Meet Me on Love Lane

by Nina Bocci

  I didn’t have to think twice.

  “Give me five to grab my stuff.”

  15

  “Ready,” I breathed, skidding to a halt in front of him. Henry had a bemused expression as he checked his watch.

  “Impressive,” he teased, taking the tote from my shoulder and placing it onto his.

  “Thanks.” In under six minutes, I had grabbed everything I needed and tossed it into my bag.

  Henry followed me out the front door of the shop. Close, but not too close. I slipped the key into the lock to secure the dead bolt, and I glanced up at the crystal-etched front door that read LATE BLOOMERS in an artfully designed script. Reaching out, I touched it gently.

  “If I haven’t mentioned it, I think the name is genius.”

  I smiled up at him. “I appreciate that.”

  The night was warmer than I expected, making me wish I’d left the thin sweater I wore back at the shop. Like every night I came into town, the people of Hope Lake, whether residents or visitors, congregated in the square. People milled about visiting shops, eating ice cream, or just sitting and drinking coffee under the stars.

  “This place is a bit magical,” I admitted, earning a beaming smile from Henry.

  “I think so.”

  He led us across the walkway that separated our shops. Well, not our shops per se. The shop he worked at and the one I was whatevering at. It was just a stretch of wide sidewalk with the fountain planted in the middle. Trees lined the walkway, and benches and potted plants were dotted throughout. It was a nice little spot to congregate.

  “This is very Hollywood, you know.”

  “How’s that?” he asked, his stride slowing as we reached the fountain.

  Two young giggling girls were tossing coins in while two young boys I assumed they were with looked on.

  Leaning in, I bumped his shoulder playfully. “Hollywood. Rom-com? You know, a meet-cute between two single, attractive shop owners. I can see it now, they gaze at each other longingly across the busy pedestrian walkway that anchors their businesses, waiting for the chance to accidentally-on-purpose run into each other. Maybe it’s at the cozy café or the delicious ice-cream shop. Maybe it’s just the two of them saying a wish at the fountain in the town square that’s been known to make dreams come true if you have a true heart.” Without stopping, I plucked a penny from my pocket and flicked it in to make a wish.

  Here’s to making the right decision.

  Henry stopped, standing a few paces back, arms crossed over his broad chest. “I would have never pegged you for a hopeless romantic, Charlotte Bishop.”

  I laughed, walking to meet him. “If you repeat it to anyone, I’ll deny it. I have a rep to protect.”

  “You’re ridiculous.” He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. His finger lingered just a moment before sliding down my jaw. I shivered, and it wasn’t from the night air.

  The wind picked up, blowing his hair out of the artfully arranged style he wore to cover the wires that led into his ears. I glanced at them, staring just a moment before he shifted strands back to hide them.

  “You can ask about them, you know. I’m used to it,” Henry said, sweeping his arm before him to direct me to lead the way.

  I gave him an embarrassed, sideways glance. “I didn’t want to pry,” I said honestly. “The other day I saw you running through the center of town. I was trying to get your attention and yelled, but you didn’t turn around. You just kept going. I shouted again, but nothing. I really thought you were still mad because of the incident until I realized that you probably didn’t hear me.”

  “Sorry about that,” he began, pointing the way between the bookshop and the dry cleaner, where the alley was shrouded in darkness. “I probably didn’t. When I’m outside, there are so many factors that make hearing more difficult. Traffic, for one thing, is a nightmare. I apologize for ignoring you. I promise, it wasn’t my intention,” he said, winking when we reached the parking lot that ran behind the row of buildings.

  There were more cars than I expected. Henry led us to an older-model Jeep Wrangler. A much older model. It wasn’t held together with duct tape or anything, but it was definitely a classic. It fit Henry perfectly.

  He held the door open for me to slide inside. The interior was immaculate. For as faded and questionably sound as it looked on the outside, he clearly took care of it.

  “So, the—” I paused, pointing to my own ears. “I’m not sure what to call them.”

  “The medical term is cochlear implant. They’re not hearing aids, per se. Those make sounds louder—think what Gigi has,” he explained, tapping his ear. “These send sound signals to my brain because my cochleas got damaged when I was younger.” He started the engine and inched onto the main road.

  Don’t ask. Don’t ask. Don’t ask.

  “How did that happen?”

  It’s like my mouth and brain aren’t connected.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, I mean,” I added, wondering what the chances of survival were if I jumped out of the car.

  He rolled to a stop, so jumping wasn’t going to be an issue. Henry wasn’t mad, though—instead, he looked pensive. As if he was remembering whatever had happened all over again.

  “Nick and I always horsed around when we grew up. Cooper and Emma, too, but Nick and I took competition to a new level all the time. When we were eleven and watched A Christmas Story for the first time, the triple-dog dare became the fabric of our lives. The shit we would try to make each other do was ridiculous.”

  I reached over, resting my hand over his on the stick shift. “I’m sorry,” I said weakly. I had no idea why, but I was. You could tell that the two of them were the best of friends, so whatever had happened must have been traumatic. I couldn’t imagine either of them willfully hurting the other.

  “Thanks. You should know, I don’t blame him for what happened. I’m as much at fault as he was. I just happened to be the most uncoordinated at the time. I had finally gotten my growth spurt, and everything didn’t quite work properly yet. I was gangly and Bambi-on-new-legs uncoordinated with my long legs and big feet. I could barely walk across a room without tripping over myself. Anyway, we had just done a marshmallow challenge to see who could fit the most in their mouths.”

  I laughed. “That sounds both amazing and difficult,” I admitted, wondering what it would have been like if I’d have stayed here. Would we have stayed only friends? Or more?

  “Nick had the bright idea to see what else we could do. At one point Cooper had a rock up his nose, and I thought it would be smart to put a pencil in Nick’s ear. Emma, who was usually the voice of reason, had left to go home.”

  I cringed, thinking of a pencil being jammed into an eardrum. “Nick said, ‘How about you do it,’ and triple-dog dared me. I had three pencils in my ear on each side when Nick’s dog ran into the living room. I jumped to get out of the way and fell. The rest is history.”

  I looked at the implants again. In the darkness of the car, you couldn’t see them unless you stared, or knew they were there. The wires were clear and disappeared into his ear, and his shaggy haircut further aided in hiding them.

  Before I thought twice, I slowly reached out, touching the thin wire as gently as I could. Smoothing his hair back on one side, I inched my way over the center console that separated us so that I could look more closely.

  “They’re almost invisible,” I whispered, wondering if my voice would be amplified because I was so close.

  Judging by the way a slight shiver ran through him, I guessed yes. The strangest urge to lean down to kiss him overtook me. Henry turned slightly, making us that much closer in the already tight space of the car.

  He cleared his throat just as I was going to lean in, and I was grateful. I didn’t feel safe on this tightrope.

  “They bother some people. I’ve been on blind dates before and they’ve ended before they even began because of them.”

  My mouth dropped open as I sunk back onto my own
seat. “You’re kidding,” I blurted out, wondering what kind of shallow twits he dated.

  He shrugged, trying to play it off like it didn’t bother him, but his face betrayed him. Even with the car mostly covered in shadows, I could see that it hurt his feelings.

  “Screw those vapid bitches. Their loss,” I insisted, squeezing his hand.

  He squeezed it back, not letting go until a group of teens came tumbling out of the mouth of the alley, laughing loudly.

  With the tension in the car at a fever pitch, he pulled out onto the main road.

  With Gigi’s house being on the far end of town, we had some time to kill. We were supposed to be discussing the day at the shop, but as much as I needed and wanted his opinion, I didn’t want to waste alone time with Henry with talk of work.

  “I’m getting better learning my way around the town,” I said when he rolled to the stop sign by the antiques shop. “Which streets lead to Emma’s and Cooper’s. Which roads to avoid because Duncan and Birdy like to sit there to nail anyone speeding.”

  Henry laughed. “I doubt they get many speeders. We’re not exactly a fast-moving town. It does surprise visitors how big Hope Lake actually is, given the low population number. It spans a lot of territory.”

  “Yeah, it does. It’s part of the reason I really need to get a license while I’m here,” I said, thinking about how often I needed to beg people for rides all over town.

  “It’s not a bad idea. Your dad mentioned it when I saw him yesterday.”

  “Oh? Where did you see him?” I asked, wondering why Dad didn’t mention it.

  “He stopped into the shop to grab a copy of the club’s upcoming true-crime pick for Gigi. I think she’s hoping you’ll join us, too.”

  My lips flattened with worry. “Sorry, I’m a bit of a wuss. True crime is a little much for me. What did he have to say?” I asked.

  “He asked me to keep an eye out for you. You know, in case you get into trouble. You caught him by surprise showing up here.”

  Dad and Dr. Max had a busy schedule between Hope Lake and the help they provided to Mount Hazel and Barreton. Which sucked, since I was here. But as Parker reminded me during our phone call the other night, they had these things planned long before I decided to show up on his doorstep unexpectedly.

  “I know that; I get it. There’s nothing that could be done. Next time, I’ll give him fair warning to prepare for my visit.” I laughed, but Henry didn’t seem to think it was funny. It was just another reminder that my time here was up in the air.

  It doesn’t have to be, a little voice said, swimming up. I reattached the anchor and sent it back down into the depths. Not going there.

  Henry was quiet as he turned off on a road that looked all too familiar. There, just ahead, was the small stone wall that read THE LOVE LANE COMMUNITY. It was where I got pulled over that first day.

  The community, I found out afterward through some accidental research, wasn’t actually on Love Lane. After consulting a map that hung in my grandfather’s office at Gigi’s, I realized that there wasn’t even a Love Lane in Hope Lake. No avenue, road, trail, street, or lane.

  I was beginning to think it was just a friendly term for the area: aka the road that led to the overlook where everyone from teenagers to adults spent time parked in their cars to admire the unobstructed view of the town.

  It was a surprising path to venture out toward Gigi’s. One that I wasn’t about to read into, given Henry’s adamant reaction to the two of us being a temporary us.

  “This area of town is so unexpected. I can’t explain why, but the first time I came up this way, I thought I’d left Hope Lake,” I said as he pulled next to the stone wall, where I knew a dusting of wildflowers grew.

  Not pulling into the area of the overlook where the line of cars were parked for viewing was probably a smart move.

  “I’m not sure I follow?” he said, doing his best to turn toward me. It was difficult with his large body in a small space.

  My face flushed at the thought of being up here, in the car, for the exact purpose of enjoying Love Lane …

  “Uh, you know. The area below—with the big manor homes and the stately trees and the landscaping surrounding them—is such an old-school, hoity-toity place. The center of town is so small-town chic with the old but renovated buildings, and then right at the top of the hill behind the cul-de-sac you’ve got horndog teenagers—”

  “And some adults,” he chimed in.

  I suddenly wondered how many trips up here Henry made. He was attractive, employed, a genuine nice guy, and I was sure that there wasn’t a shortage of women in town who had noticed all of it.

  “Noted,” I replied, and my stomach did a little flip at the sight of his shy smirk. “I just mean, it’s an odd place for such a saucy destination. You’ve got a development with beautifully landscaped yards and expensive SUVs in the driveways, and then just … Then a couple feet away you’ve got rocking cars and fogged-up windows. Why isn’t the kissing spot up by Emma’s parents’ house deep in the woods? Or, hell, the area by where Gigi and Mrs. Mancini live? That’s a dead end with open space for, well, whatever, for miles.”

  “Rewind a second. You say the first time you visited this area. You mean since you’ve returned, right?”

  “Yeah, why? Was this one of my hangouts before?”

  He nodded. “Not this place exactly, but the other end of the development. The section that leads out—never mind. It doesn’t really matter.”

  “No, no, it does!” I insisted, folding my hands up as if in prayer and making an I’m begging face. “Things are coming back, but it’s been so slow. I keep waiting for a deluge of memories, but it hasn’t happened so far.”

  “It might. It will, actually. I’m sure of it. You just need to be patient.”

  “You sound like Gigi,” I said, laughing when he smiled.

  “I take that as the highest of compliments.”

  “Seriously, though. Did we hang out here?”

  He nodded, his expression turning sad. “It was a spot just for us. I know that sounds odd, considering we were ten, but that’s just how it was. Cooper and Nick hung out together a lot. Emma trailed after Cooper, of course, though she’d never admit that. This place sort of just became a hangout spot when things turned sketchy for one of us.”

  He said us, but I had the sinking feeling he meant me.

  “None of this is familiar?” he asked, hopeful.

  “If I said it’s all familiar, would that make any sense to you?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re going through, so I can’t really attest to how I would or wouldn’t feel. I think that if put in the situation where I had no memories of my childhood, I’d be a lot more panicked than you are.”

  I laughed. “Oh, I’m panicked. I just can’t focus on that because I know it’ll make me crazy. I need to keep myself moving forward and hope that something will jog those memories free. The more I visit places like this—spots that meant something to me as a kid—the more I think I’ll remember. I’ll explain on the way to Gigi’s.”

  Henry pulled back onto the road, kicking up plumes of dust with the large tires.

  We bypassed a stream of cars all shapes, ages, and styles on the way in. “Does everyone come here as soon as the sun goes down?”

  “Pretty much.”

  I laughed. “I’ll never understand.”

  “Oh, you will. Love Lane wasn’t given its name because it was the prime site for certain activities,” he said, waving his hand back toward the fading taillights. “It was named after Lionel Lovegood.”

  “You’re making that up,” I said, playfully slapping his arm. His hand flexed when my skin touched his.

  He smiled. “I’m not. Lionel Lovegood was a physician who came here the same time that Cooper’s great-, great-, well—times however many times it is—grandfather Campbell founded the town. You know about that, right?”

  “You’re saying his name was Dr. Lovegood?” />
  “Yep.”

  “Like, Love Good?” I emphasized, drawing out both words with an added eyebrow wiggle.

  “Yes,” he said slowly.

  I tried not to smile, and the way his lips were pressed together, I would have said he, too, was trying not to laugh.

  “Dr. Lionel Lovegood? Seriously? That’s the best name.”

  Henry chuckled. “Yes, it is a cool name.”

  “Oh, and yes, I know a bit about Cooper’s family history. Go on.”

  “Lovegood was on the same boat as Campbell coming from England in the 1740s. Immediately, they formed a great bond and had what many people thought was a prophetic vision for the town. I don’t know that they had a bit of Nostradamus in them, but I like to think that they had the foresight to plan for many futures after them and that it wasn’t just dumb luck.

  “After years of focusing on the center of town, Lovegood supposedly wanted to branch out into the wooded areas that surrounded Hope Lake. With the river on one side being used for trade and industry, Lovegood wanted the lake side to be seen as a family spot. Somewhere for picnics and church functions. The woods were hopefully to be kept a safe haven for the wildlife to flourish. He wasn’t a big fan of razing the area for the sake of buildings. Some things were meant to stay as is.”

  “Is that why the B and B’s and the park are out that way? Nothing is surrounding those except the woods.”

  He shrugged. “I suppose that was why those particular buildings became what they did. Every Hope Laker knows the stories, so perhaps they tried their best to keep with the tradition and the original town model. You know, this place loves tradition. The B and B’s didn’t start out as bed-and-breakfasts, of course. At the time, they were single-family homes; Lovegood saw this huge expanse of untouched land, and he knew it was special.”

  “So Lovegood, what, lived out this way, too?”

  Henry shook his head. “He was supposed to. The story is that he had just built his practice and was in the midst of building a home for his family when his wife got sick. While the construction continued, he devoted all his free time to helping her. Campbell got historical credit for most of the work they did together because Lovegood fell out of sight. Campbell tried to change the perception, but you know how hard it is to change public opinion once it’s made up.”