Our Secret Summer

Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

Raffo’s palms sweated. She couldn’t bring herself to use the key to her own house, which was ridiculous, but what hadn’t been utterly ludicrous about her life the past couple of months? Since it had all started falling apart? She rang the bell and, as though she’d been waiting on the other side, Mia opened the door instantly.

She had the courtesy to not try to hug, or worse, kiss her. Mia kept a respectable distance as she led the way into their house. Raffo’s knees went a little soft as her gaze drifted along the quirky wallpaper in the hallway and the second-hand table she’d painted in two complementary colors, the dividing line just off-center so it made everyone wonder if there was something wrong with their eyesight. As much as she loved that table, she didn’t know if she could just transport it to her new home. It had too many memories of good times in this house—and with Mia—attached to it.

“Congrats on the new house,” Mia said, her collarbones sharp beneath her shirt. She’d always been slim, but now her face held shadows Raffo had never seen before.

“Thanks, um, are you okay? Physically? You don’t look so hot.”

“I’m fine.” Mia poured them each a glass of water and just pushed Raffo’s toward her across the kitchen island. “My appetite has plummeted since…” She didn’t finish her sentence, as though it should be obvious to Raffo.

“Is this a good time to talk about all this?” Raffo asked.

“Is this a good time to ask if you will ever forgive me?” Mia countered with a swiftness her fragile looks didn’t suggest she had in her.

“No.” Raffo said. “That’s not why I’m here. We need to deal with this house. With our stuff.” What was Mia playing at now?

“I’d love to buy you out,” Mia said with a weary sigh, “but I don’t think I can afford it.”

“For real? You’d want to stay here?” They’d decorated the house together, but Raffo’s style dominated every room. “Does it not remind you too much of, um, us?”

“Maybe that’s exactly why I want to stay.”

“Mia, come on. Don’t be like that. It’s not fair.”

“It is unfair, Raff. I know that. And I apologize, but I can’t help how I feel.”

“You caused how you feel. You are the reason I don’t live here anymore.” Raffo shook her head. “I don’t understand why you’re suddenly so convinced that you didn’t stop loving me and destroyed our relationship because of it.”

“I did not stop loving you.” Mia sounded as though she genuinely believed what she was saying.

Raffo could only scoff. “I’m not having this conversation. I’m serious. That’s not why I’m here.” Raffo needed some chairs to sit on in her new house and some clothes from her closet, but most of all, already, she felt as though she needed to get out of there. She’d buy new chairs. She didn’t know why she’d been postponing the simple purchase of a couple of chairs. Was it because she’d been subconsciously waiting for this moment? For some sort of cathartic event between her and her ex? If this was it, it was highly inefficient and anti-climactic.

“I do still love you,” Mia said. “I made a lot of mistakes and I didn’t treat you right and I’m so sorry, Raff. You have no idea.” Tears dripped onto the marble of the kitchen island.

Raffo’s heart shrank. She wished she didn’t care. She wished she could face Mia’s tears with nothing but indifference. Raffo took a breath and closed her eyes. What she saw on the back of her eyelids was her latest painting of Dylan. Dylan who had given her so much comfort in Big Bear, who had listened to Raffo’s sad tales of Mia and how much she’d hurt her, who’d let her cry on her shoulder—and so much more.

“I hope you understand where I’m coming from when I say that I can never trust anything you say or do again,” Raffo said, her voice barely a whisper—because this was a hard thing to say to a crying woman she’d once loved with all her heart. Once. Not anymore. Because there was no room for two people in Raffo’s heart to love, to be involved with amorously . And Raffo was in love with Dylan.

Unlike Mia, Raffo had the decency to not tell her that she’d fallen head over heels for someone else. She didn’t want to rip Mia’s heart to shreds like that. But she did do the only other possible thing she could.

“I can’t do this with you right now,” Raffo said. “Call me when you’re ready to discuss a solution for the house.”

Raffo left and instead of driving to her new house, she drove past her street, took a left, and headed to her best friend’s place.

“I’d like to press play.” Raffo tried her best grin when Connor opened the door to her. “I’m done with pausing.”

Connor matched her grin. “Thank fuck.” He all but yanked her inside. “I’ve missed my cash cow like crazy.”

Raffo brushed off Connor’s comment, knowing how much he genuinely loved her art.

“I went to see Mia,” Raffo said, describing the brief ten minutes she’d endured before fleeing what used to be their home.

“If you need anything from the house,” Connor said, “I’ll get it for you. No problem. I’ve got you covered.” It wasn’t the first time Connor had offered, but it had always felt like something Raffo should do herself.

“Thanks,” she said, finally ready to take him up on his very kind offer. She looked at the glass of water he’d poured her after they’d sat. “We might need something stronger for what I want to tell you next,” she said.

“Oh, boy.” Connor strode to the bar cart and grabbed a bottle of tequila. “Will this do?”

“Perfectly.”

Connor brought over the bottle and two shot glasses, not bothering with any accoutrements. He filled the glasses to the brim so they inevitably spilled some liquor as they brought the drinks to their lips.

“Hit me,” Connor said. He locked his gaze on Raffo. “For the record, I know what you’re going to say.”

“No you don’t.” The shot of tequila made Raffo a little bolder already.

“Oh yes, I do. Hold on.” He reached for his phone. “I’m going to make a note predicting what you’re going to say and then I’m going to give you my phone so you can check after you’ve said it.”

By the fuss he was making, Raffo was pretty sure Connor did know. He wasn’t born yesterday. She didn’t have a fool for a best friend. Connor was clever, kind, and just as strong-willed as Raffo at times. He quickly typed something into his phone—it seemed very short—then gave it to Raffo.

Connor refilled their glasses, knocked another shot back and gazed into Raffo’s eyes. “I’m listening,” he said.

“You know that when I’m painting, I have to feel it. If I don’t feel it, I might as well forget it.” Raffo thought of that cat-shaped cloud she’d tried to paint for days on end while stubbornly refusing to paint the only subject she’d really wanted to devote her time to. “If I don’t feel it, I might as well not paint at all.”

Connor nodded. He wasn’t an artist, but Raffo knew that he understood completely. Connor had got it—and her—from the first time they’d met.

“Okay.” Raffo gulped down another shot of tequila as she worked up to her conclusion. “Earlier, at Mia’s, it hit me so clearly, Con. The reason why I didn’t relent when she told me she still loved me, and that I’m well on my way to being over her, that I no longer want to be with her and no longer consider her the greatest woman I’ve ever met. It’s all because… it’s because of your mom.” Raffo swallowed slowly. “Dylan helped me in ways I can’t put into words. She was there for me so unexpectedly but so completely. She took care of me, Con. She really did. She gave me something that I didn’t know I needed, and it moved me deeply. For the sake of our friendship, I was desperate to believe it was just a fleeting rebound thing, but I now know it was so much more than that. It is so much more than that. She made me feel like myself again. She gave me back my mojo. She’s all I want to paint and that tells me all I need to know.” Raffo’s throat went dry. She glanced at her empty glass.

Connor took the hint and refilled it.

“Check my phone,” he said.

The notes app was still open on Connor’s phone.

Raffo 3 my mom , it read.

Raffo swiftly knocked back her third shot. Of course he knew. What else would she need tequila for to tell him?

Connor let his forehead fall against his spread out fingertips. “You’re miserable. Mom’s not herself. Murray’s on my case all the time about love being love. It’s hardly been an enjoyable situation for anyone, but what do you want me to do? Give you my blessing to date my mom? Do you know how profoundly weird that is?” He found her gaze. His eyes were a little watery, which could be due to the tequila. “There are things I simply can’t think about, okay? I just can’t. And you and me, we talk about everything. We’re so open with each other and I’m so scared that this will change us forever. And the timing, Raff. It’s all happening for you right now. You’re going places. We are going places because I’m going with you on this journey.” He interjected with a sigh. “But what I’m most afraid of is that two people I love so fucking much will end up hurting each other because I can’t just believe this will magically work out, Raff. That you and my mom will be happy forever and everything will be hunky-dory. I’m terrified that things will never be the same between us.”

“Things have already changed between us,” Raffo said.

“That’s true enough.” Connor filled their glasses again.

Raffo happily drank. She didn’t know how else to deal with asking her best friend if she could date his mother.

“This shouldn’t be up to me,” Connor said. “I want nothing more than for you and my mom to find love again, to have a Murray in your life, but fuck, why does it have to be with each other?”

“Look at it this way, Con. You’re a great guy. There are so many reasons why you are my best friend. We have this chemistry, this undefinable thing between us. Maybe it’s only logical that I would also have something like that with your mom. She made you.” Raffo was beginning to slur her words—and talk nonsense. “She’s just as wonderful as you, that’s why I like her so much.”

“What about my dad?” Connor was hardly still sober either. “He made me too.”

“I’m not that into dads,” Raffo said. “If I’d met your mother, you know, like properly met her and spent time with her, at any other time in my life, meaning before Mia dumped me, this would never have happened. It was something that only happened because of the headspace I was in, but also the physical place I was in, at your mom’s house in Big Bear. It was all of those things but most of all it’s because she’s such an incredible woman.”

“I know my mom is great, but—” He didn’t continue, because all that needed to be said was in that ‘but’. The ‘but’ that would always be there.

Raffo gathered all her courage. “I know it’s too much to ask, but I’m asking you, anyway.”

“Oh, god.” Connor groaned. “Don’t. You don’t need my permission, Raff. That’s just so wrong.”

“Permission is the wrong word for it, but I do need something from you.”

“How about another shot?” Connor asked. “Will that do?”

Raffo understood that Connor couldn’t say it. He couldn’t spell it out for her. It was unrealistic to expect him to.

“Yes,” she said, because she had to take what she could get.