Stay With Me

by Cross, Cassie

  Stay With Me

  Cassie Cross

  Contents

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  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Preview: The Sweet Spot

  Preview: Meeting Mr. Wright

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  Copyright © 2019 by Cassie Cross

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations for reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Chapter One

  My dreaded return home begins in the ladies’ room at Reagan National Airport. A symphony of flushing toilets provide the background music to the silent pep talk I’m giving myself in the mirror.

  It’s just a short trip, it’s gonna be fine. You’re seeing your friends. Nothing to be nervous about at all.

  I stare at my reflection and take stock of the woman looking back at me.

  My makeup is understated today; it brings out the blue in my eyes. I’ve managed to work my brown hair into carefree waves that tumble over my shoulders. The form-fitting simple white tee and jeans it took me hours to decide on make me feel like I’m not trying as hard as I am.

  Despite feeling like a train wreck waiting to happen, at least I look good.

  I lean closer to the mirror, careful not to let the hem of my shirt dip into the mess of water pooled around the sink. I swipe away a little bit of smudged mascara beneath my left eye, then pull a tube of gloss from my purse. My hands shake so badly that I have to plant a dollop on my bottom lip and glide it on with my pinky.

  “You doing okay sweetie?” a kind older woman asks. She keeps thrusting her hands under the soap dispenser, like sheer persistence will make it drop some suds into her palm.

  She must notice that I’m on the verge of having a meltdown. She reminds me of my mom a little bit, which is probably why the words slip out despite not being in the habit of spilling my guts to strangers in airport bathrooms.

  “I’m seeing my ex later. I’m kinda nervous about it,” I tell her.

  Ex seems like too simplistic a word to describe Jackson. It feels wrong to reduce everything he was to me into a two-letter word.

  Love of my life fit once upon a time.

  So did man I thought I was going to marry.

  Boyfriend who broke up with me suddenly one day during the most difficult and painful time in our lives? Yeah, that fits.

  “You look great, and that’s a start!” she says sweetly with a thick southern accent. “I always say a good lipstick’s the best armor a girl can have against the world, and you’ve got that covered, honey.”

  I could hug her, but that would be weird. I settle for a sincere “Thank you.”

  She quickly dries her hands and gives my arm a gentle pat before she wishes me luck.

  It’d be really nice if luck could help me out here.

  I grab my suitcase and head out of the bathroom, stopping when I see my book on display at the newsstand. I pick it up to remind myself that I did this, that there was a time when I sat down at a computer and words poured out of me. That they formed a book that someone took a chance on publishing. That so many people loved it that it became a New York Times bestseller.

  My name—Birdie Alexander—never looks as beautiful as it does in the shiny, hot pink letters splashed across that cover.

  It’ll help to remember that when my agent calls for the hundredth time asking about the follow-up novel I haven’t managed to start yet.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. I fish it out and read the text.

  Be there in 5 - meet me outside

  I trudge toward the exit like I’m headed to an execution.

  Chapter Two

  Outside at the passenger pickup area, I stare at the string of taxis and cars between me and the terminal. I’ve never been much of an athlete, but from where I’m standing I figure I could race across traffic and make it back inside the airport in ten seconds, tops.

  I’m pretty sure that my friend Audrey wouldn’t purchase a ticket just to find me at my gate.

  I contemplate taking off. It would be so easy to go back inside and disappear.

  As if she senses my desire to flee, Audrey pulls up in her raggedy old Civic. She puts it in park, flings the door open, and peers at me across the roof.

  She’s so short she can barely see over it.

  “You were thinking about running, weren’t you?” she accuses as she points in my direction. “Don’t you dare. I get winded easily, but I would catch you, and I don’t want to make a scene.”

  She always did have an uncanny ability to read my mind. Now that I’ve been caught, there’s no way she’ll let me out of her sight. If I try to escape now, she’ll follow me, and that will only result in a video of her scuffling with airport security guards leading the local evening news.

  “I was not,” I lie. Desperate to change the subject, I follow it up with, “When you said you were going to drive this car until the wheels came off, you weren’t kidding, were you?”

  “Don’t talk shit about Sylvia. I’ll leave you here.”

  I call her bluff. “No you won’t.”

  Audrey shakes her head. “No I won’t.”

  Running over to me with a high-pitched squeal and a smile, she gathers me up in a tight hug, crushing the air out of my lungs. Her excitement is so infectious that a little oxygen deprivation is worth it.

  “Birdie,” she sighs when she lets me go, squeezing my hands as she gives me a once over. “You look amazing.”

  “So do you.” Audrey’s always been a larger-than-life dynamo packed into a petite body. There’s a little color to her normally pale skin and a smattering of freckles across her nose, making her light-green eyes stand out. “Back to brown, huh?” I reach out and take one of her wild ringlets between my fingers.

  “You know me. Upkeep isn’t really my thing, and as I’m getting up there in age—”

  “You just turned twenty-seven.” I roll my eyes.

  “I’m on the downhill slide toward thirty. Anyway, I decided to go natural for a bit, like a respectable adult. No more crazy colors. For now.”

  I laugh. “It’s good to see you. I’ve really missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you too.”

  It hasn’t been that long since we last saw each other. She took the train up to the city just a few mon
ths ago to see a friend’s art installation. We made so many plans, but all of them fell through except for an endless dinner where we closed down the restaurant. I enjoyed our time together, but it didn’t feel like us. This? It’s just like old times.

  An impatient driver breaks us up with an angry honk. “Move your asses!” he yells, waving his hand at Audrey’s car.

  “Hey,” she sasses back, brows furrowed. “We’re reuniting here!”

  The man honks again, even though he has a whole lane to go around us. Audrey opens the trunk with a loud creak. She helps me lift my suitcase inside.

  “Jesus, is there a body in here?”

  “I came prepared,” I say.

  “Always the over-packer.”

  “There’s nearly a week’s worth of clothes in there, all the shoes that go with them, and an engagement present for Miranda and Mateo.”

  Audrey is unimpressed.

  “Not everyone can fit a whole trip’s worth of clothes in a backpack.” Her minimalist packing style is the stuff of legend in our group of friends.

  “You act like these things called washing machines were never invented,” she says, rolling her eyes as I secure my laptop bag next to my suitcase. She shuts the trunk, and we both hurry inside.

  I’m struck by how clean it is in here. The last time I rode in this car there were drop cloths, old paint brushes, paints and new canvases shoved anywhere they would fit.

  “I cleaned up for you.” Audrey winks at me as she pulls on her seatbelt, and I get a good look at her for the first time since she pulled up. She’s effortlessly pretty in a threadbare t-shirt and a pair of shorts with paint splattered all over them.

  It reminds me of the day we first met. She came running in late to our summer springboard session before freshman year at JMU, and breathlessly took the seat next to mine. She pulled a binder out of her bag and flipped through the papers—crinkly from dried watercolors—with blue-stained fingertips, then asked if she could borrow a pencil. When I handed one over, instead of taking notes, she winked at me and started sketching our peer advisor.

  We’ve been friends ever since. Being with her now eases the panic I was feeling earlier. I relax into the seat as we weave through the airport traffic.

  “Can I be honest?” she asks, glancing over at me before putting her eyes back on the road.

  “Always.” The thought of what she might say next makes the bottom drop out of my stomach. Audrey isn’t afraid to tell people what she’s thinking, and she rarely sugarcoats it when she does.

  “I’m proud of you for coming. I honestly didn’t think you’d show up until I saw you.”

  “Seriously?”

  She shrugs. “Ayanna and I had a bet going, actually.”

  Well, that hurts. “Our friends are engaged. Did you think I wouldn’t show up to their party?”

  “A party that Jackson’s attending? Honestly, no. I didn’t.”

  “You’re acting like I’m some petty bitch who can’t put a little heartache aside to celebrate our friends getting married.” I’m offended despite the fact that I was considering fleeing. It’s not like I would’ve actually gone through with it.

  Audrey pats my arm. “I didn’t mean to upset you, but I saw you freaking out when I pulled up. I don’t blame you.”

  “Does Ayanna think I’m not interested in the B&B?”

  She bought the old, dilapidated campground where we all spent so much time during college. From the pictures I’ve seen, she’s completely transformed it into a gorgeous bed and breakfast. She invited us all down for a dry run, with our friends’ engagement party capping off the week. If she thinks that’s not enough to drag me out of Manhattan, I’ve drifted further away from everyone than I’d thought.

  The possibility is distressing.

  “No, it’s not that, it’s just—” She cuts herself off by biting her lip, a nervous habit she’s had for as long as I’ve known her.

  “Just what?”

  Audrey gives me a sideways glance. “It’s just that Dandelion Gap is special for you and Jackson. No one would blame you for wanting to avoid it.”

  Jackson and I shared so many firsts in that quaint little town. But I’m not going to let a relationship that didn’t work out keep me from celebrating my friends’ accomplishments and lives.

  “Well, I’m here. And you’re stuck with me now, so…”

  “I like being stuck with you.”

  I laugh, squinting as the bright sun shines in my face. “Speaking of stuck…I left my sunglasses in my bag in the trunk.”

  “You can always use the visor.”

  “I wasn’t sure if flipping it down would make the doors fall off or something.”

  “Ha ha,” Audrey says sarcastically as she reaches over and lowers the visor. Fastened to it with a bright red paperclip is a picture of the group of us huddled together on the porch of one of the cabins at the campground.

  “Shit. I forgot that was there, I…” Audrey moves to grab the picture, but I beat her to it.

  “It’s okay.” I pull it free. The edges are worn, the bottom dented in the shape of the clip.

  I remember the weekend this was taken.

  Mateo has his arms wrapped around Miranda, the two of them sopping wet from a dip in the lake. A yellow-and-white-striped towel is stretched tightly around her shoulders, gathered just below her chin. Audrey’s sprawled out across the cabin steps, a mischievous grin on her face. The bottoms of her feet are smeared with the pink chalk she’d used to draw on the pavement in the parking lot.

  Ayanna is sporting her signature box braids, her arms folded across her chest as she leans against one of the porch’s support beams. There’s a sparkle in her eye, and the corners of her mouth tilt up in a serene, knowing smile. It’s like she’s planning what she wants to do with the place already. An old girlfriend of Ayanna’s—whose name I can’t remember—is wrapping her arm around her waist, her thumb hooked through the belt loop of Ayanna’s shorts.

  I’m leaning forward, using my arms as leverage against the porch railing. The sun-streaked blonde hair I had that summer is bunched up in a messy pile on the top of my head. Jackson’s standing behind me, his hands placed on either side of my elbows, boxing me in. He’s resting his chin on the top of my head, wearing that smile that always made my heart skip a few beats.

  I stopped letting myself remember how gorgeous Jackson was. I’ve blocked out how happy we used to be.

  I don’t look at the pictures I have of us together because it hurts too much to think about the good times.

  “It’s hard to believe we were ever that young,” Audrey says.

  I roll my eyes. “This was only five years ago. We’re still young.”

  “We’re grown-ups now. Mateo wears three-piece suits to work, and he and Miranda own a freaking Volvo.”

  “We have 401ks.”

  Audrey lets out an exasperated sigh. “You guys have 401ks,” she says with a self-deprecating laugh. “I wouldn’t be living the life of a true artiste if I wasn’t unappreciated in my time with the bank account to match.”

  I smile, looking down at the picture.

  “You should tell him you’re still in love with him.”

  I glare at Audrey. “I’m not.”

  “Like hell you’re not. You don’t look at pictures of people you’re not in love with like that.”

  “I was reminiscing.”

  “About the guy you’re still in love with, I know. No one would blame you, Birdie. Everything ended kinda suddenly, and you know J wasn’t in a good place after the accident. We’ve been talking a lot more recently, and he told me he regrets—”

  “Whose side are you on?” I’m the one who got blindsided. I’m the injured party. She’s supposed to be with me.

  Audrey’s expression softens. “Yours, Birdie. That’s why I think it might help you if you hear him out. I want you to be happy, that’s all. I think working this out might start getting you there. I know you still love him, and I know he
—”

  “Can we not do this?” I beg. I take the picture and slide it back under the paperclip, then flip up the visor like it’s personally offended me. I’d honestly rather be blinded by the sun than deal with this right now. “I’m not still in love with him.”

  “If you say so.”

  “If you want to talk about being in love with someone, why don’t we talk about Sawyer? How’s he doing?”

  Audrey’s eyes flash. “I am not in love with Sawyer O’Donnell. He’s a conceited, full-of-himself asshat.”

  “Who you’re in love with.”

  She glares at me. “If anything it’s a hate crush fueled by his hotness, because he is definitely hot. But it’s not love. Don’t denigrate what you and Jackson had by comparing it to…that.”

  “If you say so.” I take a deep breath and try to let it go. I really don’t want to fight on this trip, especially not with Audrey.

  “Think about what I said.”

  “Somehow I feel like you aren’t gonna let me forget it.”

  “You know me too well.” She flashes her patented shit-eating grin in my direction.

  I’ve missed her so much, I can’t even be mad about it.

  * * *

  At the golden hour, we pull into the parking lot of what has officially been renamed the Dandelion Gap Bed and Breakfast.

  The grounds are freshly landscaped, the main building refurbished and repainted. I should process those changes, but I can’t take my eyes off the two people just beyond the parked cars in the lot.