Chapter 11 Upheaval #2
Could it be insecurity?
He stopped walking, and she turned to look at him standing on the sidewalk, his college wrestling t-shirt still fit him perfectly. She thought he looked handsome with his half smile and the way he looked at her. It was confusing.
"Yeah, um," but before she could answer, there was a commotion across the street.
They both turned to watch as a tall woman wearing a perfectly tailored suit and stiletto heels yelled something into the phone pressed against her ear.
Their dark visitor. She hadn't given the trio much thought the past few days. Upheaval and change flitted through her mind again.
The way she held herself signaled to the world that she was important. And then Chief Landry walked out of the front door, held out a brown file to which she took silently, and they communicated something with their eyes before she nodded once and walked away.
She watched him put his hands on his narrow hips, his shoulders wide and his stance strong but maybe a little weathered.
"Tilly?"
"Huh?" She turned from the distraction and almost flinched when Ronnie took her hand in his and pulled her closer. She felt stiff and held herself back, her feet shuffling forward a step, but the rest of her body staying put in a kind of lean.
"Dinner. With me. Yeah? It can be that place you like. I'll meet you there at eight?"
She thought of her conversation with Jen and she thought about the way that he was looking at her like he had in the beginning of whatever they had.
"Fine. Tonight at eight." She said it quickly, to get it over with. Something he brought with him made her feel like she didn't want to be caught near it for too long. She didn't feel drawn to him how she remembered before.
"Yeah," he said with a grin, nodding. "Knew you'd come around. Alright, I'll see you tonight."
She watched him walk away. And had the thought that the last time she'd seen him walk away, she hadn't known it would be the last.
A sigh was caught in her chest when she looked over to see him watching her from where he stood, his hands still on his hips, his face unreadable.
An unidentified frisson pulsed between them over the distance of the street. It was heady, and it made something inside of her shift.
It made her feel like she was being held dangling over some edge.
And then he turned and walked back into the station. Not a change in look, a nod, a word.
The crow cawed directly above her, and she looked up at the lamp post where the bird stared down at her.
"You could have intervened. Gone for his hair, or something."
Fifteen minutes later, she was walking into The Lost Souls House, where she found Ursula typing on her laptop in the living room and then found Taylor, Eloise, Kelsea, and Bess in the kitchen making dinner.
"Hey! You joining for dinner?"
"When are you moving in?" Bess asked, licking blackberry jam off the side of her hand.
"No to dinner. I accidentally made plans. And I have ten days left at the apartment, so probably then, if that's okay."
"Tell us the day, and Jenson and I will move most of it for you," Taylor offered as he slid a plate with a sandwich over to Eloise. "Yeah? That'd be great. I hate moving. And I don't have a lot to move. Oh hey," she said, snapping her fingers. "That omen about a visitor? Know who it is."
"You mean, other than the three creepy triplets who crashed our dinner party?
" Kelsea asked with a raised eyebrow. She was sitting at the island, red pen in hand, as she marked up a paper.
She often did her story editing here. The house cleared her mind so that she could focus on the words and flow of her writing.
"Well, yeah," Tilly conceded. She thought of the folder exchange and shoved the thought to the back of her mind. "But my sister has darkened my doorway."
"Wait, your sister is in town?" Eloise asked, pausing what she was doing. Everyone knew she had a strained relationship with her entire family, but everyone also knew that went a few degrees colder where her sister was concerned.
"Man, evil sisters, evil witches on high councils. This is going to be one hell of a year," Bess smirked, taking a bite of her food.
Tilly frowned. "How worried do we think we should be about the triplets?"
Eloise and Kelsea both shrugged.
The folder exchange came back to mind, so she turned to Taylor. "The chief seems to know one of them."
"Oh yeah?" He bit into an apple, and his face took on a confused look as all eyes bore into him.
After he swallowed, he said, "What? I don't know much about him.
The man is mysterious. It's not like we go to the graveyard and do seances together and then pray to the sun goddess for blessings while animals flock to us because of our magical aura as we eat cake straight out of the cake pan. "
All the women tilted their heads.
"I've seen you do it. Just dig in with forks like raccoons. No offense," he nodded to Lady Macbeth, who stole his apple and jumped off the island.
"You jealous, honey?" Eloise asked sweetly, teasing him.
"Yeah, I am a little. Girl friendships are cool. We have," he threw a hand in the air, "football and an opinion of every Rocky movie that feels foundational for some reason."
Jenson entered the kitchen with Ursula behind him.
"You," Taylor pointed to a caught-off-guard Jenson. "You have never once invited me to eat an entire cake straight out of the pan."
Jenson took that in and nodded solemnly. "I can work that."
"Thank you," he smiled, and Eloise laughed, pressing her side into him, turning to Tilly.
"Have either of you ever made a cake?" Kelsea asked. Both men shook their heads.
"But tell us about your sister." The concern was etched deep. And Tilly wasn't ready to get into it; that feeling radiating from her friends was strong and protective. It was beautiful, really, but it was heady.
"Later," she sidestepped the conversation and the emotions.
"How do you accidentally make plans?" Bess was looking at her with confusion bright in her youthful eyes.
"Well," she said, taking a seat at one of the stools, "you start out as an anxious people pleaser, measuring all of your decisions by the comfort and joy of others.
And then you grow into a woman who starts learning boundaries.
And then you backslide when it comes to a guy who strings you along, treating you like you're something special, even though he is saying with his words he wants nothing serious.
And then all of a sudden," her hands make large gestures, "he's leaving just as he's made you believe that you and he were the real deal, breaking your heart and leaving you behind to pick up the pieces, but he doesn't need to feel bad because he was upfront and honest about not wanting anything and you, like the silly romantic that you are, believed his actions which did not match his words.
" She squeezed her hands together, and they all watched silently.
"And then he moves back into town after a year and wants to get dinner.
Catch up," she said with mock excitement.
"And he's pushy, and you revert to that woman who doesn't remember what a bloody boundary is. "
She looked up at five pairs of eyes staring at her across the island in various states of concern or awe as the kitchen filled with deep silence. Casper made a whining sound from where he leaned against the back door, and Sulphur was on the counter with head tilted and cat tail flicking.
"You need some tea?" Bess asked.
"You need some bourbon in that tea?" Eloise amended.
"You need me to arrest him?"
"I'll help him," Jenson offered.
"You have to be some kind of asshat to hurt Tilly," Taylor added.
"Oh, is it that guy that made Jen get her real mad face the other night at the graveyard?" Bess asked with wide eyes.
Tilly gave her a look.
Bess shrugged. "We might have heard snippets of your conversation."
"Please don't tell me you hexed anyone," Jenson said.
"Please," Taylor added. "The police reports get real weird when hexes are involved."
Ursula waved him off and looked at Tilly, concerned. "Are you okay? What did he do?"
"I vote we hex him," Bess interjected. Ursula and Taylor gave her a look.
"Honestly, nothing," Tilly answered Ursula's question. "He just asked me to dinner and I didn't know how to say no."
"Didn't you guys have an entire class dedicated to just say no?"
"That was for saying no to drugs," Eloise and Ursula replied.
Bess got a confused look on her face. "You had to have a class about saying no to drugs?"
Jenson smiled. "Generation of parents that lived through the Sixties and Seventies. They were being careful."
"It did not work," Taylor added.
"Though maybe a class on just say no to people would have been helpful," Tilly added.
"So you're going to dinner with this guy that treated you like crap tonight?"
"Yep." She smiled as Eloise handed her a mug of hot tea, thanking her with her eyes.
"I can run a background check on him," Taylor offered.
Tilly gave him a skeptical look. "Is that legal?"
"Not at all."
Eloise beamed at him. "I love you."
He put his arm around her, pulling her more firmly into his side, and kissed the top of her head.
"Listen, Tilly," Jenson started as he made a sandwich. "If this guy is in any way inappropriate or does anything you don't like, you let us know."
"He's really good at crashing meals," Ursula said slyly, to which Jenson bumped his shoulder against hers, and she smiled up at him. He handed her the sandwich and tucked a piece of her black hair behind her ear.
Tilly felt a pang in her chest. That kind of love was real. She'd never had it, but seeing it showcased with her friends gave her hope. And a little sadness if she was honest with herself.
"I didn't know how else to get your attention," he murmured.
"Maybe not acting like a jerk would have been a good start," Ursula rebutted.
"Ah, but my jerkiness got your attention," he bantered.
"I love you all, but the kitchen full of couples is bumming me out." Bess's words were mostly teasing as she watched their intimate moment.
Tilly raised her hand. "I second that. Want to eat on the front porch with me, a fellow single person?"
"Yep." Bess scooped up her plate and followed Tilly through the house, and once they were on the porch, she said, "So, wanna talk about the guy, the commitment-phobe?"
Tilly looked at Bess as they sat on the front porch, Bess with her sandwich and Tilly with a peach from the garden and her mug of tea.
"You have experience in this department of men?"
Bess rolled her eyes. She had her black dyed hair up in a high ponytail and was wearing a Hello Kitty shirt with baggy jeans.
"There are like three types of guys. Ones who want a relationship, ones who aren't interested in any kind of romance because of like sports or whatever their interests are taking up most of their brain space and personality, and then the ones who want to feel like they're connecting but don't want to commit.
Those are the guys I have the most experience with. "
She took a bite of the ripe peach, thinking through her history with dating and men, and found what Bess said to be true.
"I kind of accidentally fell for him even though he told me he didn't want anything serious. His job takes him around the world, and settling down isn't something he's interested in."
"Then how did you accidentally fall for him?"
"Well," Tilly thought about their time spent together. "We spent a year together, hanging out, being in each other's lives, building something that admittedly I got attached to."
Bess rolled her eyes again and truthfully, it was somehow pretty on her teenage face.
"Yeah, the commitment-phobe has an avoidant attachment thing.
They usually know deep down that they need and want connection and relationship, but at their surface level self, they're afraid of losing their freedom. It's so annoying."
Tilly looked at her in wonder with a grin on her face. How could such a profound thought mixed with the use of eye rolls as an entire language live in one young woman?
"You know," Tilly said, pointing at Bess, "we weren't this astute when it came to dating at your age. What are you doing, reading psychological dating books in your spare time?"
She shrugged. "Ursula said I have a gift for understanding people and their motivations, unfortunately mine is born from being abandoned by my mom at a young age, requiring me to grow up too quickly. And social media has made psychology bite-sized now."
The pain was honest and sharp. Tilly saw her indifference, a mask that was carefully adorned, but she could feel Bess's heart, a piece of metal piercing between ribs.
She understood the mask, and while she wanted to offer comfort, she could also feel that's not what this young woman wanted, nor needed. Not right now.
"You're freakishly smart, you know."
"I know." The young woman glowed.
"What about you? Any guys in your life?"
Bess snorted. "Guys my age are idiots. Pretty sure everyone thinks their brains don't develop as quickly as women's brains, but I think that's just a cop-out excuse for letting boys be boys."
Tilly laughed at that. "You may be right. Alright," she said, looking at her watch. "I'd better go. Have dinner with him. Put up some heavy-duty walls."
Bess held up a sideways peace sign as she bit into her sandwich.
"I'm glad you're in our lives, Bess," she added as she took the porch steps.
The teen smiled and waved her off.
And then Tilly and a crow made their way to one of her favorite dinner spots.