My stomach rolled as I thought about the possibility of dancing with Amelia tomorrow night. Right then, I realized something: there was room for two great loves in my life. I could remember Greer. But I could also love Amelia. In a way, I always had.
“That’s all, boys,” Mrs. Stack called. “Thanks for your time.”
She winked at me as I climbed down the ladder and said, “Save me a dance, Parker.”
Twenty years ago, that would have given me bragging rights for months.
“You fishing with your dad tomorrow?” Watson asked, coming up beside me.
“Yeah. You?”
He nodded.
“And Amelia’s new paramour,” Mason said, walking up. I had to control my eye roll. “But not for long,” he added.
“What does that mean?” I asked, my heart racing. Had he heard something? Did she feel the same way about me as I did about her?
“Oh, I saw the way she was looking at me last time she was home. I think I’ve got a shot.”
“Yeah,” I said under my breath. “She’s just dying to get back with you after how well you treated her last time.” It was unfair, but the thought of Mason going after Amelia had me rattled, especially after my new realization.
He got up in my face. “What did you say to me?”
“Hey, man, chill out,” Spence said, running up behind us now.
“I said you don’t have a shot with Amelia,” I said, getting closer to him now. “What are you going to do about it? Are you going to tackle me in the town square? Make Mrs. Stack call Mom? We’re in our thirties, man. Grow up.”
The flash in his eye told me that Mason was furious, but, much to my surprise, he didn’t tackle me in the town square. But could he seriously want Amelia back? She’d never get back with Mason, right? The thought of my brother with the only woman that made me feel like I could move on made me sick.
“I hate to break your heart, man,” Spence interjected as we all started walking in the direction of home again, “but I’m pretty sure you’re not the Thaysden brother that has a chance with Amelia.”
Mason looked at me like I was dog shit and said, “Ass face couldn’t convert the point if his life depended on it.” But then he slung his arm around my shoulder in a brotherly way, so I assumed we were fine. He was quick to anger, but he was also quick to forgive, thank God. Otherwise there was no way we’d all be standing here together right now. “I’m just giving you a hard time, little bro. You got this.”
I wanted to act cool in front of my friends and my brother. That impulse never changes. But I needed support. “Do you guys really think I should go for it with Amelia?”
“She tried to have your baby, man,” Spence said. “If you’re waiting for a sign, I think that was it.”
Spence’s wife, Christina, stepped out of the gazebo, and their toddler daughter wriggled out of her mom’s arms and ran down the brick sidewalk, squealing, “Daddy!” as he lifted her up into the air.
Watson was saying, “You’ve got to get back out there.”
Watching one of my oldest, best buddies hold his daughter, I realized that Amelia wasn’t all I wanted. I wanted to be a dad; I wanted to be a family.
“You’re just getting started,” Spence chimed in.
Walking down the brick sidewalk with two of my oldest, best buddies and my brother in the town that raised me, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Spence was right.
Amelia
WISTFUL AND ROMANTIC
“I PROMISE YOU THAT THEY’LL teach you,” I lied for the millionth time.
“But what if I throw up? What if we have a huge fish, and I’m trying to reel it in and I lose it, and then they lose the tournament because of me?”
Harris and I were watching fishing videos on YouTube, and I truly couldn’t decide if I was doing the right thing. I mean, yeah, I was feeding Harris to the wolves. In 2045, I would be hearing about the time they had to take that pretty city boy on the boat and he nearly drowned or some other hyperbolized account of how unmanly Harris was. I had never seen him the least bit vulnerable, and it made me like him even more. I felt such an outpouring of compassion for him in that moment that I leaned over and kissed him.
He smiled. “Are you going to tell your parents we’re moving in together?”
I grimaced. “I think I’ll just keep paying for the apartment indefinitely and pretend I live there.”
He laughed. “You’re not honestly telling me that they are going to be scandalized by their thirty-five-year-old daughter living with her boyfriend?”
I didn’t say anything, but he had no idea. My mother would not care that her friends’ children had all lived with significant others before marriage. She would not care that I was old enough to make my own decisions, that I liked Harris and I loved the agreement about our lives that we—as grown-ups—had reached. She would only care that she had not raised me to live with a man I wasn’t married to and that I was directly defying those orders. “Maybe we should tell them at Christmas?” I smiled encouragingly.
He laughed. “Amelia, that’s, like, six months away.”
“Oh! Oh!” I said. “Maybe we could make up an elaborate story about something horrible that happened at my apartment and you are sacrificing and lovingly taking me in, as a friend, and letting me live in your guest room.”
My new favorite thing in life was going to Harris’s after a long day at work and making dinner together with soft music playing in the background and drinking sophisticated wine and talking about everything—the new story idea I had, how far I had gotten into my research, his funny miscommunications with a new overseas client, the state of the environment and the world, and our separate friends who were quickly becoming our mutual friends. I really, truly, solidly looked forward to doing those things without having to pack an overnight bag. But did I love him? I couldn’t tell. I felt like he was a good friend that was also super hot and who I liked to sleep with. Maybe that was love. Stupid Thad, I thought. I couldn’t even tell if I was in love anymore, for heaven’s sake.
I looked at Harris again, studied the lines in his forehead, which were deeper when he was being sincere, the boyish sandy blond of his hair, how adorable he looked lounging in his Peter Millar athletic wear.
“Babe, look,” he said. “I get it. The South is different, your parents are old fashioned. Maybe I don’t understand it completely, but I’m trying to. All I know is that we’re good together. We want the same things. I can tell them with you, if you want, but it would be a shame to ruin something great over some outdated idea of what a relationship should look like.”
Maybe the salt air made me feel wistful and romantic, or maybe it was how sincere he was. But in that moment, I decided firmly that being with him—in the way that worked for us—was worth the scrutiny of my family. I was thirty-five years old, for heaven’s sake. “I’ll tell them now,” I said. I could give them time to get used to the idea of us moving in sometime, pretend it existed in a hazy and far-off future.
He picked up my hand and kissed it. “You still have a tan line where your ring used to be.”