Hold the Forevers

by K. A. Linde

  “Y’all will have to come to the wedding. We’re saving up for it, so it might not be for another two years. I want to give Gina the best wedding I can,” Tony explained. “I actually wanted to see if you’d be best man.”

  Cole beamed. “Hell yes, I will.”

  “Gah, that sounds amazing,” I said.

  Though I doubted that I’d ever end up at that wedding. Even if I wanted to be there. Cole and I would have to be in a completely different place than where we were now for that to happen and that seemed impossible.

  Cole regaled us with his new marketing project, and I told them all about PT school and the insufferable job market. How much I wanted to work in the Falcons training room and how unlikely that was to happen. Tony gushed about Gina like a man besotted. He kept telling us how much he wished that we could meet her.

  One drink turned into two and then three. I was definitely drunk by then. I knew that I should have stopped after one. Guzzled some water and then disappeared for the night. It was nearing midnight, and I hadn’t gone over my presentation once. Even worse, I was definitely going to have a hangover in the morning. Whoops.

  “Gah, is it really this late?” Tony asked, rubbing a hand down his face. “Gina is going to kill me. I hate to cut it short, folks, but I’m outta here. It was so good, seeing you both.”

  He hugged Cole and then me before dropping some cash on the bar. “Text me tomorrow, and maybe Gina can come out with us.”

  “I will,” Cole agreed.

  “You too, Lila!”

  I laughed. “I might just do that.”

  He nodded at us both and then ambled out of the bar. Leaving us all alone.

  “How does this keep happening to us?” I asked, leaning an elbow against the bar and looking at him.

  He shrugged one shoulder and tossed back the rest of his bourbon. “I’ve given up on coincidences.”

  “Same. Third time in three years,” I muttered. “Crazy since you live on the other side of the country.”

  “Almost like we keep getting pulled back together.”

  “Almost.” I sighed and reached for the water in front of me. “How’d you meet Harper?”

  “Mutual friends. My business partner’s wife’s best friend.”

  “Must make for great parties.”

  “Yeah. Well, they tried for a year to get me to go on a date with her, but I wasn’t interested.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  He shot me a look.

  I already knew the answer.

  I’d let him walk away that day. There was nothing to hold him back.

  “And you’re still happy?” he asked instead of answering.

  I nodded. “And you? You’re happy?”

  “Yeah. Harper is …” He waved the bartender down for a refill. “I don’t know. You want anything else?”

  “No, I have a panel at eight in the morning. I’m already going to be fucked up for it.”

  “You’ll do fine. You’re brilliant.”

  “Thanks for the confidence,” I said as the bartender set his drink down in front of him.

  Cole picked the drink up and then took Tony’s unoccupied seat to fill the space between us. I held my breath as I caught the scent of him. My stomach fluttered, and I wet my lips, glancing away.

  “I should probably go.”

  He put his hand on my arm. “Stay for my drink.”

  “It’s late.”

  “I’ll walk you up.”

  I swallowed. That sounded like a bad idea. But I remained where I was sitting.

  “Is it serious?” I asked.

  “With Harper?”

  “Yeah.”

  He shrugged. “It’s been six months. You? It’s been, what, two years?”

  “Almost. Two years on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Are you living with him?”

  “No.”

  I didn’t know why he’d asked. I didn’t know why I had answered. Why were we hurting each other like this? Why did I have to torture myself with answers?

  “Why not?”

  “Are you living with Harper?”

  “God, no. We’ve only been dating six months.”

  “Living with Maddox as a roommate is really easy.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “You live with a guy, and Ash hasn’t fucked him up?”

  “He’s only like that with you,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, well, I’m the competition.”

  “He and Maddox get along fine. Why are we even talking about this?”

  “Because it’s the elephant in the room.”

  He was right. Maybe if I knew all about his girlfriend and whether he was in love, then I wouldn’t feel like a bowling ball was sitting in my stomach. I’d be able to see it for what it was and then just finally … move on.

  “Probably not long before he proposes,” Cole mused.

  The bowling ball slipped. “What?”

  “Two years together. You’ve known him since you were in high school. Next steps and all.”

  “We haven’t talked about it.”

  Cole smirked. “Yes, you have.”

  I turned away from him. Ash talked about it. He’d been talking about it since our first date. He wanted forever with me. And it wasn’t even that I didn’t want that. I did. But there was only one problem, and he was seated next to me. I’d never felt more split in half about anything.

  If only I could have both without them killing each other.

  I stood from my seat. “I should go to bed. I hope that you’re deliriously happy. You deserve it.”

  “Lila,” he said on a huff.

  I swallowed. “It’s too hard to sit here and talk about this with you.”

  “I know.”

  “No, you don’t. You don’t even seem fazed. As if none of it matters.”

  “Are you out of your mind? Of course it matters. Of course it fucking hurts to hear. But … this is reality.” He gestured to me. “People between us. Space between us. Everything is between us.”

  “I know,” I whispered. “I know.”

  We stood there in the busy bar with history crowding in. Suffocating us. And there was nothing to do about it. We’d each chosen a different path. It didn’t lead here. No matter how many times fate had brought us back together.

  “Good night, Cole.”

  He gently touched my hand. “Good night, Sunflower.”

  I walked back to my room on leaden feet, remembering at the last minute to let Ash know I’d made it back to my room. I didn’t have the stomach to see his response. I curled into a ball and wondered why my heart ached for two men. And if I’d ever be whole.

  29

  New Orleans

  October 11, 2014

  My panel had been shit.

  I’d barely slept, and I had been even more hungover than I’d thought I’d be. It hadn’t helped that I had a half-dozen texts from Ash about last night that I didn’t know how to answer or have the bandwidth for.

  When the girls begged me to go out on Bourbon Street, I was ready to put the whole day behind me and dive straight into a Hand Grenade. We slutted up our outfits for the night—teeny miniskirts, plunging necklines, impractical heels, and beads. So many beads.

  Trish led us down Bourbon. People called down to us from wrought iron balcony railings. Religious zealots patrolled the streets, demanding we turn away from sin. Everyone drank from long plastic tubes filled with sugary concoctions so potent that one could knock you on your ass. Outside of a bar, we were hassled by a woman with a tray of shots in test tubes that you were supposed to drink out of her boobs. Trish shrieked with delight and bought us all one. I declined the boob method and downed the terrible, sugar-packed shot. Trish tipped back the boob shot.

  Trish held her hands aloft. “Hell yes!”

  The crowd went wild. I liked Trish, but she was something else. It made me miss Marley and Josie.

  “Oh! Karaoke!” Trish gushed.

  “Oh God. Not karaoke,” I sa
id, stepping backward.

  Mazie and Trish clutched my arm and dragged me inside Cat’s Meow. The place had two tiers with a small stage at the front. A man played a piano on the stage, and someone sang an atrocious chorus of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.”

  “I’m going to sign us up,” Trish said and then headed for the stage.

  “I’m not singing.”

  Mazie laughed. “Me neither. We’ll just send Trish.”

  “Deal.”

  “But drinks?”

  “Definitely.”

  We ordered a round of something to wash down the terrible test-tube shot.

  Trish appeared a few minutes later. “We’re slot number ten. They said thirty or forty-five minutes.”

  “Sounds good.”

  We stood around with the other girls, singing every song that you could possibly imagine someone would want to karaoke. Between Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” a truly uncomfortable rendition of Whitney’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” and a Freddie Mercury lookalike who strolled in and sang a flawless “Bohemian Rhapsody,” I realized I was actually having a good time. No one could hear that I couldn’t sing when we were all shouting the lyrics into the abyss. And by the time Trish got on the stage to sing “… Baby One More Time,” I was drunk enough to agree to get onstage with Mazie as Trish’s backup dancers.

  Luckily, due to one too many dance team rehearsals in high school, I knew the original music video dance. I hadn’t ever performed it drunk and in heels, but being onstage felt right, and soon, people were coming in off the streets to hear Trish’s amazing vocals, coupled with my dancing. We finished to an unprecedented volume of cheers. People on the streets were screaming for us to give an encore. And then in the sea of faces, I saw two that I recognized. Cole and Tony were standing in the street. Tony’s jaw was nearly on the floor despite the number of basketball games he’d seen me perform at. Cole had his arms crossed. I couldn’t read his face from this distance.

  I hastily took a bow and hurried offstage. The MC gave me a high five as I passed.

  “Killed it, Britney!”

  I flush of embarrassment hit my cheeks. Not from being onstage, but post-dance mortification.

  Trish was jumping up and down. “That was amazing! Where did you learn to move like that?”

  “Uh … actually, I was on the dance team at Georgia and a Falcons cheerleader.”

  Trish’s eyes bugged. “What the fuck, Lila? Why didn’t I know this? I mean, I knew you wanted to work at the Falcons, but I didn’t know you were a dancer.”

  I shrugged. “Ancient history.” I gestured toward the door. “I think I saw my friends from last night outside.”

  “Oh! Introduce us,” Trish said.

  And before I could say anything, Trish dashed toward the door. Mazie and I jogged to keep up with her as we stumbled back out onto the humid New Orleans street. The crowd had dispersed some after our performance, and people had gone back to drunkenly wandering the street.

  But Cole still stood outside with Tony along with a short, freckled woman with curly red hair—presumably Tony’s fiancé, Gina—and another tall Black guy that I didn’t know.

  “Is that them?” Trish asked.

  I nodded. “That’s them.”

  “Hey!” Trish said, walking right up to them.

  “Britney Spears!” Tony said with a laugh.

  Trish grinned and held out her hand. “That’s right. I’m Lila’s friend, Trish.”

  Tony shook her hand, and Gina stepped a little closer to him. A reasonable assessment based on Trish’s outgoing behavior. You’d never know she had a super-steady boyfriend at home. She just liked people.

  “You looked like you were back out on the field,” Cole said to me.

  “Felt good to be back … except drunk and in these heels.”

  Cole frowned. “Are you not dancing?”

  “There’s not a place to dance in Savannah as an adult. I taught a master class at my old studio, but it wasn’t the same.” I shrugged. “Hard to feel inspired to teach high school students after dancing professionally.”

  “Well, are you going to introduce me to the infamous Lila?” his friend asked.

  I gritted my teeth at that word. Infamous. Oh boy.

  “Sure. Curtis, this is Lila. Lila, this is my business partner.”

  Business partner. The one whose wife had set Cole up with her best friend, Harper. Great.

  “Nice to meet you.”

  We shook hands.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Curtis said.

  I had no idea what to say to that. Curtis was likely his closest friend back in San Francisco and that Cole had bitched a lot to him about everything that had happened. I couldn’t imagine that it was a positive image.

  Cole butted in before I could say a word, “Where are you headed next?”

  “Oh, Pat O’s for real Hurricanes and dueling pianos,” Trish answered for me.

  “Pat O’s it is!” Tony agreed victoriously.

  Trish shuffled forward with Tony and Gina. Curtis struck up a conversation with Mazie, and Cole and I took the back.

  “Is this okay?” I asked.

  “Us together like this?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, clearly, Curtis doesn’t like me. He’s probably going to tell Harper that we were together here.”

  “Nah, he wouldn’t do that.”

  “Are you going to tell her?” I stared up at him, and my heart skipped a beat.

  He was so fucking handsome. Even in jeans and a polo. Even with his hair slightly mussed. And those blue eyes staring back at me.

  “Lila, can’t we just enjoy the night? Do we have to make this a big thing?” He grinned down at me, and my entire body melted. “I’ve missed you. Let’s just hang out tonight.”

  And I wanted nothing more than that. Our friends all crowded around a table in front of the dueling pianos, sipping Hurricanes and singing at the tops of our lungs. We requested the Georgia fight song, and I got up to do the cheers that would be ingrained in my brain until the day that I died.

  It was early in the morning after bar close when we all stumbled out of the bar, prepared for the trek back to the hotel. Tony and Gina went one way. Curtis held up Trish and Mazie as they nearly fell every other step. Cole and I hung back. Drunk but still not ready to leave.

  “Beignets?” I asked. “Café du Monde is open twenty-four hours.”

  “I’m down. Let me see if Curtis wants to come.”

  Cole jogged up to his friend and told him our plan. What ensued was so heated a fight that ended with Curtis storming off with the two girls back to the hotel.

  I lifted my eyebrows. “What was that about?”

  “He doesn’t think it’s a good idea for us to go off alone.”

  “But you asked if he wanted to go.”

  “He didn’t want to go. We have an early flight.”

  “Oh,” I whispered. “Do you still want to go?”

  “Definitely. It’ll be fine.”

  Famous last words.

  Café du Monde was finally empty at three in the morning. We ordered a plate of beignets and two café au laits. The doughnuts came out piping hot, covered in a literal mound of powdered sugar.

  Cole took out his phone and snapped pictures of the food. Then he turned it to me, and I posed with the mountain of powdered sugar, laughing as half of it landed in my lap.

  “Do you miss your camera?”

  “Always, but the new iPhone is nearly as good. Less manual manipulation but handier,” he said, shoving the thing back in his pocket. “Do you miss dance?”

  I nodded. “Always.”

  “What are you going to do after you finish PT school?”

  “Job market and pray,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee.

  “Still want to work for the Falcons?”

  “Always.”

  “Still have your superpower?” he joked.

  I pointed at him. “I’ll have you know that l
ast week, I snagged two Cokes out of the vending machine at school. Trish thought I was a goddess.”

  “You are,” he said softly.

  I flushed. “You still have your superpower?”

  “With the rental, I got the first spot in the lot at the hotel.”

  “Magic.”

  He drained his coffee. “God, it’s so easy to be here with you.”

  “It really is.”

  We finished off the plate of doughnuts. My fingers were all sticky from the powdered sugar. When the napkins did nothing, I licked them clean. I was glad that the carbs and coffee had helped sober me up some. I didn’t feel quite so out of it as I had when we were in Pat O’Briens.

  “Should we head back?” I asked reluctantly.

  He tipped his chair back onto two legs. “Or we could walk.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere, Lila.”

  I squirmed at the affection in the way he’d said my name. “Okay.”

  He dropped cash onto the messy table, and then I followed him out to the street. We crossed Decatur to Jackson Square. Most of the artists and performers had already packed up for the night. We wandered the empty square, pausing in front St. Louis Cathedral to admire the soaring heights of the eighteenth-century church before continuing through the French Quarter.

  I lost track of time.

  Or maybe when I was with Cole, time stood still.

  After an eternity of walking, we ended back at our hotel. I dawdled in the unoccupied lobby. I wasn’t ready to let the night end. I didn’t know if I’d ever see Cole again. And though we’d been in love for a long time and we’d been friends just as long, we couldn’t be either when I went home.

  “I can walk you up,” he offered.

  And this time, I nodded as we headed for the elevators. Silence stretched between us on the ride up to my floor. After this, he was going to go back to his room, catch an early flight, and disappear from my life forever.

  Should I want that? Because I didn’t.

  We stepped out onto the padded hallway carpet and I finally gave in, kicking off my heels and carrying them to the door.

  “You made it all this way, and you couldn’t wait until you were inside?”