Just Watch the Fireworks

by Monica Alexander

  “What? Are you going to tell me that you don’t have any friends who are girls, because that’s a lie. Tell me you don’t talk to Melinda every day.” So much for not mentioning her.

  “Courtney, that’s different, and you know it. We work together.”

  “How is it different? How many times have you gone out for drinks with her after work?”

  I knew that he frequently went out with Melinda after work for dinner or drinks, but I was okay with it, because I trusted him.

  “There were always other people there. It wasn’t like we were just going together.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I challenged him. “How many times were you two the last ones to leave whatever bar or restaurant you were at?”

  I’d had a theory that that might be the case, but he never actually told me that he’d been at a bar alone with her.

  “Yeah, but that’s different,” he said sounding defensive.

  Ha! So I was right – although, now it didn’t feel so good to be right about it.

  “How is it different?”

  “Because I’ve never slept with Melinda.”

  “Ryan, I haven’t slept with him in years. Seriously, is this how it’s going to be? Are you going to censor all of my friends? If so, then I don’t think getting married is such a good idea.”

  It was a low blow, and I knew it, but he was pissing me off. I stared at him haughtily, cocking my head to the side and raising my eyebrows at him while I waited for his response.

  He sucked in a breath. “I’m not trying to censor your friends. I wouldn’t do that. I’m just concerned that this guy shows up out of nowhere wanting to be friends with you, and you don’t think anything of it.”

  “Ryan,” I hissed. “He’s not interested in me, and even if he was, it takes two people to get together. I’m not interested, so nothing’s going to happen.”

  “Fine. Do whatever you want.”

  He stood up, threw his napkin down and walked out of the restaurant. I stared after him, my mouth hanging open. I couldn’t believe he actually walked out.

  “Okay, fine, act like a five year old!” I called after him, suddenly very aware that there were eyes staring at me from all directions.

  I stood, threw a twenty on the table to cover the drinks we’d ordered and stormed out. Once I reached the street, Ryan was nowhere to be seen. I felt the heat reaching my cheeks, as I stood on the curb, waiting for a cab to pass by. I was not going to cry. I was not going to let him get to me. He was being ridiculous. I threw my arm in the air as I saw a cab coming near. As soon as it pulled up, I climbed into the backseat, barked my address at the driver and leaned back. I focused on breathing in and out, as I stared at the sagging liner of the top of the cab.

  I started to calm down halfway to my apartment. I looked out the window and saw we were racing down Storrow Drive, the Esplanade on our left. Definitively, I reached into my bag for my cell phone and sent a text to Beckett saying I would meet him under the bridge at nine the next morning. I felt strangely satisfied, as I hit ‘Send’ and put my phone in my lap. Almost instantaneously, my phone alerted me that I had a new text message. It was from Beckett. All it said was, ‘Great. See you then.’

  See, nothing there. We were just friends.

  Yes, I would see him then, I thought. Ryan could just deal with it. I was an adult. It was my decision to be friends with whomever I wanted. He would just have to get over it. If he wanted to marry me, he would have to trust that I would make the right decisions.

  An hour later, I was laying in bed with Gryffin watching an old episode of Sex and the City on DVD when my phone rang. I picked it up off the nightstand and saw that it was Ryan. I hit ‘Ignore’ and set it back down, letting it go to voicemail. Within the next twenty minutes, my phone rang three more times before it was silent. Then I received one single text message. When my alert went off, part of me wanted to just ignore it, but it was too tempting not to read. Besides, what if it was Summer – or Beckett. I picked up my phone and pressed the text message icon. It was from Ryan. It read, ‘I’m sorry. Please call me’.

  Nope. Not calling tonight. Instead I refocused my attention on the TV and Carrie’s latest boyfriend drama. It was reassuring to know that I wasn’t alone in that department.

  Eleven

  The next morning, I was still angry with Ryan, so I didn’t call him before I headed out to meet Beckett. As I rode the elevator, I scrolled down to ‘Burn it to the Ground’ by Nickelback and selected the Genius option, so I could have a selection of angry music to listen to while I ran. My rage fueled me and propelled me faster than usual. By the time I reached the bridge, Beckett was there, leaning against the base of the bridge. As I approached, he said something that I couldn’t hear.

  “What?” I asked, jerking my ear buds out of my ears.

  “I asked who pissed you off,” he said, stepping into stride with me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look like you plan to take someone’s head off. I considered ducking in case I was your target.”

  “Not unless your name is Ryan,” I said, sarcastically.

  “Nope, not the last time I checked,” he said, chuckling a bit.

  “Good, then you’re safe.”

  “What did he do?”

  I shook my head, not really wanting to discuss it with him. Instead, we started running. I figured running would help to get my frustrations out.

  It worked for a few seconds until I yanked my ear bud out and burst out with, “I’m just so pissed at him!”

  “What?” Beckett asked, pulling one of his ear buds out so he could hear me.

  “I’m pissed at him,” I said, spitting a little as I said it.

  Beckett moved a few steps to the side, putting some distance between us.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You can run next to me. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

  He looked skeptical but moved back into place beside me. “Why are you so pissed?” he asked.

  I forced myself to channel my negative energy into my running. If I didn’t, I would be out of breath before we finished.

  “Well, Ryan had the nerve to tell me he didn’t want me to be friends with you.”

  I still couldn’t believe he had done that. He seriously had some nerve.

  “Can you blame him?” Beckett asked, looking over at me for half a second before turning back toward the path in front of us.

  “What?”

  “Court, come on. We dated for four years. It’s gotta make the guy feel somewhat cautious that you all of a sudden want to hang out with me again.”

  “But I don’t have feelings for you, and you don’t have feelings for me. What’s there to be cautious about?”

  At least I think you don’t have feelings for me, but the jury’s still out.

  “Put yourself in his shoes. What would you do if he started hanging out with an ex-girlfriend?”

  I thought about it for a minute. I would probably be pissed, but I would be more hurt than anything. Shit! I finally understood where Ryan was coming from. Dammit! Why did I have to be so stubborn? But still, I wasn’t going to relinquish my right to hang out with Beckett. Ryan needed to trust me, and that was it.

  Beckett must have been watching my face, because he said, “See, it’s not so fun to be on the other side of the equation, is it?”

  “Okay, so I get it, but still, it’s my choice who I hang out with. He shouldn’t have a say.”

  “So make him change his mind.”

  “How do I do that? He was pretty definitive in his opinion last night.”

  “Well, maybe he needs to meet me to see that I’m not all that scary.”

  That thought was scary. I couldn’t imagine Ryan and Beckett hanging out.

  “I don’t know, Beck. That sounds like a bad idea to me.”

  “Why? Once he knows that there’s nothing between us, he’ll probably be cool with us hanging out. Besides, I’ll have to meet him eventually. He’ll be at Summer and Patri
ck’s wedding, right?”

  This was true. Not to mention, their paths would probably cross more now that Summer and I were living in the city. I didn’t want there to be any weirdness between them.

  “So what do you propose?” I asked, kicking myself for my choice of words.

  He didn’t seem to catch my slip of verbiage, or else the word didn’t bother him like I thought it would.

  “How about we all go out? You, Ryan, me, Summer and Patrick.”

  “You really want to be a fifth wheel?”

  “No, I’ll bring Julie.”

  “Who?”

  “She’s a girl I went out last night. She’s really fun. You’d like her.”

  I felt a tiny stab in my heart as he said that, and I didn’t know what it meant. It caught me off-guard. He’d said he wasn’t dating anyone the day before. I wondered why he hadn’t mentioned her when we’d been talking about his love life.

  “What did you have in mind?” I asked, holding back the question I really wanted to ask.

  “How about we all go to Boston Beer Works on Friday night? We can have dinner and drinks. It’ll just be six friends hanging out. It might even be fun.”

  I pondered the idea for a minute. I loved Boston Beer Works. They had a blueberry beer that they put actual blueberries in. It was amazing. Ryan didn’t love it. He wasn’t a big fan of brewpubs, but then again, I didn’t really care what Ryan liked at that moment.

  “I think it sounds great,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

  “Alright, I’ll call Pat on our way back.”

  Again, we ran a full five miles and ended up behind BU, but this time we turned around and walked the whole way back. It gave us a chance to talk at a more regular rate, since we weren’t breathing heavily and trying to concentrate on keeping up with each other.

  “Tell me about Julie. What’s she like?” I asked, wanting to know more about this girl he was dating that he had failed to mention the day before when I’d asked if he was seeing anyone.

  “She’s really nice. She goes to BC and is getting a master’s degree in Education. I’ve known her for a few months, but we just went out last night for the first time, so we’ll see.”

  I should have figured he wasn’t going to give me anything good.

  “Education? That’s great. What does she teach?” I asked, trying to sound interested in this Julie person.

  Truthfully, I didn’t really care what she wanted to do with her career, but I felt like I needed to be polite and ask since he’d asked about Ryan.

  “High school. Her specialty is English.”

  I felt a stab of jealously. English was my specialty too, although not really since I wasn’t using my degrees at the moment. I should probably start writing that novel I kept thinking about, but getting started wasn’t easy.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” I said, for a lack of anything better to say.

  We walked in silence for a few minutes. We were still pretty far from my apartment. Five miles seemed a lot longer when you were walking versus running. I took advantage of the slowness and looked around. Everything was green and bright. The flowers were in full bloom, the trees were lush and everything smelled like summer. I smiled as I inhaled the scent of jasmine somewhere nearby.

  “I’m glad to see you’re no longer shooting to kill with your eyes,” Beckett said then, pulling me from my reverie.

  “Yeah, well, running always has that effect on me. No matter how bad I feel, I can always get through it as long as I can run. It’s how I dealt with us,” I said, looking at him to gauge his expression.

  It was the first time I’d really talked about the affect our break-up had had on me. I wasn’t sure if he knew how bad it had been. He stared straight ahead but didn’t say anything right away. After a minute he broke the silence.

  “It really sucks how everything ended the way it did. I’m sorry I hurt you,” he said, looking over at me.

  “Me too,” I said, shrugging. “But I guess everything happens for a reason.”

  “Yeah,” he said, and it had seemed like he’d wanted to say more, but he didn’t elaborate.

  “So, Friday night?” he asked.

  “Yeah, we’ll be there. I’ll probably have forgiven Ryan by then, so I’ll at least be in a good mood.”

  “I hope so. You can’t be in a bad mood at Beer Works. It’s like Disneyland for people over twenty-one. There’s just too much beer flowing to be sad.”

  I laughed. I hoped Ryan would be okay with going out with Beckett. I didn’t want to deal with him if he was in a bad mood.

  “Okay, so I’ll see you tomorrow?” Beckett asked, stopping at the entrance to Charles Street.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, you’re running, right?”

  “At seven. Do you want to come?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Okay, but there’s just one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We can’t go as far. During the week, I’m on a tighter timeframe to get my five miles done, so I can be on time for work.”

  “That’s fine. How about I meet you at your place, and we can just run from there. My first class doesn’t start until ten so I have plenty of time.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Have a good day, Court,” he said sincerely.

  “Bye Beck.”

  I watched him walk away for a few seconds before I put my ear buds back in and ran the rest of the way back to my apartment.

  As soon as I walked into the lobby, I saw Ryan sitting on one of the couches. He was holding a package in his hand. He stood as soon as he saw me, and I felt my face darken in response to seeing him. I approached him but didn’t say anything.

  “You didn’t call me back,” he said softly.

  “No, I didn’t,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s called being mad at you and not wanting to talk to you,” I snapped.

  “Are you still mad?”

  “Are you still censoring who I hang out with?”

  He looked down at his shoes. “I guess not. It’s really not fair of me to do that. You’ve never objected to anyone I’ve been friends with.”

  “Okay, then I’m not mad at you anymore,” I said, but there was still an edge to my tone.

  I started to walk away from him toward the elevator.

  “Where are you going?” he asked from behind me.

  “I’m going upstairs. I live here.”

  “Courtney, please don’t do this,” he begged.

  “Why? You walked out on me last night.”

  He sucked in a breath. “I’m really sorry about that. I was just so angry. I realized when I got home that I shouldn’t have left you there. That’s why I called.”

  “Yeah, well, you should have realized that before you left me alone at a restaurant, Ryan. Sometimes a phone call doesn’t help.”

  “I know. I’m really sorry. Is there any way you’d want to spend the day together, so I can make it up to you?”

  The elevator arrived, so I stepped on. Ryan followed me inside. He slid his arms around me from behind and pulled me against his chest. I softened as soon as I felt his arms around me. I leaned back against his chest and he brought his head down, so it was next to mine. I looked over at him. He looked really sad.

  “I love you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I was a jerk. I won’t do it again. I’m okay if you want to hang out with Beckett. I trust you. I know there’s nothing going on there.”

  “There’s not,” I insisted, turning to face him. I studied his face for a minute. He looked like he was being sincere.

  “I know,” he said, as he leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips.

  I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my head on his chest as we rode up to my apartment. I hadn’t forgiven him a hundred percent, but I was well on my way there.

  The elevator dinged once before the doors opened on my floor. Ryan held my hand as
we walked to my front door, then followed me to my bedroom. I kicked off my shoes before sitting down on my bed. He sat down beside me, and then pulled me down, so I was laying tucked into him with his arms around me. He kissed my neck softly.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I love you, too,” I said back.

  “So, I wanted to get you flowers, but I know how you hate them.”

  “I don’t hate flowers.”

  I really don’t. I just think they should be given when you’ve done something good, not as an apology.

  “Well, I wanted to get you something, so I got you this,” he said, dropping the package he was holding.

  I picked it up and opened it. Inside was an Amazon Kindle – something I’d toyed with buying for a while. I felt like it was a betrayal of books in a way, so I’d never bought one. Now, I realized how excited I was to have one. I turned around, so I could face him.

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked, but I was smiling. “Ryan, this is really expensive.”

  I tried to hand it back to him, but he shook his head. “It wasn’t that bad. I knew it would be something you would use, and it would make you happy. We can spend the day reading on The Common if you want.”

  I felt a stab as I was reminded again how different Ryan and I were. I always had to save up for nice things, but he just purchased a two hundred dollar electronic item like it was a cup of coffee. I wondered if I’d ever get used to that.

  I cupped his face in my hands and kissed him. “Thank you. I love it, and the idea, but I can’t today.”

  “Why not?” he asked, looking hurt.

  “Because I have to work,” I said. “The dreaded Scarletti/Friedman wedding is at four o’clock. I have to be at the church in two hours.”

  “Well,” he said, leaning forward to kiss me. “I guess we’ll just have to stay here.”

  ***

  Kate and I finally had some downtime after the dinner course had been served at the wedding. There had been one issue after the next, so I was glad Kate had agreed to work the wedding with me. It was my first solo job, so I guess she wanted to make sure everything was okay. After the bride was thirty minutes late due to a rip in her dress caused by an overly eager flower girl barreling past her, things were good until the pictures. The photographer dropped his camera, breaking the lens and had to resort to his digital camera which caused both Bianca and her mother to have minor temper tantrums. Then the ring bearer kept hiding from his parents, and we couldn’t leave the church until they got him out from the confessional booth. Finally Kate, talking to him through the screen, offered him cookies if he came out. That was all it had taken. He was out in a flash, hands cupped, waiting for the promised cookies which Kate placed in his tiny hands.