As if sensing my solemn mood, Reed didn’t say much as we drove away from the manor and got back onto the main road to leave Ivory Falls. Before leaving, we had checked the route home to make sure it was clear, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t somewhat disappointed when seeing it was in the green, giving us the okay to travel. That disappointment lingered in my chest.
“Things are gonna be really weird between us now, huh?” Reed said, keeping his eyes forward.
“Yes.” No reason to lie. After being balls-deep in someone’s ass, it wasn’t easy to pretend like it never happened.
“Do you think we’ll be able to still work together?” His voice was quieter that time. As if he feared the answer.
I looked over at him, seeing how tightly he was gripping the steering wheel.
“I’m not going to fire you, Reed, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Though subtle, he exhaled and relaxed a little in the seat. “Quinn is dating one of his coworkers.”
“Is that so?”
“Yep.” Reed swooped his bangs out of his face, more as a nervous tic than necessity it seemed. “Monty isn’t his boss, though, so it’s not against policy or anything.”
Every instinct I had told me to let the subject drop. But I couldn’t. “How do you think they would’ve reacted if it was against policy? Would they have been able to walk away from each other?”
Reed thought a moment, lightly tapping his thumb on the wheel. Then, he cracked a small, yet sad, smile. “Not a chance. Those two can’t keep their hands off each other. Quinn loves his job, but I think he would’ve walked out in an instant if it meant losing Monty.”
“They sound like a sweet couple.”
“Sweet? Pfft.” Reed chuckled. “They act like enemies a lot of the time, and Quinn always calls him a moron. But Monty is his moron, you know? They are polar opposites but somehow make it work. Love is strange.”
It was also painful. After Olivia broke my heart, I’d had trouble giving it to anyone else. It was why I’d filled my life with shallow hookups and worked all the time to keep from having to go home to an empty house.
For a brief moment, I had thought Reed would be the person to change all of that, but there was no way he could be. Not unless I wanted to get fired and lose my six-figure yearly salary.
Five and a half hours later—because we had stopped to grab a late lunch at the halfway mark and stopped once to fill up the gas tank—we arrived in Blue Harbor. Funny how it hadn’t changed in the past four days since we’d left it, but I had.
Reed drove to the office and parked beside the car I’d left there Thursday morning. That felt like a lifetime ago.
“Here we are, boss,” he said in a light tone, smiling over at me. A smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
I unbuckled my seat belt but stayed seated. My muscles wouldn’t move no matter how much I willed them to. My body felt like lead. My heart did too.
“If I was to get snowed in with anyone,” I said, fighting the ache in my chest, “I’m glad it was you.”
“We had a pretty cool adventure, huh?”
“We did,” I agreed, then did my best to smile. “Though we probably shouldn’t repeat it.”
“Probably,” he said with a laugh. It sounded a little sad, though, just like the look in his eyes. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Bright and early.”
“Bright and early,” I echoed before opening the car door and stepping out into the cold.
The sun didn’t reach Blue Harbor—as was the norm for our nearly always overcast and rainy seaside town—so the gray sky did nothing to help combat the chilly air. I opened the door to the back seat to get my stuff before glancing at Reed. I wanted to say more, but the words wouldn’t form.
“It’s okay, Daniel,” Reed said, holding my gaze a moment before looking away. “You don’t have to say anything. Just… go. Please.”
Nodding to myself, I closed the door and withdrew my car keys from my briefcase. He backed out of the spot and left the parking lot before I was even inside my car. Just as I was on my way home, my phone buzzed.
“Hey, Mom. I just got back to town.”
“Good,” she said. “You can come over for Sunday dinner, then. Your sister is here with her new girlfriend, and she wants you to meet her. Such a lovely little thing too.”
“Okay. I’ll head over now.”
Regina had come out years after I did. She had started dating the head cheerleader when she was just seventeen. The girl had game for sure. When I realized I was bisexual in my teens, Regina was the first one I had told. She’d been stuffing chips into her mouth at the time and had shrugged.
“I know,” she’d said.
“You do? How?”
“You’ve gone to every swim meet this season,” she asked, rolling her eyes. “You think I don’t see you checking out Malaki Pearson?”
Malaki had been the captain of the men’s swim team. A total hottie.
My mom lived in a two-story house not far from where I worked. Once getting a well-paying job, I had moved her out of the shithole apartment we’d been in during my entire childhood and put a down payment on the house she’d wanted to live in ever since she was a young girl. Her dream house. It was built in the early 1900s and was classy. Just like her.
“About time you got here, pizza face,” Regina said as soon as I walked through the front door.
“Pizza face? Really?” I hugged her. “I haven’t had acne since I was fifteen.”
“You’ll always be pizza face to me.” She slapped me on the back before leading me over to a petite blonde. “Dan, this is Meg. Meg, this is my pizza face brother, Dan.”
“You’re way too pretty for her,” I said, shaking Meg’s hand.
Meg laughed. “I feel it’s the other way around. She looks like a model, and I’m… well, I’m me.”
“And you are gorgeous,” Regina said before kissing her on the cheek.
My sister and I looked a lot alike, same raven-black hair and blue eyes. I didn’t see how Reed ever thought she was my girlfriend. It was actually pretty funny. One day, I’d have to tell Regina about it.
But not now. Not when the pain of having to say goodbye to Reed was still too fresh.
“Is that my baby boy I hear in there?” Mom called from the kitchen.
“Hear that?” I said to Regina. “I’m her baby. Not you.”
My sister stuck her tongue out at me, acting more like a teenager than a thirty-three-year-old radiologist. Mom then came into the room, a huge smile instantly touching her lips as she laid eyes on me.
“Hey, Ma.” I stepped forward and hugged her, the smell of her perfume hitting me with nostalgia. She had worn the same fragrance for as long as I could remember. “Thanks for inviting me to dinner.”
“Like I’d let you starve.” She pulled back and touched her medium-length black hair. It looked freshly styled and colored, the little streaks of gray I’d seen during my last visit gone. She was beautiful even with the gray, but she wasn’t quite ready to embrace the color yet. She had always looked younger than her age anyway.