“Look, I feel bad about how we left things between us.”
“You feel bad?”
“Lauren, are you alone?”
I winced. “Maybe.”
“Because you’re repeating everything I say like you want someone else to hear it.”
Shit. He was observant.
“Fine. Gracie’s here.” I lied. It sounded more like a question than a statement and Matthew stifled a laugh. I shot him a dirty look.
“Really? On a Tuesday night? I’m pretty sure that you’re not in Indy and she’s not in Fort Wayne. You both have to work in the morning.”
“She took a vacation day tomorrow. And so did I. So we could go shopping.”
Again, it sounded like I was asking myself if that was a legitimate response rather than stating it as fact. Matthew was doubled over by this point; I could no longer count on him for assistance.
“Whatever. Anyway, back to what I was saying. I wanted to see you before I left.”
“Eric,” I pleaded, “things didn’t exactly go well the last time we saw each other.”
“I know. And I don’t know if I can leave Indiana knowing that I didn’t clear the air between us.”
“Well, clear away. You don’t have to see me in person to apologize.”
“It’s not the same and you know it. I could have called you from Atlanta and you wouldn’t have known the difference. I want to look you in the eye and tell you.”
I bit my lip, debating.
“How about this?” Eric said after a moment of silence. “I’m leaving Saturday morning. If you want to see me, you know where I’ll be, right?”
I did know. “Yes.”
“I’ll get there at eight. I’ll wait for you until nine. If you don’t show up by then, I guess I’ll have my answer.”
Once again tongue tied, I didn’t respond.
“Lauren, are you still there?”
“Yeah.”
“I hope you’ll come.”
Before I could decide what to say to that, he hung up. I sat looking at the phone for a few minutes, letting Matthew recover from his laughing fit.
“I’m glad you think it’s funny,” I said as I threw the cell down on the cushion.
“So are you going?” Matthew asked once he had composed himself.
“Should I?”
“Maybe. It would provide closure for the both of you. You guys really shouldn’t remember your relationship based on how it ended. He was your first love. It’s debatable what he felt for you. But he was ten years of your life. This might help to ensure that you don’t end up regretting the whole thing.”
“Really? You wouldn’t be mad?”
“You broke up with him to not be with me,” he reminded me with a shrug, “what’s to be jealous of?”
“The two of you are so completely different. If your roles were reversed, Eric would lock me inside the house on Saturday. Maybe chain me to the bed for good measure.”
“That’s more information than I really wanted to know.”
“Not like that, though. He’d be afraid that I’d never come back home.”
“So we’re different in that respect and similar in others. I trust you. I know you’re coming back home to me. But I do have one condition.”
I turned to him and listened as he set the ground rules.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The one condition was easily met and my plans for Saturday morning were solidified, much to Gracie’s dismay. As I had totally expected, she was one hundred percent against me seeing Eric again. She also took the opportunity to remind me that she was not pleased with my handling of the whole Jeff situation. I still hadn’t mentioned it to Matthew – I felt it was a non-event. She countered that if he would trust me to visit with my ex two hours away from home that I could expect him to not freak out totally when I told him about my “stalker”. Of course, her opinion of the meeting with Chris was much the same.
I filed her commentary away in the deep recesses of my mind for future reference. I could only deal effectively with one crisis at a time. Eric’s crisis had jumped the line, his phone call putting him front and center. This was invariably where he believed he belonged anyway.
I left Matthew’s house about six fifteen in the morning, full hair and makeup done. Nervousness had kept me from sleeping for more than a couple of hours on Friday night, but I wasn’t about to let Eric see that. As Matthew slept soundly against me, I had stroked his hair and contemplated just what I was going to do about my ex. My first resolution was to not let him know that I had recently come out of a five month long hoodie and sweatpants phase.
Matthew had gotten up with me, perching on the closed toilet seat as I got dressed and ready, talking me down from my panic induced state. He’d seen me off as I pulled away in his Mustang, then gone back inside to his much less complicated day.
Yes, the car was the condition. Matthew had given the excuse that it came equipped with a radar detector, but I knew he had ulterior motives. Besides, had he been so concerned with me speeding, he could have removed the device and installed it temporarily in the Sonata. We didn’t discuss the real reason behind him having me take his car and I was okay with that. I knew pulling up beside Eric in the Mustang would be the equivalent of a giant yellow middle finger pointed in his direction and given the circumstances I was willing to allow Matthew that much.
I refrained from putting the top down. Even though it was shaping up to be a beautiful early summer day, I didn’t want to ruin my hair. Maybe on the way back home. Instead I opted for turning the radio up loud enough to drown out the sound of the engine. Ironically enough, Matthew had left his iPod inside, set to the same Parabelle song that had blasted through the speakers the first time he had given me a ride. I smiled as I realized this probably wasn’t a coincidence.
As much as I hated to admit it, I enjoyed the drive down to Indianapolis. There was a time when I had done it so often that I could have arrived there in my sleep, but no more. My journeys back and forth had been largely because of Eric. As much as I loved my dad, we respected each other’s lives and tried not to interfere as much as possible. A quick phone call here and there was typically sufficient – we saved our visits for holidays and other important events. And Gracie chose to do the driving to Fort Wayne now that I had a house that would swallow her apartment whole a couple times over.
The knot in my stomach didn’t bring attention to itself until I could see the Indy skyline through the windshield. Then guilt and indecisiveness washed over me in waves. What if I didn’t truly know where Eric had meant he would be when he gave me the cryptic details? What if I waited for him in the wrong spot and instead of bringing closure I only bred more hatred and contempt?
My fears were laid to rest when I pulled into the parking lot of the coffee shop and saw the black BMW I was looking for. Back in happier times, when we had acted more like boyfriend and girlfriend than bitter rivals, we had met here almost daily for a caffeine fix before heading off to work. The place was just a couple blocks away from his condo; in fact, us frequenting this location was the whole reason that he had stumbled across it being for sale.
It was almost impossible to drive a car like the Mustang without being at least a little obnoxious, and heads turned as I pulled up. If you weren’t expecting it, the engine was loud enough to wake the dead or at least command attention. There was only one set of eyes here that I cared about looking in my direction and my arrival did just that. I pulled Matthew’s car into the spot directly beside Eric’s sedan and cut the engine, returning peace to the neighborhood once more.
It was a quarter after eight. I’d only made him wait fifteen minutes for me. Sure, I could have left Fort Wayne slightly earlier so I would have arrived promptly at eight, but it was more fun to let him sweat a little. I definitely hadn’t wanted to show up first and smack of desperation. I knew he’d be waiting in the car for me, refusing to go inside lest I actually come only to chicken out in the parking lot.
<
br /> We climbed out of our respective vehicles at the same time. I locked Matthew’s car, the horn beeping quickly to confirm it was secure as I waited for Eric to round the back of the BMW. For a moment we stood staring at each other, not sure what to say.
“His auto insurance premium must be outrageous,” Eric observed finally. A coy way of letting me know he now knew exactly where we stood.
“Hi, Eric,” I greeted, refusing to let him fluster me with his remark. Things would only end badly if I immediately launched into a defense of my new boyfriend.
“It’s good to see you again.”
I clutched my purse in front of me as if it would help to make the situation any less awkward. Eric smiled at me, his green eyes full of sincerity. I wondered what alien had abducted him and replaced him with a kinder, gentler model.
“You, too,” I managed to choke out.
He laughed and moved towards me. “Hungry?”
I nodded and he placed a hand on the small of my back to escort me inside. I felt nothing, just the pressure of his fingertips through the material of my sundress. No heat, no electricity, no passion.
The coffee shop was bustling inside, and we found a table for two over in the corner. He pulled out a chair for me and I sat while he went up to order, effectively reserving our spot. I studied him from afar: the confident manner that he approached the lady at the counter, the charming, flirtatious smile he gave to make her feel like she was the most important person in the universe. Full salesman mode, down to whipping out his credit card to pay for our breakfast, courtesy of his expense account.
I sized him up further as he walked back to our table. He hadn’t changed a bit. Emerald green eyes, brown hair buzzed just this side of bald. Going for the casual look today with khakis and a polo shirt. With a tinge of spite, I made a silent wish that his clothes were wrinkled beyond belief by the time he made it to Atlanta.
He set my food in front of me. My order was perfect, just what I would have gotten had I gone up to the counter myself. Ten years would do that to a person; there were so many things the two of us knew about each other. Things that just automatically popped back into the forefront when necessary, things we didn’t need to bother asking.
Eric surveyed me as he took his own seat. His eyes lingered on my face, searching for answers. Self-consciously, I lifted my hand to my forehead to cover my scar. I knew he saw it.
“What happened?” he asked.
“A drunken crash into Gracie’s coffee table the morning after we broke up,” I admitted, opting for the truth. “Guess I don’t handle my alcohol well.”
Something resembling pain flashed over his features prior to him replacing the expression with a well-practiced smirk. He toyed with the muffin he had gotten for himself before taking a deep breath.
“I knew you were there that morning when I came over to Gracie’s apartment,” he said softly.
I removed my hand from my head and stared at him.
“Besides your car being there, I could also see your purse. And your foot, sticking out from behind the table.”
“I fell off the couch when you woke me up by pounding on her door. I was lying there, trying not to throw up and or bleed out.”
He snorted. “I knew Gracie was protecting you. And it was just easier to let her do it rather than to cause a big scene. I wasn’t in the best of conditions, either.”
“Gracie told me you were hung over pretty bad.”
“I was. But I felt like an ass and I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I wasn’t,” I said bluntly.
“I know. But at least you were safe.”
I laughed without humor. “Gracie got me drunk and I spent the next twenty-four hours crying and puking. Safe, but not okay.”
“I wasn’t okay, either. Not for a long time after.”
“Surely you saw it coming, Eric. We were holding onto something long after it died. Even if I would have bought a house with you, even if I would have accepted your proposal, we wouldn’t have ended up happy. We would have just delayed the inevitable.”
He took a long, thoughtful sip of coffee. “I know.”
“What? You’re not going to fight me on that? No commentary on how I could have learned to love being barefoot and pregnant with your children?”
He smiled sadly. “No, because you were right all along. We became our own worst enemies toward the end. I was pulling out all the stops to make you stay, when in reality you were in love with someone else.”
“It wasn’t like that, Eric,” I said defensively, “I tried to fight it.”
“But in the end, you failed because it was what truly made you happy.”
“I never cheated on you.”
“I know.”
“I went back to Fort Wayne that weekend homeless. And stayed that way for weeks, hiding from the world. Then I bought a house and continued hiding. Until he found me last week. So that whole part of the picture is new. It’s not like I hopped into a relationship with him the second I was single. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
He bit his lip, considering.
“And he wouldn’t have let me anyway. He was trying to be respectful of you, of me. I, of course, read into that completely wrong and didn’t realize he was telling me the timing wasn’t right. I was fairly certain he found me as repulsive as you did.”
“What, you jumping to conclusions? You must have really been in love. And for the record, I never found you repulsive. Quite the opposite, actually.”
“I hurt you,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “And I’m sorry.”
“I hurt you, too. And we both hurt ourselves. But you were right, we probably should have ended things when you moved away, if not sooner.”
“Did you ever love me? Or did you just pull that out of your bag of tricks to try to get me to stay? Or to make Matthew feel bad?”
“I always loved you, Lauren. I just wasn’t smart enough to admit it until it was too late.”
The air left my body in a rush. I nearly deflated at the table. I closed my eyes and blinked back tears. I felt his hand on mine in an attempt to comfort me.
“Please don’t cry. Not for us.”
“But if we would have been able to talk like this before, things could have ended differently. We could have been planning a wedding.”
“No, we wouldn’t have,” he said with more than a touch of regret.
Confused, I opened my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Because we were never meant for each other, Lauren. There always would have been a promotion for you in Fort Wayne. The planets would have aligned so you and Matthew would have met each other.”
“Maybe not. What if I would have stayed behind in Indy? Kept my job at the branch? What if I would have quit my job and let you support me like you begged me to do?”
“Look at me, Lauren,” he commanded. I obeyed. “You wouldn’t have been happy and you know it. I wouldn’t have been happy, knowing that I kept you from what you really wanted out of life. Face it, you and Matthew were destined to meet and fall in love. Even if you would have stayed behind here, Matthew would have come into your life somehow.”
I sat quietly, letting his words soak in. Part of me couldn’t believe that he was giving me this gift, that he was conceding defeat with grace. Were his statements true? If Matthew was really, truly my soulmate as I’d proclaimed him to be, would he have entered my world in some chance encounter? A passing smile with a stranger at an airport, a gas station? A minor fender bender in downtown Indy traffic?
“I fought it and fought it until I was blue in the face, Lauren. We just weren’t meant for each other. As much as we wanted the same things in life, we weren’t willing to go about them in the same way. And when I admitted to myself that letting you go was the only way that we would ever be happy, it cleared up a lot of things for me.
“When you left-“ We both choked on that choice of vocabulary, but I had to admit that it was accurate. I just wished ev
eryone would stop reminding me that I’d left both of the only men I’d ever cared about. “When you left, I considered taking the condo off of the market. After all, you’d so bluntly pointed out that it was my back up plan. I loved that place. It was the ultimate bachelor pad, a good investment, so on and so forth.”
I nodded, knowing he would get to the point sometime after he reminded me of his real estate prowess. His ego had lowered several notches during our conversation thus far, but a large portion was still intact.
“But then I thought of what I had given up to stay with you.”
“Which was?”
“I had refused to put my hat into the ring for a couple of promotions, knowing that they would involve me moving out of state. I knew you would never leave Indiana, not with your dad being here and your mom buried here. And Gracie. I’d never allow her to visit us; she’d drive me absolutely batty. I knew that Fort Wayne was at the threshold of your comfort zone, the furthest you would go.”
“You stayed here because of me?” I asked, shocked.
He merely nodded, then continued. “But with the condo up for sale and no real ties to home, I decided to put in for each and every one. I scored the one in Atlanta. They agreed to hold it open for me while I sold my condo here and got things situated for the move. I could have sold it to their relocation team, but you know me, I like to be in control.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” I muttered, grinning to let him know that I was only kidding.
“The condo sold a couple weeks ago, but I waited to close on it until I had my place in Atlanta lined up.” He pulled out his cell and handed it over to me. “I took pictures to show you.”
I flipped dutifully through the images. It was every bit as swanky as the place he’d sold here, if not more so. It also looked like it was on a higher floor. He’d traded up.
“Very nice,” I allowed, sliding his phone across the table. He practically beamed.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Not for saying the place is nice. For allowing it to happen.”
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