9. Lance
Chapter nine
Lance
One Year Later
The note Parker left said not to come looking for him. I honored it while I finished my senior year, and while I signed my enlistment papers, and all the way through boot camp. A year, and not one word.
Then boot leave, and a friend from Farley telling me he’d seen him working at the Bean Stop.
I went in on a Tuesday in civvies and asked for him.
The manager checked a clipboard and said their artist wasn’t on again until Thursday.
My leave ended Wednesday. I stood on the sidewalk outside and did the math four separate times and it came out the same every time.
This is what I’ve got instead. Ninety-six hours, most of two of them in the air, six hundred dollars I didn’t have on a commercial ticket, because a military hop could strand me and Monday morning formation is not a thing you’re late to. I landed Friday. I fly out Sunday afternoon.
It’s Saturday, and I’m standing in my service dress uniform on the pavement on Chancellor Street staring into a coffee shop.
Through the front glass I can see somebody in a black apron up a stepladder with his back to the door, and my hands have gone stupid on my tie.
I check it again. Then I go in.
The Bean Stop is, apparently, the kind of place where people sit over endless cups of coffee writing bad first novels. It’s full of college students from the university across the street.
And there he is. On a stepladder by the far wall, hanging a large pencil sketch.
His back is to me. The first thing I register is that he’s filled out—broader across the shoulders, thicker through the arms. His hair has grown past his ears.
He’s wearing a black apron and a white shirt with a terry-cloth wristband on his left arm, and I am so purely, stupidly happy to see him that I’m surprised I don’t glow.
“Liam, what do we think?” he calls to the man behind the bar. “Is it still crooked?”
“I don’t know, does it look straight to you?”
“Straight things are not my forte,” he calls back.
I stop breathing for a second. Then I walk up behind him and clear my throat.
“Be right with you,” he says without turning. “This’ll have to do. If Greg complains, we’ll say a college kid messed with it.”
“Parker?” I say.
He stiffens and turns on the ladder. “Lance!” His eyes go to my uniform, and for a second something crosses his face that I can’t read. Then he climbs down and stands in front of me. “I didn’t know you were in town,” he says in that gravelly rasp that never fully healed. “You look—wow.”
“Yeah,” I say, which is the least cool thing I have ever said to another human being. I had a whole speech planned for this moment. Gone. All of it. I’m just staring at him. His face has lost that hungry, hollow look. He’s not the boy I put on an air mattress last year. He’s handsome.
“How did you find me?”
“I came in during boot leave. You weren’t on.”
He goes quiet for a second. “I’m sorry I missed you.”
I try to think of something else to say, but I feel awkward. “You look good,” I say.
“Thanks. I get to use one of the university gyms.” He nods across the street. “You look very…polished.”
I don’t know how to take that. I was hoping for handsome or sexy or at the very least good enough to eat. Polished isn’t cutting it for me, but then again, I gave him a lame-ass you look good, so you get what you give.
I glance at the sketch he just hung. It’s the café interior—the tables, the bar, the chalkboard menu. It’s nice. There’s a lot of detail. I study it for a second. Something about it sits wrong, but I let it go. It’s Parker’s work. That’s enough.
“My first paid commission,” he says, following my gaze, and there’s a flicker of pride in his voice. I don’t think I ever heard him take credit for anything before. “The owner asked me to do a series.” He glances back at the counter. “What can I get you?”
You know what I want, I think, but I just say, “I was hoping to talk to you.”
He looks at the bar, then back at me. “I’m due for a break,” he says. “There’s a place out back. Let me tell Liam.” He gestures to the guy behind the bar.
He has a few words with his coworker, who looks me up and down with a skeptical frown before nodding. Parker takes a key from under the counter and comes back to me.
There is a corridor behind the bar that leads past the bathrooms. At the end of it is a door that Parker unlocks and pushes open.
Outside is a small courtyard, walled in by the backs of other buildings, with iron benches and a raised platform that must have been used for a band.
Parker flips a switch and naked bulbs strung overhead flicker on.
“They used to do small concerts out here,” he says, “but it’s not up to code.”
The fire code. Of course. It’s something we both look out for now.
We sit on one of the iron benches. The October air is cool and the bulbs lend the place an intimate glow. For a few seconds, neither of us says anything. I study him in the light. He’s so different. The same eyes, the same long fingers, but the rest of him has been rebuilt.
“How’s Shelley?” I ask.
“She’s good. We were in that studio apartment for a while, but she found a two-bedroom across the street. You can see her window from here.” He points up at a lit square in the building above us.
We both go quiet. Then he turns to me.
“I wanted to apologize. To all the Broussards, but mostly to you.”
I shake my head. “We’d like to see you again. You made a big impression. You should see Bree’s coloring skills. They’re on point.”
He smiles, and it’s the first real smile I’ve seen. “Please tell them I’m okay.”
“People asked about you at school all the time. If we were still together. People thought I had your number, after you changed it.”
The wind picks up and moves his hair across his face. “You know why I had to go.”
“I’m glad you’re okay. I came here because I miss you.”
He looks down at his hands. “I needed time, Lance.”
“I know. And I tried to give it to you. But I was going out of my mind, and I need you to know that whatever happens, I’m here. I really am. Just please don’t shut me out like you did. That note—” I stop. “It really hurt.”
He leans against the wall, looking up at one of the bulbs. “Did you know people were trolling us online? After the photo. There were comments about us. They weren’t kind.”
This is news to me. “What comments?”
“I’m not going to repeat them.” He shakes his head. “Telling you wouldn’t have made it stop. But I thought if I left your orbit, at least I’d leave that behind too.”
“You should have told me.”
He shakes himself slightly. “It doesn’t matter now.
Let me say this or I never will.” He rubs his lower lip with his thumb.
“When you and I were together—or whatever we were—it was the worst time of my life. I was in a bad way.” He looks away briefly.
“I wasn’t ready for what you wanted. And I know it’s late, but it was never you. You were perfect.”
Perfect. He said perfect. About me. For a year I’d tortured myself that the problem was me—that I’d wanted too much, too fast, too loud. I have to look down at my hands for a second.
“I’d like to have you in my life again,” he says, quieter now, as if the words are just occurring to him. “Even though I needed the distance, it’s been hard not having you there.”
There. Not here. There. As in, friend.
I take a breath. “I’m very happy to be your friend again, Parker. And if that’s all you want, I promise that’s fine by me.” I hesitate. “But I still have feelings for you. I do. And I get that the timing was terrible before. But maybe you felt something too?”
He’s quiet for a long time. “I don’t know where gratitude ends and the other thing begins.”
“Can I try something?” I ask.
He looks at my lips, as if he’s reading my mind, and then he makes eye contact. “I’d like that,” he says. “At least then we’d both know.”
I lean forward and brush his lips with mine, and when his mouth opens, I press into it.
He smells like freshly ground coffee. He tastes clean and warm.
He makes a small sound, and I pull him against me.
He threads his arms around my neck. His back is warm through his shirt.
We are in a courtyard with string lights, and the October wind is pulling at us.
We part. “Wow,” I say.
“Okay,” he says. “Now we know.” He’s a little flushed and he looks at the ground, but there is a shy smile on his face. I know this smile. It’s the one he gave me over art supplies and a green toothbrush. He glances back at me. “So if I wanted a repeat of that, I’d have to go all the way to where?”
“Oceanside, California.”
He laughs, and I feel relief. We’re on track. This is it. Things are going to work out between us after all. I take his hand and kiss his knuckles, because I can’t contain my joy.
“Wow. That’s—wait, when are you due back?”
“Monday at 0600. I’m flying out tomorrow.”
“Do they give you free flights?”
“No, I flew commercial. I really wanted to see you.”
“And if you had missed me again?”
“I’d wait for the next ninety-six hours of liberty and take another red-eye.”
His smile is warm. “Careful. You make me feel important.”
My face heats. “You are. I missed you so much during boot. I just kept thinking how I wanted to tell you how I was, and what was happening. Just to hear your voice. How was your summer? Please tell me you missed me a little.”
A shadow crosses his face. He looks away, like he’s looking for a way to say something he doesn’t want to talk about.
“I did. I was glad that you had your own life, though.” He wrinkles his brow and picks at his wristband.
“It was…lonely. My aunt and I had planned to fly out to Spain in June but…something came up and we had to cancel the trip at the last minute.” He rubs his wrist one last time.
He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“I’m alright, though. I’m glad you’re here. ”
“Is there something you want to talk about with me? You can tell me anything.” I close my other hand over his.
He looks down at my fingers for a long moment. Then he takes a breath. “I’m okay,” he says. “Maybe earlier, over the summer—”
Behind him, the door opens. Liam pokes his head out. “Parks, there’s a line.” He looks at me, and his expression isn’t friendly.
Parker straightens and reties his apron strings. “I’m right there.” He looks back at me. “I’m sorry. I have to get back to work.”
“Can I call you?” I ask.
He blinks, like the question came from further away than I’m standing. “Are you still on the same number?”
“Yeah.”
“Then I’ll call you soon.” He’s already moving. “I’m sorry, I really do have to get back. It was good to see you, Lance.”
Liam holds the door open for him before letting it close. “Two minutes,” he tells me, and gives me one last look before the door closes.
I stand in the courtyard by myself with the string lights buzzing over my head. Through the wall I can hear the espresso machine and his voice calling out drink orders, easy, comfortable, in a life I know nothing about.
Parks. That’s what Liam called him. Nobody has ever shortened his name in front of me. Jealousy goes through me so hard I have to take a few breaths to get over it. I want to stare him down and ask him what he thinks he’s doing
But the truth is that I’m leaving Parker behind, and he’s not.
I let myself out through the front. The October air has gone cold and the light is going, and I get about half a block before I stop and stand on the sidewalk in my service dress like an idiot.
What exactly are your intentions? Martha Gillibrand asked me that a year ago and I still don’t have an answer.
He said he’d call soon.
I have no idea whether he means it.