3. Maureen
Chapter three
Maureen
I found Bren and filled her in on my plan. After giving Billy a hard stare and a warning that she “knew a guy” if anything happened to me, she smirked as I left with him.
The ringing in my ears turned out to be temporary and immediately improved when I exited the concert.
Billy and I strolled two blocks in easy silence to the lot where he’d parked his car. When we arrived, he opened the passenger side door to a sleek black Audi.
I blanched. “Oh, um, okay.” I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been a car that would have looked at home in the VIP lot on the Microsoft campus.
He looked downward, pasting on a self-deprecating smile as I slid into the buttery soft leather seat. “It was my mom’s. She handed it down to me when I got my MBA.”
“Ah.” Even used, it was an extravagant gift, so I guessed his family had money. I thought of the ancient Ford truck my mom had maintained for years before her illness made driving impossible.
When Billy started the engine, one of the holiday channels for his satellite radio came on. A midcentury version of “Up on the Housetop” sounded through the speakers as he backed out of his spot.
“Station okay?” he asked.
“It’s good.”
The car drove like a dream over the bare roads, smooth even on the steep climb up James Street. Billy had probably received the same driver’s ed instruction I had—keep your hands at ten and two on the wheel—but like me, he drove with his left hand at midnight and his right resting on the console, hidden by shadows.
“You know, that’s what made me notice you at first,” he said, hitching his neck toward the song info on the dash screen with a picture of Gene Autry in a Santa hat. “You were mouthing along to that song, the ’80s one by that girl band—was it the Go-Gos? It was cute.”
“The Waitresses. One of my favorites.”
“Although you and I might have been the only ones to think so,” he added with a laugh.
I rolled my eyes playfully. “My mom would have labeled that crowd ‘too cool for school.’”
With his dark clothes, dark hair, and even darker facial features, Billy didn’t give the impression of someone who’d be into holiday songs. I also wouldn’t have pegged him for an MBA. Which was silly because it wasn’t like people went to clubs and concerts in their work clothes. His black jeans had holes that seemed as though they’d been earned, not bought, and a chunky silver wallet chain rested next to his hip. As much as I tried, I couldn’t picture him in a button-down and slacks. Then again, his watch looked expensive. And there was this car.
After fifteen minutes of chatting about our favorite holiday songs and the Musicbox show, we pulled into the Denny’s parking lot just north of Seattle, in Shoreline. Billy slid his Audi into a space between a decade-old Corolla and an ancient Subaru with red duct tape over the left brake light.
“It’s funny. I’ve only lived in Seattle a year and a half, so I haven’t explored many places yet,” I told him. “But I have been to this Denny’s a few times.”
“Yearning for the soft touch of a pancake?”
“Um…what?”
“Sorry. Fun fact—Denny’s has a hilarious Twitter feed. I’m a fan.”
I laughed. “Seriously, I’ve made Bren—my guard dog you met at the concert—drive up here a few times. Seattle can be a little bougie for me since I grew up in a small town. Don’t get me wrong, I love the city, and I can order an overcomplicated latte with the best of them, but if I’m choosing, I’ll take sticky tables and pleather booths every time.”
Billy held the door open for me as we walked in. I didn’t miss his eyes scanning the large dining area thoroughly before his posture loosened.
It was after midnight, so we snagged a booth right away, but only one beleaguered server appeared to be working. Tired but friendly, she came over to grab our order, warning us it might take a while since they were short-staffed. We assured her we weren’t in a hurry and ordered french fries, nachos, and a strawberry milkshake to share.
Five other booths were occupied—two folks having solo dates with their phones, one older couple sipping coffee and eating oatmeal, a table of teenagers laughing without being obnoxiously unruly, and a two-seater occupied by another couple in their twenties.
The laid-back atmosphere was exactly what I needed. The concert had effectively drawn me out of my funky headspace, but sitting here in the middle of the night, I finally relaxed.
“So, tell me more about this not-bougie place where you grew up.” Billy’s voice broke into my thoughts.
I smiled, running a finger along the edge of my water glass. “Coleman Creek. About five hours northeast. Far enough from I-90 that most folks never have a reason to drive through. Everyone’s friendly. Not much to do. Small town as fuck, if you know what I mean.” I shrugged. “But it’s home. How about you?”
“How about me what?”
“Where did you grow up?”
Billy mimicked my movement with his own glass, the index finger of his left hand moving rapidly around the rim until a low whistle hung in the air. His right hand stayed in his lap. “Here. North Seattle.”
“A true native.” I tipped my glass at him.
“I guess. But I’m with you,” he continued quickly. “I like the parts of the city that are a little less polished. It’s so different now than when I was a kid. Less Nirvana, more Amazon, if that makes sense. I’m sure all places change if you live there long enough, but it’s one thing to understand that intellectually and another to watch the elementary school you went to get demolished, or your favorite gyro place turned into condos. It’s kind of my hobby to recreate what I remember—” He stopped abruptly, cheeks reddening. “Sorry. I don’t mean to ramble.”
“No, it’s interesting,” I said sincerely. “Sort of the reverse of my experience. When I was growing up, it annoyed me that everything seemed to stay the same, like the world was passing Coleman Creek by. Other places changed, but we didn’t seem to. That’s one reason I left.”
“How did you know?”
I made a face. “How did I know the world was changing? Life moved slowly there, but we did have the Internet.”
He chuckled softly. “No. I mean, how did you know you wanted to leave? Just because the pace is slower doesn’t mean it’s bad, right?”
There was a complex answer to his question—that a lot of my desire to leave had been driven by the intense sense of obligation I’d had in Coleman Creek. That wanting to get out was much more a product of not wanting to be forced to stay in .
“I think I was a typical teenager, eager to explore,” I said, a shorter version of the truth. “I went to college at Washington State and ended up in Seattle a year after graduating.”
“And is it everything you’d dreamed it would be, when you were a kid using your very-readily-available Internet?”
My brows drew together, my focus drifting to the lopsided Christmas tree in the Denny’s lobby. “I’ve loved living in Seattle. But I keep waiting for it to feel like home.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve lived here my whole life and sometimes still feel like that.” He leaned back in the booth, rolling his shoulders and keeping both hands under the table as his lips pursed into a nonchalant half grin. Sexy as hell.
“So…what were you saying about your hobby?” I asked.
“Oh. I draw. Sometimes from memory. Sometimes from life. Lots of different things, but I try to capture places that remind me of my childhood.”
“Is that what you do? You’re an artist?”
He released a hollow laugh. “I wish. I’m in finance. Putting that MBA to work.” I detected a note of bitterness. “Drawing is something I do in my spare time.”
We spent the next half hour before the food came out talking more about our childhoods and his art, about my time in college studying fashion merchandising. After some coaxing, I got him to show me pictures of his artwork on his phone. He used his left hand, keeping his right one beneath the table. I’d read somewhere that left-handed people were supposedly more creative, which tracked since I became absorbed in the stunning images as he scrolled.
Our food arrived, and we dug in. Moved on to new topics. I found out Billy worked for Wallingford Capital, one of the top money management and investment firms in the city. He was some sort of mid-level executive, having interned there throughout college. I told him about the temporary retail gigs I’d been stringing together to pay rent, and that I’d just scored a role as a buyer for an upscale boutique.
“Is that the goal, to work at a store like that?” he asked.
“I’m not sure, to be honest. I’ve always been interested in clothes and fashion. Not as a designer but more like a stylist. The way people decide what to put on in the morning fascinates me. How they make their outfit choices. I like the idea of helping people find things that make them feel good in their skin.”
“That’s cool,” Billy said. “I don’t think about my clothes generally. On workdays, I usually just put on whatever suit my hand touches first.”
“And I would argue that is a legitimate approach if it’s the one that works for you,” I replied, popping a fry in my mouth. “Working high-end retail probably isn’t my end goal, but I’m hoping it’s a decent foot in the door.”
We talked until the lights outside dimmed and cars passed by only sporadically. Whatever had drawn me to Billy at the club continued to hold my interest, even as he remained an enigma. His words and responses, while engaged, were carefully measured. It was almost unnerving how firmly he had control of himself. But then I noticed his brief intake of breath when I smiled at him, or the way his gaze lasered on my lips as I ran them across the milkshake straw.
In the three o’clock hour, we sipped coffee and struggled to keep our eyes open. Tired as I felt, I was afraid to let the night go. Billy held himself back but looked at me intently. Our connection was so potent it hung in the air like a physical thing.
He must have felt it too, because he didn’t remark on my yawning, seeming to have the same desire to prolong our evening.
“At the concert, it sounded like maybe you were coming off a hard week. Tough Thanksgiving?” he asked, following up quickly with, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“It’s okay.” I never spoke about personal stuff to anyone except Bren, and even then, only occasionally. But since it already felt like this night existed in an alternate dimension, I took a sip from my drink. “I was home last week, in Coleman Creek, with my mom and two sisters. The four of us have always been close because my dad died when I was a kid.” I paused. “Last year, Mom got sick, so the holidays have been rough.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. It’s bad?”
I nodded. “Parkinson’s. It’s affected her mind a lot more than we thought it would, so on her worst days, it’s almost like she has dementia.” I exhaled, circling my mug with both hands in front of me. “It’s also hard because I feel guilty not being there. My younger sister Marley moved in to take care of her. Uprooted her entire life. Left her job and even her long-term boyfriend in Portland to move back.”
“You feel guilty because she did that and you didn’t?”
“I mean, I’m the oldest. It feels like it should have been my job.”
“Is your sister resentful?”
I snorted. “Hardly. She keeps telling me she would have moved home eventually anyway and that Portland wasn’t for her. She loves Coleman Creek. Got a job teaching at the high school we all went to. Yesterday, she mentioned getting a dog for her and my mom.”
He reached his hand out instinctively but pulled it back at the last moment. “I don’t want to keep you from beating yourself up if that’s what you want to do—we’ve all been there—but it sounds like maybe things worked out okay.”
I tugged absently on my sleeve. “Honestly, I don’t feel guilty about not being there so much as I feel guilty about not wanting to be there.” I’d only recently been able to articulate those feelings in my mind. Especially after the conversation I’d had three days ago with my mother, the one I’d thought about the entire way back to the city. “Sorry, I guess you drove me all the way to Denny’s to find out I’m kind of an asshole.”
This time, he stretched his hand across the table and laid it atop mine.
I shivered at the touch, our first.
“That doesn’t make you an asshole,” he said. “I bet a lot of people would feel the same in your situation. The thing that matters is that you visit and you’re there when she needs you. You do visit, right?”
“Of course.”
“And you accept her phone calls, answer her texts?”
“Yeah.”
“And if your sister was having some kind of emergency or needed help, you’d go?”
“Definitely.”
“Okay, then, I think you’re good. If you were an asshole, you wouldn’t do those things. I mean, you can post it on Reddit if you want to find out for sure, but every response is going to be NTA.”
I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped, or the smile that followed. He kept his hand on mine, looking at me with hooded eyes as his thumb rubbed back and forth over my skin, across the handstamp I’d received at Musicbox. I bit my bottom lip, and his hot gaze landed on it. It was heady, breaking through his reserve. And the thrumming in my veins, coupled with admitting things I’d barely been able to tell my best friend, had my mind racing.
The air teemed with… possibility . Sitting and talking for hours with no sex involved—even though I was sure we both wanted to do dirty, dirty things to each other—I’d never had this before.
The server came by with the coffeepot, and the intrusion caused him to snatch his hand back. “You can’t help your feelings, the guilt over not always wanting to be there. I understand. I’d feel the same if it was one of my parents.”
It took me a moment, feeling the loss of his hand on mine, to re-engage. “You’re close with them?”
“Close-adjacent. Kinda depends on the day.”
“I bet they’re proud of you being at Wallingford Capital. For your MBA.”
He picked up the napkin in front of him and brought it below the table. I could tell by the way his biceps flexed, he was twisting it with his hands.
“It’s a steady job. And it makes my parents happy I work there. When I was a kid, I think they worried I would pursue art as a career.”
“They don’t like your art?”
“Not exactly. They just think finance is more sensible. It doesn’t excite me, but they’re probably right.”
That sucked for him. The only guidance I’d gotten from my mother in terms of my career was when she’d said, “Find something that makes you happy and do that.” She’d always supported my love of clothes and accessories and had taught me to sew. I still wasn’t one hundred percent certain I’d chosen correctly with fashion merchandising, but I was at least in the right ballpark.
Despite my efforts not to, I eventually felt myself fading.
“Shoot,” Billy said. “I can’t believe it’s past four in the morning. Can I take you home?”
With our attraction clear but his behavior so hesitant, I doubted he wanted to take me home . Something he confirmed with his next words.
“I can drive you and make sure you get in safe.”
Outside, he followed me to the passenger side of his car. I figured his plan was to open the door for me, but instead, he leaned against it, folding his arms across his chest. He tucked his hands under his armpits, the fabric of his tee stretching enticingly over his pecs. His eyes stared into mine, but when his voice came out, it shook.
“Hey, Mo, I just want to say again that, when I went to the show tonight, I wasn’t thinking anything like this would happen. I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone—”
“You don’t need to keep telling me.” I cut him off. “I already told you I wasn’t looking either.” Feeling bold in my fatigue, I let my eyes travel slowly up and down the length of his lithe body. “But I can’t say I’m sorry.”
“Jesus.” Billy’s posture stiffened at my perusal, his face and neck flushing in the moonlight. He sucked his lower lip into his mouth and released a heavy breath. “I know you said you’re not up for anything complicated. And I get it, with everything going on with your mom and the new job—”
“It’s okay. After tonight, I’m thinking a little complication might be worth it.”
He ran his hands harshly over his face before resting them on the door behind his hips. The gesture was fast. But I’d seen.
He’d been hiding it all night. In his pockets. Under the table. The shadows of the console. His right hand. Just a thumb, pointer, and middle finger. Missing space where the ring and pinky fingers should be.
My gaze remained steady. He obviously didn’t want me to notice, consciously or not.
He shoved his hands back in his pockets. “I need to deal with some shit,” he said. “But can I text you? I want to see you again.”
“Yeah. I’d like that.”
I stepped forward, until only an inch or two remained between us. We stood shoulder-to-shoulder and knee-to-knee as I gazed into his gray eyes, getting an up close look at his inky lashes. I heard his soft breathing. In the chilly air, it came out in white puffs, mingled with my own in the space between us as our chests rose and fell in tandem.
He closed his eyes and exhaled, reaching his left hand up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. Drawing his palm down and around my neck, he squeezed delicately and leaned his face in. The faint drag of his nose along the skin of my cheek sent tiny shocks along my spine as he whispered into my ear, “I really, really want to see you again.”
I dared to rock forward on my toes, all but offering my lips. His eyes opened, and I saw him swallow. But instead of kissing me, he leaned his forehead down, pressing it against mine, panting faintly.
We stood there a few moments, the temperature rising between us, until he finally dropped his hand from my neck. His arm jerked, and I realized he’d reached behind himself to open the car door for me.
I startled at the movement, then stepped away, nodding in understanding.
As we drove home, Frank Sinatra’s “The Christmas Waltz” our accompaniment, I reflected on how surreal this night had been, like an altered state. Probably safer not to give in to the intensity.
At least not yet.