Better Luck Next Time

by Denise Grover Swank

  She closed the door on her dog and started around to the driver’s side.

  “Addy,” he called out. “You can talk to me, you know. I’m a good listener, and I know how to keep my mouth shut.”

  “Thanks. I might just take you up on that, but I have something I really need to do first.”

  She drove to Blue’s studio, her heart a jumbled mixture of anticipation and grief. Blue met her at the door before she got Tyrion out of the car.

  “I hope it’s okay that I brought him. I’ve been gone all day, and I didn’t want to leave him again.”

  “That’s okay,” Blue said with a soft smile. “I’d ask you about what happened, but the look in your eyes suggests I shouldn’t.”

  Adalia headed toward her, leading Tyrion on the leash. “I’ll tell you, just not now, okay?”

  “I understand,” she said, stepping out of the doorway and letting Adalia and Tyrion enter. “You have the look of an artist with an idea that needs to be let loose.”

  She nodded. “Something like that.”

  Blue showed her around, then gave Adalia a key to the space. “I had this made after you and Finn came by. I was hoping you’d want to work here.”

  “Thanks, Blue,” Adalia said, taking the key and clenching it to her chest. “I’ll be happy to pay rent and utilities.”

  “We’ll talk about that later,” Blue said, taking a step backward. “Right now I have to go meet this guy from a dating app I signed up for.”

  “Oh, you took the plunge.”

  “Yeah, I got to thinking about it after I had drinks with you and Maisie. It was time.”

  “Are you getting a drink?” Adalia asked, glancing at the clock on the brick wall that read 7:30.

  Blue grimaced. “Dinner. First date.”

  “Amateur mistake,” Adalia said, itching to start working. “Always go for a drink or coffee first.”

  “Yeah, I hope I don’t regret it later.” She left, waving as she headed out the door.

  The space felt huge, cavernous. It was getting dark outside the windows, and while she preferred natural light to the industrial lights overhead, it wasn’t going to stop her.

  Taking Tyrion with her, she went to the back door, propping it open, then found a dumpster and climbed inside, thanking the stars above that it was a trash receptacle for artists who produced little actual waste garbage, and had thrown out assorted items she could use. Empty paint cans, a pallet, some broken pieces of pottery, along with multiple other pieces of junk. It took several trips to drag inside everything that called to her.

  Then she loaded Tyrion up in her car and drove to Buchanan Brewery. She snuck in through a back door, and luck was on her side for once, because she didn’t see anyone. She raided discarded bottles and boxes, along with a few other items left over from a batch of beer River must have made that morning.

  Her stomach rumbled, so she detoured to a drive-through and picked up a sandwich for herself and a burger for Tyrion, and took everything back to the studio.

  After she brought her latest haul inside and fed Tyrion and provided him with a clean bowl of water, she stared at the pile of stuff she’d pulled together, realizing why her preferred medium was to work with discarded items. Every person important to her had left her: Georgie when she went to college, then Lee. Her mother, through no fault of her own. Boyfriends and friends. She had never been the person to leave someone behind. She was always the person left. She could fast-forward the inevitable with Finn and take control of her own life.

  She could leave first.

  She felt a freedom she’d never experienced before, even if her heart wept at the thought. She loved him, of that there was no doubt, but sometimes love wasn’t enough. Sometimes it was flawed.

  Maybe Adalia was meant to live her life alone, and she needed to learn to be okay with that. Because in the end, there was one love that meant more than the others—self-love.

  Maybe that had been her problem all along.

  Grabbing the pallet, she dragged it into the middle of the room, then seized one of the metal poles while Tyrion watched with a puzzled look.

  “Better settle in, boy,” she said, picking up a piece of wire she’d found in the dumpster. She didn’t have all the tools she needed, but she could get started. “We’re going to be a while.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Finn couldn’t stop thinking of the look on Adalia’s face as she shut the door—literally—between them. It had looked like her heart was broken. But why? He’d bumbled his explanation of the consulting company, but surely that wasn’t what had pushed her away. Or at least it wasn’t the only thing that had.

  Which made him think it had to be wrapped up in the Alan thing. Something he didn’t even know about and, it seemed, wouldn’t.

  Finn had promised himself he wouldn’t text her until the end of the weekend. That he wouldn’t be that guy who refused to give her an inch of space when she’d asked so clearly. In the meantime, he poured everything he had into work. Because any time he had a spare moment, he thought of her. Or the fact that he was still finding stray Tyrion hairs in the house, and each time he did, it felt like his heart had lodged in his throat.

  Actually that happened a lot—every time he saw her painting, heard about the Biltmore on the radio, ate anything in his kitchen, saw those candlesticks…the list went on. It would have been easier to put away the things that reminded him of her, but he didn’t want that. It would have been like burying his heart.

  Other people in his life texted—River, to confirm he had the go-ahead for the Big Catch beer festival and ask why Finn hadn’t been around; Dottie, to say she’d had an alarming dream about him and would like him to come for tea; Maisie, to say she knew something had happened, and he’d better text or face the consequences; his father, to say that this wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind when he’d suggested Finn get together with the Charlotte Robotics folks. But he didn’t answer any of them. He couldn’t. In a weird way, it felt like if he answered them, it would be real. He would be acknowledging Adalia wasn’t coming back.

  By Sunday night, he’d stopped being able to convince himself any news would be good. And that was when she finally texted.

  Finn, I know it’s shitty not to talk about this in person, but I think we need to take a big step back. You were right in the beginning. I’m not ready for a relationship right now. There’s a lot I need to take care of before I’ll be ready for that. Maybe it would be best if we communicated through Dottie for art-show related matters for now.

  And there it was. His heart, which hadn’t been doing so great, seemed to burst into pieces. The worst part was that he couldn’t argue with her, not really. He’d thought all along that he should give her some space, and fool that he was, he hadn’t stuck to it. But he did allow himself to speak his mind, to say: I could support you through it. You don’t need to be alone to work on yourself.

  Those three awful dots appeared, then reappeared, then disappeared, like a magic trick designed to mess with him.

  But she didn’t say anything else. And he didn’t say anything else. For once, he did the smart thing and shut off the phone. And sat there with these feelings—these awful, heart-wrenching feelings.

  Had he ever made a woman feel this way? Most likely, and the knowledge didn’t sit easily. Maybe he deserved to feel this broken. Maybe he’d casually and unwittingly caused more pain than he realized.

  That night, he found himself watching Pride and Prejudice by himself, something that both wrecked him and made him feel closer to her.

  The next morning he texted Dottie to say if the invitation were still open, he would very much like to come over for tea, and she immediately responded to say the invitation was always open, and anyway, she’d been expecting he would come today.

  Of course you were, he responded, smiling a little for the first time since Wednesday.

  When he arrived that afternoon, there was no room to park in the drive, because River’s car
was there, with Maisie’s Jeep next to it. Were they having a party? He wasn’t so sure he wanted to see them yet—especially River—but before he could seriously contemplate turning around, Dottie came out the door.

  “Dear, don’t even think of it,” she called out.

  And he couldn’t exactly leave with her looking at him like that.

  He got out and met her on the stoop, and she wrapped her arms around him and held him close. Finn hadn’t grown up in a family of huggers, but he was a hugger, and he melted into her embrace.

  “Go on inside,” Dottie said fiercely. “I’ve called an emergency meeting of the…what is it you call yourselves? The Bro Club.”

  “You didn’t need to do that,” Finn said. But it struck him that she’d asked River and Maisie to come, and they had. In the middle of the day. On a Monday. He had a flexible schedule, but this would have taken some doing for them. That meant something to him.

  “Oh, but I did,” she said. “There’s no emergency like an emergency of the heart.”

  It was the kind of thing she said that would usually have River and Finn exchanging fond but beleaguered looks, but it felt weightier today. Truer.

  His gaze shot behind the house, to the shed where he’d seen Adalia that day, and he nodded.

  Dottie ushered him inside, pushing a piece of clear quartz into his hand.

  It had been a while since she’d foisted a crystal on him.

  “What’s this one for?” he asked.

  “Healing,” she said.

  He stuck it in his pocket. Because he wasn’t going to lie and say he didn’t need that.

  There was a rumble of conversation in the kitchen, and when they stepped in, Maisie and River got to their feet.

  They didn’t look so antagonistic now, so maybe something had been settled between them, or maybe Maisie had gotten used to pretending again.

  “I told you there’d be consequences,” Maisie said, giving him a fake punch on the arm. “You just didn’t realize you were going to be ambushed with a teapot and a spread of finger food.”

  Indeed, Dottie had pulled out all the stops. It looked like the kind of tea that would be served in one of those Regency movies, which made him feel a little pang. Adalia would have gotten a real kick out of it, but she would never have shown up, knowing he was present.

  River patted him on the back. “Take a seat. Tell us what happened.”

  “You’re not pissed at me?” he asked in wonder. He’d figured he would be. That he’d be mad that Finn had managed to bungle things so badly with his girlfriend’s sister, but there was no judgment on River’s face.

  “You look like someone just drowned your puppy,” River said.

  “Hey,” Maisie griped. “Not cool. Use a less disturbing analogy next time.”

  They sat again, across from each other, and Dottie took the chair next to Maisie. He sat down next to River, looking down at the cup of tea in front of him. The leaves in the last one had shown Dottie that he was destined to fall in love with Adalia, or so she’d implied. What would this cup tell her?

  “Well?” Dottie prodded gently. “You’re not usually at a loss for words. Tell us. We’re here to listen.”

  “And to help,” River said. “You’re not the only one who looks—”

  Maisie shot him a warning look, and River finished with “—like someone peed in your cornflakes.”

  “You just said that to bother me,” she muttered, and River tilted his head and smiled. Finn was caught up on the implication that Adalia was feeling this way too. That maybe he hadn’t imagined the despair on her face as she walked out his door.

  “Children,” Dottie said severely. “Focus. And take some petit fours. They aren’t going to eat themselves.”

  Because there was no denying Dottie, they all took some food from the spread. Finn had lost his appetite, but there was something about Dottie’s food. It was more healing, he would guess, than the crystal that was now lodged in his pocket.

  “Now, Finn, we’d like to know everything.”

  So he told them about last Wednesday, skipping over the sex, although Dottie gave him a knowing look when he said they’d “hung out” at his house for several hours, and ending with a detailed description of the argument they’d had, followed by her hasty retreat and the text he’d received last night.

  “She didn’t tell you anything about Alan?” River asked.

  “No,” he said, feeling that strange sinking sensation in his gut again. “Only the initial story, but Georgie made it sound like something else was going on. That he’s been bothering her. I…I have to wonder if she still has feelings for him. The text that he sent her a couple of weeks ago was an attempt to wheedle his way back into her good graces.”

  River snorted. “Oh, she has feelings for him all right. She hates his guts, and with good cause.”

  Something loosened in Finn at that. At least she wasn’t thinking about forgiving the man for what he’d done. At least she hadn’t left him because she was in love with someone else.

  “So,” Maisie said, her tone blunt. “Maybe you can enlighten us about what’s happening? You clearly know, and Finn needs to know too. Because I know people, and Adalia is not acting in her best interest here. She’s miserable over this. You’re not doing her, or her sister, any favors by keeping quiet.”

  River sat with that for a moment, thinking, and then nodded. And Finn felt such a surge of relief that he popped a red petit four in his mouth. Then swore because it was the spiciest sweet he’d ever consumed. He gulped hot tea, revealing the first leaves at the bottom.

  “Oh, you got one of the negative-energy-flushing ones,” Dottie said encouragingly. “That’ll help you.”

  He sure hoped so, because it felt like the roof of his mouth had been burned off between the “sweet” and the hot tea. Maisie glanced at her plate, scrunched her nose, and moved one of the red cakes back onto the serving platter.

  “Alan stopped trying to charm her,” River said. “He started sending threatening texts.”

  A surge of fury shot through Finn, but River lifted a hand as if to say he wasn’t done. “He actually called her brother Lee, threatening to sue the family company if Lee didn’t pay him two hundred thousand dollars. But Lee knew better than to pay up. He called the gallery, and it turns out Alan’s trying to get them to pay restitution for his ruined pieces. We’re guessing Alan is in debt and he saw Adalia as his payday. He had some BS sob story for why she destroyed the pieces, but the gallery director knew things weren’t adding up. Adalia and Georgie are flying up to New York to meet with her on Thursday afternoon. I think their brother Lee is joining them.”

  Adalia hadn’t told him any of that, which felt like a sucker punch. Had he gotten it all wrong? Did she not care about him after all? Those feelings were twined with anger—fury—toward Alan, the man who had hurt her. He had abused his power, his position, to seduce a student and then steal her art…what kind of person would do that?

  The kind of person who’d done it before. How many other people had Alan Stansworth wronged? How many other artists had he siphoned talent from, like some sort of energy vampire?

  They were all looking at him, waiting for a response, so he collected himself enough to give them one.

  “I didn’t know any of that,” he said in a strangled voice.

  “A woman’s nothing without some fire in her belly,” said Dottie, reminding him that he was still very much feeling that petit four somewhere in his esophagus. “She has her pride. You caught her at a very personal moment in my art studio—two if you count the time she told you about Alan at the restaurant. She wants to be seen as a worthy person in her own right, not a collection of problems.”

  The way she said it made him wonder if she’d spoken to Adalia, if maybe those were Adalia’s own words she was speaking to him.

  She nodded in a way that told him he was onto something.

  “But I’ve never seen her that way,” he said honestly. “I only want to
help her because I care about her. Because she matters to me.”

  “I know that, dear, and I truly believe she will come to that realization too at some point. It’s no mistake that Lola pulled the same draw of cards, in the same order, for both of you. You and Adalia belong together. Cosmically.” She paused and took a sip of her tea. “You had good reason for passing some of the management of the art show on to her, but it seems to have ignited some worry that perhaps you aren’t the type to stick around.”

  “But that’s business—that’s not a person,” Finn sputtered. “There’s a big difference.”

  River leveled him a wry look. “Doesn’t always feel like business.”

  Which meant he’d made a similar mistake. Again. And didn’t that burn. Almost as badly as the red petit four. He popped a green one into his mouth.

  Mint. It reminded him of the atrocity he and Adalia had made for dinner that last night. He’d thrown the jar of mint jelly into the trash, only to fish it out, empty it—gagging at the smell—and recycle it out of guilt.

  “I don’t know what to do here,” he admitted, glancing around at each of them.

  “Give her some space,” Maisie said. “I think she’ll come around eventually.”

  Dottie tilted her head. “Yes, I agree. But I also think she might require a sign that you haven’t given up. That she matters to you regardless of whether you’re together. That she matters to you as a person.”

  “Of course she does,” Finn said. He shot a glance at River. “I’m in love with her.”

  His friend nodded, and Maisie said, “Yeah, we know.”

  “And you must find a way to show her,” Dottie said.

  “Like Darcy!” he said in a gush.

  “Say what?” Maisie asked.

  “Like Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. He and Elizabeth Bennet weren’t together, but he made a grand gesture by helping her family deal with a scandal.”

  “Finn, my bro, you need to get out more,” Maisie said. But her smile suggested she was totally aware of the plot of Pride and Prejudice and that she maybe, sort of, approved of his line of thinking.