Days of You and Me (19 page)

“More.” Yeah, that was about all I could say at this point.

“The thing is, I know it’s sudden. Or it seems like it is, to you. But this whole time that you’ve been living down at the shore, I’ve been getting to know Shane better. And, uh . . .” Her cheeks pinked a little. “I just wanted to know if you’ve been thinking about what you want to do. You know, when you’re going back to work and—”

“When I’m going to move out of the house and give you back your privacy?” I recovered the power of speech, and it came complete with a bitter tone.

“No, of course not.” My mother’s eyes flashed, reproving and shocked. “Quinn, you know I only want what’s best for you. I understand the last few years have been rough, and losing Nate . . . I can’t imagine what you must be feeling right now. But sweetie, you’re not dead. I’m not trying to be cruel, but you’re alive, and you’re young.”

“I know I am. I’m just . . . I’m not giving up on life, Mom. I’m just taking a little time to recover from a very stressful six months. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. I’m sorry if I’m not moving along on the timeline that works for you.”

“Quinn, my God. You know that’s not what I mean.” She had the good grace to sound at little guilty at least. “But I wouldn’t be a very good mother if I let you wallow forever.”

“But if it wasn’t for
Shane
the dry cleaner, would you be so quick to push me along?” I crossed my arms over my chest. I could hear my own voice, and I knew I was being childish. But I didn’t have the emotional reserves right now to deal with this. I wasn’t ready to be mature and understanding. For God’s sake, I only wanted one thing to stay the same, just for a little while. Was that asking too much?

“Maybe not. Maybe I wouldn’t be bringing this up now. But the truth is that I’m ready to make some decisions, Quinn, and you’re going to be affected by them.”

“Are you getting married again?” I ground out the words.

My mom shook her head. “We haven’t made any plans to do that. But both Shane and I are sensitive to the fact that life is short, and we don’t want to waste any time. If we didn’t know that before, we’ve learned the lesson from Shane’s wife, your dad and Nate.” She paused for a beat. “Shane’s son is taking over the dry cleaners, and Shane’s going to retire. We want to travel, Quinn. I have freedom with my job, and even if I cut back a little on my work hours, I’ll be fine financially.” She raised her eyes to mine. “I’m going to sell the house.”

I’d known it was coming. Deep down, I’d been waiting for my mother to tell me this for a long time, even before this
Shane
guy had come onto the scene. The house was big, and I hadn’t lived here for years. Even over summers in college, I’d ended up either down at the shore . . . or with Leo, during those bittersweet months we’d lived together down in Carolina. It had been four years since this had really been my home. Still . . . I wasn’t ready to give it up.

“And just where am I supposed to go?” I hated the shrill note I heard in my words.

Mom raised one eyebrow. “That’s what I came in here to talk to you about. Quinn, you’re an adult. You’re nearly twenty-three. You’re a college graduate. You’ve been married. You can’t hide out here forever. You have options, lots of them. There’s Zelda or Gia—I know both of them would love to have you as a roommate. Or get your own place.”

I bit the side of my lip. “What about the house at the shore?”

“I’m keeping that, for us.” She ventured one hand to touch my arm. “I thought we could go through the furniture and stuff here, decide what we want to keep and what we want to sell, and then move whatever we want to keep down to the shore house. And anything you want to take with you, of course you can.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I couldn’t help bringing this up. “What if you sell the house and go off with this guy, and it turns out he’s only interested in your money? I mean, it’s not like you know him
that
well.”

If I’d expected to fluster her, I’d have been disappointed. “You’re not completely wrong, Quinn, but you’re not completely right, either. I’m not a stupid woman. I have my eyes wide open. I’ve been consulting with Joe Taylor about all of this, so he can keep an unbiased eye on my money and let me know if anything looks off. I’m not handing everything over to Shane; we’re going into this fifty/fifty, each of us paying our own way.” She laughed a little. “Believe me, sweetie, Shane’s kids are just as suspicious about me. We’re keeping things separate.”

“I can’t believe you’re running off with the dry cleaner. Shacking up with him.” Judgmental? Yep, just a tad.

“Quinn.” My mother was running out of patience. “I expect you to extend to me the same courtesy I have to you all these years, when Leo spent the nights in your bedroom. When you lived with him for an entire summer.” She ran the tip of her tongue over her top lip. “I think you know how much I loved your father. He was the love of my life. I don’t ever expect to find that again. What I have with Shane is companionship and fun. It’s probably as much as I can expect at this point in my life. I’ve been lonely, Quinn. So damned lonely. I’m ready to live again. And you should, too.”

I sniffed. “You don’t have to be lonely. You have me. You have Sheri and Lisa.”

“All very true, but Sheri and Lisa both have husbands. They’re not going to take off and travel with me. And you, my darling, wouldn’t want to be tied down to your mother forever. Right now, I’m safe and comfortable, but pretty soon, you’re going to be itching to get moving again. That’s how it’s supposed to be.” She stood up and patted my leg. “There’s no rush for you to go anywhere. I don’t have a deadline for putting the house on the market. But I wanted you to know my plans, so you could start considering yours.”

I gripped the edges of my quilt so tightly that my fingers began to throb. Some of the numbness had given way to a solid mad, and that was quickly changing into panic.

I had no idea what I wanted to do now. The thought of moving in with Zelda . . . it felt wrong. I didn’t want to be around her easy success, and although I wasn’t quite clear on the situation between Zelda and Tuck, I had a sense that they needed privacy. Gia was right when she said she didn’t have room for me, and the two of us living together, depressed and struggling as we were . . . it didn’t sound like a winning combination.

Even work didn’t feel appealing to me anymore. I’d taken the gig at the online magazine because it gave me flexibility when I needed it, and it was true that my editor, Dawn, had been kind to me and understanding about my situation. But the thought of continuing to do that indefinitely made me feel like I might be drowning.

There was only one life preserver I wanted to grapple for right now. Reaching for my phone from the nightstand, I scrolled through my contacts to send a text and then hesitated.

All of my life, I’d had two sets of constants in my life: my parents and my two best friends. No matter what was going on, I could count on them to be there for me. Even after Leo and I had broken up in high school and didn’t speak for over a year, I’d had Nate. And when the unthinkable had happened and my father had been killed, Leo had come back to me. They were my support, my people.

Now, my dad and Nate were both dead, my mom was . . . God, running off with the dry cleaner. Leo was the only one I had left, and yet when I thought about calling him, something twisted in my stomach. More than once when we’d been together after Nate’s death, I’d glanced at him, expecting . . . well, I wasn’t quite sure what I’d expected. Some sort of sign, maybe, that he still cared. Of course neither of us could act on anything, not in the midst of saying goodbye to Nate. But I’d waited for him to hold me a little longer, to touch me a little differently—anything that might say we had a chance.

But I couldn’t say that he had. His friendship had been steadfast, but I couldn’t talk myself into believing that I’d felt anything more from him than I had from Zelda, Gia and Tuck.

Still, this was Leo, the boy who’d been my first and only lover, the man who’d begged me not to throw away what we had when football and all the bullshit surrounding it had threatened to tear us apart . . . Leo, who’d asked me not to marry Nate. Who’d all but proposed to me the day of Matt’s funeral, even when he knew I was already engaged to Nate. We hadn’t seen each other much since that day—and when we had, things between us had been volatile—but I couldn’t believe that what was between us had changed over the last few months.

It was that strange mix of doubt and stubborn belief that made me close my contacts list and instead open a browser to pull up the train schedule.

I’d taken the train back and forth pretty often while Leo was at Carolina. It was cheaper than flying, and the station was more convenient than the airport, on both ends. Plus, the ride down gave me time to do homework and catch up on reading, freeing me up for fun while I was with Leo. I was familiar with both the routine of the rails and the route south.

Still, when I swung off the train in Richmond on that Thursday night, I was more than a little nervous . . . not just because I’d never been to this city. I’d taken a big gamble coming down here, and riding on the train, I’d had six hours to consider all the ways it could go wrong.

For instance, what if Leo was with someone? I hadn’t exactly asked him if he was involved with a woman now. When I’d run into him at the grocery store last July, it had shocked me to see him with Sarah Jenkins, but I hadn’t heard anything more about her since then. And Leo had assured me that they were just friends. Of course, that had been back in July. Surely if something were going on, though, her name would’ve come up. She probably would’ve accompanied Leo to the funeral, if she were in fact his girlfriend.

But even if Sarah wasn’t in the picture, I’d heard stories about professional football players, and I knew all too well the buzz around Leo in particular. There were bound to be women swarming him. What if I rang his doorbell and found him in bed with some football groupie? I couldn’t very well pretend I’d just been in the neighborhood and stopped by. There would be no graceful way to exit a situation like that.

Assuming that there wasn’t a girl in Leo’s life at the moment, it still wouldn’t mean he wanted
me
. I tried to imagine what his world was like now, living here in this strange city, in his own home, part of a team . . . making friends and being an adult, for real. Even though I’d been married, I’d never gotten over the sense that I’d only been playing at maturity, pretending to be a grown-up.

With a confidence I was far from feeling, I made myself walk through the station to the front curb, where a few taxis were waiting. When one driver waved to me, I stepped closer.

“I need to get to Henrico County. To . . .um, it’s Graydin Drive.”

The man smiled. He was older, with short gray hair and a leathery-skinned face. “Sure. I can get you there. Need me to take that bag?” He pointed to the small duffel I’d slung over my shoulder.

I shook my head. “Thanks, I’ve got it.”

He opened the door for me, and I slid in the backseat. The car smelled faintly of old cigarette smoke and a hundred different aftershaves and perfumes, making me aware of how out of my element I was. I could count on one hand the number of cabs I’d ever taken; this was a new experience.

The driver slammed his door and hit the meter as he pulled away. Glancing at me in the rearview mirror, he smiled. “You been to Richmond before?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Does it show? Do I look like a tourist?”

“Nah,” he laughed. “You look like the college kids I usually pick up on Sunday nights and tote back to campus. But you said you needed to get to Henrico County.” He pronounced the word the way I had, Hen-REE-co. “It’s actually Hen-RYE-co. Just a little thing, but a local would know.”

“Oh.” I’d only known the name from one of Leo’s texts, sent last summer to Gia and me, with his new address and a short description of where he was living. “Is it far from Richmond?”

“Nope. It’s just a suburb of the city itself. Over on the West End, not too far from the University. Won’t take long to get there.”

I gazed out the window into the dark, watching the lights pass. “It’s pretty. Richmond is, I mean.”

He grinned. “Can’t see much in the dark from a speeding car, but yeah. Come spring time, it’ll be much prettier. But I love it here. I was born downtown, and I’ve lived here all my life. Wouldn’t change it for anything.” He stopped at a red light and met my eyes in the mirror again. “So are you here for a visit, or for work?”

“I’m . . . surprising a friend. He doesn’t expect me.” I wasn’t sure why the words came tumbling out, but they did. “I hope it’s a good surprise.”

“Aw, honey, why wouldn’t it be?” The light turned green, and the taxi jumped forward. “Did you have a spat? Are you coming down to patch things up?”

“No. I mean . . . not really. I guess I’m coming down to see where we stand now.” I stared straight ahead, into the night. “We’ve been friends forever. Then . . . more. But the last few years have been difficult, and things kind of pulled us apart. I need to know if we still have a future.”