And suddenly, the only thing I care about is finding her before she truly does disappear, and I lose my chance forever.
33
Lila
I missed Christmas in the Caribbean, but spending it upstate feels right this year. No, make that necessary.
For the first time in my adult life, I don’t want to be alone over the holidays. Staying in New York means I’m close enough that Parker and Knox can come visit me in the small manor house I’ve rented through the New Year once they’re done with their own family obligations.
They’re not my first choice, and I’m pretty sure they know it, but seeing as my peace offering to Tripp has been met with complete and total silence, I have to face reality.
And the reality is that he was my transition relationship.
The man who taught me that it’s okay to trust people. It’s okay to leap.
I don’t blame him for leaving me.
But I wish he’d trust me as much as I trust him. That’s what hurts.
And hurts might be an understatement.
Aches like someone shot a thousand rusty nails into my heart and then swirled it in boiling lava might be a little closer.
My friends arrive late Christmas evening, not long before a snowstorm is due to trap us all here for a couple days. They distract me with stories about Knox’s nieces and Parker’s brothers, they give me utterly ridiculous gifts like a screaming goat and a blanket with Knox’s nana’s face on it.
The blanket actually makes me laugh until I cry, it’s so insane.
But crying makes me cry again, even though I’ve sworn I’m going to stop shedding tears for a man who doesn’t want me.
If he’d left because I’d been an idiot, or because he’d been less than the man I thought he was, I could logic my way out of my feelings.
But he left because he’s broken. And not in a way I can fix, because I can’t go back in time and make his wife not die of the flu, and if I could, he still wouldn’t be mine, because he’d go back to her.
He never made me feel like I was second-best, since he can’t have her anymore. But the shadow of what happened to her is something he’ll carry with him forever, and I can’t fix it.
After I’ve gotten a hold of myself, Parker and Knox and I sit around the fireplace in the cozy parlor, eating cheesecake and talking.
Real talk. Not hiding behind what Dalton Wellington wants me to do next for work, or who I’m going to apply with next.
“I think I’m going to write a memoir,” I tell them as I tuck my legs under me on the couch.
“Seriously?”
“Just for self-therapy, but yeah. Get it all out. Let go of all the hiding.”
“Have you mentioned that to your Uncle Guido?”
I shake my head. “I talked to him this morning for the first time since…you know.” They do. They know everything now. They both nod, and I continue. “He apologized. Sincerely. And I asked him to please let go, because I don’t want to live the rest of my life afraid that someone’s going to kidnap me over something my parents might’ve said to me twenty-plus years ago. That’s…well, it’s crazy. You know?”
“It’s not when it’s all you’ve ever known,” Knox points out. “If you’d grown up with parents who taught you that the earth is flat, then you believe the earth is flat, because your parents wouldn’t lie to you. Same thing. You grew up being told the world isn’t safe and bad guys are out to get you.”
“Perspective is everything,” Parker agrees. “Like I’d buy this house in a heartbeat, because it’s adorable and charming and I’m kind of in love with the stained glass windows in the stairwell, but there’s somebody else out there who’d think it smells like old lady and only hears the creaky floorboards.”
Mental note: Buy Parker this house for her birthday.
“Do not buy me this house,” she orders.
“We like the city,” Knox agrees.
Uh-huh. “Even with a baby on the way?”
They both grin as they share a look. That’s right. I know their secrets too.
“And don’t Sia and Chase have a weekend house near here? And what about Willow’s boyfriend too? You’d be able to do shows in this part of the state too.”
“Do not buy us this house,” she repeats.
I smile. “It would be a good house to write a memoir in.”
“Ooh, it would!” Parker snuggles deeper into the couch next to Knox. “Like right here, in front of the fireplace, with a pot of tea and a fancy paper notebook. I’ll bet the view out that window is amazing during the day.”
“Gorgeous rolling hills,” I confirm.
She sighs happily. “So romantic and perfect. Would you get an old-fashioned typewriter too?”
“I might. I’m addicted to the backspace key on my laptop, which doesn’t work so well on a typewriter, but a memoir just for me isn’t about perfection.”
“Are you going to miss the Fireballs?”
And now my eyes are blurring again.
The team is one more thing I’m trying to make myself consciously not think about, even though I know I need to mourn them.
Funny.
I didn’t really mourn my Uncle Al, but I’m mourning his baseball team.
Pretty sure that says something about the family I grew up with.
“I really wanted the meatball to win the mascot contest,” I confess. “Except then I think the duck would be better, since those damn ducks are still living in the dugout…”
“I know someone who can hack the voting. Just say the word…”
There’s a knock at the door, and we all jump like we’ve been caught by the baseball police. I reach for my phone to check the video doorbell—yes, I had security installed in the rental house, because the world still thinks I own a baseball team—and my heart does a backflip but fails to nail the landing.
It hits bottom and sprains its knee.
I trip unwrapping myself from the blankets as I dart up, decline help from my friends, and make a mad dash to the door.
There’s no acting suave or composed when I fling the door open, letting in a gust of chilly air as I drink in the sight of the man on my doorstep.
“You’re here.” His shoulders sag like he’s relieved while his eyes roam all over me. He’s holding a massive box like a shield between us, snow dusting his hair, his ears and the tip of his nose red like he’s been standing out here debating ringing the doorbell for an hour. “They were right. You’re still here.”
“Hi,” I whisper.
“You gave me a fucking baseball team.”
I swallow hard. “You need them more than I do.”
“I need you.” He takes half a step, stops, and looks down at the box. “I got you something too.”
“I don’t need—”
“Yes, you do. Can I…?” He nods to the house, and I leap back, realizing my teeth are starting to chatter, and that snow is swirling thicker through the open doorway.
“Oh! Yes. Of course.”
His blue eyes scan me again, and I know that look.
The fear. The hope. The regret.