Chapter Three #2
My shoulders sank. Conversation had always been so easy between us.
The easiest, truthfully. Turner had never been a sharing-is-caring kind of guy, but he’d always loved to talk about The Midnight Baker with me.
He’d always been comfortable doing that, and that’s why I brought it up.
He looked almost somber now. Was I rambling too much?
Asking too many questions? I’d always felt safe doing that with him.
Like I didn’t have to fit into the black cat, feeling-averse mold, or the rambly-quirky one.
I could be both, because he was the solid one.
The consistent one. The rock.
He wasn’t being that way now. But one didn’t leave a note like that in someone’s room and then close off like this when I tried to give them what they asked me for. One didn’t turn on a long-life friendship as easily as I did, either. But he had left that note in my room. And the chocolates.
This was a mess. And the perfect moment to shut it down, say what I planned to say, and go back to my room.
“Did I just say the wrong thing?” I asked him instead. “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought up the topic of stress, or asked if you were struggling.”
Turner’s head whirled in my direction. He held my gaze for a long moment. “You said nothing wrong.”
“Then what’s going on? I thought—I thought you wanted to catch up. I thought you wanted to talk. That’s why I’m down here. Otherwise, I would be hiding in my room. Believe me, leaving that tub shaved years off my life.”
“You hate prune fingers.”
“I do when I’m writing, but that’s not exactly happening at the moment.”
“You’re not writing?”
I ignored the concerned look he gave me. “I know I’ve been awkward today, but you … You were being a bit of a shit, just now.”
Turner blinked, then a laugh burst out of him. “Did you just call me a shit?”
“Guess I did,” I said with a shrug.
He shook his head, amusement tugging at the creases around his mouth. “I … Christ. I’m making a mess of this.”
He wasn’t. We were. And these last five seconds were the most normal interaction we’d had today. I didn’t know if I wanted normal, but at least I knew what to do with it.
My shoulders eased down, a spot in my chest softening. “What, exactly, do you think you’re making a mess of, Turner Reece?”
“I’m making a mess of this. Of us. Of me, too. Like this drink for instance. It’s bitter and tasty and I love it. But my God, Frankie. It’s also strong. I know why I was drinking before you showed up, but why are you? Did you need this? To talk to me?”
“Drinking is usually a social activity. And we’re socializing. My choice doesn’t need to mean anything.”
“Maybe it doesn’t need to. But not knowing for sure is getting me in my head anyway.”
“Well, get out of it,” I said, just like I always would, an instinct, protecting him from me and my feelings. “Because I don’t need alcohol to talk to you. I never did. We … used to be friends. Like you said.”
“Right,” he murmured. “Is that why we’re acting like the last year never happened?”
Heat rose to my face. Turner looked more confused than frustrated.
A part of me wanted to give him an explanation, but I didn’t have a safe place to start.
I couldn’t find one. Just like every time I’d told myself I owed him that much.
“Why are you drinking?” I asked him, dodging his question. “You just said you had a reason.”
He shot me a look. It said, Really, Frankie?
“Is it Mia? The break-up? That’d be understandable.”
“It’s not Mia.”
“Is there anything going on with Marcia? Is that why you’re here? To tell me in person?”
“What? No. There’s nothing wrong with Mom.”
“Then what is it? Because you’re—”
“Because I was anxious as fuck about seeing you, all right?”
My heart jumped to my mouth.
His jaw unclenched, making me notice how tight he’d been clamping it. “Because I feared this was exactly how everything would go down between us.”
For an instant, all I could do was stare back at him. It was his words, yes, but also the way he was looking at me. It was different. I couldn’t tell why or how, but there was … a strange kind of vulnerability around him. A new one.
It made me so curious. And it also made me feel like shit.
I averted my eyes. “That’s fair. I think …” I gestured around us with my hand. “I already was a little on edge before seeing you. I suppose this whole thing’s making me jumpy.”
“Bars at hotels?” He joked. Softly.
“The convention,” I explained with a small smile, meeting his gaze again. “The signings and the panels and well, everything that entails. So, it’s not all on us, I guess.”
Turner leaned a little closer, his elbow still braced on the bar, casual but interested. As if I had just dangled a carrot that he didn’t want to bite into too fast. “What is it about this convention that makes you feel that way?”
“It’s not just this one. It’s all of them.”
“Why? Public events never fazed you.”
I huffed out a bitter laugh. “You’d know why if you had been at the launch of my last book.”
It was almost imperceptible but the distance between us was so minimal, and I was looking at him so closely, that it was impossible not to see him flinch.
“I don’t mean it as a reprimand,” I added, simply. Because I didn’t. “It’s just how things are for me now. Not the same as they used to be. I would elaborate, but it’s a long story that goes a little back in time, and I don’t think Marcia sent you to Vermont so you’d get trauma-dumped on.”
He frowned, the brown in his eyes filling with … Hell, I didn’t even know at this point. This Turner was a little different to the one I’d left behind thirteen months ago. “Dump it on me anyway.”
“You don’t want that.”
“I’ll say what I want,” he told me in that soft tone that carried so much confidence. My heart raced. “I want the story. I also want the reprimand. I deserve one. I could have been there but decided not to drive down to New York with Ric.”
“You were going through a breakup, I suppose. And you …” Had no reason to show up after I kicked you off my life, I thought.
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Ric never made it either, and it’s not like I expect my family to drop everything every few months to come see me answer the same few questions and sign the same few books. It’s just work.”
“What do you mean Ric never made it? Ric told me—”
“I thought we weren’t talking about my brother.
And it wouldn’t have changed anything. No one from home could make it to this event, or a few others, and that is more than okay.
Let’s face it, I don’t think my brothers or my parents have read beyond book one in the series.
I think only Nana has. And it’s okay. Like I said, it really is just work. ”
Turner seemed at such a loss for words for a heartbeat that I thought I’d said too much. I probably had, honestly. Then he bit out, “That’s fucking bullshit.”
“What is?”
“All of that.”
I snorted. “Why?”
“Why?”
“Yeah.”
He towered over me, as if he was mad I was making him say it. “Because your work means something. To your readers, sure. But to you too. And you would want to share that with someone.”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Pressure rose to the back of my eyes.
I wasn’t going to cry. I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to tell him that lately, it felt like I had no one.
Not my family, who were busy with their lives; not Mia, who I stopped knowing how to talk to; not anyone in the industry, who no longer believed in me; not my readers, who had lost interest; and not him, who I’d given up on because I couldn’t have him the way I wanted to.
I only had my agent. And I loved her, but ugh. It was just the one person, and having no one else made me feel … Invisible, some days.
A shallow breath left me. “What I do doesn’t make me special. I’m just a writer. It’s a job like any other.”
Turner leaned down slowly, as if he wanted me to hear his next words closely.
I felt my body scream at him to touch me.
To make me feel seen. Just like old times.
Like a bad habit you thought you’d broken out to, but it’s being triggered.
Reminding you it had always been there. Regardless of what you’ve done to move past it.
“Frankie.” He swallowed thickly. “To me, you’ve always been special.”
I basked in the way his words made me feel. In the way he’d say them too. Like he was ready to inject them into my bloodstream if I dared question them. Maybe this was a habit I’d never break free from. Maybe I’d always want this from Turner. Maybe time and distance had changed nothing.
Maybe I needed another drink.
I snatched my tumbler and downed the rest of my Negroni. Then, I signaled at the waiter, who was there in a heartbeat. “Another round please. And this time, charge it to my room.” I parroted the number. “Thank you.”
“So that’s what we’re doing next?” Turner asked from my side. “Getting drunk? Don’t get me wrong; I’m happy to be the one you choose to do it with, I’d just like to be sure.”
“Yup,” I confirmed, still not glancing back at him. I was more frustrated at myself than at him, but Jesus. Why did he have to call me special like that? “We’re at a bar, and we both have reasons to drink, as we’ve established. So that’s what we’re doing.”
“Alright. It won’t be me stopping us.”
“Awesome.”
“Great.”
“With that settled,” I concluded with a strained smile he could only see half of. “I think we’re not very good at this whole catching up thing, so we should switch to … the weather. Or the state of the roads. Your choice.”
“I don’t like small talk. I never did. Have you forgotten?”