by Ana Huang
It helped me more than any verbal platitudes could.
I checked off the items one by one, but I was like a robot going through the motions. I didn’t feel anything. It was like I showed up at Josh’s house, depleted every emotion, and now I was running dry.
I didn’t know what made me turn to Josh when our relationship was already so complicated, but he was the first person who popped into my mind when I was trying to figure out what to do.
Strong. Comforting. Logical. He was everything I needed when I needed it.
Now, as I listened to the Whittlesburg funeral home director rattle off last-minute details, I wished Josh was still with me. Of course, that was unreasonable. He had work; he couldn’t just up and join me in Ohio. Plus, he’d left for New Zealand that morning and wouldn’t be back until next week.
A pang pierced my heart at the thought.
“That’s everything we need. We should be all set for tomorrow.” The funeral home director stood and held out his hand. “Again, I’m deeply sorry for your loss, Ms. Ambrose.”
“Thank you.” I mustered a smile. I’d used Ambrose instead of Miller since it was my legal name, but it sounded strange coming from his mouth. Ambrose belonged to my life in D.C. Miller belonged here.
Two lives, two different people.
Except here I was, Jules Ambrose in Ohio, and it was even more surreal than I imagined.
I shook his hand and quickly left, my steps eating up the distance between his office and the exit until the sun’s golden warmth spilled over me. But once I was outside the dark, dreary confines of the funeral home, I didn’t know where to go.
Just two days ago, I’d walked across the stage in D.C.’s Nationals Park, shook my dean’s hand, and accepted my law school diploma.
Three years of hard work—seven, if you counted pre-law—distilled into one sheet of paper.
It was both glorious and anticlimactic.
In fact, I barely remembered my graduation. It’d passed in a blur, and I begged off dinner with my friends so I could pack for Ohio. I left the next morning, AKA yesterday, and had spent all my time thus far making funeral arrangements. It was a small, simple ceremony, but every decision exhausted me.
I was scheduled to fly back to D.C. after tomorrow morning’s funeral. Until then, I had to figure out how to fill the rest of my afternoon and evening. There wasn’t exactly a lot happening in town.
I stared at the lone flyer tumbling down the sidewalk, the used lot of rusted cars across the street, and the brown brick buildings squatting next to each other like weary travelers at a rest stop. Down the street, a group of children played hopscotch, their faint laughter the only signs of life in the stagnant air.
Whittlesburg, Ohio. A speck of a town near the relative behemoth of Columbus, extraordinary only in its utter ordinariness.
Being back was like walking through a dream. I expected to wake up any second, fumbling for the snooze button while the breathy scream of Stella’s hair dryer crept beneath my door.
Instead of an alarm clock, a public bus roared past, drenching me in its exhaust and wrenching me out of my trance.
Gross.
I finally moved again. The funeral home sat on the outskirts of downtown, and it didn’t take me long to reach Whittlesburg’s social and financial center. It consisted of only half a dozen blocks of businesses packed side by side.
Not a dream.
I was actually here. There was the diner where my friends and I hung out after school dances. There was the bowling alley where we took field trips in elementary school, and the little antique shop with the creepy dolls in its window. Everyone was convinced the shop was haunted, and we would run every time we passed it, like the spirits who dwelled inside would reach out and snatch us if we lingered too long.
Returning to Whittlesburg was like entering a time capsule. Other than a shiny new chain restaurant and the cafe that had replaced old Sal’s laundromat, it hadn’t changed a bit in the past seven years.
I ducked my head and ignored the curious stares of a group of high school girls clustered on the street corner. By some miracle, I hadn’t run into anyone I knew yet, but it would only be a matter of time. I dreaded the questions that would arise once I did.
The thing about small towns was that they had long memories...for better or for worse.
I breathed a silent sigh of relief when I reached my hotel. Forget finding something to do in town. I just wanted to lock myself in my room, order room service, and watch pay-per-view all night long.
I reached into my bag, searching for my—
“Hey, Red.”
I froze, my hand still half in my tote. Disbelief twisted my heart and quickened its pace until every beat pounded in my head like a drum.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
It couldn’t be him. Maybe the milkshake I’d gulped down at lunch warped my brain and I was currently in the middle of a sugar-induced hallucination.
Because there was no way that was him.
But when I lifted my head, I saw his favorite gray sweatshirt. His worn duffel bag slung over his shoulder. His distinctive dimple as his lips curved into a smile so soft it obliterated all the edges of my resistance.
“Surprise.” Josh’s voice seeped through me like warm honey. “Missed me?”
“I—you…” My mouth opened and closed in what I presumed was a deeply unflattering imitation of a goldfish. “You’re supposed to be in New Zealand.”
“Change of plans.” He shrugged with a casualness people reserved for a change in dinner orders, not international flights. “I’d rather be here.”
“Why?”
Thudthudthud. Was it normal for a human heart to beat this fast?
“I want to visit the crochet museum.”
Maybe I fell asleep at the funeral home and entered the Twilight Zone, because this was too absurd to be reality. “What?”
“The crochet museum,” he repeated. “It’s world famous.”
Whittlesburg’s crochet museum was the town’s biggest attraction, but it wasn’t world famous by any stretch of the imagination.
The Eiffel Tower, Machu Picchu, Great Wall of China…and the Betty Jones Crochet Museum? Yeah, no.
“World famous, huh?” Something strange and fluttery was happening in my stomach. I never wanted it to stop.
“Yep.” Josh’s dimple deepened. “Read about it in a magazine in an airport, and I was so inspired I changed flights last minute. I’ll take crochet over sailing the Milford Sound any day.”
A knot of emotion lodged itself in my throat. “Well, far be it for me to question your love for crochet.” Do not cry in the lobby. “Are you staying at this hotel?”
“Depends.” Josh stuffed his hand in his pocket, his eyes never leaving mine. “Do you want me to stay here?”
A small, scared part of me wanted to say no. It would be so easy to run up to my room and lock myself in there until my mom’s funeral, then leave and pretend the trip never happened.
But I was so tired of running. So tired of fighting the world and myself at the same time, of pretending everything was okay when I struggled just to keep my head above water.
It was okay to reach for a life raft, no matter what form it came in.
Mine happened to come in the form of Josh Chen.
I dipped my head in a small nod, not trusting myself to speak.
His face softened. “Come here, Red.”
That was all I needed.
I flew to him and buried my face in his chest while his arms closed around me. He smelled like soap and citrus, and his sweatshirt was soft against my cheek.
The curious stares of the receptionist and other hotel guests burned into my side. We would be the subject of town gossip by tomorrow, no doubt, but I didn’t care.
For the first time since I landed in Ohio, I could breathe.
36
JOSH
I hadn’t planned to fly to Ohio.
I made it all the way to the airport for m
y New Zealand flight, but when boarding started, all I could think about was Jules. What she was doing, how she was doing, whether she’d landed safely. The hikes and activities I’d spent months planning held as much interest to me as watching paint dry.
So, instead of flying to my number two bucket list destination (after Antarctica), I’d headed straight to the ticket counter and bought the next flight to Columbus.
Trading New Zealand for Whittlesburg. I was truly fucked in the head, and I couldn’t even bring myself to be mad about it.
“Gird your loins,” Jules said as we made a left onto a quiet, tree-lined street. “You’re about to get your mind blown.”
After I dropped off my bag, I’d convinced her to join me on my museum outing. Perhaps I should’ve chosen a more interesting excuse than a crochet museum, but I read about it on my bus ride from Columbus and it was listed as the town’s top attraction. That had to count for something, right?
My eyebrows rose. “Did you just use the phrase gird your loins? What are you, eighty?”
“For your information, Stanley Tucci’s character uses it in The Devil Wears Prada, and both Stanley and the movie are amazing.”
“Yeah, and how old is the amazing Stanley?”
Jules cast a sidelong glance in my direction. “I don’t appreciate the snark, especially considering the free, in-depth tour I just gave you.”
I fought a smile. “It was a fifteen-minute walk, Red.”
“During which I pointed out the town’s best restaurant, the bowling alley, the shop that had a ten-second cameo in a Bruce Willis movie, and the hair salon where I got bangs for a brief, horrifying time in high school,” she said. “That’s priceless information, Chen. You can’t find that anywhere in guidebooks.”
“I’m pretty sure I can find the first three in guidebooks.” I tugged on a lock of her hair. “Not a fan of bangs?”
“Absolutely not. Bangs and pink eyeshadow. My hard nos.”
“Hmm, I think you’d look good with bangs.” Jules would look good with anything.
Even now, with purple shadows smudged beneath her eyes and lines of tension bracketing her mouth, she was so fucking beautiful I couldn’t stop looking at her.
Her looks hadn’t changed drastically over the years, but something had changed.
I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Before, Jules was beautiful in the way grass was green and oceans were deep. It was a fact of life, but not something that particularly touched me.
Now, she was beautiful in a way that made me want to drown in her, to let her fill every inch of my soul until she fucking consumed me. It didn’t matter if it killed me, because in a world where I was surrounded by death, she was the only thing that made me feel alive.
“Trust me, I don’t. Anyway, enough about my hair.” Jules swept her arm at the building before us. “Behold, the world-famous Betty Jones Crochet Museum.”
My gaze lingered on her as we walked toward the entrance. “Looks impressive.”
I couldn’t have told you the color of the building if you put a gun to my head.
Half an hour and several mind-numbingly boring displays later, I finally yanked myself out of my Jules-induced trance, only to wish I hadn’t.
“What the fuck is that?” I pointed at a blue crochet…dog? Wolf? Whatever it was, its face was lopsided, and its beady crystal eyes glinted menacingly at us from its perch on the shelf, like it was pissed we’d invaded its personal space.
This was what I got for being distracted. If I died at the hands of a haunted toy, I was going to be pissed.
Jules squinted at the little gold plaque beneath the wolf/dog. “It was one of Betty’s daughter’s favorite toys,” she said. “Hand crocheted by a famous local artisan and gifted to her for her fifth birthday.”
“It looks demonic.”
“It does not.” She stared at the toy, which glared back at us. I could’ve sworn its lip curled into a snarl. “But, uh, let’s move on.”
“You know what, I think I’ve had enough crochet for the day.” I’d paid my dues. It was time to get the fuck out of here before the toys came to life a la Night at the Museum. “Unless you want to stare at more quilts and possessed toys.”
Jules’s mouth twitched. “You sure? You did abandon New Zealand for this world-famous museum. You should get your money’s worth.”
“Oh, I did.” My money’s and my nightmare’s worth. I rested my hand on Jules’s lower back and guided her toward the exit. “I’m good, trust me. I’d rather see the rest of town.”
“We already saw most of it on our walk here. Everything else is residential.”
Jesus. “There has to be something we missed. What’s your favorite place in town?”
We stepped out into the dying afternoon light. Golden hour was melting into twilight, and long shadows stretched across the sidewalks as we walked toward downtown.
“It closed an hour ago,” Jules said.
“I want to see it anyway.”
She cast me a strange look but shrugged. “If you insist.”
Ten minutes later, we arrived at an ancient-looking bookstore. It was stuffed in between a thrift shop and a Chinese takeout joint, and the words Crabtree Books were scrawled across the dark windows in chipped red paint.
“It’s the only bookstore in town,” Jules said. “I didn’t tell any of my friends, because reading wasn’t considered cool, but it was my favorite place to hang out, especially on rainy days. I came here so often I memorized all the books on the shelves, but I liked browsing it every weekend anyway. It was comforting.” A wry smile touched her lips. “Plus, I knew for a fact I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew here.”
“It was your haven.”
Her face softened with nostalgia. “Yeah.”
My mouth curved at the mental image of a young Jules sneaking into a bookstore and hiding from her friends. A few months ago, when the only Jules I knew was the snarky, hard-partying one, I would’ve called bullshit. But now, I could see it.
Actually, save for Bridget’s bachelorette, it had been a while since I saw Jules party the way she had in college. Hell, it’d been a while since I partied the way I had in college.
Our first impressions stick with us the longest, but contrary to popular opinion, some people do change. The only problem is, they change faster than our prejudices do.
“Do you have a favorite book?” I wanted to know everything about Jules. What she liked, what she hated, what books she read and what music she listened to. Every crumb of information I could get to fill my insatiable need for her.
“I can’t choose one.” She sounded appalled. “That’s like asking someone to choose a favorite ice cream flavor.”
“Easy. Rocky Road for me, salted caramel for you.” I grinned at her scowl. “Your favorite flavor for everything is salted caramel.”
“Not everything,” she muttered. “Fine. If I had to choose one book, just based on how many times I reread it…” Her cheeks colored. “Don’t laugh, because I know it’s a cliché choice and a children’s book, but…Charlotte’s Web. The family that lived in our house before us left a copy behind, and it was the only book I owned as a kid. I was obsessed to the point I refused to let my mom kill any spiders in case it was Charlotte.”
My grin widened. “That’s fucking adorable.”
The pink on her cheeks deepened. “I was young.”
“I wasn’t being sarcastic.”
A small smile touched Jules’s mouth, but she didn’t say anything else as we departed from the bookstore.
It was near dinnertime, so we stopped by the diner she dubbed the best restaurant in town before heading back to the hotel.
“This place has the best burgers.” She flipped through the menu, her face alight with anticipation. “It’s one of the few things I missed about Whittlesburg.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” I glanced at the red vinyl booths, black and white checkered floors, and the old jukebox in the corner. “Thi
s place reminds me of an eighties movie set.”
She laughed. “Probably because the original owner was a big eighties movie fan. We used to hang out here all the time when I was in high school. It was the place to see and be seen. One time—”
“Jules? Is that you?”
Jules’s face paled.
I turned to the speaker, my muscles already coiled in anticipation of a fight, but my tension melted into confusion when I saw who stood next to our table.
The woman was probably in her mid-twenties, though her makeup and platinum bob made her look older. She wore a tight red top and an expectant expression as she stared at Jules.
“It is you!” she exclaimed. “Jules Miller! I can’t believe it. I didn’t know you were back in town! It’s been what, seven years?”
Miller? What the fuck?
I glanced at Jules, who pasted on an obviously fake smile. “Around that time, yeah. How are you, Rita?”
“Oh, you know. Married, two kids, working at my mom’s salon. Same as everyone else, ‘cept for the salon part.” Rita’s eyes lit with interest as she looked me over. “Who’s this?”
“Josh,” I said when Jules remained silent. I didn’t add a label. I wouldn’t know which one to use.
“Nice to meet you, Josh,” Rita purred. “We don’t see the likes of you around here often.”
I managed a polite smile.
Rita seemed harmless enough, but the tension emanating from Jules was so thick I could taste it.
“What’ve you been up to all this time?” Rita shifted her attention back to Jules when I didn’t engage further. “You just disappeared. No goodbyes, no nothing.”
“College.”
Jules didn’t elaborate, but the other woman pressed further. “Where at?”
“It’s small. You’ve probably never heard of it.”
My eyebrows winged up. Thayer was small, but it was one of the most renowned universities in the country. I bet my medical degree a majority of people have heard of it.
“Well, you were lucky to get out when you did.” Rita sighed. “This place sucks the soul out of you, ya know? But what can you do?” She shrugged. “By the way, I’m sorry about what happened with your mom and Alastair. That was crazy.”