Chapter Two
FRANKIE
Did my brother send you again?
It was only when the words left me that I realized what I’d asked.
My cheeks were aflame. “Forget I said anything, I’m—”
“No,” Turner said firmly. Not cutting. He was never cutting, despite the way the tone of his voice carried. Deep, always so serious. He dropped his hand to his side. “Why would Ric send me here?”
That was a good question. Turner always asked good questions.
I’d walked myself into a corner for the second time today.
I’d also overlooked the existence of time and space, considering that in the few minutes it took me to cross that driveway, my brother couldn’t have sent someone to Vermont all the way from Maine to save me from a stalker.
The thing was, it wouldn’t be the first time my brother sent someone on a rescue mission.
Sent Turner, specifically.
A memory of that day only weeks after I’d settled in the new apartment flashed behind my eyelids.
Me, with mascara running all over my face from crying.
My brother’s best friend banging on my door, asking to be let in.
Nausea rose. I still hated myself for the way I treated Turner that night.
For how I’d reacted to him driving to Boston and showing up on my doorstep unannounced.
The way I was behaving right now wasn’t very different.
“I’m sorry,” I said, expelling a long breath. “I … Can we forget the last minute ever happened? Can we start over? Please? I would really, really love that.”
Turner remained still for a long moment. He was thinking. Probably piecing together whatever this clusterfuck of a reunion was. I braced myself while I watched him move away slightly, just a foot or two. That barely-there smile took shape around his mouth again.
Then he said, “Frankie. Hi. I’ve missed you.”
My knees wobbled.
They really did.
This was why I’d left. It was the “Frankie” off his lips, in that deep timbre, it definitely was the “I’ve missed you,” again. It was also the fact he’d repeated his exact words to me from earlier.
He didn’t start over by saying something else like, “Hey, Frankie. What’s up?” Turner Reece was too consistent and steady to rewrite words he’d already decided to say.
It had always been one of the things I’d loved the most about him.
“Hi,” I whispered with a smile I hoped covered the heaviness that last thought had left behind. “Hi back, Turner. I’m also happy to see you. You look great. Just like always.”
“You do too. Look great. Just like always, but different. Better.”
My smile wavered, heart speeding up at the compliment. Turner wasn’t a man of many compliments. “So what brings you to Vermont? I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Like I’ve already made very obvious.”
“You do,” he answered, Adam’s apple bobbing. “You bring me here, Frankie. And I’m happy to see you, too. I’ve been dying to see you, actually.”
I choked out a strange laugh and moved past that too. “You’re here for the book convention?”
Turner’s nod wasn’t very confident, but it was all he gave me.
“Is Mia with you?” I made myself ask. My voice was calm, almost cheery.
Like that question meant nothing. Like there was no heartbreak burning the walls of my chest while I waited.
“Was this her idea? I bet she loved all the possibilities the area offers to freeze your butt out in a hike. She is always—” I stopped myself.
“She was—was always begging us, anyone really, to go enjoy the great outdoors with her, so I wouldn’t be surprised.
I bet she still is that way. I—” I cleared my throat, deciding to put a stop at that.
“Vermont’s so pretty in winter. Or so I’ve been told.
Mia will love it. You will too. Just like I will, I guess. ”
Turner blinked at me and for an instant all I wanted was for the ground to open up and swallow me whole. Especially after that. I’d never acted this awkward around Turner in my whole life, and he had to be thinking along the same lines.
But all he said was, “Mia?”
“You know, blue eyes, long russet hair, loud laugh and a ring on her finger. How’s … the wedding coming along, by the way? Ric doesn’t tell me much these days, he’s so busy. And Leo … Well, you know how Leo is. The last update I got from Mom months ago and she said you guys were scouting venues.”
Turner’s lips parted before pressing back into a paper-thin line that made his moustache more prominent.
I’d never been a fan of facial hair, but I’d loved that moustache since the moment he decided to not to shave a few years ago.
The only bad thing about it was that it occasionally obscured his already faint expressions. Like right now.
“Turner?” I pressed.
“We called off the wedding,” he finally said. “Three months ago. You didn’t know?”
For an instant there was only silence.
Heavy, thick. Making my ears ring.
They called off the wedding.
Three months ago.
And I hadn’t known.
I’d had no idea. Not even the slightest inkling of an idea, in fact. No one had said a word to me. Not Mom or Ric or Turner or Mia, because I had removed myself from my friends’ lives and shut the door on them possibly ever telling me something like this.
“No,” I rushed out. My hand shot forward, fingers wrapping around Turner’s arm. “No,” I repeated. “I had no idea. God. I’m so fucking sorry, Turner. What happened?”
Color swung right back into his face, filling up his cheeks. He glanced down, at where my hand squeezed the flannel of his shirt.
It registered then, how long I’d gone without touching him.
How I probably shouldn’t be touching him.
My fingers loosened, and just as I started to release him, he stopped me.
Those thick lines of ink that painted his skin in the shape of a moth greeted me, the warmth of his palm bathing the back of my hand with a familiarity I had missed.
“You’re good,” he said.
I wasn’t, though. He was touching me back, cradling my fingers between his arm and palm, and it was jarring to realize how my body still reacted to him. Like a shock to the system. A rupture in time. Like my pulse had just swooshed back into me only now.
“So, what happened?” I asked again, dragging my eyes back up to his.
“We called off the wedding,” he repeated.
I waited for him to elaborate and when he didn’t, I felt the need to say, “I’m so very sorry for that. And we don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to. I shouldn’t have asked. Or pressed you for details.”
“Why is that?”
“Because it’s none of my business.”
I made it none of my business, I thought.
“I used to be your business,” Turner said. “And Mia used to be your friend.”
You used to be my friend too, I wanted to tell him. And isn’t that the problem with all of this?
But there was no point in elaborating on something that wouldn’t change a single thing between us.
At the heart of it, I was just a girl who had fallen in love with a boy and the boy had never loved me back.
Not in the way I wanted him to. We’d been just friends.
Great friends. Childhood friends. But he’d never been mine.
I’d shared him with Ric, I shared him with Mia, and at a point I had to give him up.
Because I could hold hope for my brother’s best friend, or mine, but I couldn’t be in love with an engaged man.
Now, here we were. Thirteen months and a hundred miles later.
Just two people who used to be in each other’s lives, like he said, and were … still holding hands.
I snatched my arm back. “So, the convention. You’re really here to attend the book convention?”
“My mom,” Turner explained, eyes fleeting down to my hand now tucked inside my jacket. He scratched the side of his neck. “She won a giveaway. I should have probably started with that.”
“A giveaway?”
“For this. Vermont’s Crime and Thriller book convention. Mom saw you were in the line-up of authors, and entered a giveaway for a ticket on Facebook. It was like a special VIP deal that included accommodation in the Inn. She thought it’d be a good idea for me to come see you.”
“That’s nice of her.” And it was. It also made me think that Turner must have really struggled with the breakup if Marcia was shipping him off to a book convention, of all things.
It also made me wonder why Marcia would think seeing me was a good idea.
“I hope it helps keeping your head off things.”
“I’ve picked up reading as a hobby. If you’re wondering whether you ever saw me holding a book in my hands, you probably didn’t. Audiobooks are a game changer with my long hours. Can’t work without them now.”
“That’s saying something. You would spend most of your time at work.”
“I still do,” he offered with a nod. “Door’s locked from the inside now, though. Too much time with my headphones. Anyone could waltz in and I’d be blissfully unaware at the back.”
A mental image assaulted me without warning.
Turner in The Midnight Baker—his bakery studio—at the crack of dawn, covered in flour up to his elbows, his hands occupied with kneading while my own words keep him company.
But he never said it was my audiobooks he worked to. And I couldn’t afford to think that.
I cleared my throat. “That’s … That’s wonderful, Turner. I’m happy you finally saw reason and joined me on the dark and much better side. Unlike some.”
“I send your brothers weekly recommendations, for the record. Even managed to bribe Ric into joining an online book club with me. I wasn’t so lucky with Leo. He limits himself to a thumbs-up on my messages.”
“Sounds like Leo. And book club does not sound like Ric. I’m shocked he ever agreed to join. Is that still going on? I wonder why he wouldn’t mention it to me. I feel like that’s something you should tell your writer sister.”
“Oh, that’s because he quit one month in.”
I rolled my eyes. “Did he try to fix something that was already working and was invited to leave?”