Plot Twist

by Bethany Turner

  Brandon didn’t know that, and he certainly didn’t know why.

  “Dance with me, Brandon,” Fiona insisted as she pulled him onto the dance floor, and I was left alone in an impossible situation. In true coward’s fashion, I swiveled back to the table with lightning-like reflexes that proved my organs were not on the verge of succumbing to hypothermia after all. I just couldn’t catch a break!

  I wanted to kill her. I’d stuck around and not followed through on my brilliant “slink out like a snake” plan because I knew I never could abandon her that way. She, apparently, felt no such loyalty. Of course the difference, I knew, was that as far as my best friend was concerned, I’d never had any particularly strong feelings for Liam. Yes, the last time I saw him I was kissing him in the kitchen, but that had just been a flash. A mistake. A momentary loss of good judgment. When it came right down to it, Liam and I had never been more than friends, as far as Fiona was concerned. And as Liam’s former best friend—and as Fiona’s forever one—she knew I would be happy to take the bullet for her.

  She was right. I would have to take that bullet. After all, I had been the one to load the gun.

  “Olivia?”

  I took a deep breath and turned back around. “Oh my goodness. Liam? Wow! What in the world are you doing here?”

  His smile faded, though he quickly covered the reaction and forced it to return to his lips. His mouth valiantly acted like everything was fine—though his eyes seemed to tell a different story—and the smile grew larger as he raised his hand in gentle greeting. I forced my face and my hand to mirror his. At least, I hoped that’s what I was doing. I hoped that the total demise and destruction of my heart and soul wasn’t on display for all the world to see.

  I decided I had to take control of the situation, so I circled around the table to him. It wasn’t a long walk, but I had far too much time to absorb the sight of him. He looked older, but not in the ways I knew I probably looked older. While I continually found myself having to increase my use of moisturizer and night cream in order to combat the tiny lines at my eyes, his face had simply gone from that of a handsome young man to that of a sexy mature guy. His jawline was accentuated in a new and tantalizing way by the slightly longer sideburns that accompanied his slightly longer hair. He’d clearly gained some weight, though every last pound appeared to be pure muscle.

  And he was wearing jeans. Liam had always been as comfortable in a three-piece suit as most people were in their sweats, and his lazy-Saturday-at-home wardrobe had been khakis and a button-up. But in that nightclub—an environment in which I’d never even imagined him—he wore jeans that fit perfectly and a T-shirt with sleeves that didn’t seem completely convinced they were strong enough to contain his biceps.

  “Well, hey,” I said as I approached, determined to appear relaxed and unaffected. I would refuse to give him any reason to suspect I had been anything less than completely truthful when I had denied loving him.

  “Hey, yourself.” His smile appeared as genuine as mine. He leaned in and hugged me, and it wasn’t nostalgic. Or even warm. It was a formality. Well, for him it was only a formality. For me it was pain and regret and a longing to turn back time.

  “So, um, seriously, what brings you to Boston?” It was a feeble attempt to pretend location was the aspect of running into him that was most shocking to my senses.

  “I live here, actually.”

  “Oh, wow. Are you at Harvard too, or—”

  He shook his head. “No. Still practicing law. I left LA and spent some time at a nonprofit in New Orleans, of all places, and then one of my old law professors called me with an offer to join his private practice in Beacon Hill about a year ago—”

  “Beacon Hill, huh? Not exactly nonprofit work now, I’d imagine.”

  He laughed. “No. Not exactly. But, hey . . . what about you? Are you and Fiona just here for a visit, or—”

  “I’m gonna go dance,” Samantha interjected, and I looked at her differently as she silently and effortlessly placed her hand in his. She was tall, thin, blonde, and beautiful—and obviously brilliant too. What had Sonya said Samantha did at Harvard? Some sort of law professor.

  Liam turned his head and smiled at her, and I tried to ignore the sting that accompanied the realization that for her his smile was genuine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even introduce you—”

  “No, it’s fine. We met back at the country club.” Kindness and confidence exuded from her as she grinned at me. “You take your time catching up.” She kissed him lightly on the lips, and then she was on the dance floor with everyone else, and only Liam and I remained.

  The only thing I wanted more than to run away as quickly as I could was to stay right where I was with him forever.

  He tore his eyes away from the huddled mass under the flashing strobe lights, where one ex-girlfriend danced about four feet away from his current one. “So, um . . . are you just visiting?”

  The music got even louder—somehow. “Yeah,” I shouted. “Just for the weekend. We didn’t know Brandon would be here too—”

  “Hang on!” He whipped his head toward the dance floor and then back to me. “That’s your Brandon?”

  I nodded. “Small world, huh?”

  He said something, but it was completely drowned out by the pounding.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I pointed to my ears in the universal symbol for “I’m way too old to spend my time at a place like this.”

  “I said—” But then he stopped and shook his head. “Never mind.” He glanced down at the glasses on the table and looked like he desperately wanted to drink something, but there were six glasses and two beer bottles, and he didn’t seem too sure that any of them were his.

  We stood there awkwardly, not saying a word, just watching—or at least pretending to watch, in my case—the people swirling all around us.

  “If you want to go dance—”

  His dismissal of the notion came with head-to-toe vehemence. “I don’t, as a matter of fact. I think I’d rather go test the structural integrity of the ice on the Harbor, if you please.”

  Laughter erupted from my chest. “So you haven’t changed too much.”

  “But don’t let me stop you if you want to get out there.” I just tilted my head and raised my eyebrow, and the corners of his mouth rose. “And neither have you.”

  Before I could think better of it, I said, as loudly as I could, “There’s a Starbucks across the street.”

  “Yes, please!”

  We grabbed our coats and made our way toward the door. He stopped briefly by Samantha and spoke into her ear and pointed across the street. She nodded, kissed him, and then waved at me like we were old friends. Fiona was dancing with Sean and Logan, or whatever his name was, so I grabbed Brandon.

  “Tell Fi I’ll meet her back at the hotel later, okay?”

  “Are you alright?”

  “Fine. Just going to grab some coffee with Liam.”

  He nodded. “Be careful. And hey, sis . . . I’m proud of you. Sorry we got so sidetracked from your big news.”

  There would be time to clean up that mess later. I squeezed his arm, stood on my tiptoes, and said into his ear, “Sonya is awesome. Don’t mess it up!”

  Ten seconds later Liam was closing the door behind us, and it was totally worth the price of frostbite in exchange for silence.

  “I feel like I’m still yelling,” he said as we crossed the street. “Am I still yelling?”

  “A little!” I yelled back with a chuckle.

  He held the door open for me, and then we were once again enveloped by warmth—but the smell of rum had been replaced by coffee beans, the sound of techno beats had been replaced by soft acoustic folk, and the hip and trendy crowd had been replaced by urban professionals tap-tap-tapping on their keyboards. We grabbed a table in the corner and set down our coats, then I began walking toward the counter.

  “I’ve got it.” He walked backward to the barista so he could look at me. “What’ll it be?�
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  “Peach Tranquility hot tea. Thanks.”

  “Okay, I take back what I said. You have changed.”

  I shrugged and bared my teeth in a wide grin. “And a chocolate croissant?”

  “That’s better.”

  A contented sigh escaped after he turned away. Stop that, Liv. There is no contentment to be found here. Although as soon as I began arguing with myself, I found myself arguing with my argument. Okay, so we weren’t going to end up together. He’d clearly moved on, and he looked happier than I had ever seen him. I’d only been in his presence a few minutes, but it was easy to tell his new life suited him. Boston suited him. Samantha suited him. Jeans suited him.

  I diverted my eyes to the Ethos Water sign before he could catch me admiring just how much jeans suited him.

  He stayed by the pickup window and put his debit card back into his wallet as he waited for our drinks, and I watched him. Goodness, I’d missed him. More than I’d allowed myself to realize. For so long I’d been focused on the heartbreak of it all. I’d been focused on the charade of it all—the charade I would probably continue in forever in order to protect my friendship with Fi. But it had been a while since I’d allowed myself to think about how much I missed my friend.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I had dared to reminisce about the ritual of our Monday dinners when Fiona was in Paris. About the ridiculous things we would buy at flea markets on Saturdays. About how he so patiently tried to explain baseball to me at Dodger Stadium and then still wanted me to go to games with him even after it became evident that I would never get it.

  “Here you go.” He set our goods on the table. “One namby-pamby tea and a chocolate croissant.”

  “Thank you very much. And for the record, I don’t want to drink namby-pamby tea instead of coffee. I’m just getting old and can’t handle caffeine this late at night anymore.”

  Nice, Liv. Way to defend your bold and sexy choice.

  He smiled. “I get it.” He pointed to his cup. “Half-caf.”

  “Wow.” I pointed my thumb over my shoulder, back toward the club. “You are dating someone so much cooler than you.”

  I had not meant to dive straight in like that, but if he noticed my embarrassment, he didn’t let on.

  “No kidding.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Let’s be truthful: that’s always been my type.”

  I chuckled nervously. I knew he meant Fi. Maybe he meant me, too, whether I would agree with my classification as cool or not. (I would not.) Either way, I wanted to get off the subject of Liam’s past relationships.

  “How did you and Samantha meet?”

  Well, shoot. I hadn’t wanted to stay on the subject of Liam’s current relationship either.

  “She’s a clinical law professor, so she works with different firms in the area where students can get some on-the-job training. My firm has a tradition of handing off the Harvard Law students to the newbie.”

  “As initiation?”

  “Essentially. It’s a lot of extra work and fewer billable hours.” He took another sip and smiled. “If they’d known Sam had transferred from Princeton, I think a few of the guys might have sacrificed a few billable hours.”

  You are a strong, independent woman, Olivia Ross, and you will not sink to the level of disliking another strong, independent woman simply because she was smart enough to snatch up what you discarded.

  “And how long have you been dating?”

  “Almost three weeks.”

  “That’s . . . great, Liam. She seems just . . . great.”

  He nodded. “Thanks. She is. But what about you? Are you seeing anyone?”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. “Nope. Not right now.” That was good enough. He didn’t need to know that he had been the last person I kissed. He didn’t need to know that I hadn’t dated anyone since Malcolm. “I saw Malcolm last year.” What the what?! Why did I say that?! “I mean, I only bring that up because . . .” Why? Why? Why? “. . . because, well, it’s a funny story.” For one brief, shining moment, Liam, I thought you were bidding a hundred thousand dollars to dance with me, but when that dream was dashed, I at least thought Hamish MacDougal would be waiting somewhere for me. But in the end, all I got was a torn Vera Wang dress, a whole lot of disappointment, and one epic dance/fight with my cheating ex-boyfriend. Oh, how we laughed!

  “A funny Malcolm story, huh?” He shuffled in his seat. “Well, I’d love to hear it.” There was more sincerity in our love for our reduced caffeine tolerance than there was in that statement.

  I looked at him for a couple seconds and then dropped my eyes as I shook my head. “No. It wasn’t funny. It was just . . . Well, it was just another absurd February 4.”

  “Hang on. You saw Malcolm on February 4?”

  “Yep. And Hamish MacDougal. And George Clooney, although I’m afraid George’s involvement may have been a one-time thing.”

  “That’s what I was going to say earlier.”

  My eyes snapped back up to his face. “You know something about George?”

  He laughed. “No. About February 4. You were talking about it being a small world, and I was going to point out that today—”

  “Oh. Yeah. Trust me, it’s crossed my mind.” I watched the tea bag swirl around in response to the circular motion of my wrist. “The truth is the only reason Fi and I chose now to visit our parents was to avoid all the February 4 insanity that seems to follow me around in LA.”

  “You waited nearly the whole decade to take that flight . . .”

  “Hmm?”

  “Nothing.” He chuckled. “Just adapting Alanis lyrics to fit the situation.”

  I’d forgotten how comforting it always had been to talk about the Ironic Day madness with Liam as opposed to Fi. Yes, Fi was supportive, and yes, she had indulged my desire—in retrospect my foolhardy, pointless desire—to try to escape it. But I always knew she loved it. She probably had scars on her lips from all the times she’d had to bite down to keep from encouraging me to “get lost in the magic.”

  But Liam was sensible. Apart from his insistence that I chase down Hamish in the international terminal at LAX—when, admittedly, the “magic” had been difficult to deny and he had been in the early days of Fiona’s romantic influence—he had always landed squarely more in the “Hmm, that’s weird” perspective category with me.

  “Now here we are,” he continued. “You fly across the country, and I agree to go out dancing with people I don’t know—and you know how much I love all those things . . . going out . . . dancing . . . people I don’t know—all to avoid this day. So of course the people I don’t know include my girlfriend’s friend’s boyfriend. Your brother. I mean, when you think about it, the odds were stacked against us not ending the evening together at a Starbucks in downtown Boston.”

  He stared at his cup, and I stared at him. Had he meant to reveal as much as he just had? Two years and three thousand miles away, was it possible that for him February 4 remained Olivia Ross Day?

  “I’m sorry about how weird this is,” I said, once I felt confident my voice would hold.

  “Well, it really couldn’t ever be any other way, could it?”

  I exhaled. “No. I suppose not.”

  I watched his shoulders rise and fall with deliberation three times in a row before he appeared to shake off whatever was consuming him.

  “How is Fiona?”

  Ah. Of course. That’s what’s eating at him.

  Not that I doubted he had all sorts of emotions associated with me swirling around in his mind, but the sadness of his hunched shoulders and the uncertainty of his darting eyes . . . Fiona made more sense.

  He’d broken her heart, and he knew it. He probably couldn’t allow himself to dwell on the pain he had caused, because if he did, he wouldn’t know how to go on. As a result, he had probably spent two years hoping he would never have to face her again.

  Just like I’d spent two years hoping I would never have to face him again. Just like I had
fought every day to keep myself from dwelling on the pain I had caused him, because when I allowed that to consume me, I didn’t know how to go on. Because I’d broken his heart, and I knew it. He had risked, and ultimately given up, everything in order to take a chance on a life with me. And when he did, I had cruelly allowed my kiss to reveal every emotion I felt—and refused to let my words confirm a thing.

  As the heartbreaker, he’d probably hoped for avoidance. But as the heartbreakee? Had he prepared himself for the possibility of one day running into me? Was I the encounter he had fortified his heart against? We had an entire country between us, but of all places, he’d moved to my hometown. He had to have known there was a chance. Had he comforted himself with the knowledge that there were more than four million people in the greater Boston area while still preparing himself for it—body, mind, and soul? Had he practiced the words he would say and perfected the ability to keep the smile on his face? Had he trained himself in the art of concealed emotions?

  As much as I wanted to believe otherwise, maybe Fiona didn’t make more sense after all.

  “She’s good, Liam.” I quickly wiped the moisture from my eyes before he looked up at me again. “She’s great. It takes a lot more than the likes of you to keep Fiona Mitchell down—don’t kid yourself.”

  He laughed softly and raised his head. “I have no doubt about that.” All the same, he exhaled a shaky breath, and I sensed it was a breath he’d been holding for two years.

  “She’s working at this huge nonprofit—”

  “She doesn’t work for Shonda Rhimes anymore?”

  “Nope. You know—this way she can be fabulous and save the world. It suits her.”

  A warm smile overtook his face. “And how about you? You saw Hamish MacDougal last year. Did you slip him the screenplay?”

  I groaned. “We didn’t actually speak. Besides . . .”

  “Still working on it?”

  Laughter burst from me. “I’m never going to finish the stupid thing!”

  He joined in, though I sensed he wasn’t laughing with me so much as he was laughing at my uncontrollable chuckling.