Chapter 1
I have a new roommate, and that roommate is my mother.
As I’m sure you’d expect, my feelings about this arrangement are mixed. I love my mother, of course. But while it’s one thing to have her living in the same house as me, it’s quite another to have her in the same room.
My life growing up here in Autumn Ridge was pretty good, honestly.
My older brother and I got along well; we still do.
My mom has never been the most maternal, and she’s a difficult woman, but I think she loves me in her own way.
And my dad? He was awesome. The best. He was the heart and soul of our family. The anchor.
But he passed away before I went to college, and we were left operating on a skeleton crew.
We muddled along, figured things out—or didn’t—and now here we find ourselves eight years later: all the Berkeleys back in town, in the same house where we lived with my dad.
The house where Nathan and I grew up, where I learned to ride a bike and went on my first date and cried over my first heartbreak.
Except because Nate stayed here when I went off to school and my mother moved to the city, now that we’re back we’ve had to adjust to the way Nate kept things.
Which means the master suite is now Nathan’s, his old room contains not beds but exercise equipment, and my old room is where my mother and I have been relegated.
My mother’s silky negligee is draped over the footboard of the bed across from mine. I simply cannot unsee such things. But I know there will be more to come.
I know this because I know my mother.
So, without further ado, I would like to present to you a sample list of advice I’ve received over the years from the esteemed Alvina Lucinda Berkeley:
“Never trust a man with a toupee, sweetheart. You don’t know what else he might be hiding.
” Alvina changed after my dad died. She’s currently divorced from Post-Dad Husband Three, with each wedding ring having been shinier and gaudier than the last. It is therefore my assumption that this particular snippet of advice comes from personal experience, although I will never ask, so the world may never know.
“A vodka a day keeps the gloomies away!” I actually don’t drink, so I had and still have no response for this. I can tell you, though, that Alvina’s favorite drinks are (in order) vodka cranberry, Chardonnay, and scotch on the rocks. I don’t pretend to understand.
And finally, one last, admittedly relevant piece of wisdom Alvina felt moved to bestow upon me, her darling daughter:
“Berkeleys are criers, dear. Always wear waterproof mascara.” This tip was imparted over the top of her ritzy drink menu in the cafe where she forced me to accompany her for brunch.
It also came as a surprise, because Alvina was still married to Post-Dad Husband Three at the time and was therefore not a Berkeley.
After telling me this, she told me to sit up straight and asked what I was planning to do about my acne flareup, which until that point I hadn’t even noticed.
I straightened up when my mother criticized my posture. I bought a box of pimple patches off of that evening before bed. But I let her advice about waterproof mascara go in one ear and out the other.
I should have listened.
The music in the Maple Bar blares loudly, surround sound that drills into my skull from all angles.
It’s tempting to bang my head against the smooth waxed wood of the bar in front of me, but I don’t, mostly because I already have a migraine.
It’s pounding behind my left eye, like someone is gouging out my eyeball with a plastic spoon—a thud, thud, thud in time to the music.
Instead I press my cheek to the cool surface and let my lids flutter closed, trying to mitigate the near-tears situation I have going on.
I’m not even sad or angry or scared. Just exhausted and overwhelmed by yet one more thing being added to my plate. If Alvina were here to see me slumped over like this, she’d be disappointed in me.
Alvina is always disappointed in me.
I inhale deeply as my mind flits and wanders, taking comfort in the familiar smell of maple that permeates the bar. Autumn Ridge is home to the Carver Maple Farm, so a lot of our small town specializes in maple products—including most of the cocktails here.
I don’t need my maple syrup in a cocktail, personally. I’d just drink it straight from the bottle, or maybe a thermos—me and a cozy sweater and a flannel blanket, curled up with my syrup and a book on the porch of the house I grew up in.
I’m joking. Mostly.
Another deep breath helps to steady me further, and I force myself to sit up.
I can take exactly—I glance at the neon-rimmed clock on the wall—ten minutes to feel gloomy.
Only ten. After that my mother will arrive, because an hour ago she asked me to meet her here, saying she wants me to “meet someone.”
In her language, that means she’s dating again.
The desire to bang my head against the bar top returns, and I groan.
“You’re too young to be making that expression, Miss Reese,” comes a voice to my left, and I look over to find Hal, the bartender who’s worked here as long as I can remember.
He’s in his sixties with sparkling eyes and a quick smile, the kind of man who can put anyone at ease.
He remembers everyone’s names and oftentimes their usual orders, too.
“Hi, Hal,” I say wearily.
“Come on, now,” he says as he rounds the bar. His wiry gray hair sticks up haphazardly, as messy as it’s always been. “What’s that frown for? You just came back. You’re not happy to see us?”
The words are good-natured, and I don’t want to rain on his parade, so I muster a smile of my own.
“Of course I am,” I say. “I’m just tired.”
It’s my standard excuse. My go-to when I don’t want to share my feelings but can’t quite hide them either.
“Well,” Hal says, shuffling around behind the bar, “let me know if I can make you anything. And in the meantime, tell me how long you’re here.”
“I’ll be in town until my lease starts in Burlington. About six months,” I clarify. Five months and twenty-two days, actually, but who’s counting? I go on, “I didn’t have anywhere to stay in between, so I came back.”
“And your mama, too.”
“And my mother too,” I agree as the image of the negligee draped over the bed flashes into my mind. I grimace and add, “I’m not sure how long she’ll be here. She was in Burlington close to me, but she wanted to come back here after her divorce.”
Hal grunts at this, and although he doesn’t say so, I know it’s a grunt of disapproval.
“Anyway, I’m not having anything right now”—I gesture to the menu written in cheerful handwriting over the bar—“but I’ll let you know if I change my mind!”
“Please do,” Hal says, smiling and accepting my subtle end to the conversation.
Even as he lumbers off and starts cleaning glasses, though, his grunt of disapproval echoes in my mind.
My mother has been back in Autumn Ridge for a month and a half—that’s it. I followed about a month later, when my lease was up.
How can she possibly have found another man already? Is there some sort of database she has access to? Is she on a dating site I don’t know about?
Would it kill her to be alone for a while?
I don’t know how to say these things to her. I’ve said them already, and nothing has gotten through. So when she arrives with some poor man in tow, I’ll probably try to look like I’m happy to be here. I am nothing short of elated, my expression will say. My smile will be warm and genuine.
I think I’m running out of those smiles, and I haven’t even been back in Autumn Ridge that long.
But it’s okay. Even though I don’t need this right now—even though it adds a layer of stress to my life—I’ll be fine.
I’ll be FINE.
I chant this to myself like a cheerleader on pep squad. I need the extra enthusiasm to get me through.
Little tendrils of panic rise like bile in my stomach, and I swallow before digging around in my jacket for my phone. It takes me three seconds to pull up Nate’s number and three more for him to answer.
“Hey,” my brother says when his voice filters down the line. It’s worth mentioning, by the way, that he rarely gets offered any parental advice. Maybe my mother is less skeptical about his ability to take care of himself.
“Hi.” I glance around the cheerfully lit bar in a very sketchy way, like I’m here doing something nefarious or embarrassing. Then I cup my hand around my mouth and speak, hoping Nathan can hear me. “Are you almost here?”
“Ah,” he says, a stilted, awkward sound that has me on alert immediately.
“Oh, no.” I sit straight up, my eyes widening. “No. Don’t you dare.”
“Look,” he says, that little traitor. “I’m not sure I’m going to make it.”
I’m already shaking my head when I respond. “No. You cannot do this to me. We’re meeting a new boyfriend, Nate! You’re going to make me go through that alone?”
“We don’t know it will be a new boyfriend—”
“Oh, please,” I cut him off. “Who else would it be?”
He doesn’t have an answer for that—because he knows I’m right.
“I’ll get there as soon as I can,” he finally says with a sigh. “But it’s going to be a bit. I have to restock this delivery and get it out of the way. Someone already tripped over one of these boxes.”
“Move the boxes to the back,” I say. “Restock later. I’ll help. I will!” I add when he starts to protest. “I totally will. So get your bum over here now. Now!”
And although he grumbles, it’s not an outright refusal I hear before he hangs up.
Good.
I set my phone down on the bar top and glance around the bar once more.
The warm wood is cozy and familiar, and although there aren’t a ton of windows, the late afternoon glow of crisp September light streams in enough to banish the darkness.
It’s a soothing atmosphere, overall, and I wish some of that peacefulness would rub off on me so that I could stop worrying so much.
Unfortunately, my mother’s romantic exploits are not the only thing on my mind. While she’s making new connections, I’m trying to avoid old ones.
Because I am now living in the same town as my ex.
And at some point, I will run into him.
It’s this, more than anything, that’s driving me slowly crazy. I can handle negligees and my mother’s faint snoring. I can even handle the memories of my dad that crop up everywhere I go.
But I swear every time I hear a door open, or every time I pass a car on Main, I find myself startling—waiting for the inevitable moment when I make eye contact with Dominic Harper. It’s going to happen.
Right? I think it’s unavoidable. I’m going to be here for six months. And while I’m not a strategist or a mathematician, the odds of hiding from him feel smallish to none-ish.
My past will come knocking, as pasts often do, and I will have to answer that door. I don’t know how I’ll handle it. I have a plan, of course, a mature one that involves closure and overdue apologies so that I can move the heck on.
But how I’ll actually respond when we come face to face is another matter. Will I be able to smile? Will I be tempted to ignore him? It’s been so long.
Later I’ll go over my detailed notes for dealing gracefully with my ex, notes that involve practicing reactions in front of the mirror and memorizing scripts. Right now I’m trying not to think about it.
I rally my inner pep squad again, grasping for the enthusiasm I need. People soldier through situations like this all the time! I can do the same. Everything will be okay!
Was Dominic my first love, my forever-isn’t-long-enough person?
Yes!
Did I ugly cry for a full year when we broke up?
Sure did!
And does remembering him still make me want to scream into a pillow?
You betcha!
But until my lease starts, I’ll focus on myself and my family. I can do that. I’ll work my online job and save some money, try to keep my mother out of trouble, and help Nathan at the hardware store that once belonged to our dad. I might be stressed, but I’m not alone.
Ever, in fact. I will not be alone ever over the next six months, due to the roommate situation. If I had somewhere else to go, I’d be there in a heartbeat. The house I grew up in somehow feels small now, even though it was perfect when my dad was alive. We all fit comfortably then.
Pictures of the four of us are still on the walls.
The wood mantel over the fireplace is still scratched where Nate threw his boomerang one Christmas morning.
But there are new tan lines on my mother’s fingers, ghosts of the husbands that have come and gone since my dad died, and they take up space in a way I can’t describe.
Like those men, those strangers, are waiting in the next room.
We’ve changed, my mother and my brother and me, and I’m not sure if it’s good, or bad, or just the way things are.
The jingle of a bell, footsteps, and then the scrape of a stool next to me pulls me from my thoughts, but I don’t turn to look at the newcomer. No one needs to see me fighting off tears. When a faint hint of crisp cologne finds me, though, accompanied by the heat of someone leaning closer, I sigh.
“I’m not interested, but thank you,” I say.
A soft chuckle answers me. “You’ve deeply misread this situation.”
My entire body freezes. More than just my body—the bar around me, the country music above, my thoughts. Everything except my heart and the adrenaline that starts shooting through my veins.
After that eternal frozen moment, things happen in slow motion.
Ice slips down my throat and into my stomach at that voice, so familiar and yet so foreign. I don’t even have a chance to prepare myself. I don’t have a minute to splash water on my face or give myself a pep talk, much less prepare a script or practice my perfect indifferent expression.
My brain is screaming at me to run away, but my body won’t listen. All I can do is turn slowly to look at him.
His appearance is rougher than it used to be; that’s what strikes me first. He’s scruffier, messier, and the hidden softness I remember is absent.
Even so…I know that face. The glittering green eyes against the sun-weathered skin, the baseball cap with frayed edges, the sharp jaw and the amused smile.
Dominic Harper.
The man I once proposed to.