Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
I MISSED THIS
Gretchen
The words land like poison on my tongue. I’ve held them in for too many months. Connor’s invasive stare doesn’t help either.
Unease hangs in the air between us, only interrupted by the waiter returning with our salads. The few beats of broken eye contact allow me to distract myself with my napkin, placing it just so, grabbing my fork and offering our thanks as the waiter exits.
Connor’s vacant gaze ricochets all over me, taking inventory. Eyes, check. Hair, check. Fingers, check. Lips, check. Collarbone, check.
“Will you please say something?” I finally ask.
“I’m sorry, I…Your birth mom? You found her?”
“Yeah. Well, I didn’t find her but I hired a professional who did.”
His face slackens. “And you didn’t tell anybody?”
I shake my head timidly as I shift the salad around with my fork. “I was planning to tell Drew tonight.”
“But why’d you keep it a secret? Did you think he wouldn’t support you? ”
“Of course not. I know he would, but it’s like I said: I needed to do this.
If I told him everything beforehand, he would have started that big brother meddling thing and then he’d guilt me into telling Mom and Dad and I…
I’m not ready for that yet. I wanted to plan everything, get him here and then tell him so he didn’t have a chance to go all Drew on me. ”
Connor snickers and it eases some of the tension in my shoulders. “He is a meddler, isn’t he?”
“The worst,” I say through a mouth full of salad.
Connor studies his plate, fork in hand. “So, nobody else knows?”
“No,” I admit. He takes in a big breath and gathers his first bite on his fork. Subject dismissed, it seems. “You’re not gonna tell him, right?”
A set of disbelieving eyes land on me. Jaw clenched, he says, “Gretch. Surely, you know you don’t have to ask me that.”
“Don’t I, though? It’s been a while since we were—” I stop myself before I say too much. “I mean, isn’t there some sort of best friend, bro code oath or something?”
He laughs to himself, although I don’t sense any real humor in it. Crestfallen, his features turn solemn, brows knit tight as he takes a sip of his wine. “Yeah, something like that.”
If Connor’s fork were a criminal out for blood, it finds its next defenseless victim in his garden salad. It’s subtle, all the stabbing and slicing, but I recognize it as an obvious marker of Connor’s strained composure.
“I won’t tell him. I promise,” he finally replies.
I whisper my thanks and we finish our salads in silence.
By the time our plates have been cleared, the dead air is killing me. After the initial shock of my news wore off, I thought there would be smiles and celebration as we excitedly discussed plans for the days ahead.
Instead, I mostly just feel…heavy. And I know he feels it, too.
Connor clears his throat. “Listen, Gretch. I know that um…I know that I screwed up and I don’t deserve your trust?—”
“Connor, I don’t want?—”
He holds up a hand to stop me. “I know this isn’t the time or place and I respect that. I’m not trying to rush you or force the conversation, I swear. Honestly, I’m terrified that you’ll never want to talk about it and I will have ruined what we had forever. But can I at least say one thing?”
I blink slowly and nod.
“If I could go back in time and have a redo of that night, that weekend, I would do a million things differently, but I can’t. All I can do now is say that I’m sorry for…all of it. You deserved so much better.”
Heart, meet Break.
Except, we’ve already met. Abandoned on a balcony three years ago, we became best buds. And here we find ourselves again.
He regrets all of it .
“Gretch, I need you to hear me,” he continues and I push down the emotion thundering behind my sternum. “I understand if you hate me, because I deserve that. But no matter what, you can still trust me. That’ll never change. With all of it. With everything. You can trust me with it.”
That’s the crux of it all, I realize. That, in the face of everything, I’ve never been able to let him go.
Despite the hurt, he’s always been the person I’ve wanted to run to when I’m hurting.
Even though he ghosted me for three years, I still held out hope until the last possible second that it would be him here in Arizona with me.
Regardless of the fact he was able to move on so quickly, I still can’t find it in me to stay mad at him because, before it all, he was my best friend.
That’s the funny thing about best friends—the wounds of mistakes and regret bleed red like any other, but it can also be the most natural to forgive.
Unlike another best friend in my past that I forgave and left in my rearview, my friendship with Connor is one I can’t bear the thought of losing for good.
“You’re one of the most important people in the world to me, Gretch.
I know that may be hard to believe given the past few years, but…
” Our eyes lock, everything we’ve missed about each other floating in the current between us.
“I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you. If you ask me to never tell Drew or your pa rents about this. I solemnly swear to God”—he raises a scout’s honor hand—“Fish, it’s done. It goes with me to my grave.”
I reach for my water and huff out a breath. Thank God he can’t see my insides that turn all warm and fuzzy.
“Yeah, I called you Fish. I think, deep down, you still love it.”
I peer at him over the rim of my glass, unable to hide the smirk on my face.
Connor questions my ability to trust him when the reality is, I do trust him. No matter how hard I may try for the contrary, my hopes and dreams, stories and secrets, always manage to find safe harbor in this man.
“And if this trip goes off the handle?” he continues, lightheartedly. “Say, we meet this woman and she’s some sort of crazed lunatic and you need to hide a body? I got you.”
His smile beams and my shoulders drop, meeting my somersaulting heart in my chest.
“We go on this hike tomorrow—you said that’s tomorrow, right?”
I roll my lips between my teeth to contain the smile that threatens to split my face in half and he takes it for the confirmation that it is.
“Yeah, we’re hiking and you bite it. Your bone breaks through your skin, we’re miles from civilization, cell phones aren’t working. I’ll Usain Bolt it outta there to find help.”
Contained amusement rattles my chest. “You’d leave me there?”
“Exactly. Hear me out. I’d leave you there, but then I’d come back on a white horse with an EMT, Diet Coke and peanut butter M&Ms in tow,” he finishes, face alight with heroic pride.
My head falls back on a full laugh. When I look back to Connor, I can’t get a read on his expression.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. It’s just…I missed this.” He runs his gaze over every inch of my face like he’s committing me to memory—or getting lost in a memory—and I don’t miss when he pauses on my lips for a moment too long. “I missed you .”
The column of Connor’s throat bobs slowly, his face transforming from soft to pained. His brows furrowed just enough for me to take notice, but I’m not sure he realizes he’s doing it.
“I know I may not have been your first choice, Gretch.” He fights a scowl before leveling his features. “But I’m really glad I’m here.”
You’ve always been my first choice. My throat locks up at the confession—it gives away too much of how I feel.
Friends , I remind myself. “I’m glad you’re here, too.”
The waiter interrupts with our entrees and Connor and I launch into an easy flow of dinner conversation from there.
He asks about my last three years of college and I tell him about some of my classes and professors. He asks more questions about my internship and I don’t hold back. He doesn’t ask about any of my romantic relationships and I don’t tell. Not like there’s much to tell anyway.
The most genuine gleam of pride flashes in his eyes when he asks me what I read these days and I confirm I lean mostly into romance and historical fiction, but that I do still like to reread Little Women every couple of years.
He asks about the journey to finding my birth mom and I tell him about the lackluster DNA kit results and the detective I hired.
He updates me on his family. His parents, Andrea and Patrick, have fully embraced retirement out on the Outer Banks of North Carolina since Connor graduated high school.
Everett, his oldest brother, has two daughters with his wife and his next oldest brother, Owen, got married last year and they’re expecting their first child, a son, in January.
And so the conversation goes, back and forth, without any forced subject changes or awkward silences. We smile, we laugh and it all feels so easy. It feels like… us. The us we were then .
When the check arrives, he insists again on paying for dinner and, this time, I don’t fight it.
On our way out of the restaurant, Connor places a hand on my lower back as he ushers me out the door.
The warm summer air envelops us like a cozy blanket freshly pulled from the dryer.
The sun has set and only the faintest hint of color remains in the sky, broad strokes of soft amber glowing along the horizon.
A lot can happen in a day.
Today hasn’t gone how I expected. But now that I’m here, I’m content to be here with Connor.
I could have kept his number blocked, cut him out of my life, moved back to New York and never looked back all in the name of retribution.
But he’s here and it’s forcing me to acknowledge the truth of the matter, which is that no amount of hurt I feel over what happened discounts how much I’ve missed him.
I know that inevitable conversation is looming, but I’m not scared of it anymore.
When we reach the car, he holds the passenger door open for me. Instead of getting in, I drop my clutch on the seat and spin to face him.
Connor stands with one hand on the door, the other hanging loosely at his side. I close the small gap between us and wrap my arms around his neck while his loop around my waist.
We linger. Stalling, waiting, I’m not sure. He surrenders to my lead, his hold on me only as tight as mine on his. I know he’ll let go as soon as I’m ready.
But I don’t want to let go.
With a tortured breath against his ear, I whisper, “I missed you, too.”
The heavy sigh that flutters my hair feels like relief and finally . I squeeze him tighter and his arms do the same, drawing me to my toes. His head nestled against my neck, we begin to rock gently from side to side, one foot to the other and back.
We stay right here. Swaying. My forehead on his shoulder, his breaths coasting my collarbone, as though a single hug can make up for a thousand missed ones.