by Amy Brent
Blake shot Michelle a cautious look. “How old is he, exactly?”
“Four,” Amanda said.
Blake gave her a level stare. “Are you planning to bring him to the wedding?”
Amanda frowned, grinding her teeth. “Well, yeah. It's kind of a big event. I'm sure he's going to love it.”
“It's just,” Blake said, “I don't think there's really going to be any other kids there.”
Amanda was about to snap and say that if her son wasn't welcome, she wouldn't be coming either. But Michelle interjected. “It'll be fine.” Michelle waved a hand dismissively. “He's old enough that he won't be crying or anything. Besides, he should be there when his Aunt Michelle gets married.”
Amanda froze, a chill running down her spine. As far as she knew, Michelle had no idea that she was actually James's aunt. She was sure Michelle had just meant it figuratively, the way some kids referred to their mom's best friend as an aunt.
Though it made Amanda remember her other big concern about the weekend. “Is Cole going to be there?”
Michelle's expression dropped and she pressed her lips together in a thin line. “Yeah. Yeah, he is.”
Amanda felt her face heat up.
“Hey, I need to go to the bathroom,” Michelle said.
“Me too.” Amanda got up to join her.
Once they were in the privacy of the bathroom, Michelle started touching up her makeup in the mirror. “Is everything going to be okay with you and Cole?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Amanda said, shrugging. “I mean, I guess so. It was a long time ago. I don't really care anymore.”
“I was mad at him for a long time for what he did to you,” Michelle said. “I still can't believe he took advantage of you like that.”
“Yeah,” Amanda said, letting out a nervous laugh. Looking back on it now, she wasn't sure whether she'd been taken advantage of. She'd wanted it. Wanted him. Wanted to give herself to him. If not for how he'd run out on her in the morning and never called again, she would have been happy.
“Has he ever...asked about me?” Amanda asked, looking into the mirror in order to avoid meeting Michelle's eye.
Michelle glanced at her sidelong while she reapplied her lipstick. “Not for a while.”
“Not for a while?” Amanda frowned and turned to Michelle. “What do you mean?”
Michelle shrugged. “Well, he asked about you a couple of times, years ago. I told him to leave you alone. I didn't want him leading you on.”
“What? You...you told him not to call me?”
“Well, yeah.” Michelle pouted, putting her hands on Amanda's shoulders “Look, hon, you had enough on your plate. After you started dating Robert and he got you knocked up, I knew the last thing you needed was my brother trying to cheat his way into your pants again. You were better off.”
“Yeah,” Amanda said, frowning and turning away. “Maybe.” Of course, Michelle didn't know that Amanda had never slept with Robert. She'd gone on two or three dates with him over the summer after high school, then broken up with him when she'd found out that she was pregnant. Claiming the baby was Robert's had been the less humiliating option, especially since he'd moved to Florida for college in the fall. Amanda had never heard from him again, and she didn't much care if Michelle thought he was a deadbeat dad. It was better than her knowing that her brother was the father.
Though as they returned to the table and the conversation returned to the wedding and the rehearsal dinner, she was reminded once again that she would soon have to face Cole for the first time in years. And she had no idea what she was going to say to him.
Chapter 4
Cole pulled his rental car up to his parents' house, then stopped to look at the long line of cars that stretched down the block on both sides of the street. He had never seen it this busy here before. The house was in the wealthier part of town—he'd bought his parents a new house with the money from his first big signing bonus, as a thank you for all of their support through his high school and college years. The neighborhood was far from crowded, and he didn't know what was going on.
When he walked into the house, he was greeted with applause. There were dozens of people there. Some of them were old high school friends, plus people he knew from his dad's country club, and others from his mom's book club. But there were many more he didn't know.
“Welcome home, son,” his dad said, shaking his hand and clapping him on the back.
“Thanks. What's all this?” He gestured around to the large crowd.
“Well, when word got around that you were coming home, there were a bunch of people that wanted to meet you. It started off as a small gathering, but I guess it grew into quite a party.”
He had little choice but to make the rounds and start greeting people. Most of them fawned over him, the men asking him about the latest game and whether he thought his team was going to the Superbowl. Men who had yelled at him when he was a boy—for smashing their pumpkins on Halloween or playing football in the street and blocking traffic—now shook his hand and treated him like he was a prince. His junior high English teacher, who'd once called him “a worthless little shit who was never going to go anywhere with his life,” came up to him, patted him on the back, and raved about how he'd always known that Cole was going to be a success.
And then there were the girls. He recognized a few of them from his high school days: girls who had never so much as given him the time of day. Now they wanted to talk to him and catch up on old times. Others he didn't know at all, though they all said they'd met him at some point or another. The younger sister of this girl he went to school with, the cousin of some other girl who had supposedly been on the cheerleading squad, and others with vaguer connections they used as an excuse to talk to him. More than one asked him if he had a date for the wedding, but he evaded the question every time. He wasn't sure what was going on with the wedding, but he wasn't interested in going with some random girl who only cared about him because his name had been on the news a few times.
By the time he'd made his way through most of the crowd, he realized there was one person that wasn't here. The one person he'd actually been looking forward to seeing again.
Eventually he decided to just bite the bullet and ask about her. He corralled his sister into Dad's study and shut the door behind them so they could have some privacy. “Hey,” he said. “Some party, huh?”
“Yeah.” She smirked and stuck her hands in her pockets. “It was supposed to be a wedding party for me, but I think most of these people just showed up to see you.”
Her tone was teasing and playful, but Cole couldn't help but feel a bit guilty. “Sorry about that. If I'd known they were planning something like this, I would have gotten them to cancel it.”
“Oh, sure. Like Dad would give up the chance to show off his famous son for the whole town to see.”
Cole laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, I guess he likes having the chance to live in the spotlight.”
He cleared his throat, then pushed forward onto the topic he really wanted to ask about. “So, hey, listen. How's your friend Amanda been? Is she coming to the wedding?”
Michelle's expression dropped into a cold stare. “What do you care? You haven't seen her in years.”
Cole shrugged, rubbing the back of his head and looking down at the carpet. “I dunno. I just wondered if she was going to be around. It'd be nice to catch up.”
Michelle crossed her arms, eyeing him suspiciously. “Well, she'll be in the wedding. But I'm sure she's going to be too busy to catch up. Bridesmaid duties and all that.”
“Hmm.” Cole rubbed his chin. “Well, maybe we can get together before the wedding. I've got nothing but free time this weekend. Any chance you can give me her number? I'd really like to get in touch with her.”
Michelle stared him down, chewing on her lip. “Well, she just got a new phone,” she said. “I don't have the new number yet. So, I guess you're out of luck.”
Michelle walked
past him and out the door. Cole watched her go, frowning at her back. He had the feeling Michelle was lying to him, but there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it. It wasn't like he could steal her phone and go through her contacts list.
But now he was more determined than ever to track Amanda down. How hard could it be? They lived in a small town, and there were plenty of other people he could ask. It shouldn't be too difficult, he figured, to find a way to get into touch with her.
Chapter 5
Amanda worked a double on Friday, to make up for the hours she was going to lose by going to Michelle's wedding. It was a long, grueling shift, and by the end of it, her feet were so sore that she had to lean on the counter as she walked. She really wanted nothing more than to go home, stick her feet in the cheap little foot bath she'd gotten for Christmas a couple of years ago, and forget about the rest of the world. Though her shift wasn't quite over yet, and the end of the night always seemed to drag on and on.
She was down to her last table of the night, and she was spending most of her time finishing up side work so that she'd be able to go home on time. Tonight's side work was refilling all of the ketchup bottles; the diner washed and reused the ketchup bottles to save money, and refilled them from a bulk container. She had a line of ketchup bottles set up on a table near the back, with the mostly-empty bottles turned upside-down and balanced atop others to drain ketchup into them, so the empty bottles could be washed. It was a tedious and sticky process, though she had to admit it was better than what she went through changing out the salt and pepper shakers.
She was starting to load the emptied bottles onto a disk rack when the bell over the door sounded, announcing the arrival of another customer. She sighed and let out a low groan. Late-night customers could be some of the worst, especially when they didn't understand that half the kitchen was already being shut down, so certain items from the menu weren't available this late at night. She hauled the ketchup bottles back to the dish room, then headed up front, grabbing a menu for the guy who'd just walked in the door.
“Hi,” Amanda said. “Just a table for one?”
“Hey, Amanda.”
Amanda froze in place, looking up at the guy's face. A familiar, handsome face.
Cole.
“What...why...?” She stared at him, then looked awkwardly around the empty dining room, brushing a strand of hair back over her ear. She had still been working up the courage to face him at the wedding itself. She was completely unprepared for him to just walk into the diner like this.
“I heard you worked here,” Cole said. “I wanted to see you. You...you look great.”
Amanda turned her face away. She was sure Cole was just being polite. Her uniform was stained, she smelled like soggy hash browns, and her hair was a mess. Plus she'd put on a fair bit of weight during her pregnancy, and four years of eating mostly diner food at work and frozen dinners at home hadn't done her waistline any favors. Though the smile Cole was giving her certainly seemed genuine.
“I'm busy,” she said. “I can't...I can't really have people coming here while I work.”
“What if I order something?” Cole sat in the first booth, giving her a playful smile. “What's good? Do you have pie?”
Amanda shrugged, chewing on her lip. “It's not fresh. I mean, I guess it's okay.”
“Pie sounds good then,” Cole said. “Something chocolaty? And a cup of coffee.”
“Sure.” Amanda set the menu down and went to cut Cole a slice of the chocolate cream pie. She brought it over to him along with a cup of black coffee. Then she stood there awkwardly, playing with the strands of her apron.
“How've you been?” Cole asked. He looked up at her, toying with his fork, not touching the pie.
“I'm...I'm really good,” she said, forcing a smile. There was no way she was going to admit to Cole, the superstar quarterback, that she was living in poverty while raising his son all by herself. “Things have been great. Really great.”
“Are you in school? I remember you were going to some music school. You were like, in the band, right?”
Amanda let out a wry laugh, shaking her head. She hadn't touched a musical instrument in years. “Yeah, that umm...didn't work out.”
The truth was, she'd been forced to drop out of the music school in her second semester. She'd managed to struggle her way through one semester even while she was pregnant with James, but after he'd been born, she'd had her hands full, and she hadn't been able to get back into classes. For a while she'd promised herself that it was only a temporary break, and that she'd get back into school when she got the chance. But it was looking more and more like that chance had long since passed her by, and her old flute was just collecting dust somewhere in the back of her closet.
“Well, that's a shame,” Cole said. “So, what have you been up to? Are you...seeing anyone?”
She shook her head. “I don't really have much time for dating.”
“What about the wedding?” Cole flashed her a charming smile. “Michelle said you're going to be one of her bridesmaids. Are you bringing anyone? Cause if not, well, I was wondering...”
“Wondering what?” Amanda said, scowling at him. “Wondering if I'd hook up with you after the wedding?”
“What? No, it's not like that.”
“Then what is it like?” Amanda planted her hands on her hips, staring him down. “We slept together once, over five years ago, and you figured you've made your way through enough other girls by now that you want to start back at the beginning?” She'd heard a thing or two about Cole's reputation with girls. From what she understood, she wasn't the only one he'd tossed to the curb when he was done with her.
“Look, I...” Cole spread his hands, looking up at her apologetically. But if he meant to apologize, the words seemed to die in his throat.
He got up and took a step towards the door. “I just thought maybe you'd like to catch up is all,” he said. “I know it's been a long time, and I know maybe I lost my chance, back in the day. But I just...”
He shook his head and turned away. “I guess I'll see you around,” he said.
Amanda watched him leave. She wanted to go out and talk to him. To find out if he really wanted to “catch up,” or if he was just trying to get back into her pants. To tell him that he had a son, and that he had an obligation to help take care of him. But she couldn't find the words.
Her thoughts were interrupted when her last table started calling for her, asking for their check. She handed them their check and cleared their plates. When she came back up from the dish room, she found they'd left her a whole two dollars. She tucked it into the pocket of her apron, fighting back the tears that welled in her eyes.
She finished cleaning up and refilling the ketchup bottles, hurrying as much as she could so she wouldn't miss the last bus home. The entire time, she kept thinking about Cole, about him being back in town, and about whether she'd have the courage to ever come forward and tell him the truth about his son. She was so distracted that she didn't finish her work on time, and she was still wiping down her tables in the back dining room when she looked out the window and saw her bus driving past.
She muttered a curse, clocked out, and hurried out the door, hoping she could catch up to the bus at the next stop down the road. But the bus made every green light and drove on ahead, soon vanishing out of sight.
She sighed and started trudging down the road for the long walk home, pulling out her phone to call Mrs. Carter and let her know that she'd be late picking up James.
Chapter 6
After he left the diner, Cole drove his rental car around town, wandering aimlessly. His thoughts were clouded, and all he could think about was what an ass he'd been. He'd been a fool to think that Amanda would want to talk to him, would want anything to do with him. She had been right about his reputation. Most of the girls he'd slept with, he didn't even remember their names, or anything about them. Why would Amanda think that it would be any different with her?
> He drove around for a while, looking at the old, familiar sights of the town he'd grown up in. He drove past the IHOP where he'd worked as a busboy one summer in high school, and past the school's football field where he'd attracted the attention of recruiters and made a name for himself. Those days were long since past, however, and he knew this town was no longer a part of his life.
After driving in circles for a while, he found himself not far from the diner where Amanda worked. He thought about going back inside to apologize to her, to try to explain himself. But he couldn't think what to say.
He was about to drive on past the place and head home, when he spotted Amanda walking down the street. He slowed down as he approached her, wondering why she'd be walking home in the middle of the night. He had assumed she had a car; it hadn't occurred to him until he saw her walking that her restaurant job probably didn't pay her enough to afford one.
He pulled alongside the curb next to her and rolled down the window. “Hey, Amanda.”
She looked at him, an irritated scowl on her face. “Go away, Cole.”
“Amanda, don't be like that. Come on, let me give you a ride.”
“I'm fine,” she said. She pulled her jacket tighter around herself. “Why don't you just head along home? I'm sure the big welcoming party must still be going. You guys used to party all night, didn't you?”
“I'm not in college anymore,” Cole said. Sure, he and his friends used to stay up until all hours of the night, drinking and partying. But being in a professional football team was different. He had to keep himself fit, and early morning training sessions weren't easy to keep up with when you were hung over.
“Come on,” he said, “it's freezing out there. And it looks like it's going to rain.” He peered through the windshield up and the cloudy night sky. There wasn't a single star in sight.
Amanda stopped walking and looked up at the sky. Cole stopped the car right next to her. He leaned across and opened the door for her. “Please?” he said. “I owe you at least a ride home.”