Chapter Fourteen
Bitch, I never see you anymore.
The text from Stevie was the third one in as many days, and Rowan immediately felt guilty. Stevie wasn’t wrong, and it was time for Rowan to make more of an effort.
Got time for lunch today?
Stevie’s reply came back immediately and with an enthusiasm that included about a dozen celebratory emojis, which warmed Rowan’s heart.
It was nice to be wanted. They made plans to meet at their favorite taco truck, which happened to be near Stevie’s client for that day.
Rowan got there first and was placing her order just as Stevie’s truck pulled into the lot.
They hugged, and Stevie seemed to hold on a little extra.
She ordered and they adjourned to a little table to wait.
September had been warm and lovely, as if it wasn’t quite ready to let go of summer.
But October was not playing. The air had a brisk, crisp feel to it.
Not cold, but colder than the warm breezes of last month, and one hundred percent signaling that a change was coming.
The leaves were releasing their green and embracing the yellows, reds, and oranges of the season.
“What’s new?” Stevie asked, then took a bite of her taco. “What have you been up to?”
Rowan lifted one shoulder. “Not much. Work. Reading. Getting ready for winter. Got my fall decorations out.” She gave a soft chuckle.
“I know that all sounds so frivolous, but after the accident and the brain stuff, it’s kind of nice to focus on silly things.
” She took a bite and chewed before adding, “I actually have a few fall things that I don’t remember buying, so that was nice. ”
Stevie laughed along with her. “Like little gifts in your attic.”
“Exactly. Apparently, I bought a giant inflatable black cat that moves its head.”
“For the front lawn! I remember I came over to see it, and the lady across the street said her dog was terrified of it.”
“Oh, no, poor Edgar.” But Rowan laughed because these little glimpses and revelations of things that were no longer in her brain made her feel almost whole again.
They talked a bit about the upcoming season and how Stevie would shift her staff from landscaping to snow removal. For the next month or two, she’d be winterizing lawns, but eventually she’d put snowplows on the fronts of several of her company trucks.
“Any snowfall predictions?” Rowan asked.
“The Farmers’ Almanac says light snow this year, but they’re wrong almost as often as they’re right, so I have no freaking idea.” She shrugged and crumpled up the wrap to her taco. “So,” she said, leveling her gaze at Rowan. “Been spending a lot of time with Evie, I hear.”
There it was. Rowan had sort of suspected they’d end up at this topic, but it still felt a little bit like a sharp poke from her friend. “Some. Yeah.” She shrugged and picked at her taco. “It’s been nice, actually.”
Stevie nodded slowly, studying her as if expecting to find something in her expression.
“What?” Rowan asked as she chewed.
Stevie’s eyebrows rose and she shook her head. “Nothing. I just want you to be careful. That’s all.”
“Careful of what?”
Stevie’s throat moved as she swallowed. Off to the right of them was an office building and a few folks exiting, and Stevie seemed to find them suddenly interesting.
Letting out a quiet breath, she said, “Listen. You don’t remember what kind of shape you were in after Evie broke your heart.
I get that. But I remember it.” She nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment before she went on.
“I remember, and it was awful. You couldn’t eat.
You couldn’t sleep. I had to physically put you in the shower once because you hadn’t taken one in days and you smelled like that guy that lives in the alley behind Meyer’s Market. ”
Rowan gasped. “That is a vicious, vicious lie.” She was trying to play it off as comical, but Stevie’s expression remained serious for a second or two before she finally smiled.
“It’s one hundred percent the truth. You reeked.”
Rowan held her gaze and made herself be serious. “I promise I’m showering.”
“I just don’t want to see you hurt like that again. You know?”
“I do.” Rowan took a deep breath and let it out. “I do know. And I appreciate it.”
“So…how is she? She doesn’t say much to other people, even when we ask.”
“No?” Rowan hadn’t realized that.
Stevie shook her head. “I text her pretty regularly to check in. She always tells me she’s fine or ‘same shit, different day,’ but it never seems, I don’t know, real?”
Rowan nodded. “She’s still very self-conscious. I’m surprised she let Claire talk her into going to the lake, if I’m being honest, because she doesn’t love people seeing her if she has a flare-up.”
“But she lets you see it.”
Rowan paused at the statement, taking it for the truth is was. “She does.” She wiped her hands with her paper napkin, then crumpled it up and left it in the empty container with the remaining crumbs of her lunch. “It took some insistence on my part, a little bit of tough love. But, yeah.”
Stevie seemed to take that in, then gave a slow nod. “Sleeping with her yet?”
Rowan had known the question would come, yet it still surprised her, and her eyes went wide before she could catch it. “No.”
“Not yet.”
“That’s not my goal, Steve.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.” She leveled her gaze at Stevie. “My goal is to be there for her. This is a person I once loved more than anything else in the world. I want to help her.”
“This is a person you still love, because everything it took to get you to the point of no longer loving her has been wiped from your brain.” Her tone wasn’t mean or snarky, but it was firm, and Stevie looked her dead in the eye as she said it.
“It’s a person who decided to shatter your heart into a million tiny pieces instead of letting you help her with an illness.
Please keep that in mind. That’s all I’m saying. ”
It was the truth. Rowan knew that, and therefore she had no argument, no leg to stand on.
“When do you see her again?”
“Tonight.” She didn’t mention that she was pretty much spending every evening with Evie.
Sometimes the afternoons, too. They were both working, but only part-time due to their respective illnesses, and whatever free time they had, they tended to spend together.
No, Stevie didn’t need that tidbit of information right now. Not yet.
They finished up their lunch, as Stevie had to get back to checking on her teams in their winterizing. At her truck, they stopped, and Stevie wrapped her up in another unusually tight hug. “Please, just guard your heart. For me. Okay?”
“I will,” Rowan said against her shoulder.
“I worry.”
“I know.” When Stevie finally let go of her, Rowan added, “Tell Sara I said hi and I got her baby shower invitation. I’ll be there..”
Stevie pointed at her. “She’s worried, too.”
“Unsurprising.” Rowan gave her a smile and watched as she pulled away. As she stood there, replaying their entire conversation in her head, her phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Thai tonight? Evie, asking about dinner.
Rowan grinned. She couldn’t help it. It happened every time she heard from Evie, and no, it wasn’t lost on her. Sounds perfect, she typed back. I’ll pick it up on my way.
It was a Friday night, so traffic was light and the Thai restaurant was busy, but eventually, Rowan secured dinner and was headed to Evie’s place.
The air had cooled considerably, and a breeze had picked up, whipping colorful leaves around in a frenzy.
She parked in Evie’s driveway, gathered all her things, and headed for the front door, which opened before she was fully up on the porch.
“Hi there,” Evie said, smile wide, hair tucked behind her ears. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, and she looked both healthy and happy to see her. Standing aside, she let Rowan in, then closed the door behind her. “Chilly out there,” she said, wrapping her arms around her middle.
“It is. We’re gonna need the couch blankets tonight.
” Rowan handed the bags with their dinner to Evie, who took them to the kitchen.
After she shed her coat and hung it up in the foyer closet, she joined Evie, got wine out of the fridge, filled two glasses, and took them into the living room.
The two of them moved like some well-oiled dinner prepping machine, getting plates and utensils and napkins, dishing out what each of them wanted to eat, knowing what the other liked and didn’t, and by the time the two of them sat on the couch, Rowan was doing her best not to spotlight all of that in her brain.
Not to hear Stevie’s voice reverberating in her head, basically telling her she needed to fall out of love with Evie all over again.
No, she didn’t want that. Why would she? She wasn’t an idiot.
She held up her glass of wine. “To the fall.”
“The fall of what?” Evie asked, brow furrowed. “The fall of Rome? The fall of the House of Usher?”
Rowan grinned. “Funny. To autumn, dumbass.”
“Oh. Autumn.” Evie laughed and touched her glass to Rowan’s. They sipped and nodded in tandem approval. “How was your day? Catch me up.”
They ate and talked and Rowan loved that they did this before they turned on the TV.
Talked about their days. Listened to each other.
Offered laughs or nods of understanding or suggestions for dealing with whatever issues had cropped up that day.
She had a quick flash of them doing the same thing at Evie’s last house, sitting at her dining room table across from each other and just recalling their days.
Rowan didn’t mention her lunch with Stevie, mostly because she knew Evie would ask what they’d talked about, and Rowan didn’t want to lie about that. Surely, avoiding it altogether was better than not telling the truth. A lie of omission wasn’t technically a lie. Right?