Sweet Forty-Two (25 page)

Her arms were curled up against her chest, which was pressed against mine, and her features were soft. There was no ridge between her eyebrows from her ever-present cynicism. Her cheeks were pink and her lips were soft and warm. And, I know that because they were touching mine. Touching. Not kissing. Not moving. Just resting there with each other.

If I could have frozen my muscles any further I would have. As it was, my arm was draped over her waist and my back was pinned against the back of the couch. Before I could think much more about what we were doing in that position, and why, I heard Bo and Ember’s voices across the hall.

“Regan? You there, man?” Bo’s voice had an anxious edge to it that was rarely present in him. “I’ll call him again.”

A few seconds later, from the table by the door where I must have discarded my things, my phone started to ring, and their voices stopped outside.

Great.

I shifted slightly, needing to get to my phone and the door and Bo and Ember, but not wanting to roll Georgia onto the floor. I didn’t need to be concerned about that for too long, because as soon as I moved some more, and a soft knock sounded on her door, Georgia’s eyes shot open.

“Shit!” Her blue eyes widened in apparent horror as she shifted backward and landed on the floor with a thump.

“Georgia?” Ember sounded concerned as she knocked faster. “Are you okay? It’s Ember. We’re looking for Regan.”

“I’m fine. Just a sec!” Georgia looked between me and the door like we were all on fire. I chuckled as I stood, reaching down a hand to help her.

“This isn’t funny! What the hell is the matter with you?” Her voice was deep and raspy from the sleep. She refused my hand and stood, wiping her eyes and looking around.

I looked out the window and saw it was far darker than it should have been after a little nap. Once I reached my phone I saw it was past ten, meaning I was late for my drink with Bo, explaining their presence here.

As I placed my hand on the doorknob, Georgia snapped her fingers.

“What are you going to tell them?” she whispered in panic.

I shrugged. “Let’s find out.”

I wasn’t thinking clearly, and that was the only thing that was clear as I opened the door and found Bo and Ember standing there, looking around like they were playing a game of Marco Polo.

“Hey guys.” I yawned and stretched my arms overhead.

“Hey ... Regan.” Ember craned her neck and peered into the apartment. One look over my shoulder and I saw Georgia busying herself in the kitchen.

Bo leaned against the doorframe. “Everything okay? You were a no-show for our beer, then we couldn’t get ahold of you and Lissa told us Georgia had called in...”

I looked behind me again and found Georgia blushing as she seemed to move pans from one shelf to another. When I looked back at Ember, her eyes were deathly focused on my face.

“You’ve been crying,” she said flatly. “What happened?”

“What?” I waved my hand dismissively. “I’m fine.”

“You do kind of look like shit, dude. What’s up?”

I had to close my eyes and take a breath. I was certain it was inappropriate to still be feeling the heat from Georgia’s lips against mine as I was staring at Bo.

Rae.

The letter.

I winced, feeling like I was being kicked in the stomach all over again. It really hadn’t been a dream. She sent a letter. And told me she loved me. Georgia seemed to sense my stumble because she was right behind me within seconds putting her hand on my back.

“Sit.” She led me over to the couch, where I started to panic.

“Shit ... where’s the...” I patted my chest all the way down to my waist, and felt around my pockets for the card.

Georgia knelt in front of me and picked the envelope off the floor. “It’s right here.” There was a kindness on her face that brought tears to my eyes.

“Guys?” Bo entered the apartment, with Ember oddly silent next to him. “What’s ... going on?”

Thoughts of the beautiful and secretly sweet girl in front of me were pushed far away as the last piece of Rae dangled from my fingertips. I motioned for Bo to sit next to me, my heart racing a million miles a minute. If he’d received something like this, I’d have wanted to know. That’s what I kept telling myself as I slowly handed him the letter. Ember took a seat on the arm of the couch next to him, looking over his shoulder.

“What’s thi—” Bo looked at the return address and brought his hand to his mouth. His eyes watered as he took a long, slow breath, exhaling into his palm.

Ember’s head tilted to the side, and she carefully read the front of the envelope, her cheeks growing red as she stood. “If you don’t want me—”

I held up my hand. “No, go ahead.”

Bo kept his eyes on me as he pulled out the card. “When did you ... how did you...”

“David Bryson sent this to me. He said it was in a box of her things from school.” I chuckled. “She’d never asked for my address, so that will explain why there’s a stamp on it and only my name.”

Bo smiled. “When did you get it?”

“A couple of weeks ago.”

Ember’s eyes shot to me. “You didn’t tell me.”

I shrugged rather unapologetically. “I couldn’t, Em. I didn’t even know if I wanted to open it. Go ahead,” I nodded to Bo, “it’s
so
Rae.”

Bo’s hands trembled as he ran them over the inked words like he was trying to hold hands with his sister. The more flooded with tears his eyes got, the wider he smiled. His eyes were moving slowly over the lines, like he was trying to savor every second of Rae’s presence. As he reached the end, at the same time as Ember it seemed, he chuckled, a mix of laughing and crying that brought the heels of his hands to his eyes, wiping away a mixed bag of tears.

Ember’s arm was immediately around his shoulder, her lips went to his temple as if it was an emotional fire drill and she was taking her position. Only this wasn’t a drill. Tears streamed down her face, and I watched her bite her lip, keeping her emotions silent and letting Bo work through his. She squeezed him harder as she kissed him on the cheek, then the head before resting her chin on the top of his head and taking a deep breath of her own.

I cleared my throat, not having the energy to cry anymore today. “So, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to open it, or what, but Georgia encouraged me to. We went down to the pier and ... long story short, I passed out on her couch.”

Looking into the kitchen, I found Georgia leaning against the island, watching all of us with a lost and sad look on her face. I got up and walked over to her.

“Thank you.” I took her hands in mine and dipped my head so she was forced to look at me. “Thank you for being there for me today.”

“Of course.” She tried to sound nonchalant as she looked over her shoulder at Bo and Ember in their embrace. When her eyes came back to my face, she drew her eyebrows in for a moment before wrapping her arms around my neck and exhaling, “You’re welcome,” into my ear.

I squeezed her back. The warmth of her body was intoxicating. “I’m sorry about your cupcakes.”

“Did someone say cupcakes?” Bo’s voice chirped like a teenage girl and we all laughed.

Sometimes, you just have to laugh.

I nodded. “Georgia’s got a bakery downstairs.”

“Oh?” Ember walked around the back of the couch. “I was wondering about that. It’s adorable. There’s no sign, though...”

Georgia shifted on her feet, wringing her hands. “Yeah, it’s not technically open, but I fool around down there a lot.”

“You
did
say cupcakes, though, didn’t you, Regan?” Bo stood and wiped under his eyes a final time.

“They’re delicious, too.”

Georgia slapped my shoulder. “How would you know? You haven’t had one.”

“Well, I’ve had those blueberry muffins. I trust your talent transfers from baked good to baked good. Let’s take these two downstairs, I know you have all of those cupcakes left from this morning.” I don’t know what I wanted more, to see Georgia in her element, or to step away from the letter for a few minutes.

Before she could answer, Bo was already at the door. “You said cupcakes. I want cupcakes. I might not always verbalize my feelings—”

“Yes, you do,” Ember cut in with a smile.

“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes as I chuckled. “Fine. I might
always
verbalize my feelings, but whatever they are, cupcakes make them better.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“What’s with his sweet tooth all of a sudden?” I asked Ember.

“You know ... I don’t bake, my parents used to think sugar was evil, I just ... there are no cupcakes in my life.”

“
None?
” Georgia nearly shouted.

Ember shrugged. “I try. I just ... can’t”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” For someone who said more nonsensical things than anyone I’d ever met, Georgia sounded serious about this. She breezed past Ember, and then stopped in front of Bo at the door, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go get you a cupcake.”

It was innocent at first, bringing the grieving friends into my bakery for some confection-type comfort. But, as I watched the three of them eating cupcake after cupcake in one of the booths, laughing their way through memories of their lost sister, friend, and girlfriend, I started to feel like my own skin was too tight.

I didn’t belong here. With them. It wasn’t my scene. Friends. Laughter. Especially not given the fact that next week I’d start taking my mother to her
shock therapy
a few times a week. I was built for solitude, though the structure around me suggested that, at least at one point, I’d wanted this.

Life ... around me.

“Hey, you.” Regan walked into the kitchen, fetching the last of the cupcakes from the porcelain cake stand. “Told you they were delicious.” He took a gluttonous bite and smiled.

There were no butterflies in my stomach as I watched him smile. No thumpety-thump of my heart. When I watched the tip of his tongue snag a stray drop of icing from the corner of his lips, there was none of that light and bubbly flirty feeling. It was heavy. So suffocatingly heavy was my need to be curled up on the couch with him again that I had to get out of there. It was too late to make a graceful exit, though, since Regan seemed to see my cheeks go flush.

“What’s the matter?” He set the cupcakes down as Bo and Ember laughed softly in their booth and walked toward me.

I swallowed hard. We had to have the conversation. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“About what?”

I wiped my palms on my jeans. “The couch ... I—”

Regan shook his head. “It’s okay. It felt ... nice to wake up next to you.”

“Nice?” I pulled my head back and scrunched my forehead. After the reading of the letter from his dead girlfriend, how could he ... just ... how?

He swallowed audibly and took a deep breath. “Yes. Nice. It was nice to wake up next to someone. To feel the warmth of another body next to mine...” He ran his hand up the top part of my arm.

“But ... Rae. Your letter.”

He nodded. “Rae wrote a letter to me. It’s not like she wrote it from beyond the grave, although it felt a hell of a lot like that as I read it. I just need to process what she said, and make peace with it.”

He squeezed my arm a little as he said the words, like he was trying to say something else, but before I could interpret anything Ember stuck her head into the kitchen.

“Georgia. These cupcakes are
so
good. Can you give me the recipe? Bo’s already sad that he’s about to eat his last one.”

I stepped back from Regan’s hold. He didn’t seem to give a shit what Bo and Ember thought about his boundaries with me. It was uncomfortable for me to be around someone so unashamed of every action, with no apparent need to cover anything up. He twisted his lips a little as I moved around him, but he dropped his hand without a fight.

“I can give you the recipe but you’ll probably have to spend some time at the grocery store. I’m not sure if Regan told you, but everything is gluten-free.”

Ember’s mouth dropped open and she shouted to Bo. “Did you hear that, Bo? She said everything here is gluten-free! My parents would have a field day!”

“Excellent, where’s my gluten-free goodness?” His impatience made me smile inside.

“Calm yourself, sweetie. Georgia,” she turned back to me, beaming, “you
have
to make some of these for our recording session. And some muffins. And bread. Do you make bread?”

“Yes,” I chuckled, “I make bread. Do your parents have Celiac or something?” Her enthusiasm over my ingredients was intriguing.

She waved her hand. “I ate homemade wheat bread from the fields of the farm we lived at most of my childhood. Made by my mom. All of a sudden it’s an issue for them. Whatever. It’s more my mom than my dad. He’ll be thrilled to have something sweet.”

“Oh, Georgia, that would be wicked. Please do it.” Regan shoved the rest of the cupcake into his mouth.

“Okay. What time do you record tomorrow? I’ll make some of the stuff tonight and the rest in the morning.” It felt good to be wanted rather than needed.

Ember picked up the last two cupcakes. “I’m going to bring these into the other room. Regan can just bring the goods with him when he comes tomorrow. Regan,” Ember raised an eyebrow to him, “be nice to her. This food is delicious.”

I felt worse by the minute for having misjudged Ember’s character due to a few shitty days she’d had. While I didn’t envision us ever sitting around painting each other’s nails, I no longer wanted to claw her face. It was progress.

“They’ll pay you, too, you know.” Regan wiped crumbs from the counter and tossed them in the trash.

“Oh ... that’s not why I said yes,” I spoke quickly, not wanting him to misjudge my intentions. Especially since I didn’t even know what my intentions were.

He laughed. I could get lost in that sound. It was deeper than his speaking voice, but full of this mouthwatering joy. “I know that’s not why, but I’m just saying ... maybe if you do it regularly enough, word will get around and you can, like, run this place full time.”

I looked through to the seating area and watched Bo and Ember. They looked noticeably more relaxed than I’d seen them even in their own oceanside environment. My mom and her mom had been right; food brings people together, and sweet food is even better.