No matter how often I’d asked her who he was growing up, she’d clam up. No hints given, only bitter sneers or blank stares. Now I had a hidden journal from the year I was conceived. Be careful what you wish for. The cautious saying looped through my mind as I steadied my breath and shook out my hands, like I was readying to touch hot coals.
I may have spent my entire teenage and adult life desperate for this knowledge, but it suddenly seemed daunting. This journal had the power to rewrite my past and shape my future, and not all shapes were pretty. Still, I opened it.
I flipped the pages. Each was filled with writing, some with taped receipts or mementos, a Dead Calm movie stub. She printed her sentences, instead of writing in cursive, making her entries seem more youthful than the handwriting I recalled. More proof of the journal’s dating.
August’s strumming got louder, and I clutched my treasure to my chest. My birthday was tomorrow. That left thirty-three hours before the clock struck midnight. It meant I might not lose my resolution to find my father. Not that resolutions could be lost, and I was no Cinderella whose life would revert to pumpkin status, but Rachel and Ainsley had been so happy since fulfilling their wishes. I’d figured I’d lost my chance.
Now I had pages full of possible clues to find my father. Picking through them on my timeline was sketchy, but I never backed down from a challenge. I surfed on them, jumped off them, scaled them. This was no different.
And I might not have to do it alone.
I made my way to the kitchen, to August, my original partner in crime, and stopped outside the doorway. He had shoved boxes aside and sat on one of the two wooden chairs that had once circled the small breakfast table. The only talking that had occurred while I’d hunched on that seat had been when my mother would berate me for not cleaning the bathroom properly, or leaving my shoes askew by the door, or tracking mud into the house.
Listen for once in your life, she’d scold. Always calling me a disappointment.
The silent meals had been preferable, another reason August would invite me for dinner, where I’d barely eat. Overwhelmed with the laughing and teasing between him and Finch, their parents, and their little sister, Melody, I’d often forget about the food.
Shaking off the memories, I tiptoed closer to August. His eyes were closed, his fingers gliding over the fretboard like wind strumming leaves. I’d felt those callused fingers on my face once. His lips on mine. I still remembered the heat of his tongue and soft-wet press of his mouth. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe I’d relived it so often, I’d fabricated every glorious detail.
But the guitar in his hands was real. He’d bought it for me, his attempt to fill my stark life with vibrancy. When I’d get tired of learning, he’d go off on tangents, practicing riffs and licks while I’d imagine licking him. He wouldn’t leave until I’d smile. He’d always done stuff like that, little-big things that changed my world, but the efforts had often been too overt, pity-filled attempts to fix me, like I was broken, a project, a challenge. They’d inflame my insecurity, leading me to pushing him away.
I wanted nothing more than for him to stay in my life now, any way I could have him. As a friend. As a partner in crime. As more.
My pathetic heart hiccupped at the impossibility.
That didn’t stop me from testing my limits with him. “August.” My voice was so thin and scratchy, he didn’t open his eyes. I swallowed hard and said his name louder, with confidence.
His fingers kept playing, but he focused on me, eyelids hooded, intensity darkening his gaze. He moved as he strummed, a slight rocking of his shoulders. His sneaker tapped the floor softly. Normally, at concerts, August would wear threadbare jeans and slim T-shirts, not that I’d watched all his YouTube videos.
Even in workout shorts, a yellow jersey, and sneakers, he looked delicious. He also kept staring at me. He licked his lips. I couldn’t feel mine. His mouth softened imperceptibly, tilting up in one corner, as though I had inspired every love ballad he’d ever written.
Unable to contemplate that unlikelihood, and my constant need to read into everything August—because I was more cuckoo than a store of clocks—I blurted the one thing I had no right to say. “Will you help me find my father?”
3:30 p.m., 32 ½ Hours…
August
My fingers slipped on the guitar strings, a ridiculous fumble on the world’s easiest song. I hadn’t strummed “Horse with No Name” in an eternity. The simple tune came with too many memories. Here, in this house, I couldn’t fight the pull.
I could practically feel Gwen wiggling between my legs as she’d struggle through the basic chords, no clue to the torture she doled out. I’d have to harness my fantasies back then, focus on my hippie aunt’s unshaven legs or run soccer plays in mind to keep the action behind my zipper in check.
Hearing my name from her lips now zoomed me back to that time, those days, and my fascination with her. How Finch would wind me up or a lost soccer match would get me down, and Gwen would nag me until I was nestled beside her on the couch, watching Gilmore Girls, a show I’d never admit to liking. I’d toss popcorn at her face. She’d stick her stinky socks in my face.
And the world had been right.
Even now, all this chaos between us, somehow I was more right. I wasn’t staring out a train window as foreign towns slipped past, melancholy lyrics teasing my fingertips. I wasn’t dating a woman for a month or two only to lose interest, lose the connection, the attraction. Around Gwen, I felt grounded, yet alive. Still slightly resentful when it came to her, but I liked it—that fiery spark.
Until she said, “Will you help me find my father?”
A sour note plunked from the guitar, mimicking the dread churning my gut. My lungs pinched. How had I let things go this far?
Gwen prattled over my guilt-ridden silence. “I know I’m the last person you’d like to help. Trust me, I get it. But I found a journal hidden in my mother’s bible, from when I was conceived, and something tells me it’ll lead to my dad. If you say no, I’ll totally understand, but don’t you think it’s odd? This case showing up before my birthday? After my mom died? With you, the same day?” Her eyes were wide, filled with hope.
I prayed my face didn’t show the unease lurching inside me. Right now. Tell her now. Except I wanted more time with her, more of that turbulent grounding she inspired. An oxymoron maybe, but there was no other way to describe the storminess she stirred, all wild and unpredictable. Around her I smiled one minute, bit out cutting remarks the next, the space between filled with unease and a burning lust to show her what she’d ruined. What she’d stolen from both of us.
I wanted to fuck her, raw and rough.
It was a painful ache. It should also never happen, not with our history, but I couldn’t shake the need to be around her, to learn her. The second I admitted why I’d come, she’d disappear from my life for good.
That pinching in my lungs worsened.
She kept talking over herself. “You know what? Forget I asked. It was selfish.” She popped her left knee and fiddled with the bible in her hand. “You’re busy and touring and probably have a thousand things to do, and I’m asking too much. I’m just glad you stayed. It’s appreciated, and while you’re here, I can at least give you this.”
She placed the bible down and rustled through an open box while I stayed silent. I clutched the guitar with one hand, spun my pick around the fingers of my other. Over. Over. Under. Under. The smooth edges flew in a familiar pattern.
Gwen faced me, her neck and cheeks flushed. “I found a few mementos the past month, stuff I couldn’t toss.” She moved closer, by my knees, and held out a felt circle.
No matter my raging turmoil, I couldn’t fight my laugh. “You still have that thing?”
“And our old class pictures, which I won’t let you see.”
“But you rocked those braces.”
“It’s more the frilly blouses my mother made me wear. They’ve all been burned.”
I eased the
guitar to the floor and smiled at the badge Gwen had made for me. In the middle, stitched with wonky black thread, it read:
August Cruz
Badass PI
She’d made them, one for each of us, when our neighbor’s garden gnome had gone missing. Our sleuthing had never turned up the ugly statue, but she’d pull out our badges when we’d hunt down clues about her father. Those hours had often revolved around Gwen riffling through her mother’s purse, finding stray business cards, then trolling the internet for leads, sure her father’s name would turn up. We’d stalk men she’d find and show them photos of Gwen’s mom.
All futile searches, but I’d loved the softness of the felt PI badge in my pocket. A connection to Gwen.
She stepped between my knees and placed the badge over my stuttering heart. “It was stupid to keep it, but…” She shrugged, flattening her palm on my chest. Her chest expanded as fully as mine, more color flushing her olive skin.
I spun the guitar pick around my fingers, faster, faster. My thoughts skittered as quickly. And bam, the Zap was back. An electric surge.
I wanted to latch my hands around her hips and tug her to me. Slip my hands down the front of her pants and stroke her silky heat, feel everything I’d been denied. Slam my cock into her, hard, fast, dirty. I also wanted to press my forehead into her abdomen and whisper how much I’d missed her.
Surprisingly, I didn’t want to tell her off. Not anymore.
Especially since the anger I’d nursed hadn’t been directed solely at her.
As twins at the same school, Finch and I had occasionally lusted after the same girls. He’d even fooled around with Kayla before we’d hooked up. I’d made sure he was cool with me asking her out before anything happened, but he knew how I’d felt about Gwen. I’d told him, grumpy and often, how worried I’d been to make a move on her and screw things up, lose her friendship.
Not just for me, but more for her.
I was all Gwen had. If I’d ruined that, she’d have been left with nothing.
I’d nearly pulled out my hair when I’d heard about her dating that Jared douche. I’d been miserable about it, and Finch knew. He’d even promised to look out for her after she’d cut me off, because I’d been worried about her. He’d agreed to my request. Not without asking for a favor in return. A doozy of a favor. I’d held up my end of our bargain.
Turns out “looking out for Gwen” translated to Finch as “banging her.”
There was intent with that. Premeditation. Especially after what I’d done for him. It had ignited our growing tension, stress Gwen never knew about. I’d assumed Gwen had been screwing with me, too. That they’d gone out of their way to hurt me. Nine years later, she confessed her actions had been a result of her messed up childhood, her past warping her choices.
And here she was, hand pressed to my aching chest, affection in her eyes.
As though my limbs had a mind of their own, I anchored my hand over hers, flattening our palms. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
So tightly clasped against me, I felt her hand flinch. I damn well flinched: I hadn’t planned to blurt the question that had dogged me since knocking on her door.
She bit her lip and shook her head. “Not for a while.”
I exhaled heavily.
Her fingers dug deeper into my chest, her thumb sinking between my pecs, and my cock thickened. “Do you?” she asked, almost breathless. “A girlfriend, I mean. Women must throw themselves at you.” She winced slightly, as though a headache had set in.
“No one important,” I said. No one worth writing songs about, good or bad.
“Oh.”
Oh, was right.
Oh, we’re both single.
Oh, we’re both still attracted to each other.
Oh, I might finally be able to work out my Gwen addiction in a rough session between the sheets.
Except my remorse resurfaced, the stupid decisions that had brought me here tamping the urge.
Trembling slightly, she pulled her hand back, and that silly PI patch clung to my shirt, an echo of our past. Heat echoed from her touch. A reverberation I’d felt for nine years. This connection was probably why I’d never had a real relationship. I could blame it on my music and traveling all I liked, but every woman who’d moved through my life had been a bridge, a transition that filled song gaps. Gwen was the refrain and chorus, the addictive hook that wormed into your mind.
A habit I was struggling to break.
Staying seated, I slowed my breaths and plucked the badge off my jersey. I tucked it into the waistband of my shorts.
She watched my every move, crossed and uncrossed her arms. “Rachel, who you met, wanted me to meet them for drinks in”—she glanced at the microwave clock, her hips still in grabbing distance—“a couple hours. I’d like to go home and read the journal a bit beforehand, but you could come, if you want. To the bar. Since you know Owen and Jimmy.”
“You want me to meet your friends?”
“They’re your friends, too.” She huffed out an incredulous laugh. “Because, you know, today isn’t strange enough, we also have the same friends. Which I totally don’t get. How’d I never meet them?”
I thought back to those years, my hours split between playing guitar, school, soccer, and Gwen time. “We hung out after practice, nights when you were studying.” Always cracking the books, struggling with her grades.
“The soccer guys,” she mumbled, as though to herself. Then louder, “That’s what you’d say: ‘I’m going out with the soccer guys.’”
Guys who’d turned into men that Gwen now knew. We shared baffled looks.
It really was one hell of a coincidence. Fate, that sneaky little devil, toying with our lives—the way her betrayal had launched my music career, and her mother had launched me back into Gwen’s life. Like both of us single now, launched together.
I still hadn’t answered her about searching for her father, hadn’t said yes or no or admitted my screw-up. There was also this unrelenting thing between us that went beyond fierce attraction and residual resentment, that maybe, maybe she’d always be the one for me. There’d been no one since Gwen. No one meaningful.
Here, with her, there was meaning in every breath and pause.
That left me existing in no man’s land, wondering if those weighted beats meant Gwen and I still had a chance at…something, yet I was withholding vital information from her.
Unsure how to proceed, I nodded. “I need to shower and change at my hotel, but I can meet you there.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You’re coming with me?”
“I’m coming with you.” I hated that we’d been reduced to this—once inseparable, now questioning a simple outing with friends.
“Will you keep repeating everything I say?” she asked.
“Only if you keep stating the obvious.”
She flicked my shoulder, and I squeezed the sensitive spot above her knee. She squealed, a sound I’d always loved. Happy Gwen. Giddy Gwen. She went to pinch my nipple, her go-to move, but I batted her hand away. I grabbed her waist and tugged her onto my lap, her back flush against my chest. Nowhere for her hands to roam. “You’re getting slow in your old age.”
She quit squirming. “You’re getting faster.”
And harder. She probably felt it, my erection free to roam in my workout shorts. Minimal contact was all it took. Like I was a teen again, my body always quick to respond to her. Needing to regain control, I eased her off my lap, but gripped her waist too long. Felt each of her lean muscles through her thin tank top. “You’ve been working out.”
“CrossFit,” she murmured while she stepped back and faced me, adjusting her camo pants. “But I’m considering taking up pole vaulting.” Her eyes focused on my groin.
The pole in question twitched, and my mind was back to ricocheting, too much stimulus—good and bad—to focus on one thing. I could handle this, though. Subtle flirting while we figured out what the h
ell to do with each other. While I figured out my next move. “I’d think you were already a skilled vaulter.”
“The poles I’ve used tend to buckle under pressure.”
“Then I guess you need a steadier pole. Something longer and firmer?”
I imagined her cupping the length of me, stroking me until I roared. Fantasies I should curb.
She touched her collarbone, ran her fingers toward the dip at her throat. “I need a pole that can go the distance. The kind that can support my weight.”
Her tone wavered from coy to uncertain. Trepidation that probably had little to do with me. The burden of her mother’s lost luggage must be affecting her. Unclaimed baggage, filled with years of neglect. I cocked my head, hoping the motion would organize my jumbling thoughts. Sex. Want. Guilt. Ire. The need to take Gwen in my arms and whisper soothing words.
Our eyes locked again and the air snapped, the way an extended note vibrated and hummed.
Abruptly, she hugged her waist. “Is your number the same? Should I text you where to meet?”
“My number hasn’t changed.”
Gwen suddenly had. She was on the move, snatching up the bible and journal. She stacked them in the open box that had held my PI badge. Her shoulder-length hair dipped forward, a wavy curtain covering her face.
To avoid looking at me? To avoid this intensity binding us, whether we wanted it to, or not?
Not surprising with the day’s craziness. I needed to stop thinking with my body, too. My bruised and battered heart. A shower would do me good. A cold one. An ice bath, maybe. Something to remind me why I’d avoided Gwen all this time, her ability to unbalance me powerful, the details I hadn’t shared enough to end this reunion for good.
If I could nurse the anger I’d harbored the past nine years, it would help me confess about her father and move on. Stop pretending the two of us could water these fledgling feelings, grow something good out of them.
Watching her gather and pack a tiny box that represented her few good childhood memories silenced that notion. She’d endured so much growing up, too much the past month, me and this lost luggage adding to her stress. The grudge I’d harbored seemed childish now. We’d been kids back then. Stupid. Led by our fears, unsure who we were and who we should be.
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