Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
Lainey
One Day Ago
I lifted a few strands of Penelope’s hair and twirled it around my finger. In the thirty-three years I’d been alive, my hair color had changed many times. The palate cleanser was the light brown with golden highlights that I’d been born with, returning to it between my adventurous attempts of red and black and even platinum blonde. But Pen’s color never changed. Neither did her style. Straight, the frizz controlled with loose beach waves that hung low down her back.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” she asked.
I smiled, looking down. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit. I know when nothing is bothering you, and I know when something is bothering you, and I know when everything is bothering you. In this case, it’s something.” She shook my shoulder, causing me to glance back up. “Spill it.” She gazed toward the kitchen. “Or I’ll just get the bottle of vodka that’s in the freezer, and that’ll get you to confess it all.”
I grabbed the pillow that was behind me on the couch and tossed it at her. She caught the fluffy cream-colored square and held it to her chest, wrapping her arms over it.
“Vodka isn’t the answer to everything,” I said.
“It isn’t?”
“Okay, you might have a point there.”
She stretched an arm across the back of the couch. “This something wouldn’t have anything to do with the date you went on last night, would it?”
“What makes you think that?” I tried to pull my brows out of their furrow.
“When I asked earlier if you had a good time, you mumbled something incoherent and walked into the bathroom and shut the door. If you’d had a good time on the date, I would have expected more. A smile. Some excitement. Anything.”
“It sucked.”
She sighed. “Finally, I’m getting somewhere. Why was it so bad?”
“There was nothing there. No chemistry. No spark—if that’s what it’s called.”
I glanced toward the dark hallway that separated the bedrooms from the living room, remembering how I’d stood there for a few minutes last night before leaving my apartment for the date, wondering if I should just cancel. I’d had no desire to meet up with the man who’d asked me out at my gym a few days before. Maybe that was half my problem. I was dating because I was supposed to, not because I wanted to.
She lifted her arms, dancing as though there were music playing. In Pen’s head, music constantly played. After a few beats, she stilled and said, “Your first date since you’ve been back in LA. That’s kind of a big deal.”
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because LA reminds you of a certain someone, which is the reason you left the States in the first place.”
A wave of confusion came across me. I couldn’t place where it had come from or what it meant. I just knew something suddenly didn’t feel right.
“I didn’t leave because of Rhett— fuck .”
“The name you never mention.” She rubbed her hands together. “Oh, this is about to get good.”
I got up and walked into the kitchen, grabbing the bottle of vodka from the freezer and two glasses from the cabinet, and returned to the living room. I poured some into each cup and handed one to Pen. I didn’t clink them together and do a cheers. I just brought the glass right up to my mouth and took a sip.
Rhett.
I waited to feel better about that name.
For the tightness to break free from my chest and my breathing to return to normal.
I downed the rest of the vodka and poured myself some more.
Even that didn’t help.
Pen eyed me. “You all right there, sister?”
“Yep.”
“Let’s talk about Rhett.”
I glared at her from the next couch cushion. “Let’s not.”
“Have you seen him since you’ve been back?”
I nodded. “Once. By accident.” The memory of that random meetup felt odd. The place, the timing, the feeling that had come over me when I found Rhett asleep. I wouldn’t get into that. I wasn’t sure why; it just felt like something I shouldn’t talk about.
At least with my sister.
“And?” She bent her arm, resting her elbow on one of the pillows, her hand pressed against her cheek.
We were identical, yet Pen had gotten the better genes and, like my father, never aged. No gray hair. No wrinkles. I’d just gotten my first Botox treatment since returning to California, and my forehead still wasn’t as smooth as hers.
“There is no and , Pen. We saw each other, we parted ways. End of story.”
“Why does it need to be the end?”
My eyes narrowed, the confusion building within me. “Why does it feel strange, hearing those words come from your mouth?”
She smiled. “I don’t know. Call me a hopeless romantic?”
I laughed. “You’re hardly one of those.”
“Then, let’s say, I’m rooting for the guy.”
“You’re … what ?”
She shrugged. “Call me crazy.”
I laughed. “Hands down, the craziest thing you’ve ever said.” She went to voice something else, and I put my hand on her arm. “Some things are irreparable, and that’s okay. Not everyone is meant to be together. And just because I was in love in the past doesn’t mean I won’t find it in the future.”
“Have you found it?”
I rubbed my other hand over the couch. Its newness still making the fabric a little stiff, but the softness was there. So was the slickness of my skin that this conversation was creating. “No.”
“Exactly.”
“But I haven’t been looking.”
“But you kinda were during all those years abroad. Spain, Switzerland, until you settled in London.”
Those years. Fifteen of them. When I thought back, they’d gone by so quickly. The sights I’d seen. The friends I’d met along the way. A job that allowed me to work remotely, so it didn’t matter if I was backpacking through Asia or standing outside the pyramids of Egypt; I could still support myself.
Until nothing was keeping me there. Until my fingers were tired of booking travel and my feet were exhausted from running. The walls of my flat in London had felt like they were closing in.
No one was my reason for staying.
“Regardless …” I exhaled. “I’m back. Probably for good. And who knows? Maybe I’ll find love at Whole Foods or something.”
“You’ll be reaching for a cheese sample, and so will he. Your fingers will briefly touch, and you’ll pull yours back first—with a smile, of course. You’ll live happily ever after.”
“Except the one thing I did get while I was in Europe was a dairy allergy.” I tilted my head while I took in her face. “I didn’t tell you?”
She slowly looked away from me and moved her legs out from beneath her, extending them on the ottoman, her bare feet crossing. “Love is what’s missing from your life.”
“There are a lot of things missing.”
“Like?”
I held her hand tighter. “Like?—”
I drew in a gasp, my entire body tensing right before my eyes flicked open.
They were closed?
While the light from the lamp beside me shone in my face, I quickly glanced around the room. The art on the walls, the pictures on top of the bookcase, the plants in the corner, a TV that I’d never even turned on.
My apartment in West Hollywood.
The back of my head was snuggled into a fluffy cream-colored square pillow, and I was cuddled into the couch.
I’d fallen asleep. It had all been a dream.
But there was a bottle of vodka on the tray that sat on the ottoman. There were two glasses next to it; one was full … the other was empty.