Chapter 9
Felix
I sat there in the front seat of the rental car, staring at the missed call notification on my phone.
It wasn’t often that my family tried to reach out to me, but when they did, I was always met with the sinking feeling that they were going to do everything they could to make me feel bad for sticking to my adventures instead of giving it all up and living the life they so clearly wanted for me.
I had gotten the call when I had been on my walk to drive the car back to my hotel, I hadn’t noticed because it was stuffed deep into my pocket while I listened to the morning birdsongs around me.
But now, outside the hotel, I knew that I should call them back at some point.
Maybe I could leave it till this evening, give myself some time to think about what I was going to say, or maybe…
Before I could ponder too much longer on that matter, the phone burst to life in front of me, catching me off-guard.
It was my father again, and I stared down at it for a moment, wondering if I should put it off again.
But, instead, I let out a sigh and picked it up, tapping the take call button and lifting the phone to my ear.
"Hi, Dad."
"Felix," he greeted me, and I could already tell that he was distracted. "Why didn’t you answer earlier?"
"I was busy…"
"Doing what?” he replied, with a slight chuckle in his voice. "You decided to get a job all of a sudden?”
I gritted my teeth, willing myself not to rise to his attempts to undercut me.
I had to remember how alien my lifestyle was to him, how he couldn’t begin to make sense of it.
To him, it was just a matter of time till I was going to see sense and settle down, and it didn’t seem to matter how many times I tried to dissuade him of that fact, he couldn’t get it through his head.
"Everything okay?" I asked, turning the conversation to the matter at hand.
"Your mother wanted me to give you a call, see where you were," he replied. I wished it had been Mom calling me. She was the only one who actually seemed willing to entertain my stories on the road, even if I knew she couldn’t wrap her head around my reasons for them.
But she had always been keen on making sure that I had a good relationship with Dad, and if that meant nudging him in the direction of being the one to talk to me, so be it.
"I’m in this town called Whisper Falls," I explained. "It’s…"
"Whisper Falls?"
"Yeah."
"Never heard of it."
I closed my eyes slightly. My father, he saw everything through the lens of his work, and if he hadn’t done business somewhere, he barely even thought that it existed.
"It’s just a small place," I replied. "But it’s very beautiful. And the people are great."
He let out a non-committal grunt.
"When are you coming back to the New Orleans? Your mother’s asking."
"I was going to visit over the holidays this year," I replied.
"I don’t understand why you can’t make more of an effort to spend time with us," he huffed. "Your mother’s always complaining to me about it. All you’re doing is travelling, it’s not as though it’s anything important..."
As he talked, I drifted off, so used to the way he spoke to me that it hardly even registered.
There was an irony to it, no doubt, that he couldn’t see that this was exactly the reason why I didn’t spend more time with my family.
Because as soon as I stepped through that door, this was the shit that I got, berating me for not doing anything more important with my life, anything worthy of the seriousness that my brothers did.
He would tell me off like I was an errant teenager sneaking out late, not a grown man exploring the world beyond the bounds of the rules and expectations he had placed on me.
"I’m coming up for the holidays, Dad," I told him firmly, not wavering. "Tell Mom to give me a call, okay? I’d like to talk to her."
He sniffed. I could hear chaos on the other end of the line, as he was no doubt striding through the busy office right now, people yelling to one another here and there, tapping away furiously on computers as they tried to keep up with whatever demands my father had placed on them.
I doubted that he went any easier on them than he did on me, and I almost felt sorry for them.
"I will."
"I’ll speak to you later, okay?”
"I have to get to a meeting anyway," he agreed.
"Okay, I’ll…"
He hung up the phone before I could finish what I was saying, and I pulled it from my ear, staring down at it for a moment, his voice still ringing in my head.
I didn’t know what I expected, truthfully.
Every time I talked to him, it felt as though it went the same way, the same dismissive attitude he hit me with serving to underline the reasons that I had walked away from that life in the first place.
I doubted that he could even see it, given how stuck he was in his own head, but that wasn’t my fault.
And there was no way I was going to give in and go crawling back there, knowing what I was going to be met with.
I started the engine and pulled away from the hotel, not even sure where I was going to drive to, but knowing that I needed to get out on the road to clear my head.
There was something about the scenery stretching out around me for as far as the eye could see that settled my head when it was in a mess like this.
As I drove through town, I felt something begin to tense inside of me.
I had been here for a few weeks now, the better part of a month, and I hadn’t stuck around anywhere more than six weeks without getting antsy and thinking of where I could hit up next.
But here? Here, it didn’t feel the same.
There was something about this place that soothed something in me, whether I could put words to it or not yet.
I hadn’t even started thinking about where I was going to go after this, the notion not even crossing my mind.
I had been so caught up with everything that had been happening with Dina, I’d hardly had the headspace to think of my next trip.
I could have picked up and headed off to Europe, or hired a classic car and driven across the country, or hopped a plane to East Asia and spent a couple of months out there.
I knew I was lucky to have the money I did to do what I wanted, and yet, the only place I wanted to be right now...
Was here.
As I drove through town, something caught my eye, the Jukebox Diner on the side of the road.
It was already open, by the looks of it, with a few cars parked outside.
But they weren’t the only thing. No, as I slowed down, I realized that Dina was standing in the doorway, something in her hands, a ladder propped up just next to her.
I couldn’t help but grin when I laid eyes on her, that curly brown hair tamed into a ponytail that bounced with every movement.
Before I could think twice, I swung the car into the parking lot, and Dina looked up to see me arriving.
I couldn’t tell from the look on her face what she thought about it.
I wasn’t sure where we stood, after the kiss last night, but something drew me towards her anyway, a desire that I knew I could not just ignore.
I drew the car to a halt and stepped out, grinning as I approached her.
"Hey."
"Hey," she replied, and I could have sworn I saw her cheeks darken slightly as she caught my eye.
Was she thinking about the kiss, too? She might have made a quick escape to her apartment, but there was no way she could deny what had come in the moments before that, the way our fingers had tangled, the soft curve of her body pressed against mine...
I nodded to the ladder, and what I could now see were a bunch of posters in her hands.
"What’s this about?”
"Labor Day," she replied, glancing up at the diner. I followed her gaze to see that there was already some bunting dangling along the facade above the door, slightly uneven and drooping at one side. "I’m trying to get all the decorations up so Pam doesn’t have to stress herself, but I feel like I’m not doing a very good job... "
"You need a hand?”
"Oh, no, that’s fine," she assured me, shrugging as she waved a hand. "I can handle it…"
"Come on, I’m not doing anything else today," I chided her playfully, smiling. "I could use someone to put me to good use."
She giggled, cocking an eyebrow at me.
"I thought you didn’t like working?"
"I don’t like working in offices and big businesses," I replied. "But I think I can find it in me to handle this, huh?"
She looked up at the bunting again, as though trying to figure out if she was going to agree. And then, finally, she shrugged.
"You know what, I could probably use some help," she conceded. "Could you hold that ladder while I fix these?"
"Of course I can."
Honestly, I was glad to actually feel useful after that conversation with my father; the way he talked about me, he made it sound like I did nothing but put my feet up and hope for the best. I took hold of the ladder and tried to avert my eyes as she climbed up, not wanting to be caught staring at anything I shouldn’t.
I caught the scent of her perfume in the air, and grinned as it filled my senses, wondering if she knew just what kind of effect she had on me.
"I don’t think I’ve ever gone to a Labor Day celebration before," I remarked. "Didn’t realize it was such a big deal out here..."
"Oh, well, it’s more than just Labor Day itself," she explained, as she carefully made her way back down the ladder. She stumbled slightly on the last step, and I reached out to steady her, hand on the small of her back to make sure she didn’t fall.
For a moment, we were standing just a few inches apart, and she glanced around at me, our eyes locking.
My gaze flicked down to her lips, and I stepped back quickly, clearing my throat.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah," she continued, her voice a little shakier than it had been when she went up the ladder. "It’s like the end of the tourist season for us here, too. So it’s sort of a send-off for everyone who’s been visiting the town.
Not that we don’t get a few throughout the rest of the year, but things settle a bit after Labor Day, when everyone takes off... "
She trailed off, and, as she looked at me, I could tell what she was thinking.
That I was going to be gone, too. I couldn’t blame her, given the way that I had talked to her about my travels.
As far as she knew, I would be gone soon enough, now that the summer was coming to a close and the rest of the world waiting.
"What do you think?" she asked, as she took a step back, planting her hands on her hips and gazing up at the bunting above. I fell in line with her to get a better look, and I could already tell that they looked a whole lot better than they had when we started.
"Looks great to me."
She grinned, and picked up the pile of posters from the ground where she had dumped them while she had been focused on the bunting.
"Alright, Pam told me to put these up around town," she remarked. "You think you could give me a lift so I can hand them out to people? My car died on me again last night, right in the lot. I'm waiting for the garage to come tow it."
"Sure thing," I agreed, as she handed me one of the posters so I could see what I was getting into. It was just a flyer announcing a celebration at the diner the following week, with free food and music to enjoy.
"Sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun," I remarked, as we headed over to the car. She shrugged.
"It usually is," she agreed. "But you’re probably going to be gone by then, right?"
"What do you mean?"
"You said you liked being out on the road," she reminded me. "How long have you been here now? Must be close to hitting your limit."
I pulled open the car door for her, pondering her question.
She had a point. I normally didn’t last much longer than I had already been in Whisper Falls.
But this place...I could already feel the roots sprouting from me, something reaching in to the sun-warmed earth below that made me feel like I might belong.
That call from my father had just reminded me in no uncertain terms that I could trust my instincts when it came to where I didn’t belong.
And that I might have been able to trust them when it came to where I did, too.
"I don’t know about that," I remarked, trying not to give too much away. I didn’t want to put too much pressure on her by admitting that there was something in me thinking about sticking around, but at the same time, I wanted to feel out how she might react if I did.
"Oh, most of the guys who come through here get bored of it eventually," she added, as she rolled down the window, letting the cool air rush in as we pulled out of the parking lot. I cocked an eyebrow.
"Really?"
She nodded.
"Mhm," she replied, and I could hear a slight edge to her voice. Was there more to this than she was letting on? People who had left before, left her feeling like she wasn’t worth sticking around for?
"Like who?”
"Just guys who come through here," she added, as she looked out of the window, averting her gaze from mine. "They act like they want to stick around here, but then the end of summer comes and they take off back to their old lives, and that’s just...it."
"Speaking from experience?”
I asked her the question softly, half-expecting her to bristle, but she just nodded.
"Yeah, guess so," she replied, forcing a smile on to her face, though it did not look as though it reached her eyes.
And I felt a flare of sadness for her, thinking of the men who might have passed through this town and left her feeling as though she was less-than.
Who had let her believe there might be something there, only to take off as soon as summer came to an end and they had something else to think about.
My hand flexed on the wheel as I thought of reaching over to give her knee a squeeze, tell her that I had no intention of going anywhere. But I had long-since learned that the best way to prove yourself to someone was to show, not tell. Prove it, not announce it.
And, as we continued the journey into town, an idea began to stir at the back of my mind.
It might be crazy, but I didn’t want to go anywhere quite yet.
And I wanted to show her that there were some people who actually saw this place as more than just somewhere to pass through.
More than just somewhere to tick off the list.
And that she was worth all the effort that these other guys had denied her.