One Last Time: A Second Chance Romance

by Roxie Noir

  For a long moment, I just watch her in the low light. Delilah drinks the water, takes several deep breaths and tilts her face toward the ceiling with her eyes closed, neck long, chest rising and falling.

  “I didn’t agree to be your date because I think you’re pathetic,” I finally tell her.

  “Not my date,” she says without moving.

  “I agreed to co-attend this event with you because it sounded nice.”

  Now she looks at me, her face less red, her lips less puffy.

  “Nice?” she says, sounding genuinely surprised.

  “What if we were friends?” I ask. “It’s been a long time. We haven’t even done what we normally do.”

  Delilah pushes herself so she’s facing me, one leg hanging off the edge of the nook, the other tucked underneath her, pink dress pooled around her.

  “You mean fuck and then fight,” she says, looking at me, absent-mindedly wrapping the silk handkerchief around one finger then another.

  It’s not for lack of wanting. Even right now, as I tell her it’s been a long time, even as I imply that I’m finally over her, I’m not. I want to lean across this windowsill and kiss her swollen lips, slide my hand under her skirt, undo all those buttons I fastened before.

  But I also know that some old hurts fester instead of heal, and giving into temptation with her is like tearing off a bandage and rubbing salt into a wound.

  “Exactly.”

  “We did fight,” she points out, sounding dubious.

  “That’s only half the equation.”

  “Can I be honest?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re just starting now.”

  Delilah rolls her eyes, half-smiles.

  “I’ve got no idea how to be friends with you,” she says, her free leg swinging. “We’ve never been friends, Seth.”

  “It’s all right so far,” I point out.

  “Yes, a fantastic five minutes,” she deadpans.

  “It could have gone differently.”

  She just looks at me, her eyes drifting over my face like she needs to memorize me for a quiz later.

  “True,” she finally says, then sweeps her leg off the nook and lands on her feet, shakes out her skirt, stands tall, breathes deep.

  “We should get back before someone comes looking for us,” she says, and then she holds out one hand. “C’mon.”

  I don’t need her hand to help me down, but I take it anyway, hold it for an extra moment once I’m on my feet.

  “Wait,” she says, before we walk out. “Be honest, do I look like Courtney Love on a bad day right now? Is my eyeliner everywhere?”

  I turn to her. Step closer. She tilts her head up slightly, watching me, and despite myself, despite every single thing I just said to her, I put my hand under her chin.

  Delilah’s eyes flutter closed, her impossible lashes brushing her cheeks.

  I hold my breath. I’m afraid of this moment, of what she does to me, but mostly I’m afraid of myself. I don’t like the Seth who’s been angry and hurt for eight years. I don’t like the Seth who’s still heartbroken over something she did when she was twenty-two.

  I don’t like him, but I know he’s there, just waiting to surface the moment I slip up.

  “I think you’re fine,” I say, still taking in the feel of her skin under my fingertips, the wash of freckles all over her, darker where the sun hits and paler in her shadows.

  “My eyelashes aren’t falling off?”

  I pause, confused. After a moment her eyes slide open.

  “They’re fake,” she says.

  “Oh,” I say, and take my hand off her chin.

  Delilah laughs.

  “My real eyelashes aren’t practically an inch long,” she says, and slides her hand around my elbow.

  “I know,” I lie, and she laughs.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Delilah

  A single, lonely clink sounds across the vast space of the ballroom, like the tolling of the bell on a ship lost at sea.

  I pick up my wine and pretend I didn’t hear it, even though the sound makes my shoulders tense a fraction of an inch.

  “That’s a common misconception, actually,” my brother-in law Michael is saying as he wipes his fingers on a napkin, then leans back in his chair. “You can find video of people on any kind of vehicle hitting a ball around a field and calling it polo, but real polo is only played on horses.”

  Next to him, my sister Olivia is nodding, her wine untouched. I have suspicions about the untouched wine, but now is neither the time nor the place.

  “What about water polo?” asks Chris, my other brother-in-law, Winona’s husband. “That’s polo, isn’t it?”

  The background clinking has intensified from a single, forlorn sound in the wilderness to… many sounds, I guess. It’s getting louder, is what I’m saying.

  “That’s completely different,” Michael says, waving his hand and speaking a little louder. “I’m talking about proper polo, where you’ve got to maneuver —" he holds his hands up in front of himself, like he’s grasping reins, “ — a form of conveyance that’s not yourself, WHILE ALSO MANIPULATING THE BALL.”

  He shouts the end of the sentence, because now the clinking is a cacophony, as hundreds of people hit their silverware against their glasses. We all pause, turn toward the small table at the front of the room where Ava and Thad are sitting together.

  They kiss. A cheer goes up. I clap, a little half-heartedly, because this has to be the fourth time in ten minutes that this has happened, and it’s starting to get old.

  That, or I’m just a jerk who hates romance. One of those two things.

  “Where do you practice?” Seth asks, his own wine glass in his hand.

  I swear, every woman at the table leans toward him, like they’re flowers and he’s the sun. It’s microscopic, sure, but impossible not to notice.

  “My buddy Edward has some land up by Blythe, so we go up there every so often and shoot some goals on his back forty,” he says, waving his hand in the air. “Though truth be told, we don’t get in as much practice as we should.”

  Some land is several hundred acres of beautiful, hilly property that includes several ponds, barns, a mansion, and at least one horse stable. It’s not some land, it’s an estate, but of course Michael thinks of it as just his friend’s back yard, because all his friends are loaded.

  Everyone knows rich people only hang out with other rich people. How else would you concentrate wealth in the hands of the few?

  “Do you have to take the horses to the practice grounds every time you —”

  Seth is cut short by a loud thump, thump coming through the speakers.

  “Sorry,” says the voice that follows. “This thing on? Haha.”

  Vera sighs. At least, I’m pretty sure it’s Vera. I haven’t dared look at the section of our table that contains her, because I’m a little bit afraid I’ll suddenly develop laser-sight superpowers and set her on fire.

  Mark my words, Vera and I are going to have a reckoning. It just won’t be tonight, because I’m not going to ruin my little sister’s wedding.

  “Yeah, that’s why we don’t practice that often,” Michael tells Seth, sotto voce. “Really takes the whole day.”

  “Hey, y’all,” the man at the microphone says, unfurling a few sheets of paper from his pocket. “In case you don’t know me, either in person or by reputation, I’m Brad, this guy’s Best Man.”

  There’s another smattering of polite laughter. I smile and take another sip of my wine, which is still full, thanks to the wine fairies who keep coming around and topping me off without even asking.

  “Anyway, when he first asked me to do the honors, I tried to talk him out of it. I really did. I told him that I’m completely unfit for the job, obviously, but for some reason he really had his heart set on me standing up here…”

  There’s a tap on my shoulder, and I turn my head to see Seth leaning toward me, crooking one finger. Wine glass in hand, I cross m
y legs and lean toward him, hoping that I don’t overestimate my current leaning capabilities and wind up sprawled in his lap.

  Or maybe I do hope that. As a location, Seth’s lap has been pretty damn good to me.

  “What do they know?” he asks, his voice low, rich, quiet.

  I just look at him and raise one eyebrow, then lean back in.

  “Your family. About us.”

  “…like that time he thought he could outrun a State Trooper in our dad’s Z3…”

  I settle back against my chair, head still turned toward Seth.

  “Nothing,” I tell him.

  “Clearly, they know something.”

  “We’re not really a talk about your problems kind of family,” I say, huddling closer, lowering my voice.

  Seth settles back, watches Brad for a moment. He’s telling some anecdote about how Thad got out of a speeding ticket, and he’s telling it like it’s surprising and funny that a rich white kid got away with something.

  “Leaving aside that you just classified me as a problem —"

  “Sorry.”

  “ — Thanks. Where exactly does their knowledge end?”

  I take another sip of wine, both hands around the glass, and contemplate Brad for a moment.

  I’m not close with my family in that way. I’ve shared relationship woes with Winona a couple of times, since we’re the closest in age, but in general my closest confidants have always been friends, not them.

  Like Lainey. Poor Lainey could probably quote fights that Seth and I have had almost verbatim.

  “Seth,” I say, turning my head.

  He’s looking at me. Has he just been looking at me this whole time?

  “You should hold onto your butt,” I murmur. He glances away, a smile creeping onto his lips.

  “Is that considered proper etiquette for a black tie event?”

  “They think we haven’t seen each other since our mutual and amicable breakup your senior year of college,” I say in a rush.

  Seth stares at me. He blinks once.

  I take a sip of my wine and stare back, because I’ve finally done it. I’ve stunned Seth Loveless. After a moment he glances at the rest of the table, turns back to me.

  “Mutual?” he murmurs, totally incredulous.

  I pin my lips together with my teeth and nod.

  “Amicable?” he goes on, his eyebrows raised, one corner of his mouth twitching like he’s going to break into laughter at any moment.

  I give him what I hope is an apologetic, charming smile and shrug dramatically. Seth shakes his head. He grabs his own wine glass, takes a drink, leans back in his chair again.

  Then, he slides his arm along the back of my chair, the fabric of his shirt sliding over the lace that covers my upper back, pulling at the tiny buttons.

  Every hair along my spine stands up.

  “So I take it they don’t know about The Whiskey Barrel either,” he says.

  “Not that I can tell.”

  “I thought every soul in Sprucevale knew about that.”

  I let myself lean back a fraction of an inch until his arm is touching his shirt is touching my dress is touching my back, and I can feel the faintest whisper of his warmth.

  “You’re not quite as notorious as you imagine,” I murmur. “Besides, do you really think any of them —” I nod at the table, filled with people quietly listening to Brad, “ — have friends who frequent that establishment?”

  “I like The Whiskey Barrel,” he says. “Or, I did.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “…so if Thad’s got to tie himself down, I can’t think of a better ball and chain than Ava,” Brad tells an entire room full of people.

  By the way, this is why I drink at weddings.

  “All right,” Seth goes on, leaning in further, his lips closer to my ear. “I’m guessing you also didn’t mention the Mariott in Harrisonburg?”

  He’s not even close to touching me, but I can’t stop imagining it: his lips moving against the shell of my ear, his voice like roughed-up silk vibrating through me.

  I turn my head toward him, and he’s right there.

  “No,” I say, barely audible to myself. “I didn’t mention to my very proper, old-school family that I booty-called you the moment I’d properly filed for divorce.”

  As soon as I say that, I want to walk it back. I want to grab those words out of the air and replace them with after I got divorced, but that’s not how talking works, is it?

  Seth is just watching me, not even pretending to care about Brad’s speech, like he’s trying to read the right response in my freckles.

  “What?” I finally say.

  “Nothing,” he says, but there’s a smile on his lips so faint I almost miss it.

  “Obviously I haven’t told them anything else,” I say quickly, under my breath. “Which is probably why you’re still the perfect, courteous, dashing, handsome golden boy in their eyes.”

  We’re both facing forward now, pretending to be utterly absorbed by whatever Brad is saying.

  “You say that like you think I’m not,” he teases.

  “I think of you as considerably more human,” I say, just as Brad picks up a champagne glass and holds it aloft.

  “Please join me in raising this toast to my little brother and his beautiful bride!” he says. “To Thad and Ava!”

  “Woo!” I say. The table clinks glasses with each other. We murmur to Thad and Ava, and then we drink, and then Olivia rises from her seat and heads up to the microphone.

  Since she’s my sister, I actually shut up during her speech.

  Seth twirls the stem of his wine glass between his fingers. He’s sitting back in his chair, his jacket off, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbow, one arm slung over the back.

  “How big are we talking?” he asks, still twirling.

  “Big,” I say, holding my hands about a foot apart. “Way bigger than real life. I think it took twenty hours, plus some for touchup.”

  “But why?” he says, still clearly baffled. “Did he lose a bet? Did an eccentric uncle die and leave him millions of dollars, but in order to collect he had to get that tattoo?”

  “I still don’t know,” I say, leaning my head on my hand again. I’m half-turned in my chair, facing Seth, elbow on the table. Dinner and speeches are finally over, people are mingling, and I think there’ll be dancing any moment now. “I kept trying to be subtle about asking, but I never got a good answer.”

  “Did you try why are you getting a huge tattoo of a Snickers bar?”

  “I didn’t think I could ask without sounding judgey,” I admit. “I mean, we had twenty hours alone together, and I kept trying to start conversations about it, like, so I guess you like Snickers? But he never cracked, and after the first session I figured my window had passed. Now I’ll never know.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t ask,” he says, shaking his head.

  “Delilah!” someone calls, and I turn.

  It’s Wyatt, weaving his way between two tables and ducking under some greenery, which isn’t quite tall enough for my cousin.

  “Sooner or later I’m gonna take one of these things down by accident and ruin the whole shindig,” he says, glancing backward at the lovely evergreen arch.

  “How’s the weather up there?” I ask him, still leaning on my fist.

  “Hilarious,” he deadpans. “And original. How do you come up with these? Hi, I’m Wyatt. You’re the beer guy.”

  He holds out his hand to Seth as he says that last part, and they shake.

  “Seth,” Seth says.

  “Yup,” confirms Wyatt. “Well, I’m sure your presence here is fine and not at all weird for Delilah.”

  “Wyatt,” I say.

  “Seems like she definitely knew you’d be here,” he goes on, Seth’s hand still clasped in his.

  “Are you here for a reason?” I ask him.

  “Oh, just checking in on my honorary little sister,” he says to me, then faces
Seth. “That’s her, by the way.”

  “I’m three years older than you,” I point out.

  “She’s my favorite cousin,” he tells Seth.

  “I’m sure the feeling is mutual,” Seth says.

  “Right now I’m really leaning toward his sister, actually,” I say. “Wyatt. Can I help you?”

  Clearly, Wyatt’s also had a few drinks. Not that I can blame him.

  “Yeah,” he says, and finally lets Seth’s hand go.

  For his part, Seth looks more entertained than anything.

  “We’re putting cans and shit on the getaway car if you want to come help,” he says, jerking one thumb over his shoulder. “Georgia brought a fuckton of streamers. I think her goal is to get them pulled over before they hit the county line.”

  I swivel and look at the rest of the table.

  It’s empty. Oops. I was so absorbed in telling Seth about weird tattoos I’ve given people that I didn’t notice we were alone.

  “Right, yes,” I say, rising.

  To my credit, I only wobble slightly. See? The wine fairy would never overdo it. All hail the wine fairy.

  “I should go do my bridesmaidly duty,” I tell Seth. “How will everyone on the road know they got married if I don’t?”

  “Have fun,” he says, grinning.

  “Behave yourself,” I say.

  Then I point two finger guns at him. Finger guns. I blame the wine.

  “Must I?” he asks, and fingerguns back at me.

  It feels like a splinter of something works its way between my ribs, because there’s always a reminder. Always.

  “Guess not!” I say, fifty percent too brightly, and then I turn and my dress swirls and I don’t look back as I take Wyatt’s arm and we walk away.

  He ducks under the greenery again, then looks down at me.

  “You know you don’t always have to say what everyone’s thinking, right?” I ask.

  “I don’t have to, I choose to,” he says. “Someone oughta.”

  “You could leave me out of it.”

  Wyatt’s quiet for a moment as we wind between a few more tables, then emerge into the open space before the door.