Chapter 4
Lizzie
“My name.”
He’d said he’d known who I was, but I hadn’t said it out loud yet.
“Eli?”
“It’s Elizabeth.”
“Lizzie. I know.” He risked a glance in my direction and relaxed a fraction, letting his left hand drape over the steering wheel while his right rested on his leg. “Why’d you tell me Eli when we met at Manny’s?”
Shrugging, I admitted, “I didn’t want you to know who I was.
I’d just had the worst day of my life to date, and everyone knows my grandpa in Wisper.
I figured you probably would too. I just hadn’t wanted to deal with it, and I was right.
” I pointed a look in his direction, and he nodded again.
He did that a lot. “So anyway, when I started to say Elizabeth, I caught myself and just stopped at E-L-I.”
He laughed quietly, and the sound sent a warm rush up my spine. “And then you turned that into your alter ego.”
“You did the same thing. Van for Evan?”
“You’re right. I did. But Van and Evan are the same guy.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“My brother… He’d just died. He didn’t leave a good taste in people’s mouths around here. He caused a whole lot of grief for me at my… job. I guess I didn’t want you to know who I was ’cause I was afraid to be judged by you.”
“I wouldn’t have,” I said. “I wouldn’t judge you.”
His lips lifted tightly, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes, like maybe he didn’t believe me. “Well, nevertheless, if it’s alright with you, I’ll call you Lizzie. It’d feel weird callin’ you somethin’ else after all these years of you bein’ Lizzie in my head.”
Did that mean he’d thought about me as much as I’d thought about him?
Why did I hope desperately that he had?
“So what have you been doing for the last six years?”
I still couldn’t believe Van was sitting right next to me. How many nights had I lain in bed thinking about him? Wishing I could see him again to know if I’d really felt that spark beneath my skin when he’d touched me. Now, he was right here, but he felt a world away.
I’d thought about him so much, about the possibility of what could have been, that I’d built up a dream man in my mind, but I didn’t know him. Not the real him. Not the way I wished all those nights that I did.
He shrugged. “Workin’. You?”
I laughed. Was he serious? “Um, working too. I guess that’s what you’d call it. It didn’t used to feel like work though.”
He tipped his head in my direction. “Why’d that change?”
Straight to the point then. Who cares about small talk? Rip that Band-Aid right off.
I had to think about my answer. I wasn’t sure I had a good one for his question.
“I don’t know. I guess, it used to be so much more about the music, you know? And now, it’s… It’s about schedules and diets and tours and contracts. And it’s all about to get a lot harder too.”
“Why’s that?”
Oh ho, like I’d tell him what a shitshow my life had become?
No way. He’d probably end up googling me later if he hadn’t yet read all the articles or seen the thousands of memes, but for now I could pretend I wasn’t a walking disaster.
“It’s nothing. Never mind. You don’t want to hear me moan and complain about my problems.”
That stopped him for a moment, but then he asked, “How long you plannin’ to stay? Doc didn’t say.”
“Oh no? What did my grandpa say exactly?”
“Not much. Just that it was a last-minute arrangement, and he asked me not to tell anybody. That’s it, but he was concerned about you bein’ up here alone. Seemed to bother him. He asked me to look out for you.”
Gpa Whitley, you ol’ softie. I’d have to remember to text him extra emoji kisses and send him more tumblers and T-shirts to give away to his patients.
“And you agreed to that?”
“Yeah,” Van said. “’Course I did. Why wouldn’t I?”
Breathing a laugh, I said, “Um, because Christmas is in four days, and because I’m sure you don’t get paid to ‘look out’ for the people who stay in the cabins you take care of. Am I wrong about that?”
A little shake of his head was his only answer.
“So then, why agree to it? You had no idea it was me coming up here. What if I’d turned out to be my father? Or some jerks with fifty snot-nosed kids?”
He chuckled. “It wouldn’t have changed my answer.”
“Wow.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just, that’s really nice. That’s all. Thank you.”
He grumbled. There was something there in his non-answer that he didn’t want me to know. But I had secrets, too, so I wouldn’t suss his out any more than I wanted him to suss out mine.
“I appreciate it, but you really don’t have to watch out for me.
I’m an adult. I may’ve made a mess of my l—” I stopped before I could ruin our reunion with my drama.
Van was the last person on this earth I wanted to talk to about my ex.
I didn’t want him to think I was weak or stupid.
Everyone else probably already knew, but if I could hide the truth from him just a little while longer, I could…
What exactly did I think lying would accomplish?
But we’d agreed to no details that night at Manny’s, so it seemed fitting to stick to it now.
“I don’t plan to be in your business, Lizzie, but I’ll be around if you need me.
The power might go out. I stocked the cabin with firewood, but the temp could drop real quick.
The backup generator could go out. A lot of things could happen because of this storm.
So if it’s all the same to you, I’ll check in with you while you’re here.
You still haven’t said how long you’re stayin’. ”
“I don’t know how long. I told Grandpa I’d stay for a couple days. But I might stay longer. Through Christmas. He won’t mind.”
He tipped his head in my direction. He stayed quiet for a few minutes, but finally, he turned and locked his eyes on mine, then said, “Alright then.”
* * *
“This is it?” I asked, cringing out my window when Van stopped his truck in front of my grandparents’ cabin. I realized too late how laced with disappointment my voice sounded. I had wrapped Fowl’s blanket around my shoulders and was glad for it, even if it did smell like wet dog.
“Yep,” he mumbled, but there was a little bit of disappointment in his voice too.
We’d made the treacherous trek up to the top of the mountain, following bends and dips and sharp hooks in the road, turned off on a small unpaved lane, and then took the last curve that led us to the cabin.
In the dark night and the falling snow, it looked so small.
And run down. This wasn’t the same cabin from my childhood, was it?
It couldn’t be. The cabin I remembered had been a grand place, where adventures abounded and love surrounded me.
“It’s so… small.”
Van cleared his throat. “It probably ain’t what you’re used to, but it’s a tidy little place.
It’s got two bedrooms and a full bath. The kitchen got an update ’bout ten years ago, and barely anybody’s used it, so everything works.
People pay a lotta money to stay here in the summer.
” He shut off the truck and stepped out, and Fowl leapt over the seat and followed.
I climbed out of the truck, clutching the blanket tighter around my body as they walked ahead of me, up the stairs to the little porch, crunching their way through the fresh, still-falling snow.
Van’s black beanie was covered in it now that he’d taken his hood down, but the flakes melted quickly, no match for his body heat.
His body had a lot of heat. I’d felt it in the truck.
Even under his thick, gray winter coat I could tell he was as fit as he’d been that night at Manny’s.
But bigger. Definitely bigger, more muscled.
He made my mouth water. Feeling such profound attraction to him was an odd sensation; I hadn’t experienced anything like it in six years.
It had all been real. That kiss really had been the kiss of a lifetime.
I licked snowflakes off my lips just as he said, “I’ll get the porch and walkway cleared off best I can in the mornin’.” He turned to look at me. “It’s not like you’ll be goin’ anywhere.”
I followed in his footsteps, hoping that my sneakers wouldn’t fill up with snow if I placed my feet in the big boot impressions he’d made. Spoiler alert: I was wrong. By the time I stood next to him on the porch, my socks were soaked, and my toes were like tiny little popsicles.
“No. I won’t be going anywhere,” I said and smiled, trying to be grateful for the accommodation. Grandpa could’ve said no when I asked him if I could stay here. And Van was here.
Seeing him again was worth everything.
Van turned away from me and inserted a key into the front door’s lock, but then he stiffened. He left the key sticking out of its little metal prison and turned to face me. “You gonna tell me what’s really goin’ on back there in LA?”
Jeez. Had he been this direct before? I didn’t remember that. I thought we’d silently agreed to avoid the truth.
“Nope.”
Maybe I’d tell him, if he really wanted to know.
He could very easily find out on his own, but it wasn’t like we were friends.
Besides Joey and Amy, who was a lifer, I didn’t really have friends.
This life of mine didn’t allow me that luxury.
I had employees or soul-sucking “besties,” but I didn’t trust anyone anymore.
He nodded. “Figured as much,” he said, like he was disappointed that I wouldn’t share my problems with a veritable stranger. “But so you know, it’s pretty quiet up here.” He smirked. “Someone to talk to might be nice.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said, and I watched his eyes as they roamed all over my face.
It felt just like it had that night in the parking lot, when he’d looked at me the very same way and his careful gaze had lit a fire inside my body. He made me feel important and special, just from the look in his eyes alone. And he’d barely known anything about me then, or I thought he hadn’t.
But now that my life had been plastered across every newspaper, magazine, and the world wide web for literally every person on the planet to see and read, it wouldn’t take but one click for him to “know” me.
But Van didn’t seem like someone who’d take the word of a gossip as fact. He’d already said as much. Maybe he really would like to talk to me, hear the truth from my mouth.
That was a new feeling too. Most people when we met already thought they knew everything there was to know. Having a soulful conversation wasn’t necessary because there wasn’t anything I could tell them that they hadn’t already gleaned from another source or from plain old rumors.
Which made me realize that I knew next to nothing about Van. All these years, I’d built him up in my mind to be the cowboy Adonis, but in truth, I was clueless.
“C’mon.” He turned again and twisted the key, then shouldered his way into the cabin.
I stepped in behind him, and my childhood came rushing at me like a herd of wild horses, their hooves like thundering drums, pounding into my head the fact that I couldn’t go back to the place I’d been the happiest. I could return to the location, but I wasn’t the same girl.
My life would never be that same happy place again.
I could never be that happy again.
Gasping as I remembered my mama, I heard her singing softly to me after a day of hiking and swimming in a little lake we’d found tucked up in the mountains. I’d had a bath, and my hair was wet and dripping down my back as she brushed out the tangles.
“You okay?” Van asked when he noticed I’d stopped moving. He looked over his shoulder at me, but all I could do was nod.
My eyes wouldn’t stay in one place longer than a few seconds because one memory after another played on a loop in my mind. All these years I’d missed Mama and felt so detached from her love, and all I’d had to do was come here. She was everywhere here.
I hadn’t realized tears had begun to stream down my face until warm arms wrapped me up inside them. Van whispered, “What’s wrong?”
One touch from this man and all my secrets came rushing out.
“My mama…”
He tucked his face into my neck, and the stubble from his cheek scratched against my skin. I shivered and dropped the blanket still around my shoulders. It fell to the floor around our feet as he hugged me harder, trying to muscle the cold away.
“Do you… do you remember her?”
“Yeah,” he rumbled. “I actually think I do, now you mention her. Her name was Heather, right?”
I gasped, “Yes!” Just hearing her name come out of his mouth made me feel closer to him and Mama both.
A sharp exhale of breath escaped me when I realized I barely remembered her. The older I got, the busier, the further away she became, but now, it had all come slamming back at me.
Carefully, I eased out of his hold, and he slid his hands into his front pockets and watched me move slowly through the cabin. He removed his coat and shut the front door, and when I was in the kitchen, I walked the circumference of the dining table, trailing my fingers along the edge as I went.
“I can’t tell you how many times I sat at this table.”
Looking around the room, the memories kept coming. A lot of things had changed. The fridge and oven were different, the cabinets were newer and sleeker than the clunky old brown ones, but the table was the same. I remembered sitting at it like it was yesterday. The wood-paneled walls were the same.
The cabin felt the same. It even smelled the same, like pine and low evening fires, and I could hear my mama’s voice throughout, like a soft welcome.
I heard her softly humming Holly’s songs.
This cabin was the place Mama had discovered I could sing.
And when she’d asked to hear “Little Golden Love” over and over again, I’d known I was good.
She hadn’t had to say it. It was in the gleam in her eyes and the smiles on her lips when she heard my voice.
“Hey,” Van said, breaking through the thick wall of memory practically choking me.
My hand was around my throat, trying to control the flow, like if I squeezed hard enough, I could stop the memories or let more in.
I looked up and into his eyes. There was care in them, but something else too.
“Memories can be tricky things,” he said. “Careful.”
“Huh?” What did that mean?