4. Chapter 4
Krystal had forgotten how unsettling it could be to find herself the sole focus of Ceth O’Malley’s attention. Unsettling but addictive.
Now that they were sitting across a table from each other after ordering lunch, having Ceth’s dark, thoughtful eyes fixed on her nearly made her shiver. That is, she would have shivered if she couldn’t still feel the lingering warmth on her skin from where Ceth had hugged her earlier.
The intensity of her reaction to Ceth was startling, especially after so much time had passed.
Maybe it was because, unlike eight years ago, Krystal was willing to admit the truth of that reaction instead of trying to ignore it and convince herself she was straight.
But now, she could acknowledge she was attracted to Ceth—then and now.
But that didn’t mean she was harboring any wild expectations.
Although that first meeting in the hotel room had upended her earlier worries in the best possible way.
Ceth had clearly remembered her and didn’t seem to hold any animosity toward her.
She’d also seemed okay with sharing the room.
She’d even hugged Krystal and wanted to take time to get reacquainted!
Krystal wanted that too. So much. Even if there was nothing there between them besides old memories. Even if they couldn’t rekindle their friendship. If nothing else, she owed Ceth an enormous apology.
“So,” Ceth said, leaning back in her chair with her water glass in hand, “should we get the awkward part out of the way first?”
Krystal swallowed. Was Ceth ready for her apology too? “The awkward part?”
A small grin played on Ceth’s lips as she took a sip of water. Then she continued. “If we’re both working at FunDaze, that means I’m not doing anthropological research, and I’m guessing you aren’t a music teacher.”
The tension in Krystal’s body eased. Oh, she’s talking about our careers. “Unless you count showing my seventy-eight-year-old neighbor Wanda how to stream her favorite Beatles tunes, then no, I’m not a music teacher.”
Ceth chuckled and leaned closer to the table. “Getting her access to The Beatles? No, I’d say it makes you an angel.”
She dragged out angel in a way that was playful and certainly not flirty, but it made Krystal’s cheeks warm anyway.
She swallowed back a silly, adolescent giggle before it could escape and pressed on.
“After I finished my degree, I was a paid music leader at the church back home for a little while, but then I quit, and I haven’t done anything music related since then. ”
A thoughtful expression settled on Ceth’s face. “Music was your life when we were in school, and you’re so talented that it’s hard to imagine you not doing something related to that now, even as a hobby.”
Krystal’s stomach dropped. She’d heard variations of that from family and people from her old community. The conversation usually led to talks of wasted potential, squandered gifts, ingratitude, impulsive choices and other topics that she’d had to fight hard to avoid feeling guilty over.
But then Ceth surprised her by shrugging. “Of course, you had plenty of other talents too, so it makes sense you’d find a way to explore those as well. So what did you do after you left the church job?”
For a moment, Krystal didn’t respond. Ceth’s easy acceptance of Krystal’s story and acknowledgment that she had other talents was so refreshing.
She finally answered, “I worked in retail and eventually sales.” Krystal released a wry laugh.
“The displaced church leader to salesperson pipeline is actually pretty common. Maybe it’s just exchanging one type of product peddling for another. ”
Ceth’s eyebrows went up, but she raised her glass and dipped it toward Krystal. “Or maybe some of you happen to have a lot of charisma.”
“Oh, stop!” Krystal chuckled and gave a light slap to the hand Ceth had resting on the table.
But Ceth flipped her hand over and squeezed Krystal’s. “I was just making an observation.”
Krystal’s palm tingled at the contact, but she tried to ignore it. “I guess you’d know all about being a charismatic salesperson. Six years, right?”
“I doubt that has anything to do with charisma,” Ceth scoffed. “I just volunteer to deal with the prospects no one else wants.”
“And then turn them into clients, obviously! Otherwise, you wouldn’t still be here,” Krystal pointed out, leaning over the table in her enthusiasm.
The sudden movement tugged down on the neckline of her dress a smidge, and she could have sworn Ceth’s gaze dropped to her cleavage for a half second before she quickly looked away.
“Well, I guess I’ve done okay,” Ceth mumbled.
Krystal swallowed and refocused on the discussion. “So how did you get started in this?”
The corners of Ceth’s eyes crinkled in a smile.
“A certain insightful friend back in grad school suggested a time or five that I could’ve been pursuing academia and research from some misguided desire to appease my parents by following in their footsteps.
And, well, I guess I realized she was right. ”
Krystal’s face burned yet again. “Ugh. She sounds like a real busybody.”
Ceth laughed outright at that. “It was true, though! I mean…there were some awesome parts about college and grad school, especially the courses I got to take on Native American music and literature. But I wasn’t cut out to be an academic. And it’s not what I wanted.
“But then there I was with a History degree and a bunch of coursework in Anthropology that I had no intention of using, which believe it or not, wasn’t exactly conducive to finding a job that paid the bills.”
“No, I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“So I started taking what I could find until I realized I could actually make a go of it at FunDaze. And I really do like the company. Although lately, I’ve been thinking I’d like to move away from sales and do something else, maybe in marketing or operations at Farrington.”
“That’s a great idea. They’d be lucky to have you,” Krystal said.
Her chicken salad sandwich and Ceth’s cobb salad arrived then, and they were momentarily distracted. Ceth had been right about the food at Middle Waters being tasty. The chicken salad was creamy and fresh.
Without a second thought, they traded samples of their meals and assessed each other’s choices, just like they used to do. It all came back so naturally that it wasn’t hard to imagine falling back into a friendship.
But that might have been too easy. Krystal hadn’t earned that right yet.
After they’d eaten in silence for a few minutes, Krystal took a fortifying sip of her iced tea. “You said you only had coursework in Anthropology… does that mean you didn’t finish your Masters?”
Ceth set down her fork and wiped her mouth. “No. I quit before I finished my course credits. Plus, I hadn’t been getting anywhere with my thesis anyway.”
“That explains why I never saw you on campus anymore after you moved out.”
Moved out
The words seemed to vibrate over the table like a discordant piano chord.
Ceth’s dark eyes were fixed on her again, but this time, instead of shivering, she squirmed.
The angry, barbed words she’d hurled at Ceth that night, right before Ceth moved out echoed through her mind the way they had so many times these past eight years.
Finally, she drew in a breath and met Ceth’s eyes. “Ceth, I am so, so sorry for the things I said to you the night we argued. I was—”
She struggled to find the right descriptor.
“Callous, hateful, insensitive. There’s no excuse for it.
And, even though I don’t blame you at all for moving out after that and not talking to me again, part of me wished I could have seen you one more time.
Not to ask your forgiveness. I didn’t deserve that, but just to tell you loud and clear that all of those things I said were completely untrue.
I hope you knew that anyway, but I owed it to you to say that I didn’t believe any of those words. I was just lashing out.”
There’d been a lot more to Krystal’s words and emotional state that night than simple “lashing out” could explain, but she wasn’t prepared to go into that now. Or probably ever.
“If nothing else,” she continued, “I’m glad this little reunion gave me the chance to say all that now.”
Ceth’s face went still and inscrutable. She kept quiet for several minutes, long enough for Krystal’s palms to start sweating.
Had she been wrong to bring it up? Was this going to upset Ceth?
Krystal had basically destroyed their friendship that night.
Had she done the same thing to their reconnection?
Had she put her own need to clear the air and soothe her conscience over Ceth’s feelings?
She wanted to give into the growing panic in her chest and say something else, but she knew she shouldn’t. She’d dropped this on Ceth, and now all she could do was wait and let Ceth process.
At last, Ceth scooted closer to the table and squeezed Krystal’s hand again.
Her tone was low, gentle yet deliberate as she said, “Krystal, you’re very sweet to apologize, and I hate that you’ve let this bother you all these years.
Because—you know—I really do not even remember what you said back then.
I know that we argued, and I moved out of the apartment, but I was probably in a bad mood anyway because of my general dissatisfaction with school.
There’s no need for you to give it any more thought. ”
“Oh,” Krystal breathed out. “Oh, I see. Well, that’s good. I mean, I’m glad you feel that way.”
She was aware her voice sounded far from glad, but she was still reeling from Ceth’s words.
There’d been kindness and sincerity in her eyes, yet something about the careful, intentional way she’d spoken felt off.
But was it really her place to read into it?
If Ceth said she didn’t remember those words, then Krystal should believe her. And be grateful!
“Seriously, Ceth,” she spoke up again. “I really am glad. Thank you for telling me that. I won’t dredge it up anymore either. Suffice it to say, we did argue, and you were completely right.”
After one more press to Krystal’s hand, Ceth leaned back and raised an eyebrow. “Ooh, I was right! That’s always nice to hear, no matter how overdue. What was I right about?”
Krystal laughed softly. Wow. I guess she really doesn’t remember. “About my boyfriend, Elgin.”
“Oh, right. I wasn’t a fan of his, was I?”
“No, and with good reason,” Krystal admitted. “He wasn’t right for me, and he needed to work on himself. Like a lot.”
Ceth pushed her bowl of half-finished salad away and smirked. “Yeah, but knowing me, I probably wasn’t tactful about it.”
The server appeared and cleared their dishes then, and once he was gone, Ceth leaned her elbows on the table. Her eyes were once again fixed on Krystal. “I take it you’re not with Elgin now, then?”
Krystal looked up quickly from where she’d been fidgeting with her napkin. Was that hope in Ceth’s tone or was it her imagination? “No. We broke up a few weeks after that night. I actually ended up dating the friend he lived with for a little while.”
“Blaine?” Ceth asked. “I remember him. He seemed cool. He must be. I mean, isn’t it a violation of the bro code to date your buddy’s ex or something? I guess he realized you were worth it.”
Krystal willed her cheeks not to turn pink at that as she answered, “Their friendship was kind of going downhill anyway, I think. But, yeah, he was cool. We were together for a few months until I graduated, and he got a job offer in another country. We weren’t really going in the same direction, so we ended it. ”
This is it.
Ceth hadn’t asked for all the details of her short dating history, but it felt important to share this next part. “That’s when I moved back home. Then after I quit the church job, my best friend Miriam and I started dating.”
Ceth inhaled sharply and loudly enough for Krystal to notice. She looked up to see Ceth regarding her with wide eyes.
“Yeah, I’m bi,” she announced with what she hoped was a casual shrug. “It, uh, took me a while to figure it out, though.”
Now that she’d put it out there, she couldn’t stop watching Ceth for her reaction.
“Oh wow,” Ceth answered after a long pause. Small lines creased her forehead as she processed the news. “Thanks for sharing that with me. I’m guessing it wasn’t the easiest journey figuring that out with your community and everything.”
The quiet compassion in Ceth’s voice soothed Krystal. “No, but I probably had it easier being in denial all that time and then accepting it as an adult than those kids who realize they’re queer when they’re younger in churches and families like the one I grew up in.”
A soft, almost affectionate smile settled on Ceth’s face, but she didn’t say anything for a moment.
She seemed to be studying Krystal, more closely than anyone had in a long time.
Maybe it should have been unsettling, but somehow it wasn’t.
Finally, Ceth asked, “You and this Miriam… are you still together now?”
“No, that’s over now too.”
When Ceth didn’t have an answer for that, Krystal released a weak chuckle. “Annnd now you’ve heard about my chaotic love life, so what about you? Do you have a partner?”
She’d never admit it to anyone, not even Miri, although Miri probably would have predicted it anyway, but Krystal had checked Ceth’s hand for a wedding ring as soon as she’d been close enough to see.
But obviously, the lack of a ring didn’t mean Ceth wasn’t in a committed relationship. Her heartrate kicked up a notch.
“I haven’t had anything serious in a while,” Ceth answered.
“Guess we’re both unattached, then!” Krystal chirped. Then she almost slapped her own forehead. What was that? Unattached? Was she in a Jane Austen novel now? And why had she sounded so cheerful about it? Why’d she say anything at all? Ceth probably thought she was ridiculous now.
But instead of laughing at her, Ceth sent her a full, inviting grin that warmed her from the roots of her hair to her toes. “I guess we are.”