by Maisey Yates
“But it’s beautiful outside. The Christmas lights are up.”
“And we’re going to be the two crazy people wandering down the street at three in the morning.”
“Come on.”
She took his arm, and it was something like torture, and they walked down the street together, a strange pressing sense of panic making him want to choke. Because it was domestic. Because it was close to what he wanted, and what he could never have. Not with her, with anyone.
But then the clear Christmas lights illuminated her face and he couldn’t worry about it. Not anymore.
“Dylan will never do this with me.”
Dylan. How he hated the mention of that guy. That guy got to spend his days with her while Laz just got her nights, not in the way that he might like.
The streets were completely empty, the evergreen garlands illuminated by the thousands and thousands of lights wrapped around every support beam and every porch rail on Main Street. And then they stopped in front of the town Christmas tree, Jordan still clinging to his arm. She looked up at him, and he couldn’t breathe for a space of time. If she had been any other woman he would have kissed her. But if she had been any other woman he wouldn’t have gone on a romantic Christmas light walk two days before Christmas either.
“You need to figure out your sleep,” he said.
She laughed softly. “I don’t really want to. Because then we wouldn’t have this.”
“Yes,” he said, remembering the way the Christmas lights lit up her eyes. “I do know you hate that shit.”
“So it was perfect. Just the words. The regular words. The ones that you’re supposed to say. So I’d already heard them, and it was easy to practice. When I imagined saying them to him, when I imagined them being... Permanent and binding, I thought I was going to be sick. When I was supposed to go to the church I thought I was going be sick, so instead of going to the church I went to the bathroom and got on my knees and got ready to throw up.” She looked over at him. “Not in the dress.” She put her hand on her forehead. “So then I started driving to the church. After I put my dress on. And then I just kept driving. I kept driving and driving and I didn’t stop driving. I went to Medford. I went to In-N-Out Burger and ran in and got a milkshake. They still put the Bible verse on the bottom of the cup, did you know that?”
“I didn’t know there was a... I didn’t know that was the thing.”
“It is. I dipped French fries in the milkshake and sat on the bumper of my car and stared at nothing. There’s a mall there. That’s all there is to look at. I couldn’t go in to any stores, because I was in a wedding dress. So I just sat there. I considered driving to California. At that point, you’re only forty-five minutes away. I checked on the map.”
The image of her eating French fries triggered another memory. This one a lot more recent.
“The wedding is in two weeks.” She dipped a French fry into some ketchup and shoved it into her mouth. “And I... I’m not excited. Which scares me a little bit. Maybe it’s just because I don’t think it’s going to change anything. I’ll be legally bound to his family, which used to be the only thing I ever wanted. But... You know, you can’t choose your family. Like I can’t choose mine. Which is why I never speak to my parents, but they are still my parents. But I’m not sure... His family modeled a functional family for me but I’m not sure that I fit in with them any better. And I actually am choosing them, aren’t I? Except I always feel like they chose me and I have to be grateful for it.”
“Do they actually say that?”
She looked away. “I mean, a little.”
“That’s bullshit, Jordan.”
“Well. I’m the child of a couple of addicts that they would never even speak to, much less choose their daughter to marry their son. I just...”
“You’re going to let people make you feel like the daughter of addicts for the rest of your life? Make you feel like that’s all you are?”
“That’s not... It’s not them. It’s not... It’s just that I’m very conscious of the fact that I have to be careful. That I have to be mindful of what I could turn into if I’m not careful.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Maybe it isn’t. But I don’t have anyone else either. I’m so afraid of what’s going to happen to me if I end up alone.”
“You’ll never be alone. Not as long as you have me.”
“All right. So then you...”
“I kind of blanked out. I mean, I’m not really sure what all I did. I drove around. I just drove around. And then I turned back around and came here. And then... I came right here. Because it was the only place I knew... There’s nowhere else I can go. I don’t have anyone else. I just alienated everyone who has ever loved me.”
He chuckled. “Okay.”
“Except you. I... I’m not going to be able to sleep. This is when I can’t sleep anyway.”
She picked at a scarred part of the bar top.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
Her head shot up. “And go to where?”
“My house.”
“Your house.” She frowned.
In fairness, he had never had her out to his house before. She was his best friend, and he would claim that in pretty much any circle, but they had only ever really seen each other here. But then, that was pretty normal for him.
“What am I going to do at your house?”
“You’re going to sleep, Jordan. You are not staying up for more than twenty-four hours. You are not marinating in your own misery to the point that you can no longer stand on your own two feet.”
“Am I not?”
“No,” he said.
A new purpose turned over inside of him. And he realized... Well, he realized that he should have done a little telling her what to do a while ago. Because she wasn’t taking care of herself. And she hadn’t been.
“Let’s go.”
“Right now? I didn’t even get a drink.”
“You shouldn’t have a drink. Not in your current state. Don’t go using it like medicine.”
She frowned. “Oh please don’t be my Jiminy Cricket. I’m in my own head enough about all this stuff.”
“I am not a damned bug. But I am going to tell you what’s good for you. You’re already milkshakefaced. Let’s leave it at that.” He rounded the bar, and walked over to where she was sitting. She just looked up at him, with big blue doe eyes. Jordan was never doe-eyed. He put his hand low on her back, which made his stomach feel hollow.
He walked her out the front of the bar and closed the door behind them, locking it. “You have any clothes other than the wedding dress?”
“No,” she said. “And all of my clothes are at Dylan’s.”
“Right. Let’s just go to my place.” He sighed. “I’ll get you one of my T-shirts.”
That didn’t do anything to improve his disposition.
They walked down the sidewalk, a healthy distance between them. He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. And then when they got to the truck he went to the passenger side and opened the door for her. “Get in.”
She obeyed. And he helped her tuck the wedding dress up into the car.
And as he lifted the mountain of tulle up into the truck, their eyes met. And his stomach hollowed out.
“You’re coming to my wedding, aren’t you?”
“I thought we were situational friends.”
She looked hurt by that. Angry. Well, he was hurt and angry about the whole thing.
“We’re friends,” she said. “The best friend I have and I thought that you would come to my...”
“Yeah,” he said. And even then he knew he was lying. “I’ll come to your wedding. I’ll sit there and stare at you as you walk down the aisle. And I’ll behave myself.”
“Good. Not the behaving yourself. That y
ou’ll be there. You know you’re important to me.”
“Yeah.”
But he couldn’t say what he wanted to. And there was no point to it anyway. So he said nothing. Because he’d been over this with her repeatedly. And there was no point arguing. She had doubts, but she was going to do it.
It was best if she did.
He released his hold on her. Closed the truck door decisively. Then he got in and started the engine. Neither of them spoke.
They drove up the winding road that led to the little ranch that had been in his family since the 1960s. The house itself was still much as it had been back in those early years. He’d updated it, fixed it up with his own hands mostly.
The barn had been expanded. Because his true passion was horses, and while he didn’t much care about having every modern convenience in his house, in his barn was another matter.
“This is it,” he said.
“It’s nice,” she responded.
He pulled up to the front and she sat rooted to the seat.
“You can get out, Jordan.”
She started to unbuckle her seat belt, and before she could make a move to get out, he was exiting the truck, rounding to the other side and opening the door for her.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, swinging her legs around and pushing herself out of the truck, ball of white tulle first.
“Maybe not,” he said. “But it seems like the thing to do when somebody has just run out on their wedding.”
“What am I going to do, Laz? I can’t go back to Sugar Cup. Everybody in town is going to know. Everybody in town must already know.”
“I managed to make it through a Friday night without hearing about it.”
“Great. They are protecting me. Because they hoped I was going to come back. That’s what it has to be. But I wasn’t going to come back. I was never going to come back.”
“Why didn’t you just break up with him before the wedding, Jordan. If that’s what you were feeling?”
“Because I was afraid. And I thought that wanting to be part of his family... I thought that wanting to do it was the same as being in love. But it’s not. And beneath all my wanting to do it, I desperately didn’t want to do it. I don’t know if that makes sense.”
“Makes sense to me. I understand.”
“It’s such a mess, Laz. I really made a mess of it.”
She was looking up at him, pleading, and he really couldn’t take it.
“Sleep,” he bit out. “Don’t talk about messes. And don’t think about whether or not you should be cleaning them up. You can’t do anything when you haven’t slept.”
“I should know,” she said. “I’ve spent years not sleeping.”
“Me too. Occupational hazard.”
He led her inside, and ushered her through the house, into his bedroom. He gritted his teeth. Jordan was in his bedroom. And who the hell was he that it made him feel this way? He had spent years having casual sex. The desire was easy. The getting there was easy. The saying goodbye was easy. But the scary thing was that Jordan had said hello one day, in the wee hours of the morning, and he had never even considered saying goodbye. That was the problem. She mattered. And he didn’t really know what to do with someone who mattered quite this much.
Except give her a place to stay.
“I’ll get you a T-shirt.”
He reached into the top drawer and pulled out a gray T-shirt. He almost grabbed a white one, but thought that was a shade too masochistic. Imagining her in nothing but a white T-shirt was enough to destroy him completely. Imagining her in a gray one was only going to render him partially reduced.
“Thanks,” she said.
“I’ve got sweatpants too but they’re not going to fit you.” Laz was over six feet, Jordan was maybe five-two. She was a tiny little thing. Tiny, feral and angry, and that was all the things he liked about her. All the things she was always trying to cover up. To be acceptable to that boyfriend and his damn family.
“I’ll sort it out,” she said.
“I can go down to town and get some of your things tomorrow if you want.”
“Would you do that?”
“Yeah. Help me figure it out.”
“Well, maybe he went on our honeymoon. If he did...”
“You think he’d go on your honeymoon by himself?”
“Oh, not down to San Francisco. But to Hawaii, yes. We were flying out of San Francisco because we got a deal. Those tickets aren’t refundable. I bet he’s getting on a plane.”
“Too bad plane tickets aren’t transferable anymore. That’s one of those made-for-TV romance movies waiting to happen. He could grab one of your bridesmaids.”
Jordan laughed. “I don’t have bridesmaids.”
And he should have known that. Because the fact of the matter was that he would call Jordan his best friend and she would call him hers.
“It hurt my feelings that you weren’t there,” she said. She smiled. “You know, somewhere between here and Medford.”
“When you realized?”
“Yes.” The corners of her mouth turned down. “You didn’t come to find me. So I knew you didn’t know. I knew... Laz, I knew you would have come for me.”
His breath stopped. Right there in his lungs.
“We’ll talk about that later.”
She nodded. “Did you just think I wouldn’t do it? Is that what you thought? Did you know that I was going to walk into the bar?”
He wished he could say yes. But the fact was, for him, that would’ve been optimism. And he didn’t traffic in that level of optimism. He was a realist. But then, maybe he was going to have to forget about that. Because it was not realistic that Jordan had come to the bar in her wedding dress at 2:00 a.m. when she was supposed to be Mrs. Dylan Walker.
And was instead Jordan.
His Jordan. At his house.
“Get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning. Eggs and bacon?”
“Please don’t tell me that you cook.”
“I live by myself, Jordan. Of course I know how to cook.”
And with that, he left her. By herself, to change into his gray T-shirt.
Laz had never considered himself a saint. But at this point he was considering applying.
CHAPTER TWO
JORDAN WOKE UP completely disoriented. She was not in San Francisco. That much she knew. She was on a bed buried beneath a flannel comforter, breathing slowly. She moved the blankets down and looked around the room.
Laz’s room. She was at Laz’s house.
Well, this was a predicament.
She sat up, and realized she was still only wearing a T-shirt. But she could also smell bacon, and she was pretty sure her desire for the bacon was going to outdo her need for modesty.
It was Laz after all.
She tried not to think about the first time she’d met him. She had stumbled into his bar thinking that it was open, when in fact it had been past last call. And she’d seen him. Standing behind the bar. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with black hair and dark skin, a chiseled jaw. His mouth was... Well, it was just immediately sensual, and she couldn’t quite figure out why. Because she saw men every day and managed to not think about their mouths.
And all of that stuff entered into her system as an instantaneous thunderclap. Not a series of individual thoughts, but a hot jolt of realization. And along with it the sense that he was somehow meant to be standing there, and so was she. She didn’t typically go into the bar because she had a job at the coffee shop, and it required she get up early. But her insomnia—which she’d been struggling with for six months or so—was starting to bore her to tears, and so she had taken to walking around. She had looked in the bar on a few different occasions, and tonight had decided to go in.
And something had whispered through her soul
that sounded a lot like fate and it had terrified her. But instead of running, she had gone to sit at that bar.
She had told herself multiple times over the past ten years that the kind of fate Laz was had been to be her very best friend. And he had been. He had been a pillar to her these last few years. Helping her sort through all manner of different traumas from her past, and God knew she had many.
She had done her very best to shove her attraction down very deep. Because Dylan’s family had always been there for her. Because Dylan was supposed to be the one. He always had been. But when she met him she hadn’t felt a thunderclap. And to be quite honest she never felt one in all the years since.
But she now had a solid seventeen years of being Dylan’s girlfriend, and she wasn’t really sure what came after that. So she had simply stayed. And Laz’s words about habits had echoed in her head, growing increasingly louder. And she just ignored them. Until yesterday.
She groaned, she climbed out of the bed, and was greeted by air that was far too cold for her liking. Plus the shirt rode all the way up her thighs, and she was pretty sure that given the cold, her nipples were absolutely visible, like little Tic Tacs through the top. She grimaced and grabbed the flannel blanket from his bed, wrapped it around her body. And she decided that she was going to take her chances on humiliation and brave her friend this morning.
She walked down the hall, taking in the details of the place. There were framed photos in that hallway, but they were so old she couldn’t imagine that he’d put them up. A little boy that must’ve been him, posed in a portrait studio holding a red ball, wearing overalls to match. And a series of such pictures, all of them likely taken at a school. There was a photograph of a wedding, one that looked to be the early eighties, with a couple that was a perfect blend of Laz’s features. And then one framed picture of an older woman in a floral dress holding a chubby baby with wild curly hair. Laz and his grandmother. Her heart clenched. That was the one time Laz had let her be there for him in any kind of emotional sense. When his grandma had died seven years ago. He’d gotten drunk. And he never did that. He was so smooth and easy and always in control. Always the one who knew what to do. But he hadn’t known what to do then. And she’d wanted to comfort him in a deep way. In a physical way that had scared her. She had reached across the bar that night and put her hands on his. And she had felt... She wanted to press herself against him. To give him all of her as a means of comfort, and it had scared her enough that she had backed way off.