Chapter 10
Opinion: When someone says, “It’s nothing to worry about,” start worrying.
—Delilah Dune, opinion writer
L yla stared at the missed call on her phone. Earlier, she’d been so busy packing up her bedroom with Allison’s help that she hadn’t heard her mom calling. Now that Allison had gone home, Lyla tapped the screen to pull up her voicemail and held her cell phone to her ear, concern mounting as she listened.
“Lyla, your father and I made a little detour to the hospital here in Florida. Don’t worry though. The doctors say your father will be back on his feet in no time. We’ll just need to modify his diet a bit. It’s absolutely nothing to worry about. Okay, I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
The message was vague, so Lyla tried to call her mom back. The call went straight to voicemail. Her parents hadn’t even gotten out of the country yet, and her dad was already in the hospital? That wasn’t a good sign. Her parents had missed out on their last attempt at a vacation. This one needed to pan out.
The doorbell rang. Allison had just left thirty minutes ago, so the only other person it might be was Travis. Lyla’s heart skipped at the possibility. Sure enough, when she opened the door, Travis was standing there in a pair of ripped jeans and a black T-shirt. Teenaged Lyla would have lost her mind at the sight of the man standing there. Adult Lyla resisted feeling anything. The last thing she needed were messy feelings for a self-proclaimed nomadic guy who wasn’t good at romantic relationships.
Opinion: If you don’t guard your heart, you risk having it stolen.
“Are you going to invite me in or just stare at me?” Travis’s dimples deepened as he grinned. Seeing those two pock marks form was an addictive feeling, like the first sip of coffee in the morning. Or the first reader comment on an article.
Lyla realized that she’d been staring at him, practically drooling. There was no question that she was attracted to Travis, but she couldn’t act on her feelings. She wouldn’t. “What are you doing here?”
He held up a pizza box. “Hungry?”
“I’ve worked all day cleaning out my childhood bedroom. I’m starving.”
“That’s good news. So, uh, can I come in?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Lyla stepped back and allowed him to walk past her. “I guess you just took me by surprise. I didn’t know you were coming.”
He turned to look at her. “Honestly, neither did I.”
“So, I’m an impulse dinner date?”
He grinned. “Is it an impulse if I’ve been thinking about sharing a meal with you all day?”
Her heart bubbled up into her throat. “If that’s true, why didn’t you just text me?”
“Because I had odd jobs all over town, and I kind of thought I’d be too tired at dinner time. Which I am. But not tired enough to resist sharing pizza with you.”
“Aw.” Lyla tilted her head and pressed a hand to her chest. “With that amount of untapped charm, I am truly shocked that you can’t hold down a relationship.”
“That’s because you haven’t seen what I like on my pizzas. That might change your mind.”
Lyla’s curiosity was piqued. She seemed to recall that Travis had always had strange taste buds. His adventurous side definitely showed when it came to food. “You know I don’t have furniture, right? We’ll have to eat on the floor.” She turned to look over her shoulder. “Maybe we can use one of these boxes as a makeshift table.”
“Perfect. And after dinner, we can look at those unchecked items on our summer bucket list. We need to get a jump on it, since I’m leaving soon.”
Reality check. His pending exit was all the reason she needed to resist his good looks and charm. Grabbing a roll of paper towels, Lyla pushed a box into the center of the room to serve as their table. “You’re heading out of town after Bailey’s wedding?”
“That’s the plan.” He sat on the floor and pointed at her across the pizza box. “You’re still coming with me to the wedding, right?”
Lyla’s mouth dropped open. “I never officially said yes, you know.”
“You did. I’m pretty sure you agreed.”
She shook her head slightly. “When?”
“The other day. I offered to help you sell your parents’ place, and you agreed to be my date to Echo Cove’s wedding of the summer.”
“I never agreed to be your date,” she protested. She would surely remember that agreement.
“But you didn’t turn me down when I asked, so I took that to mean you wanted to say yes. The Lyla of old had no problem saying no when she wanted to.”
She was older, but she wasn’t the “Lyla of old.” Evidently, she did have difficulty saying no to things she didn’t want to do. For example, opinion column subjects that Bob insisted on. When her career and paycheck were on the line, “no” wasn’t as easy to say.
“I didn’t pack anything appropriate to wear to a wedding,” she said.
Travis pointed at her. “That’s still not a no. And it’s a flimsy excuse, if you ask me.”
Opinion: No one really loves weddings. Least of all recently dumped single women.
“I could just add it to our bucket list,” he threatened, his tone teasing. “Then you’d have to go. Or bad luck forever.”
Lyla should say no. Being Travis’s date was perhaps a little too risky. Being newly dumped and single, some might say she was vulnerable. Neither she or Travis were staying in town, and she was on the brink of total self-destruction, at least as far as her career went. “I still don’t believe in luck,” she said as her mind raced. Say no. Say no. “Fine, I’ll go. If I remember correctly, you’re a pretty great dancer.”
He pulled the first slice of pizza out of the pie and handed to her. “That’s still true.”
She hadn’t noticed the pizza’s toppings until it was in her hand. “What is this?”
His laughter filled the room. The sound awakened dormant parts of her that had been asleep since long before her ex. “The best thing you’ll ever put in your mouth.” There was a mischievous spark in his eyes that awakened more parts.
She gave him a questioning look, but she was currently speechless.
“Pickles and bacon,” he finally said.
She held the slice of pizza farther away from her face. “On a pizza? Are you pregnant?”
“It’s so good, Ly. You have to try it. It’s amazing, I promise.” He held up a hand and reached inside his front pocket, pulling out a pen. Then he got up and walked over to the kitchen counter to grab the old bucket list from where it was laying.
She watched as he wrote something on the paper. “What are you doing?”
“Adding it to our bucket list. Try pickle-bacon pizza.” He finished writing and looked up. “There. Now you have to try it.”
She scrunched her nose. “In case you’ve forgotten, I don’t even like pickles.”
“But you lo-o-ove bacon,” he teased, stretching out the L-word. “Almost as much as you lo-o-ove me.”
He was only joking. She knew he didn’t know how much she’d loved him back in the day. “Fine.” She lifted the slice of pizza back to her mouth, flicked a look in his direction, and nibbled timidly.
“Well?” He watched her intently. “What do you think?”
She chewed, holding him in suspense. The taste was a weird blend of bitter and sweet flavors and at first, she honestly couldn’t tell if she loved it or hated it. After she had swallowed and assessed the aftertaste, she offered a slight smile.
Travis pointed a finger in her direction. “Ah-ha. You like it!”
“I actually do kind of like it,” she admitted, laughing quietly.
Travis grabbed a slice for himself. “That makes me so happy.” He took his own bite, chewing and talking at the same time. “I’ve had dates who’ve turned their noses up without even trying it. That’s how I knew they weren’t right for me.”
Lyla looked at him in disbelief. “Because they wouldn’t try pickle-bacon pizza?”
“No, because they were too closed-minded to even consider something different. Life should be fun. It should be full of new and exciting things. Adventure.”
Lyla let that thought sink in. “I can’t remember the last time I tried something new or did something exciting. I think I’ve gotten boring in my late twenties.”
Travis narrowed his eyes. “Even if you refused to try the pickle-bacon pizza and ate the same meal every night for dinner, you could never be boring to me, Ly.”
She stared at him for a moment. There was something about hearing his opinion toward her that spread warmness from her head to her toes. “You just told me you have stopped dating women who refused your crazy pizza.”
He lifted a shoulder while shaking his head. “Not solely for that reason. The pizza thing just served as a red flag. Other red flags existed too.”
“Such as?”
“Such as saying we’d go out at seven and not being ready until seven forty-five,” he said. “Or ordering a glass of wine and getting completely tipsy off it.”
She pushed her neck forward. “That’s a red flag?”
“Are you implying I have unrealistic expectations?” He seemed to be baiting her.
She tilted her head. “If you’re asking for my honest opinion, I think you’re looking for reasons not to be in a relationship with someone.”
He took a bite of his pizza, chewing as his eyes danced. “Maybe so. I’ve always believed that when you know, you know. And if I meet someone and I don’t know, why would I waste either of our time?”
Maybe that’s what he told himself, but she knew Travis. A person couldn’t help but have trust issues when their own father couldn’t be trusted with their feelings. “I haven’t dated anyone since my breakup. Three months ago.”
“Do you want to date?” Travis asked.
She blinked across the pizza box. “Date you?”
His eyes went wide. “No, that’s not what I meant. I meant are you ready to date anyone again? Three months of being single isn’t that long.”
“Well, the relationship was over long before I caught Joe cheating.” Lyla picked off a piece of pickle on her pizza. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. “I just . . . I don’t want to spend my life alone, you know?”
“That won’t happen, Ly. You have friends.”
She held up a finger. “I have one friend. Allison.”
“You also have me,” he said quietly.
She’d misunderstood him a moment earlier. She didn’t want to read into this statement too. “Even after I ghosted you for ten years? What’s to say I won’t do that again after this house is sold? History tends to repeat itself, you know? That’s technically an opinion, but it should be a fact,” she said. She wasn’t sure why she was trying to push him away. Perhaps it was a defense mechanism, a knee-jerk response to her fear—because some part of her still got scared at the way he made her feel.
Travis lowered his half-eaten slice of pizza. “History only repeats if you didn’t learn the lesson the first go-round.”
“What lesson?” she finally asked. “What were we supposed to learn?”
“I don’t know. Follow your heart. Chase your dreams. Face your fears.” He bit into another slice of pizza, talking as he chewed. “In your case, I think it’s the last one. Fear has always been your stumbling block.”
She was tempted to take offense. “You know me so well.” Leaning over the pizza box, she reached up to swipe a dab of sauce from his cheek, the touch surprising her as much as it seemed to surprise him. “For you, it’s the first,” she said, pulling her hand back away.
“You think I don’t follow my heart?” he asked, amused by the suggestion. “For your information, I follow it up and down the Eastern seaboard.”
“Unh-uh.” She shook her head. “I think you’re following your mind and keeping your feelings bottled up in a time capsule of its own.”
“Poetic.” He still looked amused. “Delilah isn’t nearly as poetic in her columns.” He was deflecting, turning the attention back on Lyla. Even after all these years, she did know him well enough to see through his facade.
“The pizza is good,” she said, allowing him to deflect.
“Yeah? I knew you’d like it. I fully expect an opinion column stating your allegiance to pickle-bacon pizza.”
There was another smudge of sauce on his cheek, but she didn’t wipe it away this time. “Do you want me to lose my column completely?” She shook her head. “Sorry, but my next column needs a better hook than pickles and bacon on pizza.” And she needed that hook soon.
“Or you could just write that novel you always wanted to write.”
Lyla rolled her eyes.
“Or obituaries. If I recall, you wrote a pretty good one for Sonny the devil-dog.”
Lyla nearly choked on her bite of pizza. After pounding her own chest, she left her hand there to rest over her heart. “You remember that?” After Sonny had been hit by a car, Lyla had penned a full essay on the dog’s qualities, not wanting him to be forgotten. She was pretty sure the obituary was in the 7-Up bottle time capsule.
“Of course. I’ve always been a big fan of everything you wrote.”
She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head, unsure whether he was teasing.
Travis cleared his throat and lowered his slice of pizza. “Sonny, you were a good dog,” he said, and then proceeded to recite the opening of her obituary for the dog, word for word.
Lyla’s eyes welled as she listened.
“I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” She shook her head, waiting for the emotion to pass.
“I know Sonny’s death hit you hard. I never understood why, because he was the devil-dog.”
Lyla swiped a finger under her eye and sniffled, feeling silly. “Sonny only chased us because he thought we weren’t supposed to be on the road. When we were growing up, we weren’t allowed to be on the road. Anytime we headed in that direction, he darted in front of us and chased us back into the yard.”
Travis’s brow line lowered. “I didn’t know that.”
“My mom told me after Sonny’s accident. He thought it was his job to protect the neighborhood kids.” It was the day after the biggest hurricane that had ever hit the town of Echo Cove. Everyone was out assessing the damage after the storm. “He chased Kevin off the road that day to keep him from being hit by a car.”
Travis put down the slice of pizza in his hand. “Wow. I kind of always thought he was a bad dog.”
“I always knew he wasn’t.” Just like when Lyla had sat through all those church sermons of Pastor Painter’s. She’d known the truth. “He was a good dog, and that’s an opinion I’ll pledge my allegiance to.”
The rain was coming down this summer in record amounts, and the yard was a soggy mess for this afternoon’s real estate showing.
Lyla still didn’t have a coffeepot, so she pulled on her rain jacket and boots and left the house. She didn’t feel like running into anyone she might know, so instead of going into town, she opted to drive straight to Allison’s home. She pulled in to the driveway and ran through the downpour to Allison’s front porch.
Lyla tapped the doorbell and huddled under the hood of her jacket, trying not to let the slanted rain get in her eyes.
After a long minute, Allison opened the door. “Oh. Lyla. Um . . . What are you doing here?”
“Hoping to have a morning cup of coffee with you. Am I being presumptive?” Lyla asked, curling deeper into her jacket. The slanted rain was coming after her, and she didn’t want to get soaked.
Allison shook her head, but she didn’t step aside to allow Lyla in out of the rain either. “It’s just, well . . . I have company this morning,” she said, lowering her voice and chewing on her lower lip.
“Company? This early?” It was only 7:00 a.m. Who stopped by at this time of day? Okay, Lyla did, but that was because early hours demanded coffee, and Allison had told Lyla to come over anytime.
“My company kind of stayed overnight.” Allison’s cheeks flushed at the admission and she glanced over her shoulder again.
“Oh . . . Ohhhh. ” Lyla’s face erupted into a widespread smile. “Wow. That’s great, Allison. I didn’t realize you were dating anyone.”
“I’m not.” Allison shook her head quickly. “We just—We get together some of the time when we’re feeling lonely.”
Lyla was suddenly very curious about who the mystery person was. “Do I know him? Or her?”
Allison offered a sheepish look. “Yes, but I’d rather not say who it is. And he’s still asleep. I’m sorry not to invite you in, but . . .” She grimaced as her eyes cast Lyla an apologetic look.
“Of course. Right. I should have texted or called.” Lyla took a retreating step away from the door, still keeping under the awning. “I’ll just go to Bean Time. And tomorrow morning you’ll fill me in on this mystery man.”
“Mm-hmm,” Allison said, noncommittally, glancing nervously behind her once more.
“Okay. Back to bed you go. Bye.” Lyla pulled the hood of her rain jacket further over her head and took the porch steps two at a time before running back into the downpour. When she got inside her car again, she pondered why there was no vehicle in the driveway to tip her off that someone had stayed over. Lyla couldn’t blame Allison for wanting to keep this guy on the down-low. Echo Cove was small and people liked to talk.
Lyla reversed out of the driveway and drove toward Bean Time. She wanted Bernie to like her and she thought they were on that path. The past was a long time ago, after all, and a grudge over a sloppy joe couldn’t last forever.
When Lyla walked through the coffee shop’s front entrance, Bernie’s husband was at the counter again.
“She’s not in this morning,” Eric told Lyla. “Bernadette spent a good portion of the night sitting with a neighbor. Our neighbor lost their dog,” he explained with a regretful sigh. Then he turned and started preparing a coffee for Lyla without asking her what she wanted. Lyla watched as he made her drink the exact way she’d ordered it last time.
“That’s sweet of Bernie,” Lyla said.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Bernadette,” he corrected.
“Right, sorry.” Lyla drummed her fingers on the counter. “Why doesn’t she go by Bernie anymore?”
Eric turned back and slid the coffee across the counter toward Lyla. “Bernadette doesn’t like who she was when she was younger. Long before I knew her. But she’s proud of who she is now.”
The opposite was true for Lyla. “She should be proud.” Lyla wrapped her fingers around the warm cup. “Although, I liked her back then too.”
Eric gave Lyla a funny look. “Not the way I hear it.”
Lyla released a small breath. “The sloppy joe thing was an accident, okay? When is she going to let that go?”
Eric dismissed that comment with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, the sloppy joe thing was bad, but that was a long time ago.”
Lyla tilted her head. “Isn’t that why she hates me? Is there something else?”
Eric lifted his hands in surrender. “You should talk to her. I don’t want to misspeak.”
Lyla wanted to press him, but she wasn’t the type of person to press when someone had requested to be left out of something. “How much do I owe you for the coffee?”
Eric shook his head. “Bernadette said all of your drinks are on the house from now on.” He lowered his hands to his sides. “So, you must be doing something to melt off those walls of ice.”
Becoming Bernadette’s friend felt like success right now. Lyla glanced at the glass case beside her. “What does Ms. Hadley get when she comes here?”
“Evette Hadley?” He turned his attention to the glass case. “She likes raspberry-filled bear claws.”
“Okay, then, can I get two of those?” Lyla asked. “Not on the house. I’m paying.”
“Sure thing.” Eric wrapped up two bear claws and swiped Lyla’s debit card. “You’re going to be Ms. Hadley’s favorite person if you bring these over.”
Lyla placed her card back in her wallet and took the bag of treats for her neighbor. She wasn’t sure about favorite but maybe she would no longer by Ms. Hadley’s least favorite anymore. “Thank you. Tell Bernadette I said hello.”
“Sure thing.”
Turning, Lyla headed back out of the shop, ducking her head again, just in case anyone recognized her. She didn’t have time to chat because this afternoon was the first showing for her parents’ home.
She opened her car door and slid behind the steering wheel. Then she exhaled and allowed herself to take her first sip of the beverage that Eric had made her. She was about to put her car in reverse when an email alert came through on her phone. She glanced at her screen and sighed. It was from her editor, Bob. He wanted to know where next week’s opinion article was. All she had at this moment were a few bad ideas, which would probably be the final nails in her column’s coffin.
Her opinions were duds these days. She should just start looking for a new job now. Maybe Bernadette and Eric were hiring.
July 23
Dear Diary,
I’m still upset about the letter from the editor. I haven’t let anyone else read my story. Not even Travis. He knows I’m devastated about something, but I can’t bring myself to show him the awful things that awful editor told me. I’m so embarrassed. That editor said my writing was horrible. I don’t think I’ll ever write another story—ever. I’ve been crying all afternoon. I can’t stop.
So, Travis brought me a pizza tonight, trying to cheer me up. It has pickle on it. Who eats pickle on their pizza? I guess Travis does and now I do too. I’m eating my feelings with pickle toppings.
Anyway, Diary, if several days go by and you haven’t heard from me, you’ll know it’s because I drowned in my own tears. Or from bad pizza. One or the other.
Lyla