She fights a smile, her ruby lips twisting as she glances down.
“You make it sound so beautiful, so easy,” she says, her honey gaze lifting onto mine. “But I think we’re kidding ourselves here. I think we’re caught up in … everything … and we’re not thinking clearly or rationally.”
Aerin steps away, running her fingers down my forearm as it falls from her sweet face.
“I’m sorry, Calder,” she says, eyes misty and blinking. “You should go now.”
CALDER LEAVES WITHOUT A fight, though I think he’s in shock.
I watch through the spy hole until he disappears down the hall, and then I slump against the door, my chest tight and aching. I miss him already, but this is how it has to be.
We’re all wrong for each other. Polar opposites everyway. Riddled with issues that are only going to get in the way of everything.
Plus, what kind of woman would I be if I took him up on that offer? Not to mention, I can’t just uproot my life because I met some guy in New York whom I’ve known all of two weeks.
That’s something my mother would do—not me.
It’s the grief speaking. He’s not thinking clearly. His proposition sounds like heaven, and I’m sure he means every word of it—now. But once the air clears and he gets settled in his position at WellesTech, his priorities are going to shift, the excitement of whatever this is will wear off …
I refuse to uproot my life just so I can wait for the other shoe to drop.
Because it will.
It always does.
Especially when you least want it to.
I STAND AT THE PODIUM, glancing at the sea of black before me. There must be thousands of them filling this auditorium that NYU was all too eager to loan us, all of them coming to pay their last respects to a man they only knew in publicity releases and flattering Time Magazine articles.
Unfolding my short but sweet eulogy, I clear my throat. I’ve titled it HOMAGE TO AN ASSHOLE—though I’ll leave that part out. The title isn’t original and it’s hardly inventive, but it was the best I could do, and it made me feel better about the task at hand.
“Thank you all for coming today. My father would’ve been exceedingly pleased with such a big turnout. In fact, I’m sure wherever he is right now, he’s making damn sure everyone knows how big of a deal his funeral is,” I say into the mic as I get a few soft chuckles. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Calder Welles the Second, or C.J., as my father oftentimes referred to me as. His wife, Lisette, asked if I’d write a little something to read to you today. Calder Welles Senior was born July 6th, 1950 to Ray and Essie Welles in Bedford, New York. But if he were here, running the show today, I think he’d be telling me to skip to the good stuff. He always liked to entertain, and the man could command a crowd like no one else. Anyway, I think it would be fair to describe my father as a larger than life kind of man. He didn’t just live life to the fullest, he busted through the seams. Sometimes those seams would tear neatly, other times he’d make a mess, but it didn’t matter. He was a man who always knew what he wanted and was never afraid to go for it—at any cost. Someone very dear to me recently told me that in life, we have to choose our regrets. My father was an astute decisionmaker. He never waffled, always knew exactly if he was going to zig or zag. I just know wherever he is, he’s at peace with the regrets he chose in this lifetime, be they good or bad. And should we all be so lucky to have that very same peace when our time here is done. Thank you.”
I leave the auditorium stage and exit to the left, tucking my half-folded, half-crumpled speech in my interior suitcoat pocket. There are five more speakers after this. Five. Lisette clearly has never planned a funeral before.
Heading outside to get some fresh air, I check my phone and enjoy a few moments of solitude.
Two days ago, I practically knocked down Aerin’s door and all but professed my undying love and devotion to her—like an idiot—only to be shot down. I saw the tears in her eyes. I know she didn’t mean what she said. I know she was coming from a place of fear. All I can do is give her space.
And hell, maybe I need space too.
“You look like you could use one of these.” A raspy voice comes out of nowhere, followed by the shuffle of shoes against blacktop. A long, skinny arm extends a Virginia Slim in my direction.
“Aunt Barb,” I say to my mother’s sister. I haven’t seen her in years. Almost a decade, I think. I offer a silent “no thanks” in the form of a quick wave.
“I hate funerals,” she says, taking the cigarette back and dragging in a lungful of nicotine. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s black as tar on the inside from her decades-long pack-a-day habit. “So depressing. I don’t know how you can call it a celebration of life when everyone’s crying and wearing black.”
I shrug. “It is what it is.”
Aunt Barb finishes her cigarette before tossing it onto the pavement and grinding it with her heel. “I should probably head in. They’ve got that handsome news anchor from Dateline about to give a speech. Can’t miss it.”
She heads in, but I stay a little while longer for reasons I can’t quite be sure of. After a while, I return inside and find a place along the wall in the back. The audience is laughing at something the man at the podium said when a finger taps my right shoulder.
Aerin.
My stomach drops.
I wasn’t expecting to see her today. Given our last interaction, I’d have figured she’d be on a plane back to LA by now.
She wriggles in beside me, rising on her toes to whisper into my ear.
“How are you holding up?” she asks.
“Fine.”
“You sure?” she mouths.
Sliding my hand in hers, I lead her outside the double doors.
“Are you really doing this?” I ask. “Are you really going to stand there and act like you didn’t just obliterate my goddamn heart two days ago?”
“I’m allowed to ask how you’re doing, Calder.”
“Yes, but you’re not allowed to pretend like you give a damn,” I say.
“I don’t want to do this. Not here. Not like this.” Her gaze darts toward the double door before returning to mine. A second later, she rises on her toes, rests her hand on my shoulder, and deposits a single kiss on my cheek. “Goodbye, Calder.”
She wipes a lone tear from her cheek, gifts me with a quiet, apologetic smile, and just like that she walks out of my life.
“You’re scared, Aerin, and you know it,” I call after her.
But she doesn’t turn around.
Fine.
I’ll give her a little time, a little space, but after that, I’m coming for her. Maybe it’s the Welles in me, a bit of my father that somehow slipped in, but I’ve never wanted anything so badly in my life, and I refuse to believe this is the end for us.
IT WAS RAINING WHEN I left New York today, my little oval window covered in water beads with a backdrop of gray skies.
Fitting, it seemed.
“Aerin Juniper Keane, when are you finally going to learn?” my mother asks, taking a toke from her joint in my parents’ back yard as we sit beside a crackling firepit. “What’s it going to take?”
I’ve just filled them in on everything—minus a few select details.
“You’ve always been this way when it comes to relationships,” she says, brushing her bushy brown hair over one sun-tanned shoulder. “For the longest time, your father and I had a bet as to when you were going to lose your v-card.”
“Mom.”
“Anyway, you’re a control freak. Grade A. Certified. And relationships are the one thing you cannot control, and it terrifies you.” A puffy cloud of ash gray smoke leaves her lips and she leans back in her zero gravity lounge chair, eyes closed. “Sometimes you just have to take chances, let the chips fall where they may, or whatever that saying is. Everything always works out in the end.”
“You were always such an anxious child,” my dad chimes in. His Tommy Bahama s
hirt has one too many buttons undone, exposing a flourish of silvery gray chest hair so abundant it hides the souvenir shark tooth hanging from a chain on his neck.
My parents. God, love ‘em.
“From the very beginning, we did everything we could to get you to loosen up a bit,” Dad continues. “Looking back, I think it all backfired on us. It only made you that much more uptight.”
The two of them exchange looks and high-as-a-kite giggles. They get such a kick out of some of the things I say and do because they can’t wrap their heads around any of it. It’s like we speak different languages and hail from different cultures. The only thing tying us together is the fact that I’m a perfect mix of each of their features. Otherwise, you’d never know we’re related.
“Doesn’t matter what you do, you’re going to screw up your kids one way or another,” Mom says.
“I don’t know, Donna,” Dad says. “I think we did all right. We got a doctor and a successful small business owner. That’s more than most people could say.”
Mom clutches at her chest. “We must have done something right along the way.”
I rest my chin against my hand, conjuring up memories of family game nights, picnics on the beach, tent camping in Yellowstone, my father attempting to teach me acoustic guitar—bless his heart.
Maybe I haven’t given them enough credit over the years. My childhood was far from ideal, but there was a lot of unexpected wonderful mixed in.
“You seem pretty torn up over this guy, Aer,” Mom says. “I can see it in your eyes and the way you’re all slouched and glum. You’re not yourself.”
“Life is short, baby girl,” Dad says. “If you like this guy, give him a chance. Worst-case scenario, he breaks your heart. Best case? You’ve got a pretty cool story to tell your grandkids someday.”
The California sun finally sets, closing out another Saturday and the end of an emotionally turbulent week.
“Never gets old, does it, hon?” Mom reaches for Dad’s hand, the two of them in their side by side loungers, staring at the orange-dreamsicle sky as it fades to dark.
I have to hand it to them—they make love look easy.
“I should head back home,” I say. “I still need to unpack.”
And I’m going to drag my roommate, Margot, out for drinks tonight. I told her everything the second I got home, and then my parents invited me over for dinner, so I had to jet before she could offer her sage advice.
I never had the privilege of knowing what it’s like to have a sister, but Margot and I are strangely cut from very similar cloth. Anal-retentive. High-strung. Overanalytical. I’m dying to hear her advice about this situation since it would basically be akin to the advice I’d give myself if I weren’t emotionally vested in any of this.
Hugging my parents goodbye, I gather my things and drive back to my place.
It’s the strangest thing—ever since I landed, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that I forgot something back in New York.
I can tell myself it was shoes or a much-loved tube of Dior lipstick all I want, but deep down, I know exactly what it is I left behind.
“SORRY. I THINK YOU have the wrong house.” The woman who answered the door to Aerin’s condo Sunday night looks me dead in the eyes, but she’s lying.
I know because I went to Aerin’s brother’s apartment yesterday, hoping I could catch her before she left. She was already gone, but he invited me in.
I told him everything.
He scribbled her address on a piece of paper and told me to go get her. He also told me she’s one of the most stubborn, obstinate, and stuck-in-her-ways creatures I’ll ever meet and that anytime something scares her, she bolts faster than a gun-shy hunting dog.
“I know Aerin lives here.” I drag my hand along my jaw. “And I know she’s told you all about me. And I know how this looks … could you just … give her this for me? Please?”
I hand over the letter I wrote for her last night, and I head back to my rental car.
If she gets it and if she wants to talk, she’ll get a hold of me.
If not, then I’ll have no other choice but to let her go, but at least I’ll know that I tried, and that’s something I’ll never regret.
“WHO WAS THAT?” I carry a basket of clean clothes down the hall, passing through the living room. “I thought someone rang the doorbell a little bit ago?”
Margot rolls her eyes. “It was just some guy.”
“Margot … what do you mean some guy?”
“That one from New York.”
I laugh. She’s got the driest sense of humor and she’s always trying to get my goat. “Stop messing with me.”
“No, for real. Kind of tall. Broad shoulders. Dark hair. A Max-Minghella-Handmaid’s-Tale look about him.”
My grip on the laundry basket loosens and my throat tightens.
“He didn’t come here,” I say, as if the mere statement makes it so.
Dropping the basket of clothes at my feet, I run to the living room window.
“He’s gone now,” she says. “I told him you weren’t home.”
“Why would you do that?”
She slinks a shoulder to her ear. “I don’t know. Maybe because all you did the second you got home was complain about him? And how he was all wrong for you and how …”
“All right, all right. I know what I said.” I look out the window again, just in case he came back.
I can’t imagine he went through the trouble of flying three thousand miles just to get turned away by my roommate and go back home.
“Did he say where he was staying?” I ask. “Did he say anything?”
“Not really.” She saunters across the living room, grabbing a white envelope off the top of the TV stand. “But he left this for you.”
I snatch it out of her hands like the crazy person I am when it comes to these sorts of things, and I collapse into the sofa, clutching the single sheet of notebook paper like some gust of interior wind is going to blow it away.
Dear Aerin,
I know you’re scared. I am too. We can do this. Together. We can figure this out. Together. We could be happy. Together. You once told me we have to choose our regrets. Please don’t let this be one of yours.
Give us a chance.
Yours,
Calder
P.S. I dare you.
Dropping the letter, I retrieve a pair of sneakers from the shoe closet by the front door and haphazardly slide my feet into them, not so much as bothering with the laces.
“What are you doing?” Margot laughs. “Are you seriously going to chase after him? He’s probably halfway to Santa Monica by now.”
“No.” I point out the front window as a pair of headlights pull into our driveway and a familiar silhouette waits in the driver’s seat. “He came back.”
But I’d have chased after him anyway.
I dash out the door, taking the steps two at a time until I reach the landing. The driver’s door opens, and a moment later, Calder steps out.
He doesn’t run to me.
I don’t run to him.
This isn’t one of those moments like in the movies. This is so much bigger than that, only on the inside, somewhere only we know.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi.”
He stands fifteen feet away, but I swear an entire universe could fit between us.
We begin heading toward one another, silently agreeing to meet in the middle, and when we get there, his hand goes for mine but he stops.
“How is this going to work, Calder?” I ask.
“I’m unloading WellesTech,” he says. “As soon as I find the right buyer. And then I’ll move out here.”
“But you love New York.”
“Doesn’t mean LA couldn’t grow on me,” he says. “I’d be willing to give it a chance. For the right reasons.”
I take a step closer, narrowing the space between us, my hands aching for his, my lips burning with anticipation. I’ve missed him
so much it physically aches, and I didn’t even realize it until this moment.
“And what are you going to do after that?” I ask, folding my arms and unwilling to hide my skepticism. “After you sell WellesTech and move out here?”
His mouth rises at one side. “Finally start living for the first time in my life.”
He places one hand on the small of my back, pulling me in. Our mouths graze, his breath hot like cinnamon, his lips soft like silk.
“The dare thing …” I say before I let him kiss me. “How did you know?”
When I was a little girl, anytime I was afraid of something, all Rush had to do was incorporate it into some sort of dare, and suddenly it became this exciting challenge that I just had to do. After a while, I had a sticker chart and an impressive track record of completing every dare my brother ever gave me.
“I went to your place yesterday. Thought I could catch you,” he says. “I caught Rush instead.”
“I knew it.” I laugh, nuzzling my nose into the bend of his neck, inhaling his cedar and moss cologne like an addict in need of a fix. I knew this could only be the work of my brother—him “daring” me to have a little fun, to not take my life so seriously, to live a little.
Challenge accepted, Rush …
His hand finds my chin, and he tilts my mouth toward his.
“Are we going to do this?” he asks, eyes lit.
“We’re doing this,” I say in the seconds before he claims my mouth … my heart … my soul.
I’ve never been so terrified.
And I’ve never been so sure of anything.
“MARGOT, THIS IS CALDER.” Aerin squeezes my hand as she leads me inside her condo.
Margot sits on the sofa, long legs crossed, a stemmed glass of white wine in one hand as she studies me. A handful of minutes ago she lied to my face, but I’m willing to forgive and forget—she was only trying to protect her roommate.
“Sorry I lied,” she says in a monotone voice.
“We’re good,” I say, feeling Aerin’s watchful gaze passing between us.
P.S. I Dare You (PS Series Book 3) Page 14