by Mia Josephs
“You mean Sierra got gorgeous, and I just got taller?” she asked.
“No, no,” he backpedaled.
She laughed again. “I’m teasing, Donovan. Lighten up.” She turned sideways in the seat to face him, clearly much more comfortable with the arrangement of spending three hours in the car with him than he was.
“Long day. Sorry.” He shook his head.
“Well, I super, super appreciate the ride. Big news needs best friends.” She grinned. “Aren’t you so excited for her?”
Excited didn’t come close to covering it. Sierra using all of her smarts and energy and talents to write books felt perfect.
They drove in silence for a few minutes, but Lindsey’s eyes didn’t stay on the road or the scenery. Her glances kept hitting him. Over. And over. And over.
Oh, shit. Had Sierra told her friend about their night?
“So…” he started. How to make this casual? “Have you and Sierra talked lately?”
“We always talk,” Linds e y answered. He already knew this. “And we obviously talked today because of her news.”
Sleeping with him was news? “Oh, the book thing,” he blurted. “Of course.”
Lindsey sat more upright. “What did you think I was talking about?”
“Um…” Donovan paused. “Why…” How much had he told Lindsey? There was no way he could tell Lindsey “news” without Sierra telling her first. That much about girls he definitely knew.
“Why are you asking why?” Lindsey turned her head partially sideways.
Oh, hell. They were both trying to read each other. Neither knew how much Sierra had told them, so no one knew what to say. Although, if Sierra had told her friend, that didn’t work great for him either. Having a conversation with her friend that he didn’t know how to have with Sierra yet, definitely wasn’t a good idea.
Donovan stared at the road, determined not to speak a work unless specifically asked something. It wasn’t a problem. Lindsey was furiously typing away on her phone.
“We’re doing that thing…” she mumbled as she typed. “Where we’re both trying to figure out what the other knows…” Lindsey’s eyes were fixed on her phone, and her mumbles were detached, which probably meant she had no idea she was doing it. “…which means he knows something… So spill. Everything.”
There was no way out of the car. All he could do was keep driving and wish he didn’t care what Sierra was about to tell her friend. Instead he held his breath.
“No…” Lindsey mumbled as she typed. “…Take the time to tell me now…”
And then Lindsey stared at her phone. And kept staring.
And Donovan drove and tried not to notice when the phone signaled another text in an odd chirping sound.
Lindsey started reading, pulling her feet onto the seat. Next her hand flew to her mouth as she gasped.
Well, that pretty much answered the question of how much Sierra was going to tell her friend…
Now what happened?
He’d been more full of questions than he ever had before. Sierra had definitely complicated his life.
“This…” Lindsey mumble-texted. “Is crazy… You can’t have sex with someone and not tell me.”
“Okay,” Donovan interjected. “You know I can hear you, right?”
Lindsey’s head snapped toward him. “Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. Shit,” Donovan answered.
“Please don’t break her heart. Every guy has just fallen for her looks and not for her you know? And now…” Lindsey’s face contorted so drastically, he had zero idea what she was feeling.
Now that she’d paused, he’d rather just get the conversation over with. “And now?” he prompted.
“Now after all this time of knowing her, you’re… You two had sex!”
“I was there.” Mostly there. “I remember that part.”
“So? She’s my best friend and I cannot let her heart get broken again.”
Lindsey’s phone sounded again but her eyes didn’t leave Donovan.
“Four years separation was a lot in high school. Now… Now it’s not.”
Lindsey glanced down at her phone. “But you two are…sorting things?”
“Do you two tell each other everything?” he asked.
“This conversation and every movement your face or your body makes during this conversation will be replayed,” Lindsey confirmed.
Knowing Sierra was going to hear everything made him really pause and think.
“It’s hard…” he started. “Having a person in one box your whole life, and then having things between you shift. I want to do the right thing. It’s why I ended up in Riverside.”
Lindsey bit her lip. “I’m not following.”
“I wanted to talk to her parents, and yeah… I just wanted to make sure it was all cool, and me and Sierra probably have a million things to talk about, so…”
“Wait.” Lindsey blinked. “You seriously planned on driving six hours just to talk to her parents in person about how they’d feel if you took Sierra out?”
And a few other things he wasn’t going to let Lindsey in on. “Her mom, yeah.”
She blinked again and a tear slipped down her cheek. Lindsey fanned her reddening face. “I’m totally swooning right now. That is ridiculously romantic and swoony and awesome.”
He sucked in a lungful of air. Maybe romantic. Or maybe stupid. “If I don’t fuck it up,” he mumbled.
“I can hear your mumbling as easily as you could hear mine.” Lindsey frowned. “Don’t stress. Be yourself. That’s who she fell in love with Donovan. She doesn’t want anything big. She just wants to be part of your life.”
Part of his life. His chest imploded and then exploded in a rush of something he’d never felt.
“I just totally freaked you out.” Lindsey sat back in her seat. “You sit over there and think. Thank you so for the ride and for letting me crash at your place for a couple nights.”
Donovan just nodded. But Lindsey hadn’t freaked him out—she’d made everything so simple. Maybe that’s all it was. The elusive “it” was just sharing lives. Days. Hours. Minutes. That almost felt doable.
Hanson really had to get back to him. And soon. He couldn’t move forward without talking to his best friend.
Fifteen
Official Sierra freak-out had commenced an hour ago. How had Lindsey not written back after her admission about the sex and the break?
Break.
Her heart cracked a little. He was not like the others. He was different. Donovan was different. He was. He was. He was…
Four-dozen cookies lined the counters. She had to sew or something instead of cook or none of her jeans were going to fit. The curtains made with eight different colors of thread were already over the windows—casting a warmer light into the room, and giving her a nice blog post that she already had edited and scheduled.
Sierra’s phone minion laughed at her, signaling a text, and she leapt for the phone, tripping over the end of the couch and landing half on the coffee table.
He is amazingly sweet. I get why you’ve been in love with this guy you never see.
Sierra felt a rush of warmth tinge her cheeks and she let herself smile as she pushed off the coffee table to sit up. What would it be like to relax into the idea of her and Donovan? To be confident in how he felt?
But. She wasn’t going to push him either. They were friends. They’d found some kind of truce with him knowing how she felt, and yeah…
To hell with it. Waiting sucked. She had to get to working on this book and what she wanted to do with it. Her brain needed something else to focus on. Lindsey was about to save her sanity.
The front door burst open and Lindsey threw herself into Sierra’s arms with a laugh.
“I’m so excited an agent wants more from you!” Lindsey screamed.
“I know!” Sierra grabbed her friend and her heart stopped when she saw Van smile at her from the doorway.
“Okay.” Lindsey was
grinning and out of breath as she let go of Sierra only to clutch her shoulders. “I’m going to drop my bag in your room.”
“The one on the right,” Sierra told her.
Her friend gave her a wink and Sierra knew she’d give them as much time as Sierra needed.
“So.” She turned to Van. “I’m sorry for ruining your very few days off.”
“Nothing’s ruined.” Van shrugged, still watching her.
“Did you get a few things sorted out?”
“I’m sort of a mess, See,” he whispered as he leaned against the wall. “More than I thought. I walked to my old house today, and I felt…” His chin quivered and Sierra closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms around him.
She’d never seen him anything close to tears before.
“I’m your friend, Van. First and most important.” She pressed her face into his chest. “I’m so sorry. Thank you for bringing me Lindsey.”
“The book, Sierra… So deserved. I couldn’t be happier. I know you’ll come up with something fantastic.”
He relaxed his arms. “I played half the night. I have more songs that are just scattered in my brain. I haven’t felt this way in… It’s been years.”
“Then you’ll for sure want to camp out another night because me and Lindsey don’t know how to be quiet.” She smiled.
“Maybe I’ll take off then.” He shifted his weight. “The other night. With us…”
“Can we pretend it didn’t happen?” she asked. “Pretend that all I said was that I liked you and move on from there?”
His body relaxed and a small smile played on his mouth. “I’d love that.”
They were getting a re-do. She definitely needed time with Lindsey. “Okay.”
Donovan planted a kiss on her cheek, which tingled to her toes. “I’ll see you two girls tomorrow night. You can pick the movie.”
“Enjoy your quiet.”
“Enjoy your friend.”
Sierra returned the kiss to Van’s cheek before he tipped his head and stepped out the door.
Okay. She released a breath. Forward. Slow. But forward.
Donovan knew he was leaving two girls to dissect his every move and every word and every…everything. Maybe that would be good. He certainly didn’t want to stick around and maybe overhear things he wasn’t meant to.
Darkness seemed to press through the windows as he drove and just outside of town, he pulled into a small campsite near the river. He’d been there a hundred times before, and didn’t have a plan aside from being alone, giving Sierra time with her friend, and playing his guitar.
He paid his camp fee, breathing in the fall air, glad he’d taken the time to get out of town. A few small campfires burned around him, but he wasn’t going to bother with one. Too late. No one to share it with. He slid open the van door and crawled in the back, pulling his guitar onto his lap.
The first couple songs came easily, and he was slightly more relaxed about how the following week in Portland would play out. He started in on another one he hadn’t played in a while, but the sound felt hollow—no one to share it with, no big spaces for the sound to bounce back at him. As much as he loved camping in his van by himself, it suddenly felt empty.
He typed out a quick text to Sierra and hit send before thinking.
Donovan: Hope you two are having fun
He heard back immediately.
Sierra: We so are. You relax into being alone. From what I can see you’re rarely alone because you WORK so much ;-)
Donovan: Working on it. Thx
Sierra: Anytime – oh! Zebra cookies or blondie no-bakes?
Donovan: I’m afraid to ask what zebra cookies are, but you’ve got my curiosity peaked.
Sierra: Done ;-)
He didn’t feel the need to write her back or ask if she was okay. It wasn’t weird. She wasn’t needy. Just…there. Without the stress of her dad and her brother, being with Sierra might be the easiest thing in the world.
He plucked out a few more songs, and then began working on the new ones from the night before. The music washed over him. Faded out the van. The night. His stress. Everything. Just like it had when he was a kid. When he lived in Sierra’s house. When he was in college wondering if he was fighting an uphill battle for nothing.
Hours passed before he finally set down the guitar and relaxed onto the already folded down bed.
With every passing hour without sleep, he knew more that Sierra could be his future. That maybe…maybe they could jump over the hurdles of her brother and father together. It was just the first step that felt like leaping off the high dive because it might be the last time he took a first step with someone. Was he really ready to start a relationship with a woman who could be his forever?
Lindsey pulled her coat more tightly around her and Sierra smirked. “Don’t worry my cold-blooded friend. I shall warm you with coffee.”
They jogged up the sidewalk, Sierra knowing the only place to get good coffee so late at night was the coffee shop next to Great Outdoors.
“Whoa.” Lindsey grabbed Sierra’s arm, pulling her to a stop in front of the store. “This is your brother’s place, isn’t it?”
“Him and Donovan’s.”
Lindsey cupped her hands over her face to see inside the dark store. “Do you still think that Donovan went along with Hanson’s plan for the store just to keep your brother happy?”
“I’m not sure.” Sierra leaned her back against the glass storefront as Lindsey kept staring inside. “Donovan was so focused on music. He started off as a music major in college, and then… He ended up doing business like Hanson. I don’t know that it was to keep him happy, but more to go along with what he knew Hanson wanted, you know?”
“And like you.”
“But I’m doing business in the hopes that it’ll keep me on my toes with my blogging-crafty-fun stuff because I love it.”
“And this is separate from music.”
Sierra nodded. “But he and Hanson were always taking off for weekend campouts and stuff, so who knows.”
“Maybe you two will be close enough that you can ask him, huh?” Lindsey waggled her brows, and this time it was Sierra’s turn to jerk her friend forward.
“You know what? Now that Donovan and me have sort of laid a few things out between us, I feel weirdly calm about the whole thing.”
They walked slowly, letting their heels scuff on the sidewalk, Lindsey still clutching her coat to her sides.
Lindsey laughed a little. “This from the girl who squealed for weeks about the opportunities she’d have to be noticed?”
Sierra pulled open the door to the coffee shop. “I know. It’s just… I feel like I should be frantic, but he’s so real, and the whole thing between us would be so real it’s just… Yeah, I don’t know why I’m so calm. I just am. I guess my part is done, you know? He knows how I feel.” It was out of her hands and she knew it. Maybe it was a forced calm.
“He’s trying to shift his perception of you, and he has to know that there’s no such thing as casual when it comes to you and him.” Lindsey wrinkled her nose. “Not with all your family history stuff.”
Lindsey was right. Their history changed everything. Her stomach flittered in nerves.
“Ok. Now you have me freaking out again. Thank you.” Sierra shot her friend a look.
“Let’s caffeinate and then get back to your place and bury ourselves in possible book outlines to send on to agents, cool?”
“Very, very, cool,” Sierra agreed.
But as they ordered she wondered how Donovan was. Where he was.
“My friend,”—Lindsey slid her arm through Sierra’s—“the author. I so love this.”
Yeah. If she could get her ideas together into something coherent. And if she could actually write a book that wasn’t funny girly fluff. Blog posts were one thing. A whole cohesive non-fiction book? Totally different.
And just like she’d read her mind, Lindsey wrapped her arm over her friend. “Yo
u so have this. All of it. Your life will turn into stars and rainbows.”
Sierra snorted at her friend, but still…she hoped.
I know that Donovan’s dying to talk to Hanson, and probably my dad, but I don’t want anyone or anything to come between us when we still feel so fragile. We have to move further forward first.
- Sierra
Time with her is changing everything, but before we go any further, I have to get in touch with Hanson. And then (if Hanson doesn’t want to kill me) get some ideas as to how to talk to Sierra’s dad. Nothing can happen before then. Or…nothing else.
- Donovan
Sixteen
Blinking his scratchy eyes, Donovan crawled out of his van and walked slowly up the steps to his apartment. Had Sierra gotten the head space she needed? Time with her friend? Did he want to be seen by either of them that day after all the possible talking about him they’d done the night before?
Sliding his key into the lock, he shoved away the questions in his head. He just needed to shower, change, and head to the store. Saturdays were busy. When he stepped into the apartment, he stopped still. Both women were crashed on the living room floor, piles of blankets and pillows around them. Sierra’s hand rested next to her laptop, which was open with a blacked-out screen.
Coffee cups littered the area around their heads and two plates of cookies sat on the coffee table, half eaten.
He watched Sierra for a moment. Her breaths slow and even, her hair tangled around her face. Grown up. She was grown up. And all the things he’d loved about her when she was younger had followed her into this very cool woman. As much as he and Sierra agreed to erase their night together, when he watched her, that’s what he felt—the closeness, the want, the feeling of all the pieces of each other’s bodies slipping together so perfectly. But she was more than that. Felt like more than that, and he wasn’t quite sure what exactly that was. Yet.
Sierra let out slow breaths as Lindsey headed for the door, begging tears not to fall. They talked all the time, but her buffer was leaving. Her friend who celebrated by eating a small ton of cookie dough was going home.