by Tracy Ewens
“We need to get a pregnancy test,” she said as he rolled onto his back again, eyes still closed.
“What?” Matt said, still half-asleep as his eyes cracked open. “What time is it?”
“Like three thirty, I don’t know. Still dark, but I’m serious. Wake up.”
He sat up. “Holls, you’re freaking out because we’ve had like four hours of sleep in the last three days. You’re delirious, not pregnant.”
“How do you know? It’s been ten days. I’m on the pill and that doesn’t happen. I get to the end and I get my period every month. That’s how it works. Late never happens. Something is wrong.”
“I thought we decided it was because you were sick last month. Student health gave you the Z-pack, remember? That probably threw everything off.”
“I’m not sure what we were thinking because that makes no sense. Besides, I was two days late when we came up with that. This is day ten and no period. Why would an antibiotic even mess with my period? It was a stupid explanation.”
Matt huffed and reached for his laptop. Hollis was starting to sweat.
He typed something and then said, “Okay, right here,” as he read off the screen, “Antibiotics can sometimes render birth control pills ineff—”
He stopped reading and the room began to spin.
“Holls, did you tell student health you were on the pill?”
She shook her head.
“Why not?” He looked up from his computer.
“I don’t think they asked. Why?”
Matt closed his laptop and stood. He ran his hand over his face as if that might give him a few more hours of sleep and grabbed his wallet and keys.
“Where are you going?”
“To get a test.”
Hollis stood and the ground felt uneven.
“Do you think?”
He took her hand. “Maybe. We need to find out. You have your Hawthorne final in less than three hours, so you might want to get in the shower while I’m gone.” He turned to leave.
“Matt.”
He looked back, blue eyes under heavy lids and still so handsome.
“Nothing. Hurry.”
When he leaned in and gently kissed her, Hollis had no way of knowing that would be the last time they were ever going to be exactly as they were—two tired college students in love and on the brink of so many plans. Remembering now, Hollis wished she had known once Matt walked back through that door a half hour later that everything would change. Maybe she would have held him tighter before waking him up, kissed him longer, although knowing her twenty-one-year-old self, probably not.
By the time she stepped in the shower after gawking at the third positive test, she had already started sorting, prioritizing, and planning her way forward. Looking back on it now, she was so young, sheltered, and unsure how to navigate from which pizza she wanted on a Friday night to raising a child. Everything was suddenly two inches from her nose and then when everything fell apart, the love of her life had told her to “be happy” and stepped aside.
Matt couldn’t sleep. He was never one to blame others, but this one was all on her. His heart, normally quiet, was now rushing and filling his mind with possibilities.
Don’t start this crap, you’re too late, his mind tried to assert some reason. It had been twelve years and if she wanted him the way her eyes seemed to for a moment, she would have been in touch. The simple act of sitting with her, trying to reach her, had him reeling with the frustration of a missed opportunity that he now somehow felt entitled to.
She’d arrived back at the cove polished and perfect. He knew from the occasional mention in the industry, or one of his late-night Google searches, that she was successful. She was the dynamo he knew she’d become once he cleared out and gave her room to grow. She was where she belonged, and yet when he saw her sitting there on the pier with what looked like paint on her toes, no makeup, and her wavy hair, Matt wanted her.
It was bad enough wanting the memory, that had nearly killed him, but this was different. He wanted the imperfection of who she was now. How was that possible? They barely knew each other, and somehow it all felt better than the memory. Even in all her pissed-off fury and drama, she was still like coming home, finding what was missing, or any other Hallmark card sentiment. He’d worked hard to plug up all those missing pieces a long time ago, but turned to a damn puddle the minute she sat next to him on their pier.
Maybe all of it was a sign telling him to go home, back to the city where they were mixed up with millions of other people practically destined never to set eyes on one another ever again. He needed to get away from this beachside movie set with its setting sun and the glistening water. Hell, even the coldest heart would go all Hallmark here. Once he returned home, things would slip back to normal. All he needed was a little pollution or some obnoxious commuters. Maybe Poppy could come back full-time earlier. He could ask her tomorrow.
Matt rolled over and held the extra pillow over his head. That’s a great idea—ask the new mom if she can work a full-time job a few weeks early because you can’t seem to get over a woman who literally dropped you and the life you thought you knew over twelve years ago. Matt moaned into the pillow. Why was he still letting her stroll right into his heart? Wasn’t once enough? What kind of idiot gets third-degree burns and puts his hand back in the fire because the flames are so warm and pretty?
Throwing off the covers, Matt got into the shower. He was done trying to sleep. “From the first time I saw you, Holls,” he said, and he could hear his own voice loud and clear in the echo of the bathroom. He bumped his head on the tiled shower wall. Jesus Christ! What the hell is wrong with me? Grow up, man. Move on.
After drying off and throwing on a pair of jeans, he grabbed a bottle of water and sat at the small round table in the dark kitchen. He touched his computer and the screen illuminated. God, he missed his den at home. There was a vintage arcade Pac-Man and a pool table, so Matt wasn’t sure his home office qualified as a den, but that’s what the realtor called it when she showed him the apartment, so it stuck. Any time Bradley came over, he loved saying, “Let’s retire to the den.” He was nuts. Innovative and a genius under pressure, but wearing two different socks to client meetings, liked to sit on the floor during staff meetings, nut. Matt was the straight guy to Bradley’s crazy and often wondered if that need to keep order came from being an only child.
When he was growing up, his friends would get into all kinds of trouble, and Matt was the straight guy then too. His parents were working so hard it never occurred to him to give them anything else to deal with, so he did his homework, never snuck out, and rarely drank when he was staying at someone else’s house. His don’t-rock-the-boat mentality may have left him a little pent up in comparison to his friends. Sitting at his computer now, updating the latest development calendar, Matt knew he sounded like some kind of misfit. That was why he steered clear of talking about himself.
It was awkward when some potential client asked, “Well, you know how we guys are when we’re young, right?”
Matt wanted to say, “Actually, my childhood was fairly uneventful,” but instead he usually smiled and agreed with that guy nod he’d perfected from watching his father deal with vendors. He supposed uneventful wasn’t entirely true. When he was four, his older brother by three years was killed by a drunk driver. That came with some baggage or a few colorful issues, but no one wanted that story at a cocktail party. What would that sound like? “Yeah, things get wild. Like the time my brother went to the science museum with his friend and the mom’s car was T-boned by some asshole who had one too many. The mom and my brother’s friend lived. John, my brother, died.” Matt shook his head in the darkness and thought maybe Bradley wasn’t the sole crazy one after all. Anyone who knew Matt had lost his brother asked the same question: “Do you miss him?” No. He was four. He hardly remembered him, but again, that’s not something a normal person said. Maybe normal was overrated. Walking to the small living room wind
ow that looked out toward the bay, Matt wondered where all of this late-night analysis was coming from and promptly answered his own question.
“Hollis,” he whispered to the night. She’d brought it all back and made him question why, in the presence of so much “no, don’t go down that road again,” he wanted her. Why was it so easy for him to soften and hand her his stupid heart all over again? Was he some kind of glutton for punishment because his brother died? Or a sad divorced guy incapable of real love and destined to roam around until the one woman who destroys him every time circles back around? That had to be it. Matt ran a hand over his tired face and sat on the couch to watch the sunrise even though that too reminded him of her.
The sun, how did she manage to take over the sun too?
Chapter Nine
Hollis enjoyed a good sweat. At least she used to in her gym at home, but in the open air, with the cove stretched out behind her, it was hard to focus on her music, her heart rate, anything. It was like the minute she pulled into town, all the structure she thought she had went right out the window. Back home, she clocked four miles on her treadmill before her first shot of espresso, all while watching the news and answering e-mails. “Heart, mind, and soul” was part of her parents’ doctrine growing up, although her mother hated it when Hollis called it a “doctrine.”
“It makes us sound like scientists or something,” she would say. “We are simply human beings trying to raise exceptional human beings,” her mother routinely added with a smile. When Hollis was younger, especially during her high school years, that often translated to “We are exceptional and therefore expect you to be the same or better.” In her angry adolescent head, she heard her mother adding, “As if it’s possible to be better than we are,” followed by a sadistic laugh. After a few decent fights, Hollis outgrew hearing her mother as the lord of darkness and realized the agenda her parents were pushing led somewhere. Hard work was the key to success and as Meg often said, “Hollis drank the Kool-Aid.” She was the oldest. It was her job to set an example, to be a role model for her younger sisters. Not that she’d been doing much of that lately.
Hollis finished running the loop and felt it in her knees as she came down the last hill toward the cabins. Soaked to her socks, she had to admit her body was happier. She’d been a slug for a few weeks now, but last night she’d recalled what her Pilates trainer liked to preach. “It’s all fun and games until the jeans no longer fit.” Hollis had liked the phrase so much she’d put it on her fridge at home.
Home. She hadn’t thought about her apartment or the things in it until last night when she was drowning in his eyes, as if twelve whole years hadn’t passed between them. There she was barefoot, on their pier, and hanging on his every word one more time.
She’d awakened this morning before the sun as if her mind grabbed her heart and said, “Okay, so as punishment for that little stunt, missy, five miles. Get your ass on the road.”
Exercise had worked before, so there was no reason it shouldn’t set her straight this time. Her parents were in Bunny Blue, Sage and Garrett probably cuddled up in Bojangles, and Annabelle thankfully opted for their uncle’s couch because since Hollis put that new ad online and cleaned up the Yelp reviews, Mitchell’s Cove was rarely vacant these days. Her family would leave after breakfast, but there was no hurry. They never hurried when they were here. In fact, most of Hollis’s hang-out-and-relax family memories took place at the cove— it was one of those places that allowed for afternoon naps and where watermelon counted as a meal. Not much slowed the Jeffries clan down, but the cove did.
As Hollis approached her cabin, she heard soft music coming from Toro’s hut. Calm, peaceful, Stevie Wonder, “Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing” music. Hollis used the towel draped over the front gate of her cabin to dry her neck and arms.
Maybe Toro would take her out on the paddleboard, or she could get a kayak for an hour. That sounded restorative, and Hollis needed all the restoring she could find now that she felt a new leaf about to turn. She didn’t want to go back inside the cabin, back to what had become a little sad. She felt restless and wanted to keep moving, keep sweating. Walking along the path, Hollis tried to remember when doing her job had turned her into a person she almost couldn’t tolerate. When had the winning and the climbing won out over what was right and wrong? She reluctantly thought of the mean mom at the hardware store. While she still saw no need to wash her hands for three minutes and would still reserve the occasional “shit,” “fuck,” or both for toe stubbing and stupid people, she remembered one thing the woman had said: “Where is your moral compass?”
Was it possible Hollis had dismantled her life, her persona, on purpose? It’s not like she hadn’t made mistakes before… she had. Granted, she had never allowed herself to be screwed, so to speak, quite like this, but she was made of tough stuff. Wasn’t she? Either way, she wasn’t fired or even asked to take a break. Looking back at the moment she walked out, Hollis wondered if she was simply waiting for the right excuse. She shook her head because that was ridiculous. Why would someone with everything do that?
She hadn’t planned on coming to Mitchell’s Cove. In fact, when she first arrived on her parents’ doorstep, she wasn’t thinking beyond her mother’s chocolate cake, a few days of wine, and someone else figuring out dinner. That had turned into a couple of weeks, which then grew into flip-flops and junk food, but now Hollis wondered about the compass. When she was young, she’d had one; right and wrong were clear, almost rigidly so. Now she couldn’t tell whether anything was absolute.
Now, almost two months had passed and instead of feeling the need to return, she was thinking this might be where she dropped her compass. If she could find it, get it going again, maybe it wouldn’t matter whether Zeke ever coded another line again or if everyone knew what she had done. The cove held bittersweet memories, some of them hard to swallow given her current yucky phase. The world she’d created in the city over the last twelve years stood in glaring contrast to the freshness of the sand and her favorite pier in all the world. Hollis threw the towel over the bench outside the restaurant and began running again. She would visit Toro after another lap, but right now, she still had some things to burn off.
Coach Kurt.
Hollis remembered her high school field hockey coach right as her quads gave up and her legs shifted to other muscles. She needed to finish up soon, but it was appropriate that Coach Aaron Kurt popped into her head. Initially, there hadn’t been enough interest in a girls’ field hockey team, so while they waited, Hollis and two other girls played with the boys. Coach Kurt was ahead of his time because when they were out on the field, male or female, they were all his players. Workouts were the same, and expectations were too. Hollis had loved it all: the challenge and being treated as an equal. The boys, of course, gave her grief, but she was so pumped up by the competition that she barely noticed. Once they couldn’t get a rise from her, they stopped teasing. There were times Hollis was discouraged because while she could practice with the boys, she was still on the bench during games.
Coach used to sit next to her and say, “Someday, Jeffries. You’ll wake up one day and your someday will be here, I promise.”
Hollis shook her head and had replied that it should be now, that she should be out there and able to play like the boys. He’d grinned and said, “Every athlete will tell you patience is far more powerful than impatience. Work on that while you’re sitting here.”
Then he’d go back to coaching his team. The following year, there were enough girls for a team and by Hollis’s senior year, they were state champions. She loved her parents, but now during what was turning into her sweaty scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel moment of reflection, it occurred to her that other people in her life had provided practical guidance without the pressure. Hollis came from a successful family, and that brought with it all sorts of baggage that probably screwed up her compass the older she grew and the higher the stakes became.
Coach Kurt had
no motive other than to help out another kid on the bench. As Hollis came to a stop and put her hands on her knees, she was grateful for him, grateful for the advice, no strings attached.
Kayaking to Dillon Beach had cleared Matt’s head, leaving the faint trace of her that inevitably lingered. He was back in his right mind, which was a good thing because when Hollis came around the tent, dripping in sweat and calling after Toro, he almost swallowed his tongue. That body, all of it tight and shining with sweat, her hair pulled back with pieces wet and curling around her neck, everything he’d managed to settle down suddenly yelled, “Please. Can we still have it?”
“He’s not in yet.” Matt untied Toro’s dog and walked over, trying to face her like a man. Hands on her hips, Hollis was still catching her breath.
“Were you running?”
“No,” she met his eyes with that bite that he never could resist.
“Huh, then you have a serious perspiration issue there, Holls.” Yes, he was making sure he used her nickname every chance he could now that he knew it affected her. What are you, in high school, moron?
“What kind of dog is he or she?” Hollis asked.
“Beagle, and Scooter is a he.”
“Seriously? He doesn’t look like a beagle.”