9. John
It was strange coming home to find Joey there, waiting for me.
She greeted me with an uncertain smile, standing just outside the living room on the patio.
In one way, it was glorious, like something I”d imagined coming to life. The sun caught strands of burnished gold in her loose blond hair, and the faded jeans she wore hung loose beneath the sleeveless T-shirt, giving her a casual, comfortable look that made me want to scoop her into my arms and hug her. But the expression on her face--the soft wide smile, the bright enthusiastic eyes—made me realize I might not be up to her optimism today.
”Hey Joey,” I said, stepping out to join her and collapsing onto the couch in the shade.
”How was training?” She joined me on the couch, practically glowing, the way I remembered from when we were younger. Something had shifted with her—she didn”t look worried or upset.
”You look good. Happy? Everything okay at home?”
She lifted a shoulder and pushed her hair back over it, the single casual move drawing my eye, giving me distant thoughts of what it would be like to run my hands through that hair, touch that golden skin. ”Everything will be okay. I got cut off, as predicted.”
”Your dad pretty mad?”
”I doubt it, but my mother”s still upset.”
”That tracks.” Joey”s mother got upset about all kinds of things when we were kids. Grass stains on the knees of pants, eating cookies without a plate and napkin, actual people in the sitting room, which was clearly never used for sitting or anything else.
”She”ll get over it. Maybe.”
”So you got a chance to talk to her?”
Joey nodded, her eyes never leaving my face, like she was trying to figure something out. ”Sammy? What”s wrong?”
She”d always been able to read me. No matter how I tried to play off whatever feelings I had at any point in time, she always saw through it. ”Nah, everything”s good. Just worried about keeping up for the team.” That was an understatement. Ever since Mizzoni had left, I”d been having nightmares about losing everything, about everyone figuring out I was a fraud.
”You wouldn”t be where you are if you couldn”t keep up,” Joey said.
Joey was a friend, saying what was expected. But she didn”t know anything about hockey, about the pressure I was under. This wasn”t a conversation we needed to have. This was my issue to work through. ”Yeah, I”m sure you”re right. Just a rough workout today.” I forced my shoulders down, shook out my hands. ”You got a good night”s sleep?”
She laughed, the rays of late afternoon sunshine appearing to dance and shift along with her voice. ”I guess I needed it.”
I wanted to ask her about her plans, her expectations here. But I didn”t want to be one more person pushing her for answers. Still, there was a part of me that thought it”d be easier to focus on hockey and getting myself ready for next season if she wasn”t here too long. At the same time, I didn”t want to say goodbye to her, either. My head was almost as much a mess as my workout had been today.
”Well, I”m not sure what your plans are for the rest of the day,” I began, but Joey was laughing again, the bright crystalline sound easing some of my own darkness.
”I have zero plans, Sammy. I”m just here. Existing. I need to figure some stuff out for sure.”
”Okay, well, maybe short-term plans? Food?”
”I just had lunch, but in a little bit, yeah.”
”I”ve gotta clean up a little anyway. You feel like getting out again? Or dinner here?”
”How about this... you go do what you need to do but point me to a grocery store first. I”ll cook.”
I felt my eyebrows go up. I needed to be careful about what I ate, but Joey offering to cook was a whole other thing. My mind flashed back to the nights I”d stayed at her house for dinner. Dad could cook canned spaghetti, but her family ate like royalty. My mouth watered at the thought of it. ”I can”t really say no to that,” I admitted.
Joey scrunched her nose and smiled at me. ”Why would you say no?”
She was right. I couldn”t imagine ever saying no to her. ”I wouldn”t. But I would tell you that I”m supposed to be staying in shape, so maybe we try to stick to the lighter side of things?”
”I don”t even know what that means!” Joey laughed and stood, and I put the name of the grocery store into her mapping app and then headed back toward the shower.
”John?” she called just before I disappeared through the door.
”Yeah?”
”What”s your cat”s name?”
”That”s Hank. It”s his house. I think it”s more that I”m his person than that he”s my cat. He was here first.” I could picture Joey”s confused face at this explanation, and a little laugh escaped me as she said, ”Oh. Okay.”
I closed my door to shower and took a long hot one. When I opened the door again, Joey was back, and I could hear her moving around in the kitchen while she sang along to Luke Combs. I followed the sounds of “Fast Car” out to find Joey dancing in front of the stove while Hank sat behind her on the counter, watching intently.
Joey moved gracefully—of course. Everything she did was graceful, even when she”d kicked my ass at running. Her hips swayed and her shoulders moved, and she looked so happy here in my house, so right, it made my heart squeeze for no reason at all.
I offered to help, but she shooed me away, so I sat down at the little table by the window while Joey cooked, and though I glanced at my phone a few times, mostly I just sat and let the scene move around me. Joey looked totally at ease in my house, and I felt more calm and centered than I had in a while, just sitting here, being with her.
Before long, the smells wafting around had my stomach growling and I offered to set the table and Joey gave me a smile that made me warm and shivery all at once.
”That”d be great. Almost ready here.”
I laid out the silverware and napkins, and then poured us each a glass of water.
”Do you want a glass of wine with dinner?” I asked her.
”No thanks,” she said, smiling at me again and making me practically forget what I”d just asked her. Having her here was taking more getting used to than I”d expected.
Soon, we were sitting across from one another, a plate of smothered pork chops and greens in front of me and snatches of our childhood flickering through my head.
”This your mother”s recipe?” I asked hopefully. Mrs. Baxter had never seemed to be my biggest fan, but it hadn’t kept her from glowing when I ate the food she made like it was the best thing I”d ever had. Because it was.
”It is,” Joey confirmed. ”I remembered that you always liked it.”
”I liked everything your mother made,” I told her. It was true. The Baxter”s kitchen was like a factory in constant production. There was always a cake under glass on the counter, or a plate of cookies somewhere nearby, something simmering on the stove or baking in the oven, dishes drying next to the sink. It was a sharp contrast to the cold, quiet of my own house, where Dad would stumble in somewhere after five each night and rummage through the refrigerator in hopes of finding a meal he forgot was in there. Our kitchen was cans and freezer trays, empty glasses abandoned in the sink, while Joey”s kitchen was pots and pans, warm smells and people.
As I shoveled another bite into my mouth I looked up at Joey, across from me. Her skin glowed and when she caught me watching her, her full pink lips pulled up into a little smile. But she wasn”t eating much.
”Thanks for this,” I said.
”It”s the least I could do.” Her tanned shoulder lifted and dropped.
”You”re not hungry?” I watched her push a piece of pork chop around her plate and then lay her fork down.
”I guess not, not really.”
I watched her as she avoided my eyes, realizing that her brightness and cheer earlier might just have been an act. Of course they were. She”d run away—exploded her own life plan. It would be unlikely that she”d be over that already.
”How are you really doing?” I asked her, pushing aside my own bad day for a minute. What did I really have to complain about, anyway?
She lifted her gaze to mine, those thick lashes fluttering up and down, and then she dropped her eyes to her lap. ”I”ll be okay. I”m just... I”m trying to figure out what I”m supposed to do now, I guess.” She sighed after she said this, and my heart squeezed, wishing I could bring the dancing, smiling version of my friend back.
”That makes sense. Everything in your life changed pretty quick there.”
”And I didn”t really have a plan for what I”d do next,” she said. When she lifted her gaze again, the big blue eyes I loved were shining and sad. ”I”m so naive, aren”t I? My parents are right.”
I dropped my own fork. ”You”re not naive. And you can”t take your parents at face value right now. They”re just upset.”
She leaned back in her chair, lifting a hand to trace the line of condensation down her water glass. ”No, they”ve told me I was naive long before I exploded my wedding.”
”Why?”
She let out a little laugh, but there was no joy in it and my insides recoiled at the misery of the sound. ”I”m just a daddy”s girl, I guess. Can”t do much for myself.”
”You don”t believe that.” I almost hissed the words. This wasn”t the Joey I grew up with. That girl had the world in her hand, believed she could do anything—and she could.
”Let”s consider,” she said, and I didn”t like the cold flat tone of her voice. ”I got engaged in my third year of school and then moved back into my daddy”s house. My only real plan was to be Evan”s wife. To cook dinners and entertain guests, maybe join the junior league or the Peach Tree Grove women”s club and raise money for charity. And now? I can”t even do that.”
”Is that what you wanted to do?”
She held my gaze, but her eyes narrowed slightly as her head tilted to one side. ”That”s the thing...”
I waited, wondering what the thing could be. The thing that had changed my headstrong and capable best friend into exactly the girl she always told me she didn”t want to be.
”I guess at some point after you and I headed off to find our futures, I lost sight of what I wanted to do. And now? Now, I just don”t know.”
I shook my head. Maybe she just needed me to remind her who she was. ”The Joey I knew had the world on a string. She had plans. You were going to be a genetic scientist. You were going to help cure cancer.”
She laughed, the sound reminding me of the way an adult might laugh when a toddler declared that they would be an astronaut or a princess. She laughed like it was a far-fetched idea. Or worse—Impossible.
”You”ve got your degree, right?”
Her eyes flicked to mine, then dropped again. ”I do.”
”In what?” I braced myself, expecting her mother might have talked her into pursuing something practical, like housekeeping. Did they offer degrees in that?
”Biological and biomedical science.”
Excitement replaced the foreboding. She was still in there. She”d stuck to her guns. ”That”s great, Joey.”
She eyed me again, and her expression told me it wasn”t maybe as great as I thought.
”It would be, if I”d been working in the field. Right now, it”s just a useless piece of paper.”
”Joey, you”re twenty-three, not seventy-five. Life”s not over.”
”Everyone I graduated with had job offers.”
That sounded like good news. ”Amazing.”
”Based on the years of interning they did while we were in school.”
”Makes sense.”
”I didn”t intern.”
”Okay, but you could start now, right?”
She shook her head sadly. ”I doubt it. I”ve spent years doing nothing while my peers gained valuable experience. I”m behind. I wouldn”t even know where to start now.”
I shook my head. ”You”re not behind, Joey.” Where had the optimism and sunshine vanished to? This Joey was a shadow of the girl I used to know.
My friend hit me with a smile that just about cracked my heart in pieces. It was her mother”s smile, one that came from training and manners, not the bright sunshine smile that I loved, the one that came from somewhere deep inside her heart. ”Sometimes it just feels that way, I guess.” She shook her head lightly as if scattering any dark thoughts. ”I”ll be fine, John. Either way, it”s definitely nothing for you to worry about. I”m just realizing that maybe I should have thought a little harder about what came next instead of just running away.”
Joey rose and collected our plates, and I did the same, helping her clean up the kitchen. But there was a cool silence between us, and I knew it was borne of her second-guessing herself. I didn”t like it.
Whether she had a plan or not, Joey had made the right move breaking away from an early marriage and a life spent as someone”s obedient trophy wife. I just had to figure out how to make her see it, make her see herself the way she had when she”d beat my ass time and again running for the fence on the playground.
It was still early when we”d finished cleaning the kitchen, but Joey turned to me, that sad expression still in her eyes.
”I”m going to go to bed early, Sammy. See if I can get up at a decent hour.” She stepped close to hug me.
My arms went around her, and I tried to ignore the warmth of her body pressed to mine, the swell of her breasts against my chest. I tried to ignore the way my blood surged and my mind tried to short-circuit as the scent of her hair wound through my senses. She didn”t need any of that from me. She needed me to be her friend, and that”s what I”d be.
But I”d have to cut this hug short, or she”d feel the evidence of my less-than-friendly notions against her hip in a moment. I stepped back, breaking the contact, and my brain began functioning again.
”I have an idea,” I told her.
Those big blue eyes met mine and the idea got bigger. I was going to banish that sadness. I was going to find Joey in there again. More importantly, I was going to show her that nothing had changed. She was still the firecracker of a girl who trusted herself and made those around her do the same.
”Be up at seven,” I said.
”Seven?” she looked almost offended at the idea of that early hour.
”Seven.”