“I saw another guy tonight, another blast from the past. Oliver.”
“Your midget boyfriend?”
“He’s not an actual midget, and most midgets find that term incredibly insensitive.”
She shrugs. “If it walks like a midget and talks like a midget...”
I throw a pillow at her to shut her up. “Oliver. He’s fantastic. He was there too, trying to convince women like us to run away to join a circus with him, and they all took him seriously. Can you believe it?” I can’t help laughing.
I sigh and keep going. “He had no idea what I’d done, what happened with Coral, or how I got so sick so fast. I pulled away from everyone and everything I cared about because I was worried I’d screw up, hurt them all again. I think seeing Grant was...I don’t know...good for me. I needed to see him happy and successful. I know he’s okay and he’s moved on.
“But seeing Oliver...I think talking it out with him got my brain working. He got me thinking of what I could do to honor the life of a girl much too young to die. I mean, what would she say if she saw me lying all stinky and depressed on the couch earlier tonight? I can almost hear her voice telling me to get up and get a life. Will it sound crazy if I say sometimes I feel like she’s with me?” I look down and shake my head, my hands twitching nervously. “Maybe that’s just me not wanting to let her go. I don’t know, but she always looked up to me, for whatever reason. I don’t want to disappoint her.”
“So you have a plan? What is it?” Harlow asks quietly. I think she’s afraid I might cry.
“First of all, you stop looking at me like I’m going to spontaneously combust, and we eat our take out.”
She smiles ruefully at me. “Okay, and then what?”
“I find a job and do it well. Then I roll my parents into starting the Coral Brooks scholarship fund for foster girls, using the life insurance policy they had on her. What do you think?”
She nods approvingly. “I like it.”
“My job hunting efforts have been a little lackluster, but—”
“A little? No kidding!” Harlow snorts.
I glare at her. “My plan doesn’t require any commentary from you.”
“And yet, you will hear it.”
I laugh. “I know, I know...”
A knock at the door interrupts us a few minutes later as I finish fleshing out details for Harlow’s opinion. “Hey, I got this one,” I tell her as I reach for my purse on the table.
“You can barely pay rent right now,” she protests, reaching for her own. “I got it.” She hurries into the hall.
“Hey, I forgot to tell you, I might have a temp gig to help me get rent money until...” My voice trails off.
My huge orange purse is loaded with a little too much stuff, but usually my wallet sits right on top, my life preserver floating atop a sea of worthless cosmetic flotsam. But it’s not there. I start ripping frantically through my bag, looking for it. I throw out my phone, a notebook, pens in every shade, a few tampons, crinkled up receipts and gum wrappers. No wallet.
I dig through it again, checking for holes in the purse’s lining. Harlow comes back to the table holding a plastic bag, loaded with two styrofoam containers brim full with Sharky’s deliciousness. “I can’t find it!”
“Can’t find what?” she asks, pulling out her salad. She slides the bag over to me and pops her container open to inspect the food.
“My wallet! I know I had it, I just...”
My voice trails off as I recall the last moment I saw Grant. I was so flustered that I knocked my purse to the floor and didn’t bother making sure I had everything. I just grabbed what I could see and shoved it all back in so I could get out of there. “I left it at the coffee shop. Are they still open?”
We glance at the old analog clock ticking on the wall above the table. Harlow pulls a face. “Sorry, but they closed an hour ago.”
Of course. I guess it could be worse. It’s not like I have much to lose in there. Any potential thief will be saddened by the serious lack of cash and credits cards that will most definitely get declined. It will probably end up in a trash can somewhere near the shop, but I still feel naked. Funny how all those official little papers and cards make me feel like someone.
I think hard. Maybe I dropped it in the front when I pulled my keys out to unlock the door? “I’ll go look outside, just in case.”
I head for the door, unlock everything, and step onto the patio, leaving it open so the light from the hall streams onto the small cement pad in front of our cute little garden apartment. A row of shrubs separates our courtyard from the neighbors, so l kneel down and reach into the foliage, shaking branches with the hope that my wallet will fall out like manna from heaven. The sky is an orange gray now that dark clouds have rolled in. I smell rain in the air. I’m crawling around on all fours, my hands getting scratched and shredded when my wallet magically appears before my eyes, floating right in front of me.
“What the..!” I fall onto my backside and sprawl out on the concrete. My head hits the base of the shrubs and what little long hair I have gets tangled with a sharp collection of twigs at the base, and all I can do is laugh. My eyes are cinched shut and I’m laughing like a maniac. Tonight starts with an eyeball guy and ends with me getting ambushed by a flying wallet and attacked by bushes. How much more bizarre can my life get at this point?
“Are you okay?” a very familiar and concerned voice asks.
Nothing surprises me more than that voice. “Grant?” I ask, sitting up. I think I leave a handful of hair behind in the bush as I lurch up in surprise, but I’m too shocked to feel it. “How did you find me?”
He squats down next to me and holds my wallet up. “You left this. I’m a creeper and went through it. Took your cash and went on a spending spree before I brought it back.”
“With what I have in there? What did you buy, half a pack of gum?” I sit up and rub the back of my head, which is now pulsing with heat and pain. I touch it gently to feel the damage. I should have a lovely goose egg back there by morning.
“Oliver and I found it under the table where we sat tonight,” he explains. Grant stands, offering a hand to help me up.
I sigh and take it, jumping lightly to my feet with his help. That jolt is back, the white hot burst of energy I feel when I see him and touch him. I stand there for just a moment, basking in it as light from the hall illuminates his perfect features, his hand still in mine. “Thanks,” I murmur, working up the courage to look him in the eye. When my eyes reach his, I almost can’t breathe. We stand there, hand in hand, for the longest moment, until a shadow blocks our light and I hear Harlow clearing her throat as discreetly as she can.
I look away. “Harlow, meet Grant. Grant, this is my roommate Harlow.”
She leans against the door frame and folds her arms, looking very much like a mother who just got her kid smooching on the porch after curfew. “Grant, it’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard absolutely nothing about you.”
He grins and shakes his head, embarrassed. “Same here.”
“He found my wallet at the coffee shop and was nice enough to bring it back to me,” I tell her. I jump back and wipe the dirt and leaves from my backside. Coughing, I look down long enough to collect my thoughts, and then take the wallet from him. “Thanks again for bringing this by. You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”
“Hey, uh, Lauren,” he starts, but he glances at Harlow, who’s still standing in the doorway with an amused smirk on her face.
“Can I have a minute?” I ask her as my heart starts to beat foolishly in my chest.
Her eyes soften, and the porch light flips on as she closes the door. “You two crazy kids don’t stay out too late,” she says right before the door clicks shut.
Grant looks around, looking for a place to sit. We have nothing, unless he wants to use the shrubbery for a bench, so we stand in the odd yellow glimmer of the porch light. I’m so full of things I want to ask him, things I want to say, but that will ta
ke a lifetime, and I haven’t earned it. Maybe he did walk away...but I’m the one who stayed away.
“So Oliver and I were talking,” he begins, and his voice sounds a little high-pitched and unnatural. His nervous voice. I smile and fold my arms, tipping my head to listen. “We were wondering if you wanted to get together sometime for a casual dinner, you know, old friends just hanging out.”
I offer an exaggerated nod. “Mm-hmm. You forget just how well I know Oliver. If I agree, he plans to come down with a mysterious case of food poisoning or leprosy that night and then experience a miraculous recovery next day, right?”
Grant’s eyes close. “Something like that,” he admits with a half-smile.
“You brought me my wallet. Your good deed is done for the day,” I say. I want to step away, but something draws me closer. “You’ve offered dinner with an old friend and I’d love to accept, but if I say yes, I don’t want dinner with a friend.”
“What are you saying?” He’s closer now, too, and my face tilts up to search his even though it’s partially hidden in shadow.
“I can’t be friends with you, Grant.”
He looks stunned and a little hurt. “What do you—”
Before I know what I’m doing, I move closer still and search his eyes. I may not know much, but I know I can’t be ‘just friends’ with him, ever. I need to see if it’s still there, if he still wants me. I run my fingers through his thick curls and pull his head toward mine. My lips part and I feel the sweet warmth of his breath on my cheek before our lips meet. His hands cradle my face and then slide down my back as he pulls me closer. I taste the salt of his skin for a brief moment as I pull away, but he won’t let me go. A light mist and gentle rain falls on us. It feels like time stands still as our hearts beat together and our lips meet again, soft and urgent, slow and deep, making promises we can’t wait to keep. Our lips tell each other what we’re not quite ready to say again. Not yet.
With a reluctant sigh, I pull away and look down. He keeps his hand on the back of my head, and pulls me into a hug. My head rests against his shoulder and he rubs my back slowly. “We can’t pick up where we left off, Lauren.”
“I don’t want to,” I answer as I wrap my arms around his waist. “I want something different. We aren’t the same people we were five years ago. And you deserve so much more than I ever offered before.”
“I wouldn’t be here if I thought that,” he whispers in my ear, his lips brushing it gently, the smell of him washing over me as I melt into him again. “You were always enough.”
I don’t know if I’m ready to believe in happily ever after yet, but I want to believe that we can be happy now. Maybe together we can recover the tomorrow we thought we lost, because, finally, my arms are wide open.
Table of Contents
copyright
Friday Night
The Eyeball Guy
Eject! Eject!
Rico Suavé
Ex Factor
Don Juan Gone Horribly Wrong
The One
Worth the Risk
Unhidden Truth
Begin Again
Arms Wide Open: a Novella Page 7