Chapter 28
Alyssa parked in the same spot she’d parked many times in her life.
Her mother’s small yard was neat with a short plastic fence bordering a tiny garden that marked the end of her lot. The window air-conditioner was humming like crazy, and a puddle had formed on the narrow sidewalk under the unit.
She hadn’t even made it up to the deck when the door opened and her mother squealed in excitement.
“Alyssa! What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? Is that your car? Is everything okay? How long are you staying? What can I get you to drink?”
“I didn’t know I was coming. No, it’s a rental. I’m fine,” Alyssa answered as many of the questions she could remember.
“Come in, come in,” her mother demanded as if Alyssa would have driven all this way and not come in. “I have to leave for my shift in a half hour, but we can chat until then.”
Alyssa took in the cluttered but clean living room-kitchen area and shook her head.
“Mom, I need to ask you a huge favor, and I want you to say okay.”
“Of course. What do you need? I have some money. I was saving it for new brakes, but I can put that off for a few more months.”
“I don’t need money. I need you to call off work and sit and talk with me.”
Her mother looked so shocked someone would have thought Alyssa had asked her to be a surrogate to her alien triplets.
“Call off work?”
“Yes. I don’t think you’ve ever called off. They will understand, and I—” This was difficult to say because she’d never said it before. “I need you, Mom. Please.”
“Okay. Give me a second.”
Without another word, her mother flipped open her cell phone and sent an honest-to-goodness text. It took forever as she pressed the keys three times until she got the correct letter.
How did people function like this? Alyssa wondered. She would get her mother a smartphone for Christmas. And maybe classes on how to use it.
“So what are we going to talk about?” her mother asked after she received a text back that her boss had approved her sick time.
“We’re going to talk about all the things we don’t talk about. Like Donnie, and what happened between you and grandma. I want you to tell me about my dad, and I’m going to tell you about Grayson, the man I’m in love with, except I totally blew it.”
“Wow.” Her mother still looked shocked. “I think this calls for drinks.”
Her mother served them cosmos made from vodka and Hawaiian Punch in Tupperware, and then they got down to it. For the rest of the night and into the early morning, they talked and laughed and cried.
“So what are you going to do about Gray?” her mother asked, her lids drooping with exhaustion.
“I’m not sure. He moved to California to get away from me. I can’t very well show up there and make him talk to me.”
“Why not? You did it to me, and I have to say, this is probably the best night of my entire life.” It was pretty high up on the list for Alyssa too. “Why have you stayed away?”
“We never talked about what happened with Donnie, and I thought you saw me as silly to have trusted a man like that. Or any man. You never did. You were always so strong.”
“Hold on just a minute. It’s easy not to try. You don’t need strength for that. It takes more strength to trust someone. It means you know you’d be able to pick yourself up if you had to. It means you trust yourself enough to know who you can believe in and who you can’t. I’ve taken the easy way out. I had you and it was easy to focus on taking care of you and not worrying about anything else. Don’t mistake that for strength, Alyssa.”
Liss swallowed and nodded, understanding the truth in her mother’s words.
“Let’s get to sleep. I have plans.”
Her mother smiled, and clapped her hands.
“Good for you.”
Alyssa’s plan included Grayson, and she smiled as she pulled out her phone to schedule the flight the next morning at breakfast. Her mother had already left for work, but it was okay. They’d promised to keep in touch more. She’d even shown her mother how to Skype.
Two days later, Alyssa was standing outside the San Diego office of Hasher Borne. She was waiting to build up enough courage to go in. Twenty minutes had gone by and still she wasn’t quite ready.
It didn’t matter, because he walked out of the building.
Alyssa’s heart thumped in her chest with joy and then…pain.
He was with a woman.
She was younger than Alyssa, talking animatedly while he laughed.
Alyssa hadn’t considered he’d have a girlfriend. She should have known. He wanted the happily-ever-after like his parents had. It made sense to see him hugging this woman. He waved as the brunette walked away, she turned to smile and wave at him and he smiled back with affection.
Before her brain had a chance to weigh in on the decision, her body turned and her feet were taking her away from the scene as quickly as possible.
“Alyssa?” The sound of his voice stopped her in her tracks. Her heart forced her to stay.
* * * *
It was her.
Grayson watched as her shoulders hunched slightly. Slowly, she turned toward him, giving him a chance to get his expression in order.
She winced as he walked closer.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. It came off sounding harsh, but he was so surprised he didn’t know what else to say.
“Is that your new roommate?” she asked instead of answering.
“What?” Oh. The woman he just hugged. Why did she care? “No. That was Suzanna, Trent’s little sister. She stopped by to see if I wanted to go to lunch. I’d already eaten.”
Alyssa nodded and bit her lip.
“What are you doing here?” he tried again.
“You didn’t answer my emails.” She made this sound like it was a reasonable explanation.
He squinted up at the sun and took a breath.
“I know. I figured we would inevitably lose touch. I didn’t want it to drag out. I didn’t want it to become a thing.” He gave her a smile. “Most people get the hint and let the other person fade off into the sunset. They don’t hunt them down on the other side of the country to yell at them.” He couldn’t believe she was standing there in front of him. He had to fight the urge to grab her and pull her close. He loved her just as much as he had in New York. Maybe more. It wasn’t getting better. Iz had been right.
It didn’t matter how far he ran, Alyssa was a part of him.
“Yeah, well, most people aren’t missing you like crazy,” she said.
His eyes searched her face, waiting for the joke.
“You miss me?” He couldn’t believe his ears. Could he hope…? No, surely she meant as friends and roommates.
“Yes.”
“Trent said you were moving out of our place, I’m sure you’ll have fun with whoever you’re moving in with now.”
“Actually,” she bit her lip. “I’m not living with anyone. I stored my stuff at my mother’s place until I figured out where I wanted to be. I’ve been doing some soul searching. My therapist suggested it.”
“You’re seeing a therapist?” Hope reared again. He worked hard to subdue it.
“Yeah. It turns out I was letting guilt keep me from being happy.”
“Guilt is a mother.” He reached for her hand, but stopped before he touched her.
“Yes, but I’ve been able to get rid of some of mine. I realize I deserve to be happy with someone. I’m working on allowing myself to be happy.”
“That’s great, Alyssa. Really great.” He did want her to be happy. He just wished it could have been with him.
“I need to be honest,” she said.
“Honest is good. It worked for us, right?” Up until a point, then everything went to hell.
“That’s just it. I wasn’t completely honest with you. I need to tell you something, no expectations. I just want to say it so I can move on.”
“Okay.” His heart hummed with hope. “Go ahead, I’m listening.” She shuffled her feet nervously and looked everywhere but his eyes. “What is it?” he encouraged. “You can still tell me anything.” His words seemed to give her courage. She made eye contact and dropped a bomb.
“I’m in love with you,” she said, letting out a deep breath at the same time.
“Are you messing with me?” he asked immediately, his head swimming.
“No. It’s the truth. I know I said I didn’t want that, but I do.”
“You’re telling me you love me?” He couldn’t believe he was hearing this.
“Yeah.”
“And I’m supposed to, what? Tell you I don’t feel the same way?”
“Right. You could maybe let me down easy. That would be a nice touch.” She forced a laugh.
“What about how I feel?”
“How you feel is pretty evident by the way you moved across the country to get away from me, and won’t call me back no matter how entertaining my messages are.”
“Let me ask you this. When did you realize you loved me?”
“I think I first felt it on the dock that night in Connecticut.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I was trying not to love you. I was hoping it would go away.”
“I didn’t want it to go away.”
“Really?”
“Come on. You know I love you. I eventually remembered mumbling something to you about it in the shower. Begging actually.”
“You were drunk. That was just drunk rambling. Everyone says they love people when they’re drunk.”
“I meant it.”
“You left.”
“I couldn’t just be your friend anymore. It was killing me. You didn’t sleep with anyone, but I knew eventually you would. It was more than I could take.”
“I couldn’t ever be with anyone else,” she admitted, and his heart leapt in joy.
“We messed this all up,” he said with a sigh. She nodded in agreement. “Maybe we can do better in San Diego.”
She jerked her head up to look at him.
“What?” she choked.
“You love me. I love you. I’m sure as hell not going to break up with you or let you down easy or give you closure.” He leaned his head in to kiss her and then rested his forehead against hers. “Move to San Diego.” He nodded to the building. “Put in for a transfer. Be my coworker, my roommate, my friend and my wife. Marry me, so we can be happy and have a real life together. Let’s make a new point B.”
She laughed.
“You still don’t seem to understand the concept of a one-night stand.”
“Maybe we’ll do better with a one-life stand.”
“With lots of expectations?”
“The more the better.”