Second Chances (20 page)

Reagan swung back around in her seat.  “Because we went to sch
ool with her since preschool?”

The smile fell from Allison’s lips.

“Really?  You don’t remember her?  Her dad works at the hospital, and her mom is the head librarian at the public library.”

Allison focused on the coffee mug cupped in her hands.  “I reall
y was self-absorbed in high school, wasn’t I?”  It wasn’t much of a question – just a defeated statement.

Reagan reached across the table for two and laced her fingers with Allison’s free hand.  “You’re getting better,” she stated, careful with her eye contact.  “And that’s what’s important.”

Allison tightened the grip.  “I’m glad our breaks overlapped.”  Her thumb reflexively ran along the top of Reagan’s hand. “And I’m glad you changed your mind about coming.” She was making it her personal mission to make sure this Fall Break didn’t end up like the previous Spring Break. 

The
y hadn’t seen each other since Reagan’s last visit to Providence.  The semester had gotten busy, papers and midterms looming, and that had made it impossible to take a weekend to visit each other.  They’d kept in contact though, emails and late night phone calls, but this was the first time they’d been face-to-face since Allison’s confession weeks ago in their Providence hotel room. 

She didn’t quite know where they stood. Were they dating? Were they just friends? Were they something else altogether?  Every time she tried to have that conversation with Reagan, she felt more confused than ever.  Neither of them had explicitly asked if they were dating.  They continued to skate around the topic despite numerous attempts to come to some kind of agreement.

“I am, too,” Reagan returned. She hadn’t originally planned on coming back for Fall Break because of its proximity to Thanksgiving, but when Allison had said she was coming home, she immediately begged her dad to buy her airfare, too. She unlatched their hands momentarily to tuck an errant strand of corn-silk hair behind Allison’s ear.

Their hands found each other again.  Allison stared down at where they connected
, and she let herself enjoy the feeling of Reagan’s fingertips brushing against her own. “Do you want to come over?” she asked.  She looked up into bright blue eyes. “My dad’s on a business trip, so it’s just my mom, Lucy, and me hanging out tonight,” she explained.  “I’m sure my mom wouldn’t mind setting an extra seat at the table.  She loves feeding people.”

Reagan’s mouth quirked.  “As much as I’d love to,
I’m vegan,” she reminded her. “I don’t want to inconvenience your mom like that.  Or go hungry while you all wolf down giant hunks of some poor, dead animal.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Allison chuckled. “She’ll be so thrilled to see you she won’t even care she’ll have to make a whole other meal for you.”

“I don’t know…” Reagan hesitated.

“Please?” Allison batted her eyes for extra effect.

Reagan’s heart hammered in her chest. She was in trouble.  Deep trouble.

“Are you sure your mom won’t mind?” Reagan worried out loud.

Allison nodded. “I asked her about it this morning at breakfast.”

“O
h really?” Reagan pursed her lips. 

Allison ducked her head.  “Don’t tease me, Rea. I’m really trying here.”

“Okay,” Reagan conceded.  “But one question.”

Allison looked up again.
“Sure.”

“Does your mom know you tortured me in high school?”

Reagan’s word choice caused Allison’s stomach to tighten. “Uh, no?  Why?”

Reagan’s features scrunched together. “So why does she think we stopped being friends? 
Growing up, I used to spend every afternoon at your house.”

“I don’t know if she thinks about it, honestly.”

“I suppose.” Reagan made a thoughtful, humming noise.  “Why
did
we stop being friends, Allie?”

Allison shook her head. “I’ve thought about it.
  I honestly have, and I don’t know.  I guess people just grow apart.  Become different people.  But I’m glad we’ve grown back together, though.”  The last part came out almost shyly.

Reagan smiled warmly and took Allison’s hand in hers.  She brought their enjoined hands up to her lips and brushed her mouth against the back of Allison’s knuckles.  “I am, too.”

The public show of affection was starting to make Allison uncomfortable. 
Baby steps
, she told herself. She slipped her hand out of Reagan’s grip as unobtrusively as possible, but she immediately missed the contact. 

+++++

“Well, well,” Jill Hoge clucked.  “If it isn’t Reagan Murphy.  Allison said you were back in town, but I told her I wouldn’t believe it unless I saw you for myself.”

Reagan duc
ked her head, feeling uncharacteristically bashful around Allison’s mom.  Jill Hoge was an attractive woman.  It was obvious from where Allison got her all-American good looks.  “Yep.  Just back for Fall Break.  Like Allie.”

Jill
beamed.  “How lucky that your schools’ breaks overlapped.”  She turned her attention to her daughter. “Allison, your sister needs to be picked up from soccer practice.”

“
Mom
.  We just got here.”

“I know.  And I’m busy making dinner.  The least you can do is help me out by picking
Lucy up from the school.”

“Fine,” Allison grumbled
.  She glanced sideways at Reagan.  “Will you be okay here? Or do you want to come with?”

“Reagan can help me with dinner,”
Jill answered for her.  “Allison told me that you’re vegan.  I’m afraid I wasn’t quite prepared for that, but if you don’t mind, I’ve got some things for salad in the fridge and I can do a meatless spaghetti.  You’ll have to let me know if you can have the noodles.”

Reagan smiled and nodded
. “Certainly.  It’s the least I can do.”

Allison hesitated but her mom ushered her out the front door.  She looked once more in the direction of Reagan.  Her mom had already placed a cutting board in front of her and had handed her a large knife.  Allison bit down on her bottom lip.  She had the strangest urge to cross the room and kiss Reagan soundly on the mouth.  She slipped out the front door instead.  Not all urges should be acted upon.  Especially not in front of your mother.

+++++

Jill Hoge stirred marinara sauce in an oversized pot. 
“I know it’s not my place to pry, but you and Allison were so close growing up and then suddenly you weren’t.  I never did understand what happened between you two.”

Reagan focused her attention on the tomato she was currently cutting. She honestly did
n’t know how to answer the question, and she didn’t want to make the hospitable woman uncomfortable by telling her about Allison’s high school cruelty.  It wasn’t her place.  “I’m not really sure what happened either, Mrs. Hoge.”

“Well, regardless. I’m
glad the two of you have reconnected.  She doesn’t have many close friends besides maybe Carly and Beth from next door.  I worry about her sometimes,” Jill noted wistfully.   She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel.  “She’s so much like her father – such a serious personality.  Maybe you can get her to loosen up.”

Reagan smiled to herself. “I’ll do my best.”

“You’ll do your best at what?”

Reagan and
Jill both looked up from their respective tasks to see Allison standing in the kitchen doorway.  She had a hand resting on one cocked hip.  The familiar, intimidating stance nearly gave Reagan another high school flashback.

“I was just telling Reagan how happy I am that you two are friends again, dear,”
Jill revealed. “And she’s promised to make you not take yourself so seriously.”

Allison’s mouth quirked and her rigid stance softened. “Oh she has, has she?”

“Yeah, I’m apparently supposed to
loosen
you up,” Reagan added with a sly smile.

Allison made a noise in the back of her throat.  Maybe having Reagan over for dinner wasn’t such a good idea.
 

“Reagan!” Lucy Hoge shoved past her sister and clomped loudly into the kitchen. “I haven’t seen you in forever!”

Reagan looked momentarily startled, but collected herself enough to wave.  Lucy and Allison were separated by nearly 7 years.  She was surprised the girl remembered her at all.

“Lucy.  Go shower,” her mother admonished. “You’re tracking mud all over the house.”

The youngest Hoge woman stuck out her lower lip and slumped her shoulders.  “Fine,” she grumbled before she stomped upstairs, leaving a trail of dirt chunks behind her.

Allison sidled next to Reagan and
popped a piece of cucumber into her mouth.  Reagan playfully slapped at her hand. “Stop it,” she complained.  “Save some for the salad.”

“You and my mom seem to be getting pretty chummy,” Allison observed.

“Your mom’s nice. She makes me wonder what my mom…” Reagan trailed off and shook her head, catching herself.

Allison’s smile slipped into a concerned
frown. “You know if you ever want to talk about her, I’m a good listener.”

“Everyone thinks they’re a good listener,” Reagan self-consciously wiped at her eyes. “It’s like how everyone thinks they’re a good kisser.”

“Well, I’m a good kisser, too,” Allison said without thought.

“I know you are,” Reagan grinned broadly.

Allison coughed uncomfortably. “Uh, anyway.  I should go set the table.”

Reaga
n watched Allison grab a stack of plates and a handful of silverware before stumbling through the swinging door that led to the formal dining room.  She privately gloated in her ability to render the normally in-charge girl so visibly uncomfortable with just a few words. 

She wanted to grab her by her slender hips and pull her in for a teasing embrace, to nip at her bottom lip
until Allison submitted and begged for more.  But she knew this was definitely not the place or the time to continue exploring whatever it was that was building between the two of them.  Being so openly affectionate might have been okay in the anonymity of New York City or behind the closed doors of a Providence hotel room, but certainly not in Allison’s parents’ kitchen in northern Michigan.

A knock at
the back kitchen door alerted Reagan.  Forgetting that she was a guest in the Hoge’s home and not in her own, and with her mind still clouded with imagery of backing Allison up against the kitchen counter, Reagan opened the door.

“Murphy?”

Reagan’s hand froze on the door handle.  On the back porch stood Allison’s high school friends, Beth and Carly Richards. They hadn't been friends in high school, but she certainly knew of them. It was a small school, and they had been two of her most dedicated bullies.               “Oh, uh.  Beth.  Carly.  Hi.”

Allison’s laughter could be heard in the next room.  “Hey, Rea, have you finished making that salad yet?”  The swinging door that separated the kitchen from the dining room flew open and Allison appeared.
She stopped in her tracks so abruptly that the swinging door hit her ass. “Hey guys.  I, uh, I didn’t know you were home.”

Beth looked at Allison and then Reagan.  “Yeah,” she said, her face unreadable. “We’re both home for a long weekend.  Needed to do some laundry.”

Carly, never one to pull punches, pointed at Reagan.  “What is Reagan Murphy doing in your kitchen, Allie?”

Reagan pulled her
self together, straightening to her full height – all 5 feet 2 inches.  “I’m making a salad for dinner,” she stated boldly.

Carly glanced at her twin sister.  “I thought we weren’t friends with her.”

“Carly,” Beth hissed, clearly embarrassed.

Jill Hoge interrupted the increasingly awkward moment when she came
into the room.  “Girls!  So nice to see you!” she greeted cheerfully. “It’s like a high school reunion in here. Can you stay for dinner?  Allison,” she barked, not waiting for either Beth or Carly to respond, “go set two more spaces at the dining room table.”

Allison still looked like a deer in headlights, but she nodded and grabbed some more plates and utensils before escaping into the dining room once again.

“How have you been?” Beth asked, continuing to eyeball Reagan.

Reagan busied herself throwing the last toppings into the salad bowl.  She grabbed two wooden spoons and began tossing its contents.  “I’m fine, thank you,” she clipped. 

She felt unnerved.  Clearly Allison had not mentioned to Beth and Carly that they’d reconnected, even after the disaster of last Spring Break.  She tried to keep her anger in check; she didn’t know if she should be upset with Allison for keeping her a secret – she didn’t know if Allison still even talked regularly with anyone else from high school, after all.  But something about the way Allison had looked when she’d seen her old friends made Reagan feel like a dirty little secret.