He ran them up and down my sides, then around my back, where he grabbed my ass. He slid them back up my sides and grabbed my breasts. Then he slipped them around my back and found the clasp of my bra. He undid it, and I backed up some, allowing the bra to slide down my arms and onto the floor. I was now just in the black panties I had bought just for this occasion.

Neil leaned down and put his mouth around my right nipple. His fingers began to gently tug on the left one. They were instantly hard, and it felt so good. Neil stopped what he was doing.

“Get on the bed,” he commanded.

I took the couple of steps over to his bed and laid down. Neil removed his shirt and tossed it to the floor. He began to undo the buckle on his belt and take his pants off. His arm and shoulder muscles flexed as he worked on taking his pants off. He looked so damn hot I could barely believe he was real. This man truly was a sight to see.

Neil climbed onto the bed in just his boxers and pulled me into him. Both of us laid on our sides and looking at each other. He pulled me into another long, deep kiss that left me breathless when we pulled apart. He pushed on me a little bit so that I rolled onto my back. Then he sat up and moved, spreading my legs apart and then getting in between them. He pulled my panties down my legs and tossed them on the floor among the rest of our clothes. My heartbeat quickened in anticipation as he ran his hands up my legs, slowly.

He stopped when his hands were on either side of my sex. He took one hand and began rubbing my clit with his fingers. It felt so good. I was no stranger to masturbation, but somehow, it felt different when he touched me like this.

He bent over and then positioned himself so he was on his stomach in between my legs. He slid his hands under my thighs and brought them around my legs. He moved my lips apart and then put his mouth onto my clit. He started moving his tongue around in circles, and I began panting.

“Oh my God,” I moaned.

The way he moved his mouth on me caused me to arch my back. It felt so good, and I began to moan louder. The feeling grew more and more intense.

He pulled back and sat up. “Are you ready?” he asked.

I nodded my head. I was so turned on, and I was ready to experience him. He got off the bed and pulled a condom out of the pocket of his jeans. He pulled down his boxers, revealing himself. His erection was huge, and I felt myself get more wet just watching him as he slid the condom onto his shaft.

He crawled back on the bed slowly, a sexy smile on his lips. I spread my legs and arched my back a little, moaning just to watch him enjoy what was about to happen. He gripped my legs roughly and pushed them up, forcing me to open up wider for him.

“Are you ready?” he asked again and gripped his cock, rubbing the thick, pulsing head over my clit before tapping it a few times. My body ached for deep penetration.

“Neil, just fuck me already,” I said.

I felt him slowly begin to enter me, and it felt completely different than I had imagined. He pushed in a little farther. I felt a sharp pain and winced.

Neil stopped. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes. Just keep going.”

He pushed in deeper. It hurt more, but at the same time, it felt amazing. Like nothing I had ever felt before in my life. He moved himself out and back in slowly, each time going deeper, until he was all the way inside of me. At that point, he began to pick up the pace. Sliding in and out of me. The fullness of his cock tucked inside me as he groaned and fucked me deep and slow.

We moaned together as he started going faster. The pain receded, and the pleasure increased. He moved my legs onto his shoulders and slid me closer to him, at an angle. He hit home, and my body purred.

“Oh my God,” I moaned as he fucked me.

“So good. So fucking good.” He rolled his hips, causing the thick head of his cock to bounce against my g-spot.

He moved faster, and I felt myself getting close to an orgasm.

“Don’t stop,” I said.

He started thrusting harder, his cock, sliding in and out of me. Until suddenly, my body began convulsing as my orgasm took me.

“Oh Neil!” I called out as he continued to thrust in and out of me faster, until he slowed down and pulled out.

“I want you on top.” He said and moved to lay down next to me. I turned my body, swinging my left leg over him and slowly lowered myself onto him.

Now, it was just like the dream I had, only better. I was on top of Neil, fucking him and I had just had my first real orgasm. It had been mind blowing. He was so deep inside of me now. I could feel every single inch of him and it was hot. I began moving my body up and down, sliding my pussy along his cock.

No sounds escaped me as I continued to move on him. It was all too intense. The feeling of him completely filling me up, stretching me out. I stopped moving up and down and started rocking my hips back and forth, grinding on him.

“That feels so good.” Neil said.

“Mmm Hmm.” I moaned. I was focused on the feeling that was building up inside me again.

“Don’t stop.” Neil said to me. He grabbed my hips with his hands and help me move my hips faster and harder.

Then suddenly I felt myself reaching a climax even more intense then the first one. I could feel Neil throbbing inside of me and the look on his face was nothing but pure pleasure that made my orgasm feel even better.

When we both came down from our orgasms, Neil laid on top of me for a moment. Then he looked me in the eyes and kissed me.

“You okay?” he asked.

“That was amazing.”

“I didn’t hurt you too much, did I?”

“Stop worrying,” I said. “It felt better than anything I’ve ever felt in my life.”

“Good.” He kissed me once again and then rolled off of me, removing the condom and tossing it into the small trash can beside his bed.

We laid there in his bed, and I couldn’t help but feel different. I had just lost my virginity, which officially made me a woman.

Neil pulled me into him so my head was on his chest, and he kissed my head. “I just took your virginity. Fuck that was hot.”

“You did. And it was the best thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.” I snuggled my head into him and felt my eyes growing more and more heavy. I was happy and content in this moment. I felt at peace.

Chapter 14: Neil

 

 

Waking up with a woman in my arms was something I hadn’t done in a long, long time. It was honestly something I had tried very hard to avoid doing. It didn’t take long, or much experience with the opposite sex, for me to realize that women were a whole different kind of animal when you let them stay the night. It was better if you just ushered them quickly and painlessly out of your residence, so as to avoid the whole mess altogether.

It was always in the morning that they wanted to talk about what things meant. It was in the mornings that their “cool girl” exterior would fade away, and they would reveal to you that they one hundred percent expected you to explain to them what everything meant and where it was going. It was a good rule and an excellent way to avoid all of that crap to just get rid of them when it was still dark outside, every time, no exceptions. That way, when you woke up, the worst thing you had to do was field calls, and that was no big task for a guy who knew what he was doing.

“Morning,” Fay said with a sigh.

“Morning, babe. You all right?”

“Oh man,” Fay laughed sleepily, her eyes still closed against the early morning sun. “You’re still asking me that, huh?”

“I guess so,” I answered, trying to sound as light and casual as she did. I suspected I wasn’t doing a very good job. “I guess I am.”

“Well, I hate to break this to you, Neil, but I’m not as breakable as you might think. And I’m just fine. I’m lovely, actually. Best morning ever. The only thing that would make it better would be not needing to get up and get ready for work.”

As I watched, Fay opened her eyes and groaned as she forced herself to sit up. My insides screamed at me. I had a rule. I had a hard, fast, never to be broken rule that women didn’t stay the night, and yet, here she was, waking up beside me. That was bad, but the worst part about it was that I didn’t mind it.

More than not minding it, I was glad to have her there. I liked feeling the way her small amount of weight shifted the mattress. I liked watching the way her skin shone softly as the light spilled over her perfect tits. When she looked down at me, a shy grin spreading across her face, I liked that, too. With something a lot like real alarm, I realized that waking up with her next to me was the best I had felt in a long, long time.

I didn’t want her to go, and without thinking about it, I reached out for her. I pulled her back beside me again and wrapped my arms around her tightly. It was an uncharacteristic move for me, like I was trying to claim her or something. I couldn’t help it. I just didn’t want her to leave.

“Hey!” She laughed, making a show of fighting me without putting much of an effort into the gesture. “What did I just say?”

“I wasn’t listening. How do you feel about bacon?”

“I love bacon, and you know it, but I can’t. I need to get home, Neil. I need to get myself cleaned up and ready.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Oh, but I do. I have a job to go to, Neil. They kind of expect you to go to those.”

She wriggled out of my arms again as she spoke. I propped myself up on one elbow. She stood, stretched again, and started to get dressed. Even with her hair and makeup all messed up, she looked fucking gorgeous. My stomach did its weird new flip flop thing as I looked at her. Although she didn’t look in my direction, I could see her smiling a little to herself. It was like she could read my thoughts or something, which only made me want her to stay even more.

“Why do you keep doing it, babe?” I asked.

“What do you mean? Why do I keep working?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “Nobody ever comes into that diner, right?”

“That’s not completely true. People come in. Sometimes.”

“But not really. Not a lot.”

“No, not a whole lot. That’s true.”

“So then why do you keep doing it? Why don’t you just quit? That way you wouldn’t have to leave.”

“Neil,” she answered in a chastising voice, one hand on her now fully dressed hip. “Come on. I’m not quitting. I work there because I like it there. That place means something to me, and it’s not just about the number of customers we get. Besides, just because I’m leaving now, doesn’t mean we aren’t seeing each other again, right?”

“Sure, that’s right.”

“So, when?” she asked. “When do you think I’ll see you?”

“I could come up and see you at the diner,” I answered thoughtfully, trying to answer her, and figure out why I was so bummed at the prospect of her leaving at the same time. “Or else you could come over again.”

“I work late today. I don’t think coming over would be an option.”

“You could come over tomorrow, then. Or like I said, I’ll come see you.”

“Good,” she said. “That sounds great, actually. Now kiss me, will you? And stop looking so cranky.”

I gave her the kiss, but I was pretty sure I failed miserably at the second part. I didn’t get up to walk her to the door, either. I just let her show herself out. I lay in bed for a long, long time after she was gone, letting the shock of how empty the house felt without her in it hit me in stages. I hadn’t ever realized how fucking empty the place was, but now that she’d made me see it, I couldn’t seem to make myself blind to it again.

There had been a time when I’d thought that I liked that feeling of hollowness around me, but after my night with Fay, I wasn’t so sure I felt that way anymore. It made me feel like I was suffocating, and after a while, it got to be so bad that I decided I had to get the hell out. I took a quick shower, and because there were very few places in Ashville for me to actually go, I drove myself down to the barbershop.

Eli was working on a customer when I walked in, but he gave me a wide smile. The kind of greeting that made you know you were visiting with a friend.

“Hey man! How the hell are ya? I was wondering when you were going to come down and see my place.”

“And here I am,” I said. “It’s a great shop, Eli. Really good setup you’ve got here.”

“Yeah? Thanks, man. Appreciate it. I’d ask you if you need a haircut, but I can tell by looking at you that you don’t.”

“Nah, just kind of needed to get out of the house, actually. If that’s all right. If I’m in the way, just tell me, and I’m gone.”

“Shit no! It’s all gravy, brother! Have a seat, why don’t ya? Tell me what’s on your mind.”

I sat in the chair Eli indicated to, wondering if it was really that obvious that I was thinking something over. I hadn’t told him I needed to talk about anything, and I was kind of hoping it was just something he said to say. After a couple of seconds of just sitting, I realized he was watching me in the mirror. When I made eye contact, he raised his eyebrows at me, making it clear that he had actually meant what he had said.

“What’s up?” I asked unconvincingly. Part of me wanted to be left the hell alone while the other part realized this was probably why I had come in the first place.

“You tell me, brother. You’re the one who’s got a look on your face.”

“A look? Please. Come on, man. There’s no look. I’m just really fucking tired is all.”

“Not getting any sleep?”

“No, it’s not that, actually. I’ve been sleeping like a baby. But Fay came over last night, and we weren’t too mindful of the clock. She had to get up super early, and I have a hard time getting back to sleep once I’m up.”

“No shit? So she stayed the night and everything?”

“Sure, no big deal or anything. I gotta say, though, I’m really glad we saw her in that bar.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, definitely. I forgot how great she is, you know? It’s been almost ten years. You would think that whatever it was that made me so obsessed with her when we were younger would have worn off, but it hasn’t.”

“I’m not surprised,” Eli commented, his face now impassive and trained on the hair he was finishing up. “She’s a good woman.”

“Yeah, except that she’s more than good, you know? She’s really fucking great. I forgot that, being away. I forgot how amazing she was. And it’s like she only got better while I was gone. With most people, it doesn’t work that way, but it really seems like that’s what happened with her.”

“You want to know my opinion, brother? And keep in mind, I’m nothing special myself. Just a small-town barber, you know?”

“I don’t care. Shoot. What do you think?”

“I think you might be starting to feel like Ashville isn’t the worst place to be, after all. That’s what I think.”

There was more conversation after that, but I would never remember what it was. Whether he had meant them to or not, Eli’s words had hit me like a ton of bricks. They had scared the shit out of me. Because there was no way I was going to let those words be true.

Fay was great. There was no bullshitting involved in any of that, but that didn’t mean I was suddenly ready to stick around in Ashville. I had worked too damn hard to get out, only to be sucked back in all these years later. And weren’t there great women everywhere? It might suck to have to leave her again, but was that enough of a reason to stay? Was I really prepared to stay in Ashville for a girl I’d loved in high school?

“No fucking way,” I whispered to myself fiercely. I was the only one who heard the words, but as far as I was concerned, it could have been the whole world. There was no fucking way I was going to let Fay get deep enough into my heart that I would choose to stay for her, great girl or not.

Chapter 15: Fay

 

 

“All right, I’ll give,” Courtney said. “What’s with you today?”

“Hm? What are you talking about?”

“I said what’s with you today? I know you heard me, lady.”

“Nothing,” I laughed, my fingers toying lazily with the ends of the apron I had yet to put on while I tried to lie to my best friend and failed miserably. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit, you don’t!” she squawked, her voice so loud in the empty diner she made me jump about a foot in the air. “You’ve been acting moony ever since you got to work today. So, either tell me what’s with you, or I’ll march up to that Driscoll place and ask him. You tell me which one you would prefer.”

“Definitely the first option,” I admitted, my head momentarily filled with a shudder-inducing vision of Courtney stomping all of the way up to Neil’s front door, where she would pound and yell and demand her information. “And it’s really nothing. I was just thinking about Neil’s last night.”

“And?”

“And what? That’s what I was thinking about.”

“And? Thinking about it how?”

“I was just thinking about how great it was.”

“Right…?”

“I don’t know what else you want me to say,” I laughed shyly, knowing full well what she wanted to know and having not a clue how to tell her. “It was really amazing, that’s all.”

“You did it, didn’t you? You finally fucking did it!”

“Courtney! Seriously, okay? Not so loud!”

“Why, because the salt shakers are going to hear me? Am I right or am I wrong? Did you have sex with him last night?”

I didn’t answer her question, but I didn’t have to. My silence was all of the answer she needed. She let out a low whistle and lit up a cigarette, right there at the counter, despite the fact that the place had been nonsmoking for at least a year. I thought about reminding her of that fact, but something told me it would be best if I didn’t. She had a look in her eyes that I couldn’t understand, especially after all of her years of trying to get me to stop being such a prude.

“What’s the matter, Courtney? If I didn’t know any better, I would say you weren’t happy for me.”

“Of course, I am. Don’t be crazy, okay? It’s about time, you know? I just want to make sure he was good to you. You waited a long time for this. I just want to make sure it was a good thing that it happened this way.”

“It was definitely a good thing! I know you’re going to think this is crazy, but I think it was probably always supposed to be him, you know? Like that’s why I couldn’t ever make myself go there with anyone else. I think it was always supposed to be him, and it was the most amazing thing ever.”

“Christ. Yeah, see that was kind of what I was afraid of.”

“What do you mean?” I asked slowly, feeling confused and shockingly hurt by such a blunt statement. “You’re the one—”

“Right,” she interrupted, sucking on the end of her smoke contemplatively. “I’m the one who’s been telling you to get it over with, I know. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

“I don’t know what that even means.”

“It means I don’t want you to assume it means something big, all right?” She sighed, put the cigarette out, and began pacing in front of me. I was torn between being annoyed and royally pissed off that she would spoil my good mood this way. Then, I felt an enormous amount of love for her for how much she cared about me. In the end, I decided not to lose my cool and to focus on the love part, which made it a little bit easier to hear the next part she had to say.

“Look, I know how important all of that romance shit is to you, but it’s not real. We’ve been through that a thousand times, and it never really mattered all that much that you didn’t believe me. Except now it does. You want him to be some changed guy, now that the two of you had sex, but that doesn’t mean he will be. He’s still the guy who left you, and that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have done it. I’m glad you did it, and I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

“You could have fooled me.”

“It’s the emotions that’ve got me worried, girl. You can’t let yourself get all attached to him now, just because sex got involved. Men don’t change, Fay. Even if you really, really want them to. They just don’t. All of that exception to the rule crap? That’s exactly what it is. It’s crap, and the sooner you learn that, the better.”

I had no idea what I was supposed to say to that, and luckily, I didn’t have to decide. Despite the fact that our diner spent ninety-five percent of the time empty, that was the moment somebody chose to walk through the door, breaking both the spell and the tension of our conversation.

“Yikes,” a voice I didn’t recognize called out. “Not gonna lie. Sensing some serious tension in here. Are you guys open?”

“Sure, we are,” Courtney answered in her falsely happy voice, the one she reserved for the customers. “Why don’t you sit right here at the counter? No reason not to, right?”

And so the guy did exactly that, taking one more second to survey his surroundings and make sure everything was basically all right. Courtney was the one who served him, and I took out my book and began to read. The thing was, I kept feeling his eyes on me. She would be talking to him, but even while I kept my eyes on my page, I could feel his eyes on me, and after he’d settled up, he came and stood in front of me and cleared his throat.

“Hey, I’m really sorry to interrupt.”

“That’s totally fine! It’s not like reading on the job is exactly allowed, right?”

“Right,” he laughed nervously, looking around to see if Courtney was paying attention. Because I knew her so well, I knew that she definitely was, but he didn’t know that, which meant that he made the decision to continue on with what he had to say.

“Listen, I work for a nature magazine.”

“Do you? That’s awesome! What an amazing job!”

“Yeah,” he went on, looking more and more nervous with each word. “I do. And the thing is, I’m going to be around here for a good six months. And I was wondering if you might let me take you out some time.”

I was a little bit astonished. He was a cute guy, with really dark hair and dark eyes. Something about him made me think he would be sweet. He was the kind of guy a girl said yes to, and also, the first guy aside from Neil to ever ask me out in the diner. There was a time when I might have said yes, too. A time in the not too distant past, but now, it was only Neil I could think about. I could still smell him, could still taste him on my tongue, which meant that there was no way I could go out with this guy.

“You have a boyfriend, don’t you?”

“Kind of,” I answered sheepishly, sorry to make him feel bad but grateful to have him be the one to say it first. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be! I’m not surprised. I have to tell you something, though.”

“Of course! Anything,” I answered in a probably overly bright voice, trying to make up for the blow I had just delivered while simultaneously having no idea what he might want to tell me next.

“I’m not giving up. I’m sure your boyfriend is great, but I’m not giving up. If there’s a chance of you being single while I’m here, I’m going to make sure I don’t miss it.”

And just like that, he was gone. He turned and left so quickly, I didn’t even have a chance to answer, and when I turned to look at Courtney, I expected her to be laughing, just as I was starting to. Instead, she was looking at me with a grave, thoughtful face, something very unusual for the Courtney I knew and loved.

“What is it?” I asked, afraid I already knew the answer but asking anyway. “What’s the matter?”

“I just don’t want to see you hurt, and at this rate, you’re going to be. He’s not your boyfriend, Fay, and he never will be. He’s not going to stay. Men don’t change. I keep telling you that. I’m just wondering if you’ll start to listen before it’s too late.”

Chapter 16: Neil

 

 

The email I got from Professor Dan threw me back into the real world, the world I had been putting on hold since coming back to Ashville. It was simple enough in content, only wanting to know when I was thinking about taking the bar exam, but the shit it brought up wasn’t anything close to simple, at least not for me.

The subtle reminder at the end didn’t help, either. The good Professor ended his short, intrusive email by reminding me that putting things off for too long usually meant they didn’t happen at all. I knew what he meant, just as every man and woman I went to school with did. There was a window, and once you got past that window, you lost your momentum. The time after finishing law school was the time in which I had the most momentum a man could have, and instead of using it to take the bar and move my life forward, I was sitting on my ass in Ashville, Alaska, wasting time.

Waking up with Fay next to me in bed had made me vaguely uncomfortable that this might be the case, but seeing the Professor’s words right there on my laptop’s screen, blinking at me in black and white, made it clear. Just because things had slowed down to a crawl for me while I was in Ashville didn’t mean the rest of the world had slowed down, too. Because it most definitely hadn’t. The world was moving on, and it was doing it without me.

“Hey, Neil? Everything okay?”

The sound of Fay’s voice pulled me out of my own head. There had been a weird sound somewhere on the perimeter of my thoughts while I read and reread my email in horror and now I realized what it was. It was the sound of Fay knocking at my door.

She was standing there knocking because I had told her to come by. Shit! I wanted to see her, but I was also having a speak of the devil kind of a feeling. And on top of that, I hadn’t even thought about starting any food for the two of us. Feeling heavy and clumsy and totally fucked in the head, I snapped my computer shut and made my way to the front door, opening it to Fay.

I smiled as best I could when she burst inside and looped her arms through mine and around my waist. Fucked in the head or not, the feeling of her body pressing into mine was a good one. I took a deep breath and willed myself to relax, at least while she was here. Ashville offered me nothing but time to worry about the predicament I had gotten myself into, and I would start doing that just as soon as she left. The odds were, I wasn’t going to be around all that much longer, and if that was the case, I wanted to soak up my time with her while I could. She was my vacation in all of this, and there was no reason not to enjoy that.

“What’s the matter, Neil?” She pulled back and looked up at me, biting her lower lip as she spoke in a way that was unconsciously sexy and totally her. “You look stressed.”

“Nothing to worry about. Just business stuff, you know? That and I forgot to actually make any food.”

“That’s okay! Let me rummage through your fridge! I’m super good at this game. Mom used to let me be in charge of the food when things got really bad, and the groceries got low. I was always pretty great at coming up with the perfect thing to eat. Wanna give me a try?”

“Sure,” I laughed, starting to feel better despite myself. “Have at it.”

“Yes! You’re going to be so impressed, Neil, just wait.”

“I have no doubt.”

And as it turned out, I was. She went through the fridge and by the time she was done, we had what looked like a Tuscan feast. She had all of the cheeses and meats cut up and on a large board, accompanied by olives and pickles and fruits. She went through the wine cellar, mumbling to herself about how stupid it was of her to bring a bottle of wine with her the last time, and picked out the perfect one.

In no time flat, we were sitting at the large kitchen island, her obviously pleased with the turnout and me more than a little bit impressed. Every minute I spent with her, I was seeing something else I liked. She was like the girl I remembered but better, with all of the things I had loved and some new things piled up on top of it.

“What are you staring at?”

“What?” I stalled for time, embarrassed to have been caught making such a rookie mistake. “Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me, mister. You totally are. You’re staring at me.”

“Okay, you caught me. I was.”

“How come?”

“I was just thinking that you’re pretty amazing.”

“Ha ha, whatever. It’s only meat and cheese, Neil, don’t give me more credit than I deserve.”

“No, seriously, Fay. You really are. You’re amazing. I didn’t think women like you really exist, and it makes me wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

“I know you don’t like these kinds of questions, but have you ever considered leaving? Moving out of Ashville? There’s nothing in the world I don’t think you could conquer. There’s so much out there. Don’t you ever wonder if you might be limiting yourself?”

“Neil, come on,” she answered me uncomfortably, clearly wishing I would have kept my mouth shut. “I thought we agreed not to talk about this kind of stuff. Ashville isn’t the best subject for us, you know? Especially when there are so many other things for us to talk about.”

I knew what she was thinking. I could see it in her slightly wounded eyes. I had agreed not to talk about this anymore, not to bring up the one subject that could legitimately come between us. I hadn’t meant to go back on my promise, but the thing was, I couldn’t help it. I liked her. I liked her more than I wanted to admit and definitely more than I was comfortable.

I thought I might even love her. I might never have stopped loving her. But there was still the matter of Ashville to consider. I wasn’t willing to stay. I just wasn’t willing to do it. I wanted her to tell me that she was willing to go, after all. Instead, she smiled at me, got up from her seat, and pressed her body against me.

“How about we don’t talk, Neil?”

“No talking, huh? What do you suggest we do instead?”

“I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you let me know what you think?”

She kissed me then, and it wasn’t very long until we were headed back to the bedroom. I was glad to have her there, but there was a part of me that was shut off from her now, already looking ahead. She’d done a damn good job of dancing around my question, but by doing that, she had answered it all the same. She wasn’t going to leave, and I wasn’t going to stay. That left us nowhere, and whether she understood that or not, I absolutely did.

The next morning, as she made me breakfast and chattered happily away, I wondered how long this little playing house act could really work between the two of us. I heard myself promising to come and see her in the diner and wondered if I would be doing that, either. I was torn straight down the middle about what I was supposed to do, and I had no idea what I would choose in the end. I loved her. There was no way for me to lie about that to myself anymore, but I wasn’t sure if it was enough to change me to the core. I wasn’t sure that anything was, no matter how great that something was.

Chapter 17: Fay

 

 

“Ugh. Okay, Fay, I’m not going to lie, I’m going to have to call it.”

“Call it? What do you mean, call it? What’s the matter with you, Courtney?”

“What’s the matter with me? Dude, I’m so freaking hungover, I feel like I’m going to die! I’m surprised you can’t tell. Usually, you’re all over that kind of thing. You know, with the lectures and the mothering looks and shit?”

“Oh,” I laughed, feeling like I was walking through a dream and doing my best to be a part of the real world and my friend’s life at the same time. “I’m sorry to disappoint. I guess I just have other things on my mind.”

“Neil, right?”

“How’d you know that?”

“Please,” Courtney scoffed, lighting up a cigarette right there in the middle of the diner yet again. “Are you kidding me? I know how it goes at the beginning of a thing with a guy. Believe it or not, I’ve even been there myself. Also, Eli told me.”

“Eli? Eli told you? When did you talk to him again, Courtney? You didn’t tell me that.”

“You’ve been busy thinking about other things. Besides, it was just last night. He was at the bar, and we got to talking.”

“Just talking, huh?”

“Nope, never said that, but we aren’t talking about me. We’re talking about you. Eli told me that you and Neil were hanging out.”

“How the hell did he know?”

“Because the two of them talk, I guess. I think they’ve had beers together a couple of times, and I know that Neil comes up to Eli’s shop kind of a lot. I guess he’s been telling him how much he’s into you.’

“Huh.”

Courtney gave me a look like it was the stupidest answer she’d ever heard, and she was probably right, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I had been struggling mightily not to gush about Neil every waking second of every day, but it hadn’t ever occurred to me that Neil might be talking about me as well.

There was still that part of me that was terrified this was all some kind of a game to him, which only made sense considering the way he’d left things so many years ago, but to hear that he was talking to a guy about me made me feel like maybe it wasn’t all me this time. Maybe there really was still something between us, something worth exploring further.

“Hey, Fay?”

“Yeah?”

“I wasn’t joking. Eli and I had a blast last night, but I can’t actually remember the last time I felt this shitty. Is it ok if I go home? I bet we won’t get anyone in, at least anyone aside from your boyfriend.”

“Neil isn’t my boyfriend, Courtney.”

“Who said I was talking about Neil?”

“Who else could you be talking about?”

“The guy who works for the nature magazine! He’s already been in once today, girlie, and he made it clear that he intends to come back. He’s really taken with you, at least that’s what he said. I think he really wants to take you out. He told me he sees something in you.”

“Come on, Courtney, you know that’s not going to happen.”

“How come?”

“You know why.”

“Because of Neil?”

“Well, sure. I don’t think it would be right. I want to see where things are going, you know? Like, I really want to give things a chance, and I don’t think I would be doing that if I started going out with other guys, too.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

“Why do you have to say it like that?”

“Like what? I’m not saying it like anything, Fay. It’s your choice, and we both know it. Just be careful, you know? What’s that saying? You know the one I’m talking about?”

“No, not really,” I answered huffily, starting to grow legitimately annoyed with her constant negativity about me and Neil and how closely it mirrored my own worst fears. “I just know you’re trying to tell me I’m making a mistake.”

“I’m not. I’m just trying to tell you to be careful. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket! That’s what I was trying to think of. I’m going to go and sleep this off, and you can do whatever you want, but just remember that. Or at least try and think about it. Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket, or you might get burned. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

She left without waiting to see what I might say to that, just walked out the front door and left me standing there with her bomb of parting advice and no idea what to do with it. I wanted to believe that she was wrong, but how was I supposed to know for sure? You never could, that was the problem. There was no way to know anything for certain, and that included a man’s intentions.

I felt the excitement and joy of my last few interactions with Neil seeping out of me, and I sat down at the counter, my head in my hand and my book in front of me but unopened. I had no idea how long I had been sitting there when I heard the bell and the door open. I heaved a heavy sigh and prepared myself to put on my happy face, wishing that Courtney was still there to deal with the customer. What I really wanted was to see Neil. Something told me that if I could only see him, I would feel better about everything, that all of Courtney’s words would leave me, and I would be sure again. When I turned around, I let out a little gasp, hardly able to believe my eyes.

“It’s you!”

“It is,” Neil answered with a slow smile, glancing around the place to see if it was only him and me inside. When he saw that it was, he walked right up to me without saying another word, slipping his arms around me and pulling me in for a deep, slow kiss. It was a kiss that made me feel like I was floating and the heat Neil was so good at building up inside of me appeared almost immediately.

It was almost frightening how easily he could turn me on. It made me feel like I had no control over myself when it came to him. While I knew that wasn’t precisely true, I had an uncomfortable suspicion that it might be mostly true. It was only the sense of duty I had to the diner that made me pull back, and that was something I had to do with a huge amount of effort.

“Neil, we can’t.”

“Why not?” he whispered, leaning forward and nibbling on the lobe of my ear as he spoke. “It’s not like there’s anyone in here.”

“Not right now, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be.”

“And if somebody comes in, you’ll hear the bell, right?”

“Well, sure, I would hear it, but—”

Neil put a finger to my mouth. “Shh.”

He pulled my head to his and kissed me. It was passionate, lustful, and needy. And I knew I wanted him just as bad as he wanted me. I grabbed his hand and led him back into the pantry area. There were no cooks at that time of day because we were only open for coffee and pastries. The risk of someone even coming in for that was highly unlikely.

I led him farther toward the back. There were large tables against the wall we used for prep. They were clean and I knew they were the perfect place for this kind of thing. The idea of having sex with Neil at my place of work with the chance of someone coming in at any time, was actually quite a big turn on.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and started kissing him again. His hands explored my body, stopping to squeeze my tits. He moved his hand into the top of my dress and played with my nipple a little. I let out a small moan.

I pulled apart from him and unbuttoned my dress. I let it fall to the floor next to us without ever looking away. The look of desire in his eyes grew more intense. I removed my bra and panties and stood before him totally naked. I stared at him and bit my lip. I wasn’t as nervous as I was last time. In fact, I might have been more excited and turned on than I had been last time. I felt chills as I thought about him sliding into me, and my nipples hardened.

Neil stared at me for a minute before swiftly picking me up and setting me on the prep table behind me. He kissed me harder, and I touched his chest. I moved my hands down the front of him to his hard dick. I rubbed it through his jeans. As I did that, he grabbed my tits and squeezed, tugging on my nipples. He ran his hands down my stomach until his fingers were touching my clit.

He started rubbing it fast, and I moved my hips. It felt so good. I started moaning loudly.

“Oh fuck, Neil,” I said almost breathlessly.

He slid a finger down and then inside of me. “You’re so tight,” he said and then began to move his finger in and out of me, hard and fast.

I moaned, my lips pursed, and my breathing hastened. “Don’t stop,” I said.

He slid another finger into me. He moved them in and out of me, curving his fingers as he did so.

I pulled his fingers out of me, stepped back, and removed his pants and boxers. He was naked from the waist down, and I couldn’t help but stare at his dick. It was hard and so hot. He stepped toward me again and pulled me to the edge of the table.

I reached down and grabbed a hold of him. I moved my hand up and down the length of his shaft. He moaned, and I began to move my hand faster.

Neil grabbed my hand, causing me to stop. “I want to feel you,” he said.

I nodded my head, and he moved so the head of his cock pressed into my pussy. He rubbed it around on my clit, causing my stomach to contract as lust pumped through me. He didn’t waste time pressing his swollen shaft down into my wetness.

He moved himself in and out of me, picking up the pace. The sounds of my moans filled the room, as did the delicious scent of our sex.

“You’re so fucking wet,” Neil said, thrusting into me deeper.

I nodded. The ability to speak escaped me. He paused his movements and grabbed my hips, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. He picked me up off the counter and backed up a few steps. He started bouncing me on him faster and harder than I had ever experienced.

I closed my eyes and let the pleasure from him fucking me overtake anything else I was feeling. I allowed my head to roll back.

“Neil, that feels so good,” I said, and this made him pick up his pace.

He moved in and out of me harder and faster until we were both panting loudly together. The pleasure was pure ecstasy. His angel had his cock sliding past my clit, rubbing hit hard as he drove into me. I dug my nails into his flesh as my orgasm welled up inside of me.

“That’s it. Come for me.” He smiled wickedly. I screamed my release and he joined me.

“God, that was amazing. Better than the first time. How is that possible?” Neil asked as he set me back down on the ground.

“No clue, but I want more,” I said and began to get dressed. This time there had been no pain. Just pleasure. A pleasure I knew I wanted to feel over and over again.

“Bad girl.” He smiled and popped my naked ass. “But I like it.”

“No, you love it.” I couldn’t help myself.

Chapter 18: Neil

 

 

“Hey man,” Eli said. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here today.”

“Yeah, sorry. I wasn’t really planning on coming in today. I just, shit. I don’t know. I was at the diner to see Fay, and I wasn’t sure what to do after that, so I came here.”

“No man, don’t be sorry. Always glad to see you. Have a seat! Want a beer or something?”

“No, not a beer. Any chance you’ve got any whiskey?”

Eli gave me a questioning look, but he nodded and went to one of the back cabinets in the shop. One bottle and two glasses later, and the two of us were sitting in a couple of the back chairs in the shop. He poured us both a glass, and I drank mine down in two sips, fighting the urge to sick it all up again on the spot.

I waved my glass in Eli’s general direction, and he filled it again, this time with a more generous pour. It was only after I’d gotten a couple of sips down of that glass that I felt a little calmer. I had come straight to Eli’s shop from fucking Fay in the back of her diner, and I felt more messed up in the head than ever.

The fact that I had wanted to go and see her because I was feeling bad was confusing, but the way I felt after leaving her was even worse. I felt like my entire world was on fire, and I didn’t know which direction I was supposed to go in to put it out. Eli must have seen it on me, too, because after he gave me a couple of seconds to get my mental shit together, he cleared his throat and started to talk.

“So, what’s going on with you, man? You look like you just saw a ghost or something.”

“Nothing, man. Or shit, I don’t know. I just came from seeing Fay.”

“I know, you said that. Is that what’s got you all fucked up?”

“I guess so. I guess it is.”

“Because you want her, or because you don’t? It’s got to be one of the two, brother. No man gets that look about a girl he doesn’t have some kind of feelings about.”

I sat there silent for a long time, looking into my glass of whiskey like it would somehow miraculously give me all of the answers I was looking for. He was right, and it pissed me off. I didn’t want to feel anything about her. I wanted to go back in time and not ever have walked into the diner, not ever have seen her face. I wanted her not to have been a virgin when we slept together that first time so that I could claim that I didn’t ever think it meant anything. I wanted to be able to tell Eli that Fay didn’t mean shit to me and for it to be the absolute truth. The fact that I couldn’t do that made me want to put my fist through a wall.

It was a good thing that Eli didn’t interrupt my thought process because if he had, I would probably have just put my fist into his face, not because I was pissed, but because I needed something to make me feel better. I needed to find something that could not only keep me from saying the next words that were going to come out of my mouth, but that could also make it so that those words weren’t even true. I needed a fucking miracle, and since I didn’t believe in those, I was pretty much shit out of luck.

“I think I love her man.”

“Love her? Really?”

“Shit. Shit. I really think I do.”

“Well, then I get why you’re so pissed. What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t have a fucking clue. What am I supposed to do?”

“I can’t tell you that, brother,” Eli answered slowly, all of his typical jocularity long gone. “Nobody can. If you’re gonna stay, you’ve got to come to that on your own. Otherwise, you’ll always be pissed off for being here. If you’re gonna do it, do it the right way. Don’t stay and then be pissed off that you’re here. That ain’t fair to anyone.”

I got so close to saying I would stay. I could actually feel the words on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to say it. It wasn’t that I liked Ashville any better than I ever had, but I wanted the fucking turmoil inside of me to stop. The only way that was going to happen was if I came to a decision. I wanted it to be the right one. I wanted to be the guy who chose the girl and not the rest of it, the money and the cities and all of the rest. I could feel those words on the tip of my tongue when the only other person in Eli’s shop decided it was time for him to speak up.

“Who gives a shit?”

“Can it, Beatty,” Eli said in a warning voice, glancing up at the scraggly old man now limping towards us. “I don’t think he asked for your opinion.”

“I don’t give a shit what he asked for or what he didn’t ask for. I’ve got something to say, and I’m going to say it. Who gives a shit if you think you love this girl? You think that love is going to mean anything twenty years from now when your whole life amounted to nothing, and all you have is a woman you can’t stand anymore to show for it? Because, you’ll regret it, son. This town will kill you, if you let it. It did me, and it’ll do the same to you. If you’ve got the chance to get out, then do it. Who cares if you love her? Find another girl to love. Get the fuck out of Ashville, boy. Do it while you still can.”

Chapter 19: Fay

 

 

“Hey,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

I should have known right then and there that something was wrong. I should have turned and left, just gone and hidden myself away until Neil was past whatever mood had him in its grip and come back another time.

If I had been smarter, if I had been more experienced maybe, that was exactly what I would have done. But when it came to men, experience was something I just didn’t have enough of. When Neil opened his front door and looked at me with a dead, cold expression in his eyes, I should have turned and gone straight back home. Instead, I stayed. I thought I could make things better. It was a rookie mistake, and it was one I would cringe over for a long time to come. It was like any stupid thing a person did. I would think on it and wonder why I hadn’t seen that things were going to go bad.

“Hey! You’ve come by to see me so many times at the diner, and I thought it might be nice if I came and did the same for you. Is that okay?”

“It’s fine. You can come in if you like.”

He didn’t exactly slam the door or anything, but he didn’t look excited to see me either. As I followed him inside, I searched my brain for what on earth I could have done to piss him off. It had only been two days since his visit to the diner, and that wasn’t a lot of time. But I also hadn’t seen him or heard from him, and from the way things had been going between us, that was strange. I mentally went through the sex we’d had at the diner, trying to figure out if I had done something wrong there, but from my perspective, everything had been pretty much perfect.

The only thing about it that had been off at all was that desperate look in his eyes, and there was no way that could have been my fault. Whatever was going on with him was about him, not me. I repeated that to myself over and over again as I followed him into his kitchen, where he silently pulled out two glasses and an already open bottle of wine.

“Isn’t it a little early?” I asked uncertainly, looking at the clock on his stove and seeing that it was only two o’clock in the afternoon.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Neil, what’s wrong? And please don’t say nothing because I can tell something’s bothering you. Did I do something? I don’t feel like I did, but if so, please just tell me, and we can talk about it. But you’re making me nervous, the way you’re acting.”

He looked at me as he took a sip of his wine. He looked at me with such a horrible expression that I felt compelled to take a pretty big sip of my own glass. I wasn’t much for day drinking, but something told me that this was the kind of conversation that was going to call for it. When I looked behind him and saw his suitcases packed, I knew I was right.

Even before I looked back into his eyes, there were tears springing up in them. I wanted to ask him again what was happening, but I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t trust myself to speak, and I wasn’t too sure that it would have made any difference if I had. Whoever this man was standing in front of me, he wasn’t the Neil I had been spending my last month with. This man was cold and so closed off to me that we might as well have been total and complete strangers.

When he spoke, I could hear the same hard edge in his voice that I saw in his face, and the hopelessness that was starting to build up inside of me threatened to explode into full blown panic. The only thing I could think about was Courtney’s words. She had told me not to believe in those stupid love stories. She had told me not to put all of my eggs in one basket, and I had been so sure that Neil would be different this time that I had chosen to ignore her completely. I could only imagine what her face would have looked like if she had been sitting there with me, and the thought of it made me feel ashamed.

“Look, Fay, I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be brutally honest. Don’t beat around the bush. Don’t tell me you don’t want to talk about it. Just tell me the truth, okay? Let’s just lay it all out on the table.”

“All right, then ask. Ask what you need to ask, Neil. I have a feeling you’re going to, whether I want you to or not.”

“Are you ever going to leave Ashville? Are you ever going to get out of this shithole?”

“It’s not, Neil,” I answered so quietly I wasn’t even sure he could hear me, “It’s not a shithole. It’s our home.”

“No, that’s bullshit, okay? It’s your home, but it’s not mine. I get that you want me to give up my whole fucking life and move here, but it isn’t going to happen.”

“But I never said that, Neil! I don’t understand why you’re acting this way. I never asked you to stay!”

“Sure, not yet, but you were going to, and we both know it. You didn’t want me to go when I was eighteen, and you don’t want me to now.”

“That is so, completely unfair.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I’m going. My bags are packed, and I already called to have my plane fueled up. I’m out the door, and I need to know if you have any intention of leaving here.”

“Just like that? No time for me to think? No time for a discussion? You’re just gone? It’s just done?”

“That’s it, Fay. That’s the way it has to be for me.”

If he had slapped me in the face, he couldn’t have hurt me more than he did with those words. I loved him. It was something I had suspected before this awful meeting, but now that he was telling me that he was leaving, I knew it without a shadow of a doubt. I loved him, and for the second time, he was leaving me.

All of a sudden, I was sure I was going to have a complete meltdown if I didn’t get out of his house. I stood up abruptly, so quickly that I knocked my glass of wine onto the floor where it shattered into tiny pieces. Under any other circumstances, I would have stopped to clean it up, but at that moment, I couldn’t stop. It was like I was being chased by something terrible, and the worst part of it was that the something chasing me was inside of me. So instead of cleaning it up, I ran out his front door and just kept running. Some silly, naive part of me kept expecting him to chase me, and it was something I held onto up until I got to the diner.

When I walked inside and saw Courtney staring at me, I knew it was all over. I collapsed into a heap on the floor. She hurried towards me, scooping me up as best she could and cradling me in her arms. Dimly, I could hear the man from the nature magazine somewhere behind her, asking what was wrong, and if there wasn’t something he could do.

Of course, he would be here to witness my fall. Why wouldn’t he be? It was like the last nail in my coffin, the last bit of proof of Courtney having been right this entire time. Maybe if I hadn’t been such an idiot, hadn’t been so sure that it would be Neil and nobody else, I wouldn’t feel so much like I was going to die. I would have done what Courtney told me to and learned that there were all kinds of decent guys out there, and it wouldn’t feel like Neil’s leaving was the end of my chance at love. There were plenty of maybes, but none of them changed the fact that my heart was breaking. Instead of subsiding, my sobbing only grew worse, and Courtney pulled me in tighter, doing her best to comfort the comfortless.

“What is it, Fay?” she whispered fiercely into my ear, rocking me like I was a distraught child and not a twenty-six-year-old woman. “What’s the matter? What happened?”

“You were right!” I sobbed, feeling like it would kill me to say it out loud. “You were right the whole time!”

“Right about what? I don’t understand, lady. Right about what? What’s going on?”

“Right about Neil. He’s leaving. He’s getting on his stupid private plane, and he’s leaving. For all I know, he’s gone right now. He’s leaving, and he’s not coming back. He’s not ever coming back.”

The two of us sat there that way for a long time, Courtney only getting us both up to take me out onto the porch and call somebody to come and work for the both of us. She snagged a bottle of liquor, and the two of us passed it back and forth, getting drunk and feeling like shit. When we heard the incredibly loud sound of a plane taking off and flying away, we didn’t say a word.

Chapter 20: Neil

 

 

“What the hell, boy?” Eli asked. “I thought you were long gone. We heard your plane take off, brother. It’s not like there’s a bunch of them coming in and out of Ashville.”

“Who do you mean by we?”

“I mean everyone, man. That was what, a week ago? Everyone knew you were gone the minute you took off. The whole fucking town was talking about it. Even if I had somehow managed to miss it all, Courtney would have filled me in on it. We’ve been spending a lot of time together. I think I might have something there.”

“Good. That’s good. Try not to fuck it up, okay? It’s the worst goddamned feeling in the world when you do.”

I wasn’t sure if Eli was right about the timing of everything or not. The time since I had gotten onto my plane and flown away from Ashville was all mostly a blur. I could vaguely remember speaking to Fay with a nasty, asshole tone, and her running out of my house in tears.

At the time, it hadn’t mattered to me, not any of it. The only thing I could think about was that old man’s words, telling me to get out or else I would regret it for the rest of my life. I had been so sure he was right, I hadn’t once stopped to think that maybe it would be the other way around. I hadn’t stopped to think that maybe I would regret losing Fay for the rest of my life, although I was sure that a much smarter man would have seen that immediately.

I had been such a jackass that I had actually convinced myself that there were plenty of women out there just like Fay, that she was nothing all that special. It had taken me about two days to realize how wrong I was, and once I had realized it, I had known I had made the biggest mistake of my life. And I had done it for the second fucking time! I had done it for the second time, and how many times did I think I was going to get away with it, anyway? Just how many times did I think I was going to be able to walk all over her and break her heart before she was done with me once and for all?

I wanted to ask Eli these questions and more, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t ask because I was terrified of what answer he would give me. So I settled on a question I hoped he would recognize as a stand in for all of the rest of them.

“How is she, Eli?”

“Come on, man. Why do you ask me that?”

“Because I want to know, Eli. Christ, why else would I ask?”

“How do you think she is? You acted like a jackass, man. I’m a guy, and even I could see that. She’s been a wreck. She threw out all of those romance books she used to like to read. And you should hear the way she talks now. It’s not good, man. Courtney’s been having to work to keep her from turning into a constant partier, doing all of those things she’s always avoided. It’s been hard.”

“Shit.”

“Why are you here, Neil? I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to have you, but why are you here really? Because if you’re just going to fuck with her head, don’t. Courtney’ll kill you, and she’ll want me to help, and I don’t want to be in the middle of that. And Fay’s a good girl. She doesn’t deserve any more of this shit. No more, all right?”

I nodded at him, but I wasn’t really listening. I was already half out of his shop and headed down the street towards the diner. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, could feel it going so hard it felt like it might actually explode. For the first time, I was confronting the very real possibility that I was too late to make any difference, and it was a possibility that scared the shit out of me.

There was also a pretty good chance that Courtney was going to claw my eyes out, but that was something I was willing to take. I shoved my hand deep down into my pocket, kept it there for comfort, and shoved open the door to the diner. The first person I saw was Courtney, and she was very clearly not happy to see me.

“Oh no! Hell no, Neil. Not again. You’re not doing this to her for a third time. I’ll go to jail before I let you do that.”

“Please, Courtney. I’m not here to hurt her.”

“Ha! Oh really? And I’m just supposed to believe that? You’re so full of shit. You know that? I tried to warn her. I knew you were only going to fuck her up, but she was so sweet that she didn’t believe me. She believed in you, Neil. That’s what she believed in, and instead of caring about her, you went and broke her heart. Not only that, but you did it for the second time. Why don’t you just get the hell out of here, Neil? Why don’t you just let her try to get over it without you messing things up for her?”

“Is she here or not, Courtney?”

“Wow, you really just don’t give a shit, do you? Just looking out for yourself, and that’s it.”

“No, that’s not it at all. All of those things you said? You were right. You were right about all of them, and I’m here to fix it, not make it worse.”

“How are you going to fix it? And you better be able to tell me, because if you think I’m just going to trust you, you’re out of your fucking mind.”

I don’t know what kind of answer I would have come up with to something like that, but I never got the chance to figure it out. That was the moment when Fay emerged from the back, her eyes wide at the sound of our voices. I hadn’t realized it until that moment, but we must have been being pretty loud because Fay looked like a deer in headlights before she even saw with her own two eyes that it was me standing in the diner with her best friend.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Her voice was flat and lifeless. Courtney gave me a look that really felt like it could have murdered me before going and putting her arm around Fay, who was pale with dark circles under her eyes. Even in the short amount of time since I had gone, I could see that she had lost weight, and I felt my stomach drop. I had done that to her. I was the reason she looked so messed up, and if she would let me, I would do whatever I could to make it up to her.

“I’m here for you,” I said.

“Do you want me to make him leave?” Courtney interrupted, looking up at Fay’s face anxiously, “Because I swear to God, I’ll do it.”

“No, that’s okay. Maybe just give us a minute?”

“No. Hell no. I’m not going anywhere while he’s here. He’s done enough already.”

“That’s okay,” I said quietly. “It’s fine. You can be here for what I need to do. Maybe it’ll even help you to feel better about me.”

I had no doubt that she would love to tell me that would never happen, but I didn’t give her the chance. The hand I had kept safely in my pocket all through the walk from the barber’s shop and through the confrontation with Courtney as well, came out. In the palm of my hand, I held a little black velvet box, and with it, in plain sight, I got down on one knee. I saw Courtney’s eyes widen as Fay gasped, her hands flying up to her neck and grasping the necklace she had hidden beneath her shirt.

“What are you doing?” Fay asked.

“Oh man, if you can’t tell, I must not be doing it right.”

“But you left,” she said confusedly, her eyes starting to fill up with tears again. “You said if I didn’t leave Ashville, it was over, and I haven’t changed my mind on that. So there’s no point.”

“You don’t need to change your mind. I’ve changed mine. I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know what I was thinking all of those years ago when I left, and I don’t know what I was thinking when I drove you out of my house. All I know is that there’s nothing out there better than you. There’s no place, no person, nothing in the world better than you. And I love you. God, I love you so fucking much.”

“But we hardly know each other. It’s only been a little more than a month.”

“We know each other. It’s been a month and our whole lives. I’ve loved you for all of my life, and if you’ll let me, I’d like to keep on loving you for the rest of it. I’d like it very much if you would marry me, Fay Turner. I want you to be my wife.”

I popped the velvet box open and waited, every organ and blood vessel inside of me waiting to see what answer I would get before getting back to work. For a minute, I was sure she would say no. I’d been too much of a prick to deserve a yes from her, and she knew it. I had no right to even ask, but I had to do it. I had to know if there was a chance for me, even a small one, or else the rest of my life would be ruined.

“Yes.”

“Wait, what? Yes? Did you just say yes?”

“Yeah,” Courtney chimed in, her face as shocked as my insides felt. “Did you just say yes? Are you sure, Fay?”

“I’m sure,” she said in a sweet, wavering voice, her eyes never leaving my face. “And my answer is yes. I’ve loved you for all of my life, too, Neil Driscoll, and I can’t imagine marrying anyone else.”

Then she was in my arms, and Courtney was cheering, Courtney and Eli, too, who had followed me to the diner without me knowing. After ten years of fighting against it, I finally understood what home meant for me. It was Fay, and there was nothing else I could ever really need.

Epilogue: Fay

 

 

“Are you sure about this? You can always say no, you know that, right? It’s not like this is written in stone or anything.”

“Courtney! Come on now, you know I’m sure. Wouldn’t you be if I asked you? When we get to your and Eli’s wedding day, do you think you’ll just turn around and say no, never mind?”

“Hell no!” Courtney grinned, looking at me through the mirror while she made sure my veil was pinned properly into place. “Are you kidding me? We’ve been together since you two got engaged, and that’s been what, a year now?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Exactly! If I can make something work for a year, there’s no way I’m giving it up. Besides, if there’s any chance that romance shit is legit, for me, it’s with Eli. And if you tell him I told you that, I’ll murder you and make it look like an accident.”

“Ha! Okay, your secret’s safe with me, I promise. Now would you get my locket?”

“Are you sure you want to wear that? You wear it every day, you know? Don’t you want to wear something extra special?”

“This is special,” I answered softly, fingering the smooth, worn metal as Courtney fastened it into place. “This is the most special piece of jewelry I have, and I can’t imagine getting married with anything else.”

“All right, if you say so, but why? Why is it so special to you, I mean?”

I smiled and thought back to my thirteenth birthday, so long ago, but so clearly imprinted in my memory that I was sure it would never fade at all. Neil had given me the locket for that birthday. He had walked from his house on the hill to my front door with locket in tow, sitting inside of a little velvet box very similar to the one he’d presented my engagement ring with.

My mother had answered the door and had retrieved me for the red-faced, nervous boy standing there and waiting for me. As Courtney led me to the vast backyard of Neil’s family home, the scene for our small wedding, I could still see that little boy version of Neil standing there and waiting for me. I could see him in the man that was waiting at the end of the aisle. He had waited until my mom had left the two of us alone and then he had shoved the box towards me, asking me if I would be his girlfriend at the same time.

“Do you, Fay, take this man, Neil, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do.”

“And do you, Neil, take this woman, Fay, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

“With the power invested in me by the state of Alaska, I now pronounce you man and wife. Neil, you may kiss your bride.”

As Neil leaned in and kissed me, kissed me as he officially made me his wife, I could still see that time so long ago when he had leaned forward and kissed me chastely after I had told him that I would love to be his girlfriend. I realized in that moment that he was still at least some of that little boy, while I was still some of that little girl. We were those versions of ourselves as well as the versions we were now, and we would be both and more as we went about the process of growing old together.

I kissed him back, and as he took me by the hand and led me down the aisle and back towards the massive house the two of us would live in now, I thought I might have just caught the faintest glimpse of what it meant to love a person for the span of a lifetime. It was too big to hold onto, and I was sure that I would lose sight of it sooner rather than later, but in that moment. I felt that I understood everything. It filled my heart with joy.

“Follow me,” he said.

“Follow you where?”

My thoughts had been such that I had been paying more attention to what was in my head than to where I was going. When I looked up, I saw that he was in the process of leading me to the master bedroom. Over the course of the last year, Neil had seen to it that almost the whole interior of the house had been made over, and the master bedroom was now where we slept. It was a lovely room, and one I still felt grateful to be able to call my own, but I wasn’t too sure why we were going to it now. All of our friends were still downstairs, getting ready to party and celebrate our wedding, and our bedroom had nothing to do with that. Still, his fingers were intertwined with mine, and he was leading me towards the bed, his intentions suddenly crystal clear.

“But Neil, we can’t! There are people waiting for us down there!”

“Let them wait. I love you, Fay. I love you, and I want to show you that.”

The part of me that wanted to play a good hostess was anxious to fight him and insist that we go downstairs and save what he had in mind for later. But there was a whole other part of me that I wasn’t sure had even existed before this second relationship with Neil. In so many ways, it was a continuation of the relationship we’d been a part of for almost all of our lives. This was the part of me that wanted to let him love me, that wanted to love him back, and this was the part of me that won out.

I didn’t put up any kind of fight. Instead, I raised my hands over my head in a submissive gesture that made him smile a little. He took the simple white shift I had chosen as my wedding dress and pulled it over my head, laying it out gently so that I could put it back on again when we were done. My arms came down, and I stood before Neil, naked. I stood before my husband and looked up at him with wide, expectant eyes. His face looking back at me was all sweet smiles and tender lines, and when he kissed me, it was after cupping my face in both of his impossibly large, strong hands.

He kissed me slowly. His lips moved on mine with something approaching timidity, feeling for my reaction as he went. Practically on my tiptoes to do it, my arms moved up to his neck and plunged into his slightly disheveled hair. I pulled him toward me as I used my tongue to separate his lips. I slipped it inside of his mouth, smiling as we continued to kiss. He groaned into my mouth.

I could feel him growing hard against my hip, and one of my hands began to slide down his chest, taking my time to unbutton his shirt as I went. He wore no undershirt beneath, and very soon, I had his bare chest exposed so that I could run my hands along the length of his muscles and feel his heart hammering underneath his skin.

“Are you nervous?” I asked with a smile, half joking and half serious as I peered into his eyes intently.

“Of course, I’m nervous.”

“Are you?” I asked again, genuinely surprised by his response. “But why? How could you be nervous about being with me when we’ve been together so many times before?”

“I’m always nervous when I’m with you. Every time I look at you, every time I touch your skin, there are always nerves.”

“But why?” I laughed, my hands still moving over his skin, moving down to the buckle of his belt as I liberated him from his pants. “I don’t want to make you nervous! That’s awful!”

“It’s not awful. I’m glad you make me nervous. It reminds me of how special you are. Every time I’m with you, I get to remember how lucky I am to have you. I get to remember how lucky I am that you took me back. I swear to God, Fay, I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to show you how happy you make me. There’s nothing I won’t do for you, nothing I won’t give you. I get nervous when I’m with you because you’re the only thing in this world I know I can’t live without.”

Without realizing it was happening, tears had begun to slide silently down my face, but they were happy tears, and my own little reminder of how much I had gained over the past year. I kissed him on the place where his heart lay and then pulled at his pants, standing back a little as he removed them the rest of the way.

My hand went to his long, throbbing member. My fingers ran along the length of him slowly, savoring the feeling of him beneath my fingertips. He gasped, then shut his eyes and threw his head back while my hand moved steadily. I could feel him growing slick as I grew slick at the same time. When neither of us could take it any longer, he gently removed my hand and led me to the bed.

He climbed on top, and then I climbed on top as well, moving my body so that I was hovering above him. When I was in position, I stopped and looked down upon him, surveying all of the wonderful things he was and reveling in the feeling of his eyes roving over me. The two of us had built quite a history for ourselves together in his bed, and despite that fact, there was something about this time that felt different to me.

This time when I looked down upon him, I knew not only that I belonged to him but that he belonged to me as well. It was the most empowering feeling I had ever experienced, and when I reached down to guide him inside of me, I cried out with immediate pleasure, already so wet I wasn’t sure that I could take much more. I hadn’t planned this interlude, hadn’t thought it was the best idea, but now that we were in the middle of it, there was nothing in the world I wanted more.

“God, Fay,” he sighed, his hands moving to my hips while his thumbs traced little circles on the sensitive skin that lived there. “God, I love you so much it hurts me.”

“Don’t let it hurt. Just love me. Just love me and let me love you back.”

We began to move at the same pace. His dick was deep inside of me. The feeling caused me to moan.

I sat up so he was deep inside of me, and I began to move my hips back and forth, rolling my body as I did so.

“That feels so good,” he said to me as his hands reached up and grasped my tits. He squeezed them, and the feeling caused me to move faster. I felt myself getting closer and closer to my climax. Then he stopped me and grabbed my hips, pulling me down so our chests were touching.

He began to move his cock in and out of me quickly.

“Oh fuck,” I moaned into his ear.

“Are you gonna come for me?” he asked.

It turned me on, and I felt myself getting closer to my release once again. Neil started moaning more, and even though we’d only had sex a few times, I knew he was getting close. “Come for me,” he said into my ear.

He moved faster, and I moved my body with him. In an instant, I felt the best release of my life. Neil wrapped his arms around me as he had his climax, and I had to admit the feeling made the end of my orgasm even more intense.

I climbed off of him and laid next to him on the bed.

“I love you, Fay. You know that, right?”

“I do,” I answered dreamily, fighting off the sleep that threatened to come in preparation of the celebrating still left to do. “I really do.”

“And do you know what else?”

“No, I don’t. Tell me?”

“This is it, Fay.”

“This is what?”

“This is it. This is the fairytale. It’s what everyone is looking for, what you were looking for. It’s the fairytale, and you and I actually found it.”