Gracie popped out her hip as she regarded me. “Have you eaten yet today?”
I untied my apron. “I had a banana with my coffee this morning.”
“At seven?”
“Uh, yeah. Sounds about right.”
Gracie frowned at me and shook her head. “Babe, it’s one in the afternoon. Come on. Let’s go get some food. You look peckish.”
I rolled my eyes but didn’t fight her on it. I was starving. My stomach had been growling for over two hours, but I had been so focused on my painting that I didn’t want to walk away. Now that Gracie was here, I had an excuse. I hurried to grab my jacket and put it on as I opened the loft door and rushed Gracie out. I closed and locked it behind me.
“It was a good painting day. I was productive.”
“That’s good and all,” Gracie said, “but you still need to stop and eat. Just for fifteen minutes or something. It’s not good for you.”
I shrugged. “Meh. Starving artist, right?”
“Don’t joke,” Gracie said. “You’re bad at it.”
I followed her through the hall and down the staircase. We stepped out onto the sidewalk and made our way to Mr. Gallant’s coffee shop. In the afternoon, he had the best paninis that I loved with a cup of tea.
We cut across the street and hurried along to his shop, in a rush to get out of the cold. Gracie was mumbling something up ahead of me, and when she turned her head to the side, her voice carried on the wind. She was venting, as always.
“I should be out of Alaska and this shitty cold by now. I want to be in California. In the sunshine.”
“Soon enough Gracie, soon enough,” I called as we closed in on the coffee shop.
It was nice and warm and cozy inside. We stripped out of our jackets and ordered from Mr. Gallant, who was happy to see us and asked me yet again about my painting business. I feared he was getting a little senile.
Gracie and I picked a seat by the window to eat our Paninis. The ambience was pleasant as we sipped our teas in the warm glow of the twinkle lights around the window. By the time we were halfway done with our sandwiches it had started snowing.
“So what’s new?” Gracie asked.
I put my tea down. “I went for dinner with Brayden and his daughter the other night.”
Gracie gripped the edges of the table and pulled herself toward me. “You what? When were you going to bring this up? I can’t believe you’ve been sitting on a bomb like that and didn’t say anything!”
I laughed. “Calm down. It’s not that big of a deal. I would have brought it up on my own eventually.”
“Eventually? Nothing ever happens in this shithole. When you have news like that, you tell me right away. Right. Away.”
“Okay, okay, lesson learned,” I said.
Gracie stared at me. When I didn’t say anything else, she widened her eyes and yanked at the table, making my tea dance frantically in my cup. “So? How was it?”
I shrugged. “Nothing to write home about. He stopped by the gallery with his daughter, who is actually a really sweet kid. Her name is Bella. She’s four. She’s impressively polite and well mannered.”
“I don’t care about how well behaved his kid is,” Gracie said dismissively. “I care about whether or not the two of you banged.” She winked and gave me a coy look, pressing a red painted finger to her lips.
“No,” I spat, staring back at her with disdain. “I did not sleep with him. Do you seriously think I would just throw myself to the wolves like that? No. He’s definitely grown into himself, and he’s a good-looking guy, but it stops there for me. He asked if he could take me to dinner again, just us, at the end of the night, and I told him no. I need to bury Brayden Hennie in the past once and for all.”
Gracie rolled her eyes. “It’s going to be hard to forget about him. If I close my eyes, I can see that cute ass of his as he was walking out of the Tavern the other night.”
“Gracie,” I hissed as I looked around in embarrassment. “Don’t say stuff like that.”
“Oh, who cares?” Gracie asked with a shrug of one shoulder. She took a bite out of her sandwich and talked with a half-full mouth. “He’s just a guy, Rein. I think you give him too much credit.”
I sipped my tea and watched her eat. Brayden was not just a guy, despite how much I wished he was.
“And it’s been ten years,” she added. “You can’t punish him forever for something he did when he was young and stupid and ambitious. Look at the life he made for himself. If you think he didn’t make the right choice for himself, you’re crazy, girl. He went out into the world and worked for everything he wanted. The two of you had different dreams. When will you stop hating him for following his?”
There was more to it than that, but I wasn’t about to open up and spill it all out on the table for her. Some things were private and not meant to be shared.
“I know you have a point.” I sighed and picked at a peeling splinter on my edge of the table. It broke free, and I tossed it over my shoulder. “But I don’t think I can help it.”
“Fair enough,” Gracie said.
For a while, I was able to steer the conversation away from Brayden. I tried to narrow Gracie’s focus in on other topics. Nothing entertained her for long until I brought up California. Her dream of leaving Valdez always got her excited, and she was willing to talk about it endlessly—or until I got bored and told her so. But with Brayden still a viable subject for conversation, I wasn’t going to tell her not to talk about Cali.
“I know it’s still a ways off,” Gracie was saying, “but I’ve started looking at apartments. I just want to know what my money will get me, you know?”
“Sure. You’re being practical. That’s good.”
Gracie nodded eagerly, and her eyes glittered with enthusiasm. “There are some nice places. They’re pretty small—tiny really—but I won’t need that much space. As long as I have a big closet and lots of windows, I’ll be happy.”
“I’m sure you’ll be able to find that.”
“Yeah, me too. First, I’ll have to find and rent the right yoga studio. Then, if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to find an apartment close by. It would be great to find one with a pool. Can you imagine? Waking up early and going outside into the sunshine to go for a swim outside any time of the year? I just can’t wait. It’s going to be amazing.”
“Just make sure you buy a comfortable sofa for me to crash on when I come visit.”
“Your wish is my command,” Gracie said teasingly, pressing her hand to her chest like she was ancient royalty. “I can’t wait to go shopping and to see the sunsets. It’s going to be perfect. Just perfect. And when you come to visit, I’ll have already found all the hotspots that I can take you to.”
I picked at another splinter. “Yeah.”
Gracie’s smile faltered, and I was aware of her eyes on me as I continued staring aimlessly at the table. I winced when another sharp splinter poked under my nail, and I put my fidgeting hands in my lap.
“Rein,” Gracie said. “You know I’m not leaving you, right? I’m just leaving this place.”
“I know,” I said, blinking fiercely to stop myself from getting emotional. “It’s just going to be really hard not having you so close. I won’t be able to walk down to your yoga studio just to say hi.”
“We’ll talk on the phone every day. And we can video chat. We’ll make it work, I promise.”
I smiled tightly and took a deep breath. “I know we will.”
Gracie worked hard to keep conversation light after that. She knew that I was already starting to grieve for her departure, even though neither of us knew when she was actually going to leave. It could be months, or it could be another year or so. For Gracie’s sake, I hoped she would be able to get out of here in a few months, but selfishly, I wanted it to take a long time so that I could soak up as much time with my best friend as possible before she left for sunnier weather and busier streets.
We paid Mr. Gallant for our tea and panin
is, and he promised me once again that he and his wife would stop by my loft soon to look at my paintings.
“There’s all this open space on the wall above our bed, and the Mrs. keeps telling me we need to find something to hang up there,” Mr. Gallant said. “You women, I don’t know what you have against empty space.”
“Nothing,” I said. “We just don’t see blank space. We see potential.”
Mr. Gallant laughed deeply and held his belly. “You sound just like my wife.”
I shrugged, and Gracie and I put our jackets back on to prepare for the cold outside. The snow was still falling, and the sky was already darkening as the sun disappeared behind the mountains.
“Your wife is wise,” I said, smiling.
We waved goodbye and ducked outside, the little bell above the coffee shop door dinging sweetly. Gracie and I hooked our elbows together and walked down the sidewalk, our steps synchronized, until we were back in front of the art gallery door.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night?” Gracie asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. The Tavern at seven?”
“Sure,” Gracie said, wrapping her arms around me in a great big hug. When she pulled away, she let one hand linger on my shoulder. “You know, I just want to point out that it probably took a lot of nerve for Brayden to ask you out to dinner. If you look at it from his perspective, he had to know you were going to shoot him down.”
“Nerve, stupidity, same thing right?”
Gracie gave me a wry smile and shook her head. “You should go easier on him.”
“That’s my choice.”
“Totally,” Gracie agreed. “But still. It’s been ten years. He’s been married and widowed and had a kid. And in the meantime, he’s built a business empire to stand upon. He’s not the same guy you used to know, Rein. Stop pretending that he is.” She patted my shoulder in an apologetic way. “See you tomorrow.”
I let her leave without saying anything else, mostly because I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. She was right, of course. Ten years was a lot of time, and it was sure to change someone plenty. Especially after everything that had happened in those ten years to Brayden.
Not much had happened to me. Maybe I was the one who was still the same, and Brayden was the one who had plowed forward, full speed ahead, dead set on building the future he wanted for himself.
I tugged open the art gallery door and stomped up the stairs.
“Damn you for showing your face in Valdez again, Brayden Hennie,” I muttered. “Damn you for everything.”
Chapter 13
Brayden
Sleeping on my mother’s couch for the last week and a half wasn’t doing my back any favors. I was used to the support of my king-sized bed at home, which I enjoyed alone, and was able to sprawl across like an actual king. Here, on my mother’s floral printed couch straight out of a movie set from the seventies, I couldn’t even stretch my legs out without having to rest my ankles on the armrest. I was too damn tall and the thing was too damn narrow for me to do anything but lie on my side.
I rubbed the base of my neck and my lower back while I stood under the hot water of the shower. It was early still—too early for Bella or my mother to be out of bed yet. If I wanted any time to myself in this place, I had to be an early riser. I was used to early mornings because of work, so it was easy to get myself going in the mornings.
It was not easy, however, to shower in a stall a quarter of the size of what I was used to. As I grumbled about how cramped it was, someone knocked on the bathroom door.
“Bella and I are making some pancakes,” my mother called through the door. “Will you be quick?”
I felt like a teenager again. “Yeah. Ten minutes, tops.”
“Okay, take your time! Do you still like yours with chocolate chips?”
I pinched my nose and let the scalding water bounce off my shoulders. “No thanks.” I waited a couple seconds, and when she didn’t reply, I concluded that I was once again alone.
For now.
I savored the last couple minutes of my shower and my solitude. Then, when I was good and ready, I came out of the bathroom ready to face yet another day in Valdez.
Bella and my mother were just lifting the pancakes from the pan to the plates. My mother handed Bella everything, and she brought it to the table, stretching to the very tips of her toes to reach. I smiled to myself as I spotted a happy face in one of the pancakes. My mother used to make those for me when I was Bella’s age.
We sat down, and my mother placed a mug of black coffee in front of me. We began eating, and I looked over as my mother picked at her pancakes tentatively, breaking apart the fluffy edges with her fork and flattening them into her maple syrup.
She barely ate anything at all.
I opened my mouth to ask if she wanted something else, but she talked over me. “You know,” she said, squaring her shoulders and sitting up a bit straighter. “I think you should head out for the day, Brayden. Give me and Bella a chance to get to know each other, just us girls.”
I arched an eyebrow at her as I chewed and swallowed. “And where do you propose I go while you do this?”
My mother shrugged and proceeded to push her uneaten breakfast around on her plate. “Wherever you like. The Tavern. Emmett’s diner. The art gallery.” She shot me a devious look out of the corner of her eye, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“I know what you’re playing at.”
“Playing at? Whatever do you mean?”
I popped another piece of pancake in my mouth and chuckled. “All right. You don’t have to tell me twice. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I’m done cleaning up.”
I half expected her to tell me that she would handle the dishes, but she didn’t. She was tired. I could see it in the fine lines around her eyes, the slowness of her movements, and in the way she looked at me—like she was etching every part of me into her mind. It was almost like she was afraid I was going to leave as things got harder.
My own mother barely knew who I was anymore.
That was nobody’s fault but my own. I had left for too long without looking back.
When Bella finished eating, I collected all of our plates and filled the sink with hot soapy water. I brushed my mother’s uneaten food into the garbage can before setting to work at scrubbing. Bella chatted with my mother. I listened to her talk about her preschool and her friends and her teacher, and I wondered if she wanted to go home yet.
When I was done, I kissed them both goodbye and bundled up for the cold. The truck took a while to heat up, but soon enough, I was on the road heading into town—heading to Rein’s shop.
It would be nice to see her again. I was well aware that she might not feel the same way about seeing me, but Valdez was a small place, and we were bound to run into each other again one way or another. So what if it was intentional?
It was only an hour before noon when I parked at the curb in front of the art gallery door. My boots crunched in the snow all the way from the truck to the door, which slammed closed behind me with a gust of wind. I took the stairs two at a time and made my way down the hall to the loft door, where I knocked and waited for Rein to answer. I wasn’t going to surprise her again by standing in the middle of her shop like an idiot.
The door opened, and Rein blinked up at me, her brow furrowed and her lips pursed in a firm line that might have been a frown. Her apron was covered in blue paint, mostly across her tummy, and her hair was tied up in a chaotic bundle of curls on top of her head.
She looked beautiful.
“Uh, hey,” I said, wishing I had thought of something clever to say on my drive over. “I was in the area and thought I’d pop by and say hello.”
She smirked at me and leaned one shoulder on the door frame before crossing her arms, causing her cleavage to push upward at the neckline of her gray T-shirt. It took all of my self-control not to break eye contact.
“Valdez is so small that everyone is always in the area,” she said.
/> “Alright. Fine. I wanted to come by and see if you wanted to go to dinner with me tomorrow night.”
Her brow un-furrowed as her eyebrows shot upward. “I don’t think—”
“Let me rephrase,” I said. “I want to go to dinner with you tomorrow night, and I’m not taking no for an answer.”
“Wow,” she said. “Was that supposed to impress me?”
Shit. I had misstepped somewhere. This wasn’t the right way to get a girl like Rein Petty to give me another chance. I glanced at my feet before finding the nerve to meet her unwavering stare again. “No. Come on, Rein. How hard are you going to make me work for this? I just want to catch up. I’ll buy anything from your shop if you’ll just give me a chance to make it up to you.”
I didn’t expect her to laugh at me, but she did. She slapped her leg, rolled her eyes, and then retreated back into her loft. I followed her as she talked to me over her shoulder. “You using your money to get me to go to dinner with you is exactly the reason why I don’t want to go.”
“Quit playing games with me,” I said as she drew to a stop in her little kitchenette.
She was making tea. She poured hot water over a teabag and leaned one hip on the counter. “I’m not playing games. I’m just being honest. I know that can be hard for you, but not for me.”
Ouch. “Alright. I deserved that. Just tell me, is there anything I can do to change your mind?”
Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine as she considered my offer. She pursed her lips and pressed her forefinger to her chin. Her thoughtful expression left me weak in the knees, and I copied her stance and pressed my left hip to the counter for support.
“Well,” she said slowly. “I’ve been itching to move some things around in here but can’t do it by myself.”
“Just tell me where you want everything and I’ll do it,” I said.
She lifted her tea to her lips, and somehow, her eyes smiled at me over the rim as she took a sip. “All right,” she said and nodded toward the painting of the northern lights I had stopped to look at last time. “I want that one moved to face the door, and then I want to reorganize the show room so that everything faces inward in aisles. Simple enough?”
My Last First Kiss Page 8