“What are you doing here?” Kacie asked as her sister threw her arms around her neck.
“Bryce had some work stuff here and I decided to come with!” Her sister stepped back to look her in the eyes. “Are you surprised? Are you happy to see me?”
Kacie felt the burn of unshed tears in her eyes. “You have no idea.”
An hour later they were both sitting crisscross on top of her kitchen island because she had no bar stools, eating Chinese food from the containers because her dishes were packed away, as Kacie told her how badly things ended between her and Michael.
“Have you heard from him at all?” Sam asked. “A text message? Voicemail at least?”
“Not a word.”
“Maybe he’s trying to give you some space,” Sam said while swapping the vegetable lo mein for Szechuan chicken. “Maybe let things cool off a bit before he calls you.”
Kacie rolled her eyes at the suggestion. “There’s more than three hundred miles between us now. How much damn space do you think he needs to give me?”
“I was just trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.” Sam pointed at her briefly with the chopsticks, then went back to picking chicken from the container.
Kacie slid off the counter and stashed her leftovers in the refrigerator. “And you’re right. I should give him the benefit of the doubt. He was pretty upset about his brother reenlisting.”
“The only reason I’m even suggesting it is because of what happened with his brother. And you yourself said how great a guy he was. That he treated you well and made you laugh.” Sam jumped off the counter and threw the remaining containers in the trash. “I saw how happy you were at the wedding. Bryce noticed, too.”
“You’re so full of it,” Kacie muttered under her breath.
“I’m not.” Sam took hold of her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “You deserve to be happy, Kacie. And you will be. Don’t give up on him just yet. It’s only been a week. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll change his mind.”
God, she wanted to believe everything her sister was saying. That somehow, magically, things would just work out and she and Michael would end up together. But she’d gotten her hopes up once before, and it had all come crashing down.
“I don’t know Sam. I just don’t see him leaving the army.” Kacie lifted one shoulder and let it drop, feeling the familiar sting of tears in her eyes. “And I can’t do the long-distance thing with a military guy again. I just can’t. I won’t make that mistake twice.”
“Oh, shit. Don’t cry, Kacie. You know I’m a sympathetic crier.” Sam pulled her into a hug and squeezed her tight. “I’m so sorry, Kacie. So, so sorry.”
And within seconds they were both crying. But then the tears gave way to laughter once they both got a glimpse of each other and the raccoon eyes their mascara had created. And as they dried their eyes with the scratchy take-out napkins because they couldn’t find anything else, they laughed a bit more.
“I’m so glad you came to see me,” Kacie said.
And then, as if her kind words were a jinx, Sam’s phone buzzed with a text message.
“Bryce is on his way to pick me up,” she said with a disappointed look on her face while shoving her phone in her pocket. “We’re going to dinner with his boss and a few other people. But you can definitely come along, if you want.”
Kacie squeezed her sister’s arm. “Thank you, but I’m not much in the mood for going out.”
Sam’s face brightened. “I could ditch the dinner and stay here with you.”
Just her sister offering to stay was enough to lift her spirits. “Go to dinner with your husband. I’ll be fine.”
Sam gathered her things, and as Kacie opened the door, her little sister turned to hug her goodbye. “I miss you.”
“Same here.”
Her sister stepped back, putting space between them, but still reluctant to let her go. “Now I’m going to try not to bother you too much. I know this next year is really important and you’re going to be super busy. But don’t think that means I don’t miss you. Or that I don’t want to talk to you. You can call me anytime. Okay? Anytime day or night.”
After one last hug, Sam headed down the corridor and Kacie closed the apartment door behind her. She and Sam hadn’t had an exchange like that—one that wasn’t loaded or challenging—for so long she had almost forgotten what it felt like.
For the first time that day, she was alone in her new apartment. She surveyed the room, at the towering stacks of boxes and the furniture still wrapped in cellophane. Finally, she picked up the box blade on the counter and began cutting away the plastic covering the sofa cushions, all the while reminding herself this was what she wanted.
Chapter Twenty-Four
After yet another bad round of golf, Michael stopped off for a twelve-pack of beer and headed home to his lonely apartment. Only once he opened the door, he saw he wouldn’t be too lonely. His father, Mac, sat in his reclining chair, feet propped up, a beer in one hand and Michael’s remote in the other.
“It’s about damn time you got home,” his father said.
Michael turned and closed the door behind him, then made his way into the kitchen where he shoved his beer in the refrigerator alongside the ones his father had brought. But before he closed the door, he pulled two longnecks out, both of which were for him. He had a feeling he was going to need them.
“Dad, I love ya. And I realize you usually like to chat on Saturday nights.” Michael twisted the top off his beer as he dropped into the sofa. “But what in hell are you doing here?”
His father took a leisurely sip of his beer, flipped through the cable channels a bit more, until he landed on a game. “I was told my son was having a hard time of it, so I decided to come see for myself. Especially since he hadn’t bothered to tell his old man about any of it over the past few weeks.”
Michael intended only to take a short pull from his beer, but ended up drinking down damn near half in the first go.
“Let me guess, Bree called you.”
“Yeah, yeah, smarty pants,” his father said with a wave. “She called me a few weeks ago, said she was worried about you. And I chalked it up to Bree just being Bree. She’s very empathetic.”
“Doesn’t explain why you’re here now.” He was on the verge of taking another drink when his father turned and locked eyes with him. The familiar blue eyes bored into his soul.
“I’m here because your brother called me this morning.”
Fuck.
Suddenly, he wasn’t so thirsty.
Michael placed his half-full beer on the coffee table and tried to change the subject before things got out of hand. “Have you eaten? Are you hungry? I was going to order pizza if that sounds good to you?” He began scrolling through his contacts, looking for the pizza delivery place just down the street.
“Put your phone away, Michael. We’re going to talk.”
Jesus Christ. If there was a way for a man to go from thirty-five to fifteen in ten seconds flat, being chastised by his father was one.
He did as his father asked and placed his phone on the coffee table. In turn, Mac lowered the footrest and spun the chair around to face him. There was little doubt the man meant business.
“Your brother tells me you haven’t decided on whether or not you’re going to resign your commission.”
Fucking Danny.
“I have not.”
“Your brother seems to think you’re considering staying in regiment since he reenlisted. He thinks you feel obligated to stay here.”
Michael laughed without humor. “Because I am. There’s a whole battalion of men counting on me.”
His father shook his head, clearly not buying it. “There were battalion surgeons before you and there will be battalion surgeons after you go. That’s not a reason. Are you staying here in order to keep an eye on your brother?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Why—why would I do that?”
Mac shrugged. “You tell me. Your brothe
r has thought so for years. But I didn’t buy into the idea until right now.”
“Why now?”
His father leaned as close as he could get without leaving the chair. “Because you’re doing everything you can to not look me in the eyes. So tell me, are you staying in the 75th so you can watch out for your brother?”
He had no choice but to answer truthfully. His father was like a dog with a bone when it came to matters like this. “Yes.”
Michael picked up his beer from the table and drank the remainder in a matter of gulps. He placed the empty on the table, then grabbed the second, twisting off the cap and tossing it next to the bottle.
“Tell me why,” his father said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why are you staying here when everyone can see you aren’t happy?”
Michael stared down into the narrow opening of his bottle, wondering if his lack of enthusiasm for the job was really that obvious.
“Michael. I’m waiting.”
He took a deep breath and resigned himself to the fact he had to tell the truth. “Because Mom told me to. It was the last thing she asked me to do.” Suddenly, it was like the floodgates opened up; the truth came rushing out of him. “It was just before she slipped into the coma. I’d come home from school and Mom was in her room. She was practically skin and bones by then. All she kept saying was that I was the oldest and he was the youngest and he was so little and he could get hurt so easily. She’d told me the same thing weeks before, but this time she kept saying it over and over, ‘Take care of your brother. Take care of your brother.’ So you see? It’s always been my job to watch out for him. And then he almost died.”
It was only then Michael realized he’d started crying, his face now damp with his tears. Maybe he should have talked to someone about all of this baggage long before now.
“I can promise you your mother never meant for you to watch over Daniel to this extent,” his father said softly. “She would never want you to sacrifice your own happiness as a result.”
“But what if I leave and something happens to him, like last time?”
“If, God forbid, your brother were to be killed while serving his country, it would not be your fault any more than if he were killed in a car accident down the street.” His father sat quietly for several minutes, studying him. “Tell me about the girl.”
Michael swore at Bree under his breath.
His father smiled. “No. Not Bree.”
He spent the next twenty minutes pouring out his soul as he talked about Kacie, what an amazing a woman she was. Smart. Funny. Beautiful. He told his father how they spent most of their time laughing and now how he missed her so much it hurt. He told him how he saw future with her. One that had kids and grandkids in it.
“Do you realize I was your age when we lost your mother? Thirty-five is too damn young to lose the love of your life, Michael. The difference is your mother and I had fifteen years together and she gave me you two boys. So while I’ve missed her every day since her death, she’s never been too far away either. But that’s not the case with you and Kacie.” Michael nodded and one corner of his father’s mouth hitched up. “You two had only, what . . . a few months together? And you have nothing to show for it. That’s not enough to sustain a man for a lifetime, Michael.
Michael couldn’t stand it anymore. He held his head in his hands, wondering how in the hell he fucked everything up so badly.
“If you want to spend the rest of your life in the army, then do that,” his father told him. “But do it because it’s what you want to do, not because it’s what you think you have to do. It’s time to go out on your own. And if you think this girl is worth the trouble and uncertainty of starting a whole new life, then do it.”
Mac stood up, walked over to Michael, and waited with open arms. His father had never been one to skimp on affection, especially not after their mother died. Tonight his father held him for a long time. Michael imagined it was longer than most fathers and sons would embrace, but he didn’t care.
As he stood in front of his father, he realized his dad had become a little shorter, a little rounder, and his hair a lot grayer over the past couple of years. But he was still the great man he’d always been.
“There’s one other thing your mother used to always say: ‘Go where your happiness lies.’ Whether it be a job you like, or place you feel at home in, or in the arms of someone you love. Don’t be afraid to chase after it.” Mac patted Michael’s cheek. “Life is far too short to not be happy, Michael.”
Kacie stepped off the elevator with grocery bags in hand and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the corridor between her and her one-bedroom apartment was empty. Months ago, when she leased the unit in Durham’s tobacco district, the idea of being surrounded by people, many of whom were single and close to her age, held a great deal of appeal.
But now, the idea of going out, being social, held zero appeal. Instead, she just wanted to climb into bed and curl into a ball and stay there until she had to get up the following morning.
She shifted her bags to one hand and pulled her keys from her pocket. As she went to unlock her door, a voice called out to her from down the corridor.
“Hey there.” A dark-haired man wearing a Cubs T-shirt, madras plaid shorts, and flip-flops was making his way toward her.
For a split second she considered darting inside and slamming the door closed behind her, but he seemed friendly enough and didn’t appear to be the serial killer type. So she’d suck it up and be nice, but only because she had forty-nine weeks until her lease expired and the last thing she wanted was to be labeled “that” neighbor within the first month of living here.
She offered a polite smile but nothing more.
“You just moved in, right? I’m Paul.” He extended his hand to her, only to drop it when he noticed both of her hands were occupied.
“Kacie.”
She spent the next few minutes listening to him chatter away, about how he had moved from Chicago to The Triangle to do research in immunogenicity. He talked about the outdoor concerts, the street festivals, the rooftop parties, all the things that had made her want to live here in the first place, but now was doing her best to avoid. He asked where she was from, what she did for a living. His eyes drifted to her left hand and she knew it was only a matter of time before he asked her relationship status.
“One of your bags is dripping,” Paul said, pointing to the floor.
“Well, then, I guess that’s my cue to get this stuff put away.” She smiled politely and shoved open her door. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Some friends of mine and I’ll be barbecuing in the courtyard around six if you want to join us.”
“Another time, perhaps.”
He nodded in understanding, then finally turned to leave. Kacie let the door close behind her and breathed a sigh of relief as she leaned against it.
For all intents and purposes, she should have been interested in a man like Paul. He was obviously smart and polite and nice looking, even if his clothing choices were questionable. And, from what he told her, didn’t tick any of the boxes on her no-fly list. But it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t a tall, arrogant man with dark blond hair and deep blue eyes and a smile that could charm the panties off a nun.
Pushing herself off the door, Kacie made her way into the small kitchen and placed her bags on the counter. As much as she hated to admit it, she missed him. Despite telling her body and her heart for months it was just a temporary fling with Michael, he’d somehow found a way to burrow beneath her skin and take hold of the very places she had previously vowed to keep closed off.
She’d read and kept each text, each email. Listened to the dirty voice mails he’d left months earlier thousands of times just to hear the sound of his voice.
Her phone vibrated across the kitchen counter and her heart leapt at the thought of him calling her at the very moment she was thinking of him. Only when she looked at the caller ID it wasn’t Michael. It was
Sam.
For days she’d been avoiding her sister’s calls, too, despite the great time they’d had together when Sam had visited. Not because she’d done anything wrong—aside from having a perfect life and being blissfully happy. Despite the new job, the new apartment, the new city, it was as if Kacie’s life had regressed to that same sad, lonely point it was months ago. Once again she was the woman standing all alone at the bar, watching her sister and her friends enjoying everything life had to offer, while she was left feeling like a total buzzkill.
It was as if the summer never even happened.
The call went to voice mail, but almost immediately it began vibrating again. Kacie sighed. At some point in time she’d have to talk to her sister. Might as well do it now.
“Hey, Sammie!” Kacie hoped she at least sounded convincingly happy. “How are you?”
“I know I promised not to bother you too much but I’ve been calling you for three days.”
“I know. I’ve just been swamped.” It wasn’t a total lie. Between her fellowship and seeing patients and unpacking the last of her things, she’d been busy.
“I was worried.”
She held the phone with one hand and unpacked her grocery bags with the other. “I’m fine, I promise,” she said, pulling a container of Phish Food out of the bag.
“Have you heard from him?”
“Nope.”
“You’re not moping, are you? Your freezer isn’t stockpiled with Ben & Jerry’s, is it?”
Kacie stared at the small carton of ice cream in her hand. Sometimes her sister had scary intuition. “Nope. No moping. And no ice cream.” She shoved the container in her freezer, to hide the evidence of her lie.
“Oh. That’s really good.”
“As a matter of fact, I just met a nice guy who lives in the building. He invited me to dinner.”
“Oh! That’s really great news. When are you going out?”
“We haven’t set a night just yet.” Kacie desperately needed to change the subject. “So what’s up? Why have you been trying to call me?”
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