Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
Lanie
I added another coat of mascara to my lashes and eased back from the mirror. I looked how I felt—tired and flustered.
Sleep had proven elusive. Memories of Mark had not.
Eliza and Julian’s wedding would take me back to Maplebridge. What would that mean for Mark and me? Was our friendship still there, waiting to be revived?
To see Mark again, I had rearranged my schedule. The Williams family might have agreed to move their piano another day, but I hated to disappoint anyone. A few phone calls later, and one of the college students who worked for my family was able to help earlier.
Of course, it had taken longer than expected, and now I was running late.
The buzzer rang, and I groaned. Dammit. My hair was still damp.
I rushed to the intercom and pressed it. “Come on up,” I said, trying to keep my voice breezy.
When I opened the door, Mark was there, a faint crease between his brows. He was dressed in khaki pants, a dress shirt, and a pullover. His polished appearance was still something I wasn’t used to.
But he looked good.
“Sorry, I’m almost ready.” I ran a hand through my damp hair. “I’ll just be two minutes.”
He stepped inside, his movements measured as he glanced around the space.
I gestured toward the couch. “Make yourself comfortable.” Then I retreated to the bathroom.
As I dried my hair, I heard the faint creak of floorboards—he was moving around. Probably checking out my place, the way I would if I found myself at his apartment.
We weren’t strangers, so I wasn’t worried he’d take anything... but I felt exposed in a way I hadn’t expected.
When I emerged, Mark was standing by the mantel, setting down a photo he had been holding. It was one of me, my mother, and my grandfather when we first arrived in Portsmouth. All of us were smiling our widest, bravest smiles.
His gaze swept over the other photos in mismatched frames. There weren’t many—mostly me and my grandfather.
There was also one of Eliza and Julian, laughing mid-toast at my twenty-fifth birthday party. They had come to Portsmouth to celebrate with me. I had photobombed them with a silly numbered crown on my head, and the champagne spilling from my glass had been caught mid-air—just before it landed on Julian.
“I’m ready,” I said cheerfully.
Mark didn’t turn around. His voice was quiet but even. “No pictures of me.”
A beat passed.
“Or anyone from Maplebridge.”
Trying to keep the mood light, I said, “Except for Eliza and Julian.”
“Right,” he said, taking another look at the photo of me with them. “So, you’ve kept in touch with some people.”
I swallowed hard. If we were going to have this conversation, maybe it was best to have it now—before we pretended to enjoy our day together.
“Mark, I’m sorry. I didn’t handle moving away well. It was good for my mother, and because of that, it was important to me and my grandfather. But I wasn’t happy about the move.”
He made a noncommittal sound, the kind a doctor might when looking over paperwork.
“You don’t have to apologize. Not everyone is meant to stay.”
When he turned to me, his expression was unreadable—though something flickered behind his eyes.
Hurt? Annoyance?
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t care about you,” I said.
His eyes went cold as stone, and I couldn’t have felt like a lower human being.
I could have told him back then; I had been insecure—more afraid of losing my mother than I was of losing him—but I didn’t think it would make either of us feel better.
I had already apologized.
What more could I do?
Then I remembered something stashed in the back of my closet.
Maybe it would prove to him that, despite everything, I had never stopped caring.
I sprinted off, retrieved it, then returned and held it out. “Do you remember this?” I asked, opening the box to reveal the sleek silver spectrometer.
His brow furrowed as he picked it up, turning it over slowly. “Should I?”
His question hit harder than it should have, stealing the breath from my lungs.
I whipped the device out of his hands.
He had either said that deliberately to hurt me—or because he had genuinely forgotten he had given it to me.
“I guess not.” A profound sadness settled over me. “Why are you here, Mark?”
He glanced at the device in my hand. “It’s a spectrometer,” he said.
And then, as if he were figuring it out rather than remembering, he added, “Because I enjoy ghost hunting.”
“Yes.” I placed it back in the box and set it on the table beside the couch. “You gave it to me before I left.”
He nodded. I couldn’t tell if it meant he remembered or if he simply wasn’t going to dispute my claim.
He tipped his head to one side, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of something beyond disdain.
“You did care for me.”
Just above a whisper, I said, “Of course I did.”
He inhaled sharply and muttered, “Just not enough.”
I started to reach for him, then let my hand drop. “So, you did come to Portsmouth for me?”
“Does it matter?” he snarled. “Does any of it? Tell me—if you cared so much, why did you never come back?”
The words hit like a slap, the intensity of his gaze burning straight through me. My breath caught as I tried to understand where the anger was coming from.
He was right—I hadn’t gone back to Maplebridge, hadn’t reached out. But his question felt deeper, like he was asking something far bigger than what I had the answer to.
“I—” My throat tightened, and I wrapped my arms around myself. “Mark, I—”
“No.” His voice was low but sharp enough to cut me off. His jaw clenched, hands flexing at his sides as if trying to rein himself in.
For a moment, he looked away, his gaze dropping to the box on the table.
“I shouldn’t have come.”
The storm in his eyes calmed, just enough for me to glimpse something underneath all that anger. Sadness. Hurt. A flicker of something I didn’t understand.
“Why did you?” I asked hesitantly, trying to find my footing in the emotional chaos swirling between us. Despite how badly the conversation was going, I desperately wanted to hear him say I was the reason he’d come.
He barked out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. “Because drunk me accepted a dare sober me would’ve walked away from.”
“A dare to do what?” I whispered, the words hollow on my tongue. “Come see me?”
His lips twisted into a self-deprecating smile, one that didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah. It wasn’t my finest decision.”
“I don’t understand.” I stepped back, arms tightening around myself, a feeling washing over me I hadn’t experienced since high school. I had to remind myself—I was no longer invisible, and he was no longer Mr. Popularity. “Why would anyone dare you to come see me?” I had never imagined Mark could look at me with such contempt.
“Because people are stupid, and I lost any right to consider myself better than them when I agreed to this.”
“You should go.” My voice wavered, but I forced the next words out, steel in my tone. “And maybe go a little easier on the alcohol.”
“That much is clear,” he muttered before turning and walking out of my apartment.
A dare?
What the fuck?
Who would even care if he saw me again?
A friend?
A lover?
My mouth fell open. Eliza? No. She wouldn’t have set us up to fail like that.
It had to be someone close enough to him to know he could never turn down a dare.
I glared at the box on the table beside the couch. I should have thrown it away a long time ago. What a fool I’d been, hanging onto it, part of me hoping that one day I could return to Maplebridge and... what? Be his friend again? Maybe more if he was still single?
My hands fisted at my sides, and I fought back angry tears.
Well, that dream is dead.
I almost called Eliza to tell her there was no way I could be civil around this version of Mark.
I didn’t. I wasn’t eighteen anymore. My days of letting anyone make me feel inferior were over. Mark had grown up to be a douche, but I’d handle him just as I’d learned to handle unsavory clients over the years—with cool indifference.
I wouldn’t allow him to ruin Eliza’s wedding.
Or my ability to enjoy it.