Chapter 20
Drew
“C
an you believe I just spent an entire week watching my family hang on every single word my brother said?” Lacey has been doing a bulk of the talking since we sat down for lunch, giving me all the details about her trip to Seattle, work, and her girlfriends from college and what they’re up to.
We decided to hit up a spot that has a Happy Hour starting at 3 PM with wine-by-the-glass special, so we finished eating lunch about half an hour ago, and now we are just continuing our conversation over a glass of wine.
This restaurant is in the same parking lot as a few other stores, including a Barnes & Noble. If I feel up to it, maybe I’ll walk over there before I head home. I would like to start the next book in the series I started, and I’m sure they have it.
“Actually, I can,” I laugh. “What’s he even up to these days? Still with that girl from our high school?”
“Absolutely not,” Lacey scoffs. “And I know that because my grandma kept saying how that girl just wasn’t good enough for our Sal.” She laughs a humorless laugh as she picks up her glass of wine. “In reality, I think that girl was smart, and she dumped him. Sal seemed down anytime someone mentioned it, so I think there’s more to it than he’s leading on.” She takes a sip of her wine. “He needs to be single for a while anyway.”
I grab my glass to take a sip as I listen to her continue. “Anyway, enough about Sal. He’s been the topic of conversation for far too long. What’s been new with you?”
I freeze mid-sip before setting my glass down, feeling my hands get a little sweaty. Lacey must be able to sense my change in demeanor because she rephrases, “I’m sure it’s been nice to be home! How have you been spending your Winter Break?”
I rub my hands on my thighs, the fabric of my leggings alleviating the moisture. I feel my brain beginning to spiral. Do I tell her about Reed? If I do, that’ll lead to when she called me after it happened, and I didn’t tell her. That will then lead to the grocery store which will probably somehow lead to the toaster incident, and if I bring that up, that will lead to having to talk about Emmett and what’s happening with my once-grumpy neighbor turned person who keeps seeing me in my worst possible moments who I also can’t get out of my head.
“Oh, you know, reading, watching movies, cleaning. Nothing too exciting. How’s Tyler?” I try to change the subject, not wanting Lacey to notice that the nonchalant, calm demeanor I am trying to project is nowhere near what is actually going on in my head.
Lacey takes another sip of her wine, trying to find my eyes that are now glued to anything but hers.
“He’s good,” she says with a hint of concern. “But I want to talk about you.” She reaches across the table opening her hand. I slowly bring a hand from my lap to grab on to hers and feel my thoughts begin to slow down. “Seriously, I’m worried about you. Do you want to talk about what happened?”
I inhale and somehow manage to meet her eyes, “Honestly, it’s been hard.” I feel my voice quiver and a familiar sting in my eyes.Lacey squeezes my hand, telling me without words she wants me to continue and that she is there for me. “Well, for starters, Reed showed up at my place the day after you left. He and I haven’t talked in weeks, and he just showed up expecting me to fall into his arms.” I shake my head and let out a breath already feeling a weight lift off my shoulders by telling her.
“Wait, are you guys still… like, together?”
I take my hand back to grab my wine glass. I take a sip before answering her question. “Not really. We haven’t talked since November, but he said he saw the news and wanted to make sure I was okay. It was a nice gesture, but–”
“But nothing.” Lacey’s brow furrows and her voice has an edge. “You don’t have to justify how you felt about him showing up.”
“I know, but then he mentioned what happened, and, I don’t know, I just couldn’t talk about it.” I feel the familiar tightening in my chest at what we are alluding to. “Either way, I felt like an asshole for closing the door on him. I texted him an apology later that day, but I guess he and I are back to not talking.”
Lacey nods, still holding on to her wine glass. She doesn’t say anything, but I can tell she wants to. I take another sip of wine, realizing it is the last one. I set my glass down and let out a sigh.
“You do know you don’t owe Reed anything, right?” Her words catch me slightly off guard. “You don’t need to apologize for dealing with… What you’re dealing with.”
“No, I know that, but–”
“But nothing, Drew.” She sets her glass down. She reaches across the table asking for my hands again. I reciprocate her reach, and she takes both my hands in hers. “You have been letting Reed have this hold on you for too long. You don’t owe him for dumping him in high school, and you most certainly don’t owe him an explanation for not wanting to talk to him after what happened at your school.” I see her eyes begin to cloud and feel mine do the same, thankful that she is acknowledging that day but still talking around it.
“Drew, honey, I saw you that day,” she begins. “I saw what it did to you. I saw what you looked like after walking out with your students, and Reed, of all people, has no right to make you feel guilty for not being ready to talk about it.”
No. No, I can’t talk about this.
I pull my hands away from hers and wipe the tears starting to fall. “Lace, no. I can’t talk about this. I don’t want to talk about this”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. You’re right. I just hate seeing him have this hold over you.” She leans back, letting go of my hands. I notice she wipes the corner of her left eye and then looks at me sympathetically. A few beats of silence pass before she says, “So, aside from this run-in with Reed. What else have you been up to?”
I take this opportunity to change the subject and begin filling her in on the books I’ve been reading, letting her know I finally read the thriller she recommended. I fill her in about how I wanted to watch the Marvel movie series per the MCU order, and we laugh about how I could barely get through the first one, reminiscing when we saw it in theaters.
I strategically leave out the toaster incident that happened during the end of Captain America because I want to avoid talking about Emmett, but I accidentally slip that I can’t keep my TV above a certain volume level because it upsets my neighbor, and that grabs her attention even more.
“Wait, is this the same neighbor you see in the elevator? Who made fun of the music you listen to?” Leave it to Lace to remember that tiny detail I don’t even remember telling her. I probably mentioned pissing off my grumpy downstairs neighbors in one of our text exchanges over the past few months, but I didn’t think she would keep track of it.
“Yeah, that’s Emmett. He lives below me, and he is the grumpiest, most frustrating man I’ve ever met. And, he hates me.” I flush, remembering how I caught him staring at me at the grocery store or how he stayed with me in my apartment until I fell asleep. “Well, sort of hates me.” I divert my eyes.
“Um, what do you mean ‘sort of’ and why are you blushing?” I take my hands and press them against my cheeks to cool them down.
“I’m not blushing. It’s just the wine.”
“Don’t you dare. Spill it.”
I sigh and decide to give her a bridged version of when I ran into him at the grocery store, only explaining how he was nice and polite compared to times I ran into him before that. “But, no. I know what you’re thinking and, while he is hot, tall, and tattooed with a possible sensitive side, he is nothing more than my downstairs neighbor.”
“If you say so,” she responds with a smirk. And I know very well there is no truth to those words of hers.
To my luck, Lacey senses that this conversation about Emmett, most likely by the way I was stuttering and turning red from both my frustration and confusion about him, can be left alone for now. She changes the subject back to when she and Tyler first met, sneakily hinting at how they were former enemies competing for the same college turned lovers. We end up reminiscing on the last time we were at this restaurant a few weeks after she met Tyler.
We end the lunch smiling, but I can’t get what she said about Reed out of my head. I feel a sense of doubt that I haven’t had since the last time her and I argued over my relationship with Reed, and I hate the fact that the doubt found its way back into my gut.
As we walk out of the restaurant, she grabs my hand. We walk hand-in-hand to our cars parked next to each other.
“I’m here for you, Drew. Always.” She pulls me in for a hug. I feel some of the dull pressure in my chest that I have come so accustomed to begin to alleviate the longer I am in her arms.
She whispers into my ear, “And, I’m here when you’re ready to talk about it.” She pulls me in even tighter before letting go and giving me a smile. As she opens the car door and climbs into the driver’s seat, she turns back to me and says, “Oh, and make sure you get out of that apartment more, okay? Maybe you’ll run into someone hot, tall, and tattooed with a possible sensitive side.”
I can’t help but let out a laugh at her quoting what I said about Emmett as she winks at me and closes the car door, giving me a wave through the window before pulling away.
I’m left thinking that maybe staying out of the apartment may be good for me after all.