by Lili Valente
Thankfully, despite my years of solitude in the woods, I seem to remember how this “being social” thing works. I spot a group of mixed company—two friendly-looking girls and three guys who are playing darts with some very cool looking feathered arrows—and fold myself into their conversation with minimal fuss. They prove to be every bit as friendly as I’d hoped they would, as well as understanding about my poor aim.
After thirty minutes and another beer, I drift away from my new friends to visit the ladies, check the time—still over an hour until Tanner gets here, dammit—and apply a fresh coat of lip gloss. I’m debating whether to rejoin my pals or to strike out in search of more friendly faces, when I emerge from the ladies room and run smack into the last person I expect to see.
“Sam!” His name emerges with a breathy laugh as I step back, pulling my hands away from his chest with an “I’ve been burned” swiftness. I haven’t touched him in so long, and it feels immediately, intensely wrong.
We aren’t people who touch. Not anymore, not ever again.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, blinking fast.
His lips tremble into an uncertain smile, but instead of saying he’s here to cover the opening for one of the magazines he writes for, as I’m anticipating, he opens his mouth and crazy things come out. “I’m here to see you, actually.”
I turn my head sharply to one side and blink again. “I’m sorry?”
He laughs. “No, I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I’m part of the Wood Timber tasting club. They send out an email blast every week, keeping members up to date on the brewery news. Yesterday they sent out a blast about the opening, with a list of the staff who will be working at the new location. I saw your name in the PR position and I just…” He shakes his head. “It felt like a sign, running into you twice in one week after so long wondering where you were and how you were doing.”
“That is kind of a crazy coincidence.” I step back, moving out of the way of two women weaving their way toward the bathroom.
His brow furrows as he jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “Can we talk, do you think? Catch up somewhere private?”
I nod a little too fast, stretching a hand toward the patio and the business offices beyond. “Sure. We could head to the staff break room if you want. I would take you to my office, but I have no idea where it is yet. I don’t officially start until next week.”
“Sounds good,” he says, following me down the hall. “So what made you decide to make the move to Portland? I thought we’d never get you out of the woods.”
“I still love the woods, but I got tired of being the poorest person I knew. I don’t mind suffering for my art, but it was time to see if I could find a way to improve my bottom line. And I have family here, of course.”
“I remember. How is your brother?”
“Good!” I force a cheery smile. “He’s engaged, too.”
“Good for him,” Sam says, before smoothly turning the conversation back to safer waters. “And good for you. Good Timber’s a great company.”
We talk shop—the usual grumblings about working in a creative profession in the digital age—as we leave the party and head down the cobblestone path to a smaller courtyard surrounded by the Good Timber offices. I lead the way to the break room; it’s a cozy space with a small bar, complete with two beers on tap, bistro tables and stools, and a kitchenette against the far wall, and as we go in, I deliberately leave the door open behind us.
I don’t know why, but I feel weird about being alone in an enclosed space with Sam. Obviously, we’re just friends now—or on our way to being friends, I guess, if he’s gone to all the trouble to track me down for a chat—but the memory of intimacies lurk beneath the surface, and sometimes open doors are as good at marking boundaries as closed ones. I can’t think about the fact that I used to make love to this man—sweet, sexy, no-holding-back love—or I’ll do something mortifying like blush bright red or cry. The way I cried the day Sam told me we were never going to have a second chance because he’d fallen in love with someone else while we were taking a break for me to figure my shit out.
“So what’s up?” I circle the bar. “Would you like a beer? Looks like we’ve got Hipster Honey and a pale ale on draft.”
“No, thanks.” Sam leans against the entrance to the bar, blocking my path out, unknowingly feeding my ex-encounter anxiety. “I don’t want to keep you from the party for too long. I just thought…” He trails off, studying his hand as his fingers spread wide on the polished wood. “This is a beautiful piece.”
“It is,” I agree, beginning to think I’m not the only one who’s feeling awkward. A long moment passes in silence before I add in a softer voice, “This doesn’t have to be weird, Sam. I know I was a mess when we broke up for good, but I’m okay now. And I’m happy for you. It seems like Madeline is a beautiful person, inside and out.” I smile, a little surprised to find I mean it.
I am happy for him, something that wouldn’t have been possible before Tanner.
Damn. Tanner.
Just thinking about him makes me feel like I’ve swallowed sunshine. I’ve got it bad. Worse than I had it for Sam a few weeks into our relationship, that’s for damned sure, and look how far down the love road we went together.
I’m so distracted by this realization—and the simultaneously terrifying and exciting suspicion that Tanner might be that even more perfect-for me-than-Sam guy I never dreamed I’d find—that I don’t realize Sam is within touching distance until his hand settles on mine, pinning me between his warm skin and the cool wood of the bar.
I look up to find him staring at me with an intensity that throws me off center. “What’s wrong?” I ask, brow furrowing.
“Madeline is wonderful,” he says. “But she’s not you.”
I gape at him, eyes wide, so shocked that all I can do is open and close my mouth like a startled goldfish as Sam leans closer.
Chapter Twenty-One
Diana
“I know this is crazy, but seeing you the other day brought back so many memories. Of you and me and how good it was. It never felt like work with you. It was easy, as natural as breathing.” Sam smiles wistfully, clearly having no clue this conversation is giving me a golf-ball sized lump in my throat. “And the way we would laugh…” He chuckles fondly. “Jesus, no one’s ever made me laugh the way you do.”
“And no one’s ever made me cry the way you did,” I say, voice hoarse. I pull my hand from beneath his, crossing my arms. “I know it was my fault for calling a time-out in the first place, but damn it, Sam. When you said we were never getting another chance because you’d met someone else…” I swallow hard, fighting the emotion churning in my chest. “I thought I was going to die. I wanted to for a while. I couldn’t imagine how I would ever feel okay again.”
He reaches up, cupping my face in one big hand. “I’m sorry.”
My breath rushes out. “You don’t have to be sorry. Like I said, I know it was my fault, too. I’m the one who needed a break.”
“Because you’d just come out of a shitty relationship,” he says, thumb brushing back and forth across my cheek, making me feel sick with a mixture of regret, longing, and confusion.
What is even happening here?
“What do you want, Sam?” I take another step away. My final step, I realize as my ass hits the mini fridge. “Why are you saying these things now? After two years without so much as an email?”
“Because I’ve spent the past month registering for gifts for a wedding I’m not sure I want to go through with anymore,” he says, a haunted look creeping into his blue eyes. “I thought Madeline was the right choice. She’s solid and steady and always perfectly put together, and she made me feel like a fucking grownup for the first time in my life. And then I saw you again, with your hair all crazy and your every thought flashing across your face, and I just…” He shifts closer, brow furrowing miserably. “I remembered how good it was to be with someone who wasn’t afraid to be different. To b
e completely herself, no matter what.”
“Who the hell else am I supposed to be?”
“Someone other people find easier to digest,” he says. “You’re supposed to wad yourself into a box the way the rest of us do, but you don’t. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”
I suck in a deeper breath, trying to stop the room from spinning. “Shit, Sam, I don’t—”
“I need to be sure, Diana,” he cuts in, taking my cold hand. “Don’t you want to be sure we haven’t made a huge mistake hooking up with other people?”
“You’re not hooking up, you’re getting married,” I protest. “And Tanner and I just started getting sort of serious. I could never—”
“Then it’s even easier for you,” Sam says, a manic light in his eyes. “If it’s that new, you can just tell him you want to keep seeing other people for a while. And then you and I will have time to get to know each other again before we decide who we want to be with long term.”
I gulp in air. “This is crazy, Sam. What about Madeline? No way is she going to go from registering for wedding gifts to being okay with you dating your ex for a few months. And I don’t—”
“That’s why I can’t tell her.” He gives my hand a firm squeeze. “We would have to keep it a secret from Maddie until we know for sure that you and I want to get back together.”
My head rears back, knocking into the wall behind me.
“Ouch. Are you okay?” Sam asks.
“No.” I pull my hand from his as my heart begins to drag in my chest and a wave a dread rises inside me. “No, I’m not okay. I can’t…”
“I know it isn’t ideal,” Sam says. “But I think it’s important that we both keep our other options open. That way we know we’re choosing each other because it’s the right choice, not because it’s the only choice.”
I shake my head, blinking fast. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
He braces his hands on either side of my face. “I know. It’s a big step, but it feels right, doesn’t it?”
An unexpected laugh bursts from my tight throat. “No, Sam. It doesn’t feel right! What is wrong with you? What in the course of our relationship ever made you think I would be okay with fucking around behind another woman’s back? Any woman, but especially one as completely sweet and decent as Madeline?”
“It wouldn’t be like that,” he says, having the gall to sound wounded.
“It would be exactly like that.” I duck under his arm and hurry out from behind the bar, no longer able to tolerate being trapped so close to him. “And I can’t, Sam. I just can’t with you right now.”
“Then take some time.” He follows me as I rush for the door. “Think on it and let me know when you—”
“I don’t need time.” I spin back, pointing a shaking finger at his chest, silently warning him to keep his distance. “I don’t need a God damned second. I already know that you and this plan both make me sick. I can’t believe I thought you were the one good man I’d ever dated.”
He scowls, shaking his head like I’m the one who’s crossed the line. “You didn’t used to be like this, Diana. You used to understand that the world wasn’t black and white. You used to enjoy coloring outside the lines.”
I huff softly, fighting the tears pressing at the backs of my eyes. “The fact that you can’t see the difference between creativity and lying, deception, and infidelity is telling, Sam.”
“And dating a jock with the IQ of a wet sponge clearly hasn’t been good for you,” he counters, startling me with that new bitter streak of his again.
“I don’t know if you’ve changed,” I say softly, “or if I was just too young and stupid and in love to see you clearly before, but this is never going to happen. I don’t want to see you, Sam. Not ever again.”
Ignoring his call for me to wait, I turn and run through the open door, tears slipping down my cheeks and breath burning in my chest. I don’t know why I’m crying at first, only that it feels like the entire world is crumbling around me and there’s no safe place to hide.
But hide I eventually do, in the last stall of the women’s bathroom, where I fall apart for a good twenty minutes, muffling my sobs in the crook of my arm until I finally realize why I’m so upset, and then my tears shut off like someone spun a spigot inside my head.
Just like that, in a burst of fully realized, Technicolor, 3D horror, I understand that Sam turning out to be a creep doesn’t simply mean that I was taken in by a scam artist who somehow convinced me he was the sweetest man I’d ever met. No, it means something much worse. It means that I have never picked a decent man.
I have never had a healthy relationship. I have never been loved by someone who cared as much for me as he did for himself, let alone who cared for me more. Who cared the way people are supposed to care when they fall in love.
I am a complete loser failure, which can only mean one thing—
“Tanner isn’t real.” It hurts like a knife stabbed into my sternum, sending bone slivers into my heart, but it’s true. It has to be true. Sure, my stupid brain thinks he might be “the One,” but my stupid brain is stupid.
So stupid. So fucking stupid and blind and ridiculous.
I wasted a significant portion of my life mourning a man who’s ready to cheat on his new wife before they even get to the altar. I flirted with dark, self-destructive thoughts because of him. I swore off love and passion because I’d convinced myself Sam had been my one shot and I fucked it up.
Though, honestly, that last part was probably the only smart thing I’ve ever done as far as my love life is concerned. I clearly have no business getting involved with anyone. Ever. Even Seattle has a sunny day now and then, but I’m zero for ten years and over a dozen men, without a single one of my Prince Charmings turning out to be anything but a frog or a fraud.
I have to end this thing with Tanner now. Before it’s too late. Before I have to see a person I truly believe is a wonderful, sexy, sweet one-in-a-million man turn out to be the biggest disappointment of all.
Whipping out my phone, I write Tanner a long, slightly hysterical but honest and apologetic email wishing him a beautiful future without me in it. I read it over twice, overcome by this miserable but necessary and urgent feeling like my body is on the verge of purging something poisonous.
This hope is poisonous. Or the loss of it will be.
I can’t do this again. I can’t get sucked into dreaming and wishing, only to have it turn to ash when the man I’ve fallen in love with pulls his mask away, revealing the rotten reality beneath.
I’m done with love, this addiction that’s done nothing but push me off a series of ever higher and more dangerous ledges. I need to stick to my guns and my promises and be done with romance once and for all.
Sucking in a bracing breath, I hit send on the email and make a run for it, slipping out of the party before any of my new coworkers can see my splotchy face or haunted, sad, former love-a-holic eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tanner
I’ve only been at the party a few minutes—long enough to grab a beer and spot Jax deep in conversation with a pretty brunette in the back courtyard—when a text from Diana comes through.
Check your email. I’m so sorry. I hope someday you can forgive me.
Immediately, my stomach is full of writhing snakes and my beer turns to vinegar in my mouth. Fuck. I have no idea what this is about, but it’s clearly not good. Not fucking good at all.
Setting my pint glass down on the bar, I step outside, circling to the windowless portion of the brick building, not wanting an audience for this. If Diana’s email is as bad as I’m anticipating, I’m going to be lucky to avoid slamming a fist into a wall, and that’s not the image I like to project in public.
I find the email in question immediately, and from the first line, it’s clear the situation is worse than I thought.
*
To: Nowicki3
From: DeedleDee
Subj
ect: I can’t, I’m so sorry…
Dear Tanner,
This isn’t an easy email to write, but I truly feel I have no other choice.
Something happened tonight that confirmed my suspicion that I’m either the worst judge of character in the entire world or was born with bad love luck coded into my DNA. There should have been at least one exception to the rule, one man who slipped through my fingers because of mistakes I made instead of his faulty moral compass.
But now I know that’s not true. My entire romantic history is one long loser parade, from the first to the last and every jerk in between.
Of course, I want to believe you’re different, I really do. In fact, at this moment, I think you’re the most amazing guy I’ve ever been with. You’re kind, generous, thoughtful, and fun. You’re a dirty dream come to life in the sack, and you make me laugh like no one has in a long time.
But I thought good things about the other men I dated, too. In the beginning, it’s so easy to get swept away in a new romance and believe this time things will be different.
And maybe they would have been with us, but I can’t take that chance right now. I know I play it tough, but I’m not tough. I’m beaten down and battle-scarred and terrified of what would happen if I had to rumble down the shitty road to Splitsville with you. I know it would be the ugliest, saddest, most painful road I’ve seen yet, and I’m not sure I have the strength to survive it.
I’m a coward, Tanner. And you deserve better.
If you’re the man I think you are, you deserve a sexy, sweet, fearless goddess who will match you and challenge you and love you hard and fierce, with no holding back.