TWELVE
Lisa
That night, while Lisa sat curled up on her linen couch, with a pint of melting ice cream on the coffee table, she laughed at yet another message popping through in the girls’ chat thread.
It had started with Monroe begging for ideas on how to bring on labor. Then it snowballed into other topics, as it mostly always did. She loved that they included her.
Casey: Lisa! How do I say: “Go screw the goats because you’re not sleeping in my bed tonight?” in another language?
Monroe: Hahahaha!
Nina:
Scarlett: LMAO – what did Denver do? He’s such a sweet guy!
Aurora: Not the goats, Casey!
Lisa:
Kylie: What a way to join the chat.
Kylie: I’m with Rory. Save the damn goats; they don’t deserve that!
Casey sent back a voice note, repeating what Lisa had taught her.
Casey: Is that right?
Lisa: Yes, hon. Good job!
Casey: Hold on, let me tell that man!
Monroe: What did he do?
Casey: Nothing. I got my period, and everything is pissing me off. I gotta take it out on someone.
The girls all sent voice notes, cheering Casey on.
With a spoonful of churro ice cream in her mouth, Lisa reached for the phone when it pinged again, but she nearly choked around the creamy dessert when she saw it wasn’t the girls’ chat.
Ryan: Are you busy?
Lisa: I am if this is one of those “You up?” booty-call questions. I know where that leads, Ryan.
Ryan: I’m calling.
And not three seconds later, she nearly threw her phone in shock when it rang in her palm. She looked panicked as his name lit up the screen.
She waited. And it rang.
It then stopped.
But started ringing right away.
She removed the spoon from her mouth, set it down, cleared her throat, and adjusted her hair as if he could see into her cozy living room. With her nerves on edge, she then responded.
“Hello?”
“You were gonna ignore me, weren’t you?” he sounded amused.
Yes. “No, I was just surprised. Why are you calling?”
She noted that the time was ten p.m.
Ryan dodged that question and asked one of his own. “What kind of day have you had?”
Small talk.
Lisa was great at small talk, so she tucked a leg underneath her butt, cradling the half-pot of ice cream in the crevice her legs made. She was not a woman who would ever waste ice cream, and not because a good-looking boy was calling her. She was no longer fifteen.
But as she heard Ryan’s silken voice, smooth as a fresh cask of whiskey, she felt some of her teenage hormonal nervousness return.
“It was a long, productive day.” She shared, then added with a smile. “This biker I know has texted me all day, like he thinks I want to know the details of his day.”
His rough laugh tickled her ears, and Lisa had to switch to speakerphone, laying the phone on the table, so he didn’t hear her rapid heartbeat.
She shoved a mouthful of ice cream between her lips.
“Did he annoy you?”
“No, it was...cu.” About to call him cute, Lisa thought better of it. “It was funny. Did you really nearly run into a squirrel?”
“The little jerk darted out across the road.”
“His nuts must have been on the other side.”
“His nuts were nearly under my tires.” Ryan quipped, making Lisa burst out laughing.
“I bet he had a story to tell his squirrel friends today.”
“They were nearly reading his obituary in the Squirrel News.”
She was pleased that Ryan’s charming humor was still there.
“Where are you? At home?”
“Yeah, I’m making burgers, fucking starving. Did you eat?”
Lisa glanced down at the now-empty tub. “Does ice cream count?”
“That’s all you’ve eaten?”
“I grabbed a deli sandwich between clients. I’m working from home tomorrow. I’ll be able to prepare something substantial. I just eat whatever is easy to grab when I’m out.”
“You need regular food, babe.”
“Yes, Chef Ryan, I’ll keep that in mind.” She sassed and heard his laughter.
As she heard him preparing food while Ryan explained his actions, she scrolled back to the group chat and stifled a laugh.
Kylie: Did we lose Lisa?
Monroe: Has she fallen asleep again in front of one of her dramas?
Scarlett: Who is the new Asian boy flavor this month she’s in love with?
Nina: If you scroll up, she posted a pic. He’s taller than our boys.
Monroe: Sooooo handsome, too. I’d look at him twice.
Monroe: Lisa likes them younger
Nina: Our stealthy cougar babe.
Laughing, reading back through the chat, she told Ryan. “Hold on one second, Ryan; the girls are slandering me in the group chat.”
“What are they saying?”
She walked through to the kitchen to dispose of her snack container, carrying the phone. “They’re calling me a cougar because I showed them a photo of a younger guy I like.”
She imagined her eyelashes freezing from the icy tone of Ryan’s voice, which rumbled through her like the clash of cymbals.
“Which fucking guy?”
Lisa blinked, perched on a kitchen stool, her thumbs paused on the keys. His tone ran over her skin, leaving her lips lax and dry.
“Lisa? Which guy?”
“Oh. It’s just an actor in my Korean show I’m currently watching.”
“Ah,” was all he replied, with no hint of coldness now. And for a split second, she had the idea he’d sounded jealous.
They spoke for half an hour before she told him she was going to bed. He’d left the call by saying he’d talk to her soon.
Lisa hadn’t expected Ryan to call again right at ten p.m. the following night.
She’d just finished a show, her heart all soft and fluttering, happy her drama had a happy ending. Some finished giving her K-trauma, leaving her in a funk for days, mourning fictional characters as if they were family.
“Did I wake you?” he started.
“No. I rarely sleep this early unless I’m sick. Where are you?”
“I’m sitting in my garage, just got home from work.”
“You really have turned into a hard worker, Ryan. I feel oddly proud of you, to know you achieved everything you wanted in life.”
“As long as it’s not parental pride,” he scoffed. Yeah, that would be a little weird to feel maternal over a man she’d seen naked.
Oh, that was a mistake even to let her mind flit across because now her memory cell wanted to unlock that treasure chest and roll around in images of Ryan.
Absolutely not, she warned herself, gritting her teeth and digging her nails into her short-clad thigh to stop that train before it left the station.
She figured he was entering his home after hearing him unlock a door. “Um. How long have you lived across the street from Nina?”
“The house came up for sale two years ago, and I snapped it up.”
“Huh. Around the same time, I bought my house. Isn’t it weird we didn’t bump into each other until Nina and Tomb’s renewal?”
“I guess we met each other again when we were meant to.”
Lisa’s heart thumped at the easy way he said it.
“Do you believe in those kinds of fated moments? That surprises me.”
“How so? Because I’m a rough biker?”
Lisa chuckled and wiggled her newly painted toes. “Now you’re stereotyping yourself. I didn’t say that. It’s just a surprise to hear a man say things are happening at the right time.”
“What else could it have been? You’re friends with my closest friends, yet we’ve never been invited to meals at the same time. I’m always at their house.”
“Did you ever hear my name?”
“I knew Nina was hanging out with a new chick called Lisa. And your face came to mind, but it always does if I hear your name.”
Really?
Why was she blushing, knowing that?
“But I didn’t associate her new friend with you. I never thought you’d come back to town. The last time I checked, you were in Washington.”
Now the floor nearly fell out from underneath Lisa.
“Y-you checked up on me? Why? When?”
“It was a Facebook announcement of your engagement.”
“Oh.”
Lisa experienced ten kinds of awkwardness while the line remained silent for a minute.
“I never imagined you’d look for me, Ryan.” She whispered, hearing her own heart thudding in her chest. Even mentioning those days carried risks.
She could be friendly with Ryan, she decided, but nothing more.
“Why not? I was a twenty-year-old kid, still in love with the woman who’d dumped me. I was curious about where she was and what she was doing. Checking to see if you were alright.”
Lisa had a million questions buzzing in her brain. Part of her wanted to hang up, to stop this chat before it went somewhere awkward. She felt overwhelmed by all the questions in her head and just wanted to end the call before things got weird.
But they’d both moved on, hadn’t they? They could talk as adults. And Ryan seemed to be a reasonable guy. He didn’t sound angry with her.
“How did you feel when you saw the notice? I mean, were you mad at me for moving on?”
“Babe,” he gruffed. “Nah. We didn’t end nastily, did we? Yeah, I didn’t want us to end; you knew that. So seeing you were gonna marry another guy bruised my heart some, but I got over it.”
“Good,” she exhaled. “I’m glad, Ryan. I still feel bad about leaving town the way I did. I just...”
“You weren’t able to face me,” he finished for her, and she nodded silently. “I understood after a while.”
“Do you think, maybe, we can leave all that stuff in the past?”
“Sure. But you know the past can’t hurt, right?”
“I know that.”
“Do you hold any residual bad feelings against me?”
“No. Do you?”
“Babe.” He laughed in that tone she knew was Ryan’s way of telling her not to be silly.
“We had a great fucking time, then broke up. It was forever ago, yeah? No bad feelings on my part. But you don’t gotta avoid talking about the memories we made together, yeah?
If you wanna focus on the here and now, I’m fine with that, too. ”
It was difficult to keep her long-buried feelings at bay when faced with a man who’d once meant a lot to her, especially as she listened to his easy-going voice.
Some people were impossible to forget.
Especially when they left traces of themselves all over her heart.
Emotion was stuck in her throat, but she realized Ryan was right.
“Do you have time to let me know how your life has been?”
“That’s a lot of things to catch you up on.” He replied. Then his voice softened, “But I’ve got time, sweetheart.”
So that’s what they did for more than an hour.
Two former lovers reconnected to discuss their lives.
And it felt good.
The time between them seemed non-existent. Lisa frequently found common ground in what Ryan shared with her. Though his lack of filter sometimes surprised her, she valued his candor.
That felt good, too.