by Linda Kage
Sitting up fast enough to make herself lightheaded, she held her breath until the door opened and a hesitant Bailey stepped into the room. Gaze downcast, her friend didn’t look up until she closed the door and leaned against it.
And even when Bailey lifted her face, Tess still held her breath, bracing for the yelling and accusations. Fearing she was going to lose her best friend forever, she covered her mouth with her hands and waited.
But her best friend shocked the crap out of her when she quietly murmured, “So…” She glanced away. “I’m sorry.”
A huff of shocked air exited Tess’s lungs. She dropped her hands from her lips, completely clueless. “Sorry? For what?”
“For, you know…” Bailey flailed out a hand, looking as stumped as Tess felt. “For doing everything that made you upset, for butting in, for visiting your boyfriend at the hospital. Just…for all of it. You were right; I needed to be reminded you are your own person, not just my best friend, here solely to love me.”
“Oh, Bailey.” Flying off the bed, Tess leapt at her, hugging her hard. “Of course I love you. And don’t ever apologize for being you. I’m so sorry for yelling at you. I shouldn’t have—”
“But you were right.”
“No. I yelled at you for doing what you’ve always done, and—”
“You were right,” Bailey repeated, more sternly this time. Tess opened her mouth to keep talking, but she looked into her friend’s eyes and paused. Bailey looked tired and defeated, almost blank. Now wasn’t the time. Bailey was here, and that was good enough for her. They could get to the in-depth opening up of their souls when they were ready.
Bailey pulled out of the hug and offered her a distant smile. “I’m glad you let me know I went too far.” Then she shrugged and rolled her eyes. “And I’m kind of impressed you stood up for yourself. So, I will stand up too and admit I messed up as well. To make it up to you, I tried to find him. Jonah, I mean. But—” she shook her head “—that boy totally went off the grid. I couldn’t find him anywhere. I even drove into Bristol and met his scary parents.”
She let out a disgusted breath. “Thanks for warning me about them, by the way. That was one encounter I could’ve lived without for the rest of my life.”
“You—” Pressure filled Tess’s chest. Leaping at Bailey again, she gave her another hard, enveloping hug. “You’re the best friend ever. I swear. You went through all that for me? You didn’t have to do that.”
Bailey tentatively hugged her back. “Um…not to get out of your good graces or anything, but are you forgetting the part where I pushed him out of your life in the first place?”
Tess pulled away to send her a watery grin. “You didn’t. Not really. But, hey, you know me. Even if you had, it’s fine. I can’t stay mad for long.”
“Obviously,” Bailey muttered. “Your guy is a nationally recognized bully, and you got over that one before you even seemed to be…under it.” Then she paused. “Not that I’m judging or butting in where—”
“You’re not butting in.” Blowing out a breath, Tess smiled. “He wrote me a letter.”
Bailey glanced up. “A letter?”
Growing excited, Tess reached for it on the bed where she’d dropped it. After she explained Logan’s thievery, Bailey scanned through it. The more she read, the deeper her eyebrows furrowed. “What other guy?” she finally said.
“I know, right?” Tess shook her head. “I have no clue what he’s talking about. Paige and Logan are going to try to get me an address of where to find him so I can set him straight.”
“Men.” Bailey slung her arm around Tess’s shoulder and walked them to Tess’s bed so they could sit together. “What else did I miss around here?”
“Not much.” After licking her lips, she leaned over to rest her head on Bailey’s shoulder and took her friend’s hand, squeezing warmly. “What about the other thing I said to you, though? Are you mad at me for telling you?”
Bailey cleared her throat the slid her hand out from under Tess’s. “What other thing?” She shrugged away and stood up to return to her side of the room. When she began to clean, making her bed and picking up clothes off the floor, Tess knew something was definitely up. Bailey never cleaned.
“About your mom,” Tess said anyway.
Without looking at her, Bailey merely shook her head. “Not sure what you’re talking about.” She tossed an armful of shirts and jeans into a nearby basket. “So, I’m like obscenely behind on my laundry. I’m surprised some of these dirty clothes haven’t gotten up and run off on their own they’re so rank. I’ll be down in the laundry room.”
Tess bit her lip and kept quiet as she watched her friend march toward the door. She hated to see Bailey in this much denial, but she wasn’t going to push and butt in. She’d just be here when her friend finally faced it.
When Bailey opened the door, though, she almost collided with Paige lifting her hand to knock. Tess gasped and nearly shoved her roommate aside to talk to Paige.
“Did you give her the letter?”
Paige sighed and held out the letter Tess had written. “I’m so sorry. She lost contact with him. She has no idea where he’s been staying, either. They used to meet every day at a pizza parlor across town, but a few days ago, he said he was doing okay and didn’t need to meet with her again. She hasn’t heard from him since.”
“A few days?” Tess echoed hollowly, her hopes sinking. She told herself this was good news. He could be accounted for as okay and healthy up until mere days ago. But now…now she had no idea where he was or what he was doing or even if he was okay.
She glanced at Bailey. “Do you think I’ll ever see him again?”
But Bailey didn’t have an answer, so the question lingered in the air with a hollow, unsolved echo.
Where was he?
March passed into April, and before Tess knew it, May arrived. The new buds that had popped out on the trees around campus were now flowering in full bloom. Classes began to wind down for the semester, and students worked diligently to finish term projects and turn in papers for their final grades. Dead week was coming up in days.
Tess was beyond ready for the summer break to start. She needed time away from Granton and all the memories it had given her since January. She needed time to heal.
“Come on,” Bailey said one day after their professor had let them out early from one of the classes they shared. “Let’s go out to eat somewhere off campus for lunch. I want to get out for a little bit.”
Since Tess felt the same restlessness, she agreed. Things between them had finally returned to normal again. It had been awkward at first. Bailey had been a lot more hesitant to be herself. And Tess kept having to bite her tongue not to bring up Bailey’s mother issue, but after a few weeks, and one more cowboy spotting—where the slippery devil once more unknowingly evaded them—the old open, honest Bailey eventually returned.
As they left Grammar Hall and started for their car, they were intercepted by Paige and Logan.
“Hey, where’re you guys going?”
“There’s this burger joint on the edge of town I’m craving,” Bailey answered. “Neither of us have a class until two, so we’re going to hit it up for lunch.”
“Oh, my God. Greasy food sounds so good.” Paige moaned and rubbed her flat stomach.
After smiling indulgently at her, Logan took her hand and turned back to Bailey and Tess. “Mind if we tag along?”
“Sure. The more the merrier.” But Bailey no sooner answered them than she glanced hesitantly at Tess. “Right?”
She did that more often lately—making a decision for both of them, only to realize what she’d just done and try to correct her mistake.
Appreciating how hard Bailey was trying, Tess hooked her arm through her friend’s and grinned at Paige and Logan. “Right. We’d love to have you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
AUBREY ST. JOSEPH WAS AS VERBOSE and dramatic as Jonah had feared the kid would be when Sean had firs
t told him about the actor. But strangely enough, he was infectious. A freshman and into all things theatrical and dramatic, Aubrey had a freshness that managed to keep Jonah from the edge of depression.
After the day they’d met and shared their grief together, neither of them had left Sean’s apartment. Jonah bunked on Sean’s old couch, and Aubrey stayed in the bedroom. The next night, they did it all over again. When utility and rent bills began to show up, they paid them. And before they knew it, they were roommates.
The two of them had absolutely nothing in common, but strangely enough, they got along. Jonah totally blamed the link on Sean. The grief they shared drew them together with an unbreakable kind of bond. But at other times, Jonah had to admit the boy was damned entertaining, especially when something worried him.
As he finished a bowl of cereal before he had to head out to work, he watched Aubrey pace the length of the kitchen and wring his hands repeatedly. “Maybe this is wrong. We shouldn’t be doing this.” Rubbing his palms over his face, he turned and marched to the other end of the cramped room. Then he bit his lip and glanced at Jonah for reassurance.
“Of course you should.” Jonah snorted and rolled his eyes. “This is the reason you’re attending this college. To learn the fine art of dramatic performance. So, what’s the point of continuing an education here if you don’t perform anything?”
“But people are already protesting the play, saying it’s too soon after—”
“And they’re idiots,” Jonah said sternly. He tipped his bowl up and drained the rest of the milk inside. Grabbing his cane, he began to stand, but Aubrey waved him back into his seat, grabbing the dirty dish from him and taking it to the sink so he could wash it instead.
It hadn’t taken him long to realize Aubrey liked to stress clean. It was kind of comical, but this issue was really getting to him, so he didn’t laugh.
Other students were protesting the end-of-the-year play, saying anything of such entertainment value shouldn’t take place after the tragedy that had happened so recently on campus.
“I get that people are mourning,” Jonah said, massaging cramped muscles in his leg before he had to stand again. “But you lost someone too. And you’re not disrespecting Sean in any way by continuing your life and living it to the fullest.” That was one detail Samantha had drummed into his head during their sessions. “Shit, you’d be disrespecting him if you didn’t, if you curled up and died right along with him.”
After Aubrey cleaned and put the bowl away, he returned to the table to wipe off the spot where Jonah was sitting. Grasping his arm to get his attention, Jonah waited until his friend looked at him.
“You know he’d want you to do this.”
Eyes going moist, Aubrey managed a nod as he sniffed. “Yeah,” he said and closed his eyes. “He would, wouldn’t he?”
“Damn right, he would.” Pulling his best friend’s boyfriend in closer, he patted Aubrey’s back heartily, proud of him. “I think you have to stick with this play…in honor of him.”
“You know,” Aubrey mumbled, glancing at him with puppy dog eyes. “If you weren’t straight, I’d probably totally hit on you.”
With a scowl, Jonah shoved him back. “Whatever. Cut that out.”
Aubrey laughed, clutching his stomach. “Oh, my God. You should see the look on your face right now. You’d think I just grabbed your ass.”
Glare only deepening, Jonah shoved to his feet. It was time to go anyway. “Don’t say shit like that to me. You know it skeeves me out.”
“Oh, come on.” Aubrey playfully punched his arm. “You know I’m still hung up on Sean. And I would never risk our friendship by seriously coming onto you. I just…” He shrugged. “I thought we could use a little comedic relief. They do it in plays all the time when the angst begins to get a little too over—”
“Okay, okay.” Jonah waved a hand to shut the guy up. “I get it. Next time, just…wait until after I’m done touching you before pulling out the gay humor, ’kay?”
Aubrey grinned but rolled his eyes. “Sure thing, sweetie. You know, I think there’s still a little bit of homophobe left in you. But you’re working through it very well. I must say, the way Sean talked about you, I never—ever—thought you’d even acknowledge me as a human being, much less pat me on the back with sympathy.”
“Well.” Jonah glanced away and shifted his weight more fully to his cane, uncomfortable with the conversation. “I guess I’m just a barrel of surprises.”
It hurt to realize his own best friend had never known him well enough to realize most of his talk was just…talk. But it had also taught him he needed to watch what he said.
“Yes,” Aubrey agreed, eyeing him thoughtfully. “That you are.”
Hobbling past him, Jonah found his way into the front room where he picked up his wallet from the coffee table, which was doubling as his nightstand. Then he waved goodbye to Aubrey, told the kid not to take any more shit from anyone about the play, and he was out the door.
Cane in hand, he slowly trudged to his truck. Technically, he was supposed to wait four months after getting his femur broken before he transferred from crutches to cane, and it had barely been three since the shooting, but Jonah was getting antsy. He needed his mobility back. So, he’d made the switch a couple of days ago.
His crabby boss, Dale, already grumbled about his handicap. He hated how many breaks Jonah had to take and how often he slid a chair up to the grill so he could sit a second before regaining his feet. Jonah wasn’t sure why it mattered; he’d yet to fall behind on his duties. In fact, Marla, a waitress who’d worked there for forever, said he got orders out faster and more accurately than any of the other short order cooks they’d had before. But he guessed some people just liked having something to complain about. Either that, or Dale had seen the news reports about Jonah and was judging him from those.
The diner might specialize in hamburgers, but Dale loved to cook pastries and pies the most. Jonah was always assigned the grill while Dale worked the oven, which was fine by him. He learned how to make hamburgers that rivaled his favorite place in the university’s food district. He was getting decent at fries too, cooking them to golden perfection every time.
Arriving about an hour before the lunch menu opened, he readied his station with one hand, gripping his cane with the other as he hopped on one foot back and forth between the fry grease he was heating up and the grill he was preparing.
He’d also been told he was the cleanest cook the diner had ever seen. But Dale found a way to complain about that too, saying Jonah threw out the grease too often and used so many cleaning supplies to keep his work station tidy. Deciding they needed more vegetable oil today, he set his cane aside so he could pick up a five-gallon bucket of lard and carry it out from the stock closet. It weighed a little over fifty pounds and wasn’t the heaviest thing he’d carried around since breaking his femur, but it did give his leg some twinges the next day.
He didn’t mind the added ache, though. This new life he’d started wasn’t much—he would be the first to admit that—but Jonah found pride in his work. It felt honest, and he liked what he did. He’d found a purpose and a reason to get up each morning. He did his thing at work, then went home to see what new drama was happening with his roommate.
He tried not to think about Tess, but thoughts of her crept into his head anyway. Constantly. He hoped she’d completely forgotten him, because if she thought about him as much as he thought about her, he’d feel like a total snake right now for causing her pain. Because this hurt. It hurt, and yet it soothed to think about her, and it made him smile and want to weep at the same time. He wouldn’t wish this kind of agony on anyone, especially Tess.
God, he missed her. Shaking his head, he tried not the think about the night she’d woken him at two in the morning when she’d crawled into his bed and demanded he cheer her up. But he did anyway, until a hot splash of grease from the fryer jumped up and bit him in the hand.
Cursing under his
breath, he stuck his thumb knuckle into his mouth and sucked the sting away before adjusting the temperature.
“Ticket,” Marla called as she clipped an order to the metal ring hanging in the small window separating the diner from the kitchen. “Time to start lunch, boys.”
Jonah hopped over on his good leg, not wanting to overstress the bad one, and leaned in to read the order. As he did, the door in the diner opened and a bell jingled to announce a new arrival.
He couldn’t see who came in from his vantage point, not until a pair of girls walked past his window.
He froze as he caught sight of blazing red, curly hair. He immediately ducked out of view. When he realized she hadn’t seen him, he cautiously leaned back over so he could see out the window again.
His heart stuttered in his chest with longing. God, she looked good. Air swelled in his lungs until he was almost lightheaded from the rush. He reached for the edge of the window to brace himself as he openly gawked.
In the diner, Bailey chattered on, talking a mile a minute about something or other while Tess found them a booth and slid in. Instead of sitting across from her, however, Bailey sat beside Tess. Jonah frowned, wondering at that until another couple took the seat across from them. His breath caught when he recognized both of the new people.
Einstein’s protector, Paige, cuddled into the booth with the very guy Jonah had seen hugging Tess in front of Grammar Hall. She wasn’t hugging him today, though. And he was completely into Paige. He even leaned in to kiss her neck and whisper something in her ear before he closed his eyes and smelled her hair.
Returning his attention to Tess’s face, Jonah felt pulverized. She wasn’t smiling. Had that jerk dumped her to take up with Paige? But, no, that didn’t feel right. She didn’t seem at all bothered by the couple practically making out across from her. He knew he shouldn’t feel hopeful about that, but damn, the hope rose up his esophagus anyway and filled his entire head.