“Can’t get over how beautiful you look tonight,” he says. “Forgive me for staring.”
I roll my eyes. “Anyone would look beautiful with contouring, fake lashes, and a little Chanel lipstick.”
Seth smirks, dragging his teeth along his bottom lip. “Don’t be so modest. You’re beautiful either way, but tonight ... Tonight you’re making me want to do things I shouldn’t do.”
I take another drink, bigger this time. “Don’t get all weird on me.”
“Weird?” He laughs through his nose. “Since when is honesty weird?”
“When it’s coming from my best friend.”
Seth’s smile fades. “Maybe I don’t want to be your best friend anymore.”
“Seth.”
“I mean it, Ayla. I’ve been waiting, patiently, for you to see how perfect we could be together,” he says. “I’m with you almost every day. You text me in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep. I let you drag me to chick flicks. I always let you pick the restaurants. I always make time to read what you’re reading so we can talk books because I know you love talking books but you don’t like the kind of books I like. Anytime you need anything, I’m there. IKEA bookshelf? I’m there with my Allen wrench. Garbage disposal won’t work? I’m calling my plumber guy for you. A string of break-ins on your street? I’m there sleeping on your couch with my baseball bat. Need a ride to the airport? I’m there. I’m always. Fucking. There.”
“Of course you do all those things with me, you’re my best friend,” I say, brows furrowed as I watch his entire demeanor shift in real time. This isn’t him. “Maybe this isn’t the time or place for this conversation. Can we come back to this later?”
“No,” he says, lips flat and nostrils flaring. God, he looks sexy when he’s all angry like this, but still, he’s in the friend zone and that’s exactly where I want him to be. I can’t imagine kissing him anyway—I imagine it’d be akin to kissing a brother or cousin. Weird. Wrong. Unnatural. “I’ve been crazy about you from the moment we met.”
“I know.”
“We have so much in common,” he says. “We fit perfectly. We’ve never had a fight or a disagreement. We love all the same things. We could be so happy together.”
“It’s hard to explain…”
“Try me.”
I swallow a deep breath and stare into my lap at the cloth napkin I’m wringing the life out of.
“I’m still in love with someone,” I say.
Seth exhales, jaw clenched.
“And until I can stop comparing every single man I meet to him,” I continue, “I have no business being with someone else.”
“So that’s it?” he asks, tone colored in disgust. “You’re not even going to try?”
“Believe me, I’ve been trying,” I insist.
“Try harder.”
“It’s not that easy. And last weekend? In New York? I ran into him for the first time since we ended things.”
He shakes his head, chuffing. “Of course that’s where you ran off to. Makes perfect fucking sense.”
“It’s complicated,” I say. “There’s a lot of unfinished business between us.”
Seth rolls his eyes.
“But he hates me,” I add. “And we’re never going to be together. So there’s that.”
“Must be rough,” he says, though I sense some sarcasm there. “Pining after someone for months and months who doesn’t look at you half the way you look at them.”
My chest tightens. I want Rhett. Seth wants me. Nobody’s happy.
“I wish it were different,” I say, placing my hand on his.
He jerks it away, grabbing my champagne and tossing it back in one swallow. “Yep.”
Pushing himself up, he straightens his tie and tugs on his lapels.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Home,” he says, eyes scanning the room for the nearest exit.
“Because I won’t date you?” My face pinches. He’s got to be kidding me right now. “Seth, come on. Don’t do this.”
“I can’t be around you anymore. Not if it’s for nothing,” he says. “Goodbye, Ayla. I hope you and your ... delusional fantasies about getting back with some ex-boyfriend are very happy together.”
There’s a package lying against my front door Monday afternoon. The return address is the Cutler and Bagby headquarters in Seattle, and I know exactly what it is.
I tear into the packaging, pulling out my proof of Cold Hearted, the spin off of my first book.
It’s going to print soon, and then the world will get to read the story of “Reed” and “Ariana.” It’s a love story born through tragedy, only these two have the happily ever after Rhett and I will never know.
This is the story of us—until about the halfway mark. In this version, Reed forgives Ariana. He understands that she loved him so much, she didn’t want to hurt him. He lets her in. He loves her back, twice as hard as before, and they live happily ever after. It isn’t that simple, of course, but that’s the gist of it.
I started and stopped this story a half a dozen times, starting from scratch every time. I never intended for this story to be so rooted in my own reality, but somehow it came back to that every time.
Maybe it was my way of getting the closure I so badly needed.
All I know is that I so badly wanted to know what would’ve happened if only ... so I had to draw my own conclusions, even if they were purely fictional.
I grip the book, spread out on the couch, and crack the spine. Starting with page one, I lick my index finger and flip through each page; past the copyright page and the table of contents and the epigraph and then stopping at the dedication.
For Rhett. Always. –A
I suppose it’s silly to dedicate a book to someone who’ll never lay eyes on it, but it didn’t seem right dedicating it to anyone else.
This book exists because of him.
I hit chapter one next, which begins the day we met. I’ve changed the details, of course, and I’ve adjusted a bit of the dialogue, but these characters are us and this scene is the reincarnation of one of the most profound moments of my life.
It feels like going home.
And it makes my chest hurt.
My eyes water and the words blur, but I keep reading.
And I know when I get to the happily ever after, when Reed and Ariana say “I do,” my heart is going to break all over again.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Rhett
“That girl won’t stop staring at you,” one of my teammates says, elbowing me. We’re in some bar in some city ... Atlanta, I think. I’m not sure. We’ve been on the road for two weeks straight, and all the days and nights and cities are blurring together.
“I see that.” I take a drink of my beer and stare back at her but only because she looks like Ayla. I don’t want to fuck that girl. I don’t want to fuck any girls. Except Ayla.
Two weeks ago, I let her have it—twice—thinking if I just had one more fix, I could finally get her out of my system, but my brilliant plan backfired.
I want her just as much if not more than ever before. Thoughts of her invade every waking moment of my life, and as if that’s not enough, I’ve been dreaming about her almost every night.
The girl brushes the dark waves from her shoulder and climbs off her bar stool, sauntering in my direction.
She’s wasting her time.
“Hey, stranger,” she says, slipping her hand on my shoulder. “What are we drinking tonight?”
I don’t answer because her question is asinine. Clearly I’m drinking a beer.
“Have a name?” she asks.
Another stupid question. Of course I have a name.
“You’re really terrible at this,” I tell her, taking another drink and scanning the bar. There’s an old black and white picture of the Rat Pack on the wall. I’ve probably seen that photo a hundred times, and it’s still far more interesting than this conversation.
“You
’re not giving me much to work with,” she says, her smile fading and her tone shifting. She looks like Ayla even more when she frowns. “I’m trying here.”
I say nothing.
“You’ve been staring at me all night,” she says. “How is that not an invitation to come and introduce myself?”
“You look like someone I know,” I say.
“I get that a lot,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I look like that actress from Grey’s Anatomy, Camilla Luddington.” The girl smirks. “If I had a dollar for every time someone asked for my autograph…”
“Never heard of her.”
Her hand hooks onto her hip. “I could tell from across the room that you were going to be intense, but I didn’t think you’d be a straight up asshole.”
“Sorry?”
“Are you apologizing or asking a question?”
“See that guy over there? The one in the blue t-shirt and backwards baseball cap?” I point across the bar to one of my teammates. “His name is River. He’ll fuck anything that walks. Go to him.”
“Screw you.” She shoots me a death stare and struts back to her friends. I feel them shooting daggers my way, but I don’t give a fuck.
I don’t give a fuck about anything these days.
Anything except Ayla.
Chapter Forty
Ayla
This is a bad idea.
I should not be doing this.
Where’s Bostyn when I need her? She’d be yanking the phone from my hand and talking some sense into me.
I lift my phone to my ear. It’s ringing.
Any second now, I’m going to get Rhett’s voicemail, and I don’t even know what I’m going to say or if I’m going to say anything, but I just want to hear the sound of his voice.
“Hello?”
Oh, god. He answered.
My heart pulses in my ears and my hands clam up. “Rhett. Hi.”
He exhales, and not in a good way.
“Why are you calling?” he asks, though I think the most important question here is why did he answer.
“Um,” I say, trying to buy some time to think of a better answer than the truth. Sometimes I drink and I call up old boyfriends. It’s something I’ve always done and it’s juvenile, but it happens. Half the time I don’t remember the conversation the next day, I only happen across my call log and see that I spoke with one of them at one in the morning for forty-two minutes and thirty-three seconds.
“What do you want, Ayla?” he asks.
I sit up straight. My body is Jell-O. I’d ask myself how I got here, but the empty, miniature bottles of vodka sitting on top of the mini bar seem to be a good indication.
“I wanted to talk about that weekend,” I say.
It’s been three weeks now, and there hasn’t been a single night when I haven’t replayed every last minute of that experience in my mind before drifting to sleep. I’ve determined I must have masochistic tendencies.
“No thanks,” he says.
“Are you going to hate me forever?”
He’s silent on the other end, and in his silence I find my answer.
“I don’t hate you, Ayla,” he sighs.
“Then why can’t we—”
“—because we can’t. We’ll ruin each other. And you won’t survive me a second time; not like this.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I just know. You’re fire. I’m gasoline. We’ll burn this to the ground before it even has a chance.”
“So you’ve thought about it,” I say.
“Thought about what?”
“Giving this another chance.”
“It’s not going to happen, Ayla. I can promise you that,” he says, his voice stern and certain.
“Then why did you answer your phone?” I ask.
He hesitates.
“Rhett,” I say his name, desperate for his answer.
I hear him exhale.
And then the call ends.
Chapter Forty-One
Rhett
I’ve never put much credence in things like fate or destiny, but when I saw the chalkboard sign outside a bookstore in Seattle this morning, I had to take a second.
TONIGHT ONLY!! NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR AYLA CALDWELL 7-9PM!!
So here I am, in the backroom of a bookstore amongst a standing room only crowd, waiting for Ayla to take the podium up front. The room is alive with energy and the readers around me, ninety-eight percent women, are chatting up a storm, all of them clutching hardcover books with Ayla’s name printed across the front.
Someone’s passing around a shoebox, notepad, and pencil, and people are scribbling down questions for Ayla to answer. The woman running the show says she can’t guarantee Ayla will have time to get to all of them, but she’ll answer as many as she can.
The box almost skips me, but I reach out for it. The woman handing it off apologizes, saying she assumed I was here against my will with my girlfriend.
I tear a piece of paper from the notepad, jot down my question, fold it in half and drop it in the shoebox.
Five minutes later the lights dim, and the lady in charge ushers Ayla to the front of the room. The dull roar of women’s voices ceases to exist. They’re all in awe, eyes glued as she takes the podium. A select few, who probably stood in line since this morning, have seats up front, but I’m in the back of the room along the wall, generously obscured by several dozen fangirling women. There’s no way Ayla can see me.
“Hi, everyone,” Ayla says, offering a nervous titter. Her cheeks are slightly flushed. She hates public speaking, I can tell. “Thanks for coming tonight.”
“Ayla, we love you!” a woman shouts beside me. Another one beside her whistles between two fingers. Ayla shields her eyes and stares toward the back of the room.
Jesus, ladies, shut the hell up.
I don’t want her to see me.
I don’t want her to know I’m here. Not yet.
She begins with a reading from her book, Hard Hearted. I’m not sure what the book is about, some love story. I don’t pay attention to the words; only her. The women applaud when she’s finished with the passage, and she gives a little backstory on how the book came to be, how many rejections she received, and how she refused to give up because she had so much faith in this story and wanted to share it with the world.
The lady in charge hands her the shoebox, whispering something in her ear before returning to her seat.
“You guys want me to answer your questions?” Ayla asks with a smile.
She’s met with a collective, resounding, “Yes!”
“Okay, I’m just going to draw a few random ones,” she says. “So I’m really sorry if your question isn’t drawn tonight.” Ayla digs her hand into the box, mixing up the little scraps of paper before retrieving one. “Okay. Was Hard Hearted based on anyone you know in real life?” She places the paper aside. “Hm. Not ... directly? Maybe a culmination of several people? I just wanted to write a book about someone who was hard to love, but who wanted to be loved more than anything in the world. I feel like I’ve come across a lot of those types in my life, so writing about James felt like second nature almost, like we were old friends. And maybe bits and pieces of Stassi are based on me, but it isn’t direct or intentional. It just sort of happens when you write. You can’t help but put yourself in the character’s shoes, and sometimes they think and say and do the things you would think and say and do in their situation.”
Ayla digs into the box, retrieving the second question.
“If you had to cast the characters in a movie, who would play them? Oh, fun question. Definitely Ashley Graham for Stassi. Probably Ryan Gosling for James.” She moves onto the next. “Will there be a sequel to Hard Hearted? Yes! Kind of. It’ll be a spin off based on all new characters but set in the same world. It’s actually finished and will be released this May. The seventeenth I believe. And it’s called Cold Hearted. These are great questions, you guys. Thanks for not putting me on the
spot like the group in Omaha did. Their questions got super personal, and I was not prepared for that.” The readers laugh, and she gives them a wink, reaching for the next one. “Since redemption seems to be a theme in your book, I’m curious—what’s the most unforgiveable thing you’ve ever done to someone you love? And do you think you deserve to be forgiven?”
Ayla’s hand moves to her throat, and her eyes scan the question—my question—again. Her smile fades in and out, like she’s trying to figure out if this is some kind of joke.
It isn’t.
I want to know.
She clears her throat. “Well, first of all, I didn’t write the book on love. I don’t claim to be a love expert.” She laughs. “But yes. I’ve hurt someone I loved. We met, I lied by omission, and I let him fall for me. When he found out, he decided he didn’t want me in his life anymore. Do I think I deserve to be forgiven? I don’t know. That’s not for me to decide. Only he can make that call.”
She sits the paper aside, and even from the back of the room, I can see her hand trembling as she takes a drink of water.
She knows I’m here.
“Okay, next question,” she says, forcing a smile.
I don’t stick around.
Chapter Forty-Two
Ayla
“What the hell was that?” I call him that night, just past eleven when I’m finally back from the bookstore. I stuck around after questions and made sure every single person who bought a ticket to see me walked out with my autograph in the front of their book.
“I wanted to hear you say it out loud, in front of other people. I wanted to hear you own it. To describe it without excuses and justifications.”
“Where are you staying?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I need to see you.”
The Rebound Page 36