Even the promise of bedding Tally hadn’t been enough to calm the rage I’d felt. I’d somehow managed to play it cool when he walked over to where we were in the midst of a very heated conversation. It had taken every ounce of self-control I had not to throw him across the bar. I bet he just loved groping her in front of me. He always wanted what was mine and now he probably thought he’d actually beat me.
Little did he know, my wheels were turning. Nora had tried to say that she hadn’t thought about me over the years, but judging by the way her body reacted to me and the jealous way she’d rift me about talking to Tally, she was lying. She wanted to play games and act like we were strangers, but after seeing how well she’d “moved on” I was having a change of heart. Making her see that I, that we, deserved a second chance seemed like a much better plan.
Even if I lost, at least I could say I tried with everything I had. Full throttle. That was how I was going down.
Much to Tally’s dismay, I ended up going home with Hoyt that night to an empty bed. I tossed and turned until the sun came up. Every time I closed my eyes I saw her kissing him. She should have been kissing me. That was my girl in his fucking arms. She could lie to me all she wanted, but I saw it in her eyes. She couldn’t lie to herself anymore.
Could she?
There had to be a way to make this right.
I’d been up early to meet the construction crew and worked with them most of the day, but I still couldn’t stop thinking about her. I jumped on my bike and hit the trails in the timber surrounding the cabin the second we were done working for the day. If I was going to clear my head, the best place to do it was on two wheels.
If I wanted Nora Bennett to give me a second chance I was going to have to make it happen. She was as stubborn as the day is long and unless she was pushed, she was never going to back down from thinking that her pretend-it-never-happened way of thinking was wrong. She couldn’t pretend that what we had was nothing any more than I could.
When I just couldn’t ride any more, I pulled out my phone. What were the odds that she still had the same phone number? It started to ring as soon as I pressed send and my stomach bottomed out as if I’d just jumped my bike over a hill. The sun was starting to sink down for the night and I was trying to think of something to say if she actually answered. It was pathetic. I knew it, but sitting around and wishing I could talk to her would have driven me even crazier. It was Saturday night and while I should have been gearing up to go out with my friends, like a normal, single, twenty-something, I was sitting on my bike trying to decide what I was going to say to a girl who had told me she didn’t want to talk to me.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Nora?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Really? You deleted my number from your phone?”
“Reid?” She sighed. Of course she’d deleted it. She’d been pretending I didn’t exist. “What do you want?” The agitation in her tone was clear.
“Just to talk.”
“We don’t have anything to talk about.”
“I can think of a few things.” I paused. “Maybe we start with why you’re dating Beau Gregurich.”
“I told you last night it’s none of your business.”
“Well, I want it to be my business. He’s a jerk and you know it. Always has been, always will be.”
“The only jerk is you. You can’t just call me up and expect me to share the last seven years of my life with you. You left.”
“Yeah, but I’m back. Whatever happened between us back then, I want to fix it. I want—”
“I don’t.”
“Too bad.” I told her. It might have been a little pushy, but I knew by the way she looked at me last night that there was unfinished business between us. I also knew the way to get through to Nora Bennett was not to pussyfoot around. She was strong willed to the core and didn’t do well being treated with kid gloves. When she didn’t immediately try and reason her way out of it or hang up on me, I continued. “Just talk to me. Please.”
“About what? There really is nothing for us to talk about. We’re different people now.”
“I’m not.”
“I am and there are things that I just cannot talk to you about.”
“You can tell me anything,” I argued, my curiosity had been piqued. We’d never kept anything from each other. Or at least that’s how it used to be.
“Please don’t call me again.”
“Nora, wait.” I said, trying one last time to get her to not hang up, but it was too late. I was talking to myself.
* * *
Monday morning rolled around and I staked out Hillcrest Realty. I saw Nora’s little gray boring ass car sitting in the parking lot—the same one she’d driven out to the property the first day I saw her. I’d only seen one other person enter the office—Mr. Hillcrest. One of them would have to go to lunch or out to run an errand at some point. Until then, I’d wait.
As I waited for her to either leave or be left alone, I wondered what happened to the girl that used to drive the Jeep. She had an old Jeep Wrangler that she took the top off of the second the weather permitted. The damn thing had been painted so many times that no one knew what color it was supposed to be. She said it was blue so that’s what we went with, even if I saw more green when I looked at it. We rode around in that thing—among other things—the entire summer she turned sixteen. Listening to some old Bon Jovi CD that was stuck in the dash player. It wasn’t my favorite music, but at the time it was all we had and she loved it.
Her then blonde hair flying freely around her as we cruised down the back country roads. Her suntanned skin in cutoffs and a tank top teasing me all day long. The smattering of freckles across her nose making her appear way more innocent than she was. I knew back then as soon as the sun was down and we could find a spot to park she’d be all over me. She’d climb into my lap and we’d be unbreakable until curfew. Then we would have sneaked out and met each other if we hadn’t gotten our fill of each other by midnight—which happened on more than one occasion. I missed that girl. That wild, carefree girl who wanted to be with me. And, I missed the guy that I was then. The one who would have broken all the rules to get one more kiss. To get one more light touch to her smooth skin. To get one more good night, not good bye. I wanted those people back. To hell with the girl who wanted to hate me and the guy who pretended like he didn’t want her more than anything.
I walked down the block to the little coffee shop on the corner. If I was going to be on a stake out I needed the correct supplies—a small black coffee and a couple of donuts. As I was walking back, I saw Mr. Hillcrest leaving the office and felt the smile spread across my face. I finished my donut in two bites and made my way down the street. I’d picked up a chocolate Long John for Nora—remembering it was her favorite. Maybe I could persuade her to talk to me with a deep fried, frosted piece of dough.
Just as Mr. Hillcrest was pulling away, I opened the door to their office and walked in, a little bell dinged as I entered and I heard her call out from the back office.
“I’ll be right with you,” her voice said sweetly. Her professional tone was much different than the pissed off one she’d been using with me. I reveled in the moment of her not knowing it was me and pretended for just a second that she didn’t hate me. The tiny waiting room was littered with racks of brochures and a couple of empty chairs. I thought about taking a seat and putting on a show that I was actually a customer, but the draw to her was too much. I walked around the small partition separating the lobby from the offices and followed the sweet smell of her perfume back to her office. I sat my coffee down on a small table in the hallway and checked my reflection in the mirror. I ran a hand through my hair and took a breath. She was going to listen to me whether she wanted to or not. I’d pulled on a red t-shirt that morning, remembering how she always said she’d liked me in that color. The word Extreme was printed across my chest in distressed letters. Fitting, considering that extreme is exactly what I was prepared to be if it meant winning her back. If my charm and good looks didn’t get to her, I’d work the memory lane angle. I settled in the door frame to watch her busily typing away on her computer.