One Last Time: A Second Chance Romance

by Roxie Noir

  “Delilah!”

  It’s Ava, and before I can even react she’s next to me, a whirlwind of blonde hair, her arm shooting straight past my face.

  “That one is Seth,” she says, smacking her other hand on the table for emphasis. “Right?”

  I grab her arm and haul it to the table.

  “I’m gonna cut you off if you don’t stop —”

  Well, fuck. Ava’s right this time.

  That one is Seth, and he’s standing behind the bar with one hand on his hip and the other in his hair, the same gesture he’s always made when he was trying to get a handle on a situation.

  And then, he looks at me, probably because my little sister is being a total lunatic.

  I feel like the air’s been squeezed from my lungs. It takes everything I’ve got not to duck under the table, but I don’t. I just go silent and stare back, mouth open, holding my sister’s hand on the table like I’m trying to keep a toddler out of my drink.

  Finally, I just shut my eyes.

  “ —Pointing at people, and yes, that’s Seth, congratulations on getting it right this time.”

  “They really do look alike,” muses Georgia.

  “Right?” says Ava. “Can I have my hand back?”

  “Are you going to point at him like he’s a dancing bear?”

  “I just wanted to make sure you saw him,” she pouts.

  “Thank you,” I say, diplomatically. “I saw him. That is indeed Seth. Were there any further questions?”

  She leans in toward us, her blond hair dragging across the table, and stage-whispers again.

  “Sometimes he’s here at night,” she says. “I lied earlier! Bye!”

  Just like that, she’s gone, back to her giggling friends. I feel a little bit like someone just shone a very bright light in my eyes and demanded that I perform long division, but despite that, I don’t look over at where Seth was again.

  I’m over here, and he’s over there, and I’m going to drink the remaining third of my beer very quickly and then leave and everything will be totally fine.

  “So,” Lainey says brightly, her spine straightening. “You guys watching any good TV right now?”

  Bless her.

  I wait ten minutes, and then I force myself to wait one more, just to prove that I’m a mature, adult woman who doesn’t leave a room just because Seth is across it, pouring drinks behind the bar.

  After eleven minutes, my beer is empty, so I yawn, make some excuses, pull on my coat, and leave.

  When the door shuts behind me, I finally relax. I take a deep, cold breath, and I blow it out into the night air where it blurs the stars, already half-obscured by the orange light flooding the brewery’s parking lot.

  It’s fine, I tell myself.

  It’s getting better.

  But God, I feel shitty. Between Vera and Ava and my cousins and the madness of the rehearsal dinner and the whirlwind of getting talked into the brewery, this is the first time I’ve been alone with my feelings all day.

  And, honestly? They suck. Seeing Seth and talking about the damn weather feels unique awful, like opening a cookie jar to find out that it’s filled with sawdust.

  “Delilah!”

  Fuck.

  Every single muscle in my body tenses. I hold my breath, grit my teeth, keep walking like I didn’t hear him.

  Maybe I can pretend I’m wearing earbuds or something and get to my car before —

  “Hey. Delilah.”

  I turn, despite myself, like I’m on a string held by some invisible puppeteer.

  “I didn’t think you’d be here,” I call out.

  He’s one row of cars away from me, walking between a dark sedan and a medium-colored SUV, both shades of gray in the bleak color of the floodlights. His hands are stuffed into his pockets and he’s moving just quickly enough to fire up my defenses.

  “I kn—”

  “You don’t have to chase me down in the parking lot, I’m not coming back,” I cut him off, the words snapping across the pavement between us, whisked by a cold breeze. “It wasn’t my idea. Ava talked me into coming tonight and she pulled the whole I’m getting married tomorrow thing and she swore up and down that you wouldn’t be here, so —”

  He’s stopped in the middle of the blacktop, hands still in his pockets, wearing nothing but a shirt and jeans in the cold night.

  I keep talking like a ball of yarn unraveling.

  “ — And I figured you’re the owner, not the bartender, so why would you be here on Friday night? But apparently Eli has some food thing going now with you guys —"

  “Delilah,” he says, and it’s just one word but I feel it in my bones.

  I stop talking, exhale, swallow. My hands are fists in my coat pocket, my body ready to fight for the sake of my stupid, defenseless heart.

  “What?” I say, softer now, the word floating up to the parking lot lights, the stars above.

  “I didn’t chase you out here to fight. I came to apologize.”

  It takes me several seconds to compute that statement.

  Then I’m stunned and I stare, open-mouthed, at Seth.

  He rubs his hands together in front of himself, bigger and rougher than the hands of someone who mostly does payroll and invoices should be. I can see the hairs standing in goosebumps along his arms, because it’s gotta be in the low forties out here.

  “I’m sorry I was kind of shitty earlier,” he says, still rubbing his hands. He looks away from me, over the shining cars parked outside the brewery. “I should have just…”

  He closes his eyes, tilts his head back, hands still working in front of him and I do my best not to notice the cords in his neck, the muscles flexing in his forearms.

  “Fuck,” he sighs.

  It’s the best and only apology I’ve ever gotten from Seth, and to be honest, I sort of wonder if I’m hallucinating.

  “You’re right,” I say, after a moment. “It was four weddings.”

  He folds his arms in front of himself, looks at me, half-smiles. I take a step forward, away from the massive truck I’m standing next to, into the empty space of the parking lot aisle.

  “I didn’t have to point it out,” he says, shrugging.

  I uncross my arms and I take another tiny step forward, examine Seth’s face just in case it’s actually Eli or some other imposter.

  It’s not. I knew it wasn’t. I think I’d know Seth blind-folded and underwater from fifty feet away.

  “Sometimes I forget to count mine because I’ve spent the last week trapped in some sort of matrimony-worshipping cult, where the bride is king and the D-word is verboten,” I tell him. “Slowly but surely, they’re brainwashing me.”

  He raises one eyebrow.

  “Divorce,” I laugh. “Though I’d also die before saying dick in front of Vera, to be honest.”

  “I can only imagine what her wedding night advice is like,” he says.

  “No,” I say, and squeeze my eyes shut. “Please, no.”

  “I imagine it’s to be one thing in the streets and something else entirely in the sheets,” Seth says, voice low and quiet and laughing.

  “Okay, now I wish you’d come out here to start a fight,” I tell him, opening one eye to look at him.

  He’s just grinning. It’s a real, true smile, like he’s just about to laugh, and it makes my stupid heart skip another beat.

  “Well, if the cult needs a virgin sacrifice, at least you’re safe,” he says, and winks.

  I ignore the wink, tilt my head at him.

  “I’d be a terrible sacrifice anyway,” I say. “They’re supposed to go peacefully, but you know I’d be kicking and screaming all the way to the altar.”

  “I see you as more of the priestess type anyway,” he teases.

  “Oh, so I’m the one holding the knife over some innocent maiden?” I ask, but I’m laughing.

  “Well, you’re not the innocent maiden,” he says. “And if you said you were a conduit to some ancient god, I’d buy it.�
��

  “Thanks, I think,” I say. “But maidens have nothing to fear from me. At least where ritual sacrifice is concerned.”

  “I think a vanishingly small number are worried about ritual sacrifice, truth be told,” he says.

  The thought flits across my mind — does he know many virgins? Are they still? — but I push it away.

  “It’s been a while since I knew what virgins worried about,” I admit, and Seth laughs again, his breath escaping in puffs.

  “Right?” he agrees.

  We’re both quiet a moment, alone, in the cold and the dark, and it’s nice. It feels a little like dancing on a blade, on the edge of a cliff, but for right now we’re twirling and upright and if I let myself, I might believe it could always be this way.

  “You should go inside, it’s freezing out here,” I finally say.

  “Back to the agreement?” he asks, and his voice is suddenly intimate, quiet, and I start nodding before I can even think about it.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s been working, hasn’t it?”

  “Mostly,” Seth says, and glances over his shoulder at the building, then back at me. “You’re right, I should get back.”

  Something flashes on him, and I tilt my head.

  “There’s something on your neck,” I say.

  He rubs at it with one hand.

  “Other side,” I say.

  He tries again, misses, something pink and shiny winking at me in the dark.

  “Right here,” I say, pointing at my own neck, covered by a scarf, and he frowns, drags his finger over the cords there, still doesn’t get it.

  “Anything?” he asks, still pawing.

  “Here.”

  I step forward, close the distance, reach up and take a pink sticker off of the spot where his neck meets his shoulder, his skin hot beneath my fingertips. Even though I’m wearing layers of clothing, I think every hair on my body stands on end until I step back, hold up one finger.

  On it is a shiny, skateboarding shark, and I hold it up for Seth to see.

  “Rusty was here earlier,” he says. “She must’ve gotten me.”

  “Apparently,” I say. “You want it back?”

  “Sure.”

  He makes no move to take it. After a moment I lean in, press the sticker to his chest.

  “Thanks,” he says, and I look up at him, and I remind myself to breathe.

  Somehow, even in the washed-out dark, his eyes are blue as anything, a shade I could never quite pick out no matter how hard I tried. Not quite cobalt, not quite ultramarine, not indigo or cerulean or lapis or anything else I’ve ever put on a canvas.

  Clear blue eyes, dark tousled hair, the hint of stubble at the end of a long day, shadow of a smile on his lips.

  I want to kiss him. I want to press myself against him, wind my fingers through his hair, crush his lips against mine. I want to do it so badly that for a moment I don’t trust myself to move so I just stand there, silent, stuck.

  Then he raises one hand and touches the sticker himself and thank God, it breaks the spell.

  “Go inside before you freeze,” I tell him.

  “So you do care,” he teases, and I roll my eyes.

  “Bye, Seth,” I say, taking a step backward.

  “Bye, Delilah,” he says, and we both turn away, walk in opposite directions.

  I shake my head, pull my keys from my pocket, focus on finding my car and unlocking it and getting in and starting the engine so I don’t think about going after him. I drive away so I’m not tempted to go back, turn him around, kiss him against the side of the building.

  It’s always like this with us, the push and pull, the feeling that Seth and I are rubber banded together and the more we try to escape, the harder we snap back together. Usually we at least fuck before we fight, but apparently this time we skipped the fun part.

  Maybe that means it’s getting better.

  I stop at the end of the brewery’s driveway and glance in my rearview mirror, but there’s nothing behind me except a few people walking to their cars. I don’t know what I thought I’d see — Seth, forlorn, waving a white handkerchief at my departure?

  I turn my music up, blast the heat, and turn onto the main road.

  Chapter Four

  Seth

  I head back to the brewery, feet scuffing over pavement and then crunching over the brown grass that’s been dead for a few months now, thin cold stalks still sticking out of the ground.

  Apologizing. It was just that easy. I was a dick, and I apologized, and now — it seems — we’re back to the plan. Back to exchanging small talk at coffee shops and meaningless chatter about our families and our jobs and sometimes running into each other at the grocery store and discussing strawberries, that sort of thing.

  It’s all right. It’s good enough. It’s at least better than fighting with her for no reason, then spending hours feeling as if someone’s cinched an anvil to my chest and I’ve got to drag it around.

  Outside the back door to the brewery, I stop at the edge of the floodlight. Behind the building the thick forest is black, the sky above it the deepest blue, the grassy field surrounding the building charcoal gray.

  This is January in Virginia: leached of color, cold but not a deep cold, dark but not a deep dark. Cold enough that I’m freezing in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans, not so cold that I can’t spend a moment gathering myself.

  She touched me, twice. They feel like brands on my skin, like she’s imprinted the ridges and swirls of her fingerprints on me, even through my shirt. I rub my hand over them — neck, chest — my own fingers cold, but it doesn’t help. They’re still there.

  Back to the plan, then. I take a deep, cold breath, look up at the sky.

  I know it’s not there right now. During the winter it doesn’t come into the sky until it’s almost morning and then the rising sun obliterates the faint stars, but it doesn’t matter because I’ve always got it on me, haven’t I? Even if it’s faded to blue, the dots and lines slightly blurred, it’s still there.

  “Grounds inspection go okay?” Eli asks the moment I cross the threshold.

  The heat of his makeshift kitchen prickles across my skin, and the door closes behind me.

  “Did you know there’s plants out there?” I ask, jerking my thumb at the door. “Just plants and plants, as far as the eye can see. Trees and grass and all kind of shit.”

  Eli stops monitoring the grill for long enough to give me a half-concerned, half-what-the-fuck look.

  “I suspected,” he says.

  “Someone ought to do something,” I say, already walking away, toward the swinging doors that lead to the big room, heart booming even though I know for a fact that Delilah’s not there anymore.

  She’s not out there and we’re back to the agreement.

  My hands are still cold, and I rub them together, walking past the cabinet behind the bar where we keep the kegs. Another wave of goosebumps rises on my skin, now that the relative heat of the building has worn off, but I ignore it.

  I walk. Away from the bar, away from Eli in the kitchen, cooking and noticing things. Away from the light and the noise and from anyone who could talk sense into me right now.

  Back to the agreement.

  Into the back of the brewery and between the massive metal tanks, the bready, sweet smell intensifying. I keep the lights off, because I know this path by heart. The only light I flick on is the one in my office, and only so I can see the display on my office phone.

  It’s been two years, three months, and sixteen days since the last time she touched me on purpose. I don’t want to know that number but I can’t seem to help it, as if there’s a calendar in my head slowly ticking upward. I touch my hand to my lips, still cold, rub the back of my hand across my mouth and tell myself that this is a bad idea.

  I punch the down arrow on the office phone until I find the phone number I’m looking for.

  The receiver’s in my hand and in one motion I hit the call button, hold
it to my ear, step back, turn off the light as if darkness will make what I’m about to do any better. I hold my breath as the other end of the line rings once, twice —

  “Hello?” Vera’s voice says, and I finally exhale.

  Chapter Five

  Seth

  Two Years, Three Months, and Sixteen Days Ago

  I flip on the lights in the storeroom, look around, and silently curse whoever’s been organizing our kegs, because they’re doing it the same way that my computer’s hard drive stores data: cramming random shit wherever it fits.

  But while I can de-frag my computer by clicking something, defragging our storerooms involve a lot more physical labor. Usually, it’s my physical labor, because I’m the one with a specific filing system in mind. Sometimes Daniel helps, but he’s got Rusty to deal with so I let him off the hook.

  Love the kid, but last week she asked me if I thought it was fair that Grandpa was dead but lots of criminals are still alive.

  Lifting kegs onto high shelves for hours is easier than trying to explore the concept of an inherently chaotic universe with a six-year-old, particularly when I was expecting to discuss her pitch for a My Little Pony spinoff called My Little Wombat.

  I push a hand through my hair and start looking. At least the kegs are labeled and color-coded, so I don’t have to actually wade through all of them looking for more Bonfire Stout.

  “Seth?” a voice calls, and I duck out of the storeroom to see Caleb, my youngest brother, heading through the warehouse toward me.

  “What’s wrong?” I call back, one hand automatically going to check my phone. There’s nothing new.

  “Wrong?” he asks. “Nothing! I just wanted to come see if you needed some help.”

  “They’re not out of anything else up front?”

  “Beth didn’t say she needed anything.”

  Caleb walks up to me, his hands in his pockets, his long hair pulled back in a man-bun, and he smiles at me.