Home > Here (Here in Lillyvale #1)(2)

Here (Here in Lillyvale #1)(2)
Author: Jenny Bunting

Zoey stopped her eyeballs even though Jonathan commenting on the eye roll made her want to roll them again. She exhaled with an audible breath.

“So, how have you been?” Jonathan asked with an easy smile. Wait, when did his teeth become so straight and white? His biceps flexed for no reason, and his pecs moved under his shirt. She had to be hallucinating. This was not happening.

“Oh, you know, living the dream. Breathing my truth,” Zoey said. She plastered on a big smile. Zoey didn’t want to explain the disaster that was her life. Twenty-eight years old with no defined career path, no health insurance, living with her mother as she tried to climb out from under a mountain of debt. A couple wrong turns and a lengthy dry spell of men. She felt her shoulders relax but she still crossed her arms across herself like a shield.

“How about you?” Zoey asked. Jonathan had been an off-limits topic with her friends for eleven years since any news elicited uncontrollable ranting and cursing. She still knew everything, though. Usually, research happened after one-too-many cocktails with friends and someone let “Jonathan” slip from their lips. She would shush them and immediately hate-search when she got home. She had stuck to her New Year’s resolution of no hate-research and hadn’t typed his name since last year, even after Caroline said they would be in the same wedding. She deserved a medal.

“Still in Phoenix. I do insurance investigations, actually. Follow people around, capture them doing things inconsistent with injuries claimed. Stuff like that.”

“You didn’t go to law school?” Zoey asked innocently. That had been Jonathan’s plan in high school. She knew he hadn’t, but she wanted to hear from him directly. News of Jonathan’s failures gave her an odd sense of satisfaction. Even if this interaction felt weirdly normal and…nice?

“I dropped out after the first year,” Jonathan said. “I wasn’t happy and realized I didn’t want to do it anymore, so I quit.”

Zoey knew the feeling. Six months earlier, she had quit her teaching credential program within weeks of finishing. Insomnia, headaches, and hysterical crying had been a regular occurrence during the program. Sunday nights were the worst. The day she quit, she had felt the greatest sense of relief leaving the parking lot of the school.

She felt relief right now too, for some weird reason. Also, it was weird how not weird this was. After eleven years, she was scared of this?

“It’s great to see you,” Jonathan said. Zoey felt herself smile, and she shook her head. No. She was not giving him the satisfaction of waltzing back into her life to fuck it all up again. No matter how wonderful this conversation was and how good he looked and how perfect that cologne was. She wanted to soak a men’s shirt in it and put that over a body pillow and pretend it was him.

Jonathan looked down. “Are you dating anyone?”

She shook her head. And the anxiety was back. She didn’t want to ask about her, even say her name, though it sat in Zoey’s mouth like an old piece of gum.

“Me either,” Jonathan said, holding up his hand, his ring finger bare.

“Jonathan!” the barista yelled from the bar. Zoey grabbed both coffees and handed Jonathan his with a straw.

“Thanks for getting my coffee. You didn’t have to,” Zoey said. She smiled, and her cheeks resisted. In all the years she had been avoiding Jonathan, she never expected for it to feel normal. He smiled and held her gaze. Zoey was the first to look away.

“No problem. I’ve wanted to get coffee with you for a while. Do you have time to sit and catch up some more?” Jonathan asked.

Zoey pointed out the door toward Caroline’s car. “I really should get back. Caroline and I have so much unpacking and preparing to do for tonight.”

Caroline and her fiancé, Brady, were hosting a barbecue as a thank-you for the wedding party back at the vacation rental. She wasn’t quite sure what kind of prep she was needed for, but it sounded like a good enough excuse. Still, she looked at a tiny table near the window, perfect for old loves to catch up.

Stop it, Zoey Elizabeth. Keep it in your pants.

Jonathan smiled. “Totally get it. Caroline asked me to go to the store. Supposedly, there’s not enough white wine and potato salad. But we have the whole weekend to catch up. Crazy we’re staying at the same house.”

“The craziest,” Zoey said with sarcasm. She pivoted to leave. “I’ll see you back at the house.”

“It was great to see you again. Really.” Jonathan hesitated but stepped toward her, and Zoey stepped to the right. He stepped toward her again, and she stepped back. She caught a whiff of that cologne again, and she felt the self-loathing lurking. Still, she didn’t want to hug him. Not after everything that happened.

“I have to go,” Zoey said, giving him a wide berth as she left the shop.

“See you back at the house,” Jonathan said as he took a sip of his coffee. She looked back to see him still staring at her.

That didn’t go…terrible, Zoey thought to herself. As she turned on the car and looked up, she watched Jonathan get into his car. He looked so handsome as he got into his rental.

“No,” Zoey said out loud. She flipped down the car’s visor and looked into the little mirror.

“We have been down this road before, Zoey Elizabeth. You knew this was a possibility, and you hid from him like a champion for years,” she said to herself with a pointed finger. She breathed in and out. She could do this. She could survive this weekend.

“We’re going to avoid him. All weekend. No talks. No googly eyes. Look what happened in there. That was too fucking easy.”

Zoey turned to see the barista now outside, vaping, and watching her. She looked away and then back, her mouth in a snarl.

She rolled down her window. “I don’t need your judgment.”

The barista shrugged. “It seems like he’s into you.”

“Shut up,” Zoey yelled as she rolled up her window and backed into the street to an angry honking horn.

 

 

Jonathan rubbed his face and ruffled his hair as he drove. He was not sure what to expect, but it definitely wasn’t that his ex-girlfriend was even more of a smoke show than she was before.

Her hair was darker and wild on top of her head. He used to spend hours waiting as she flat-ironed her hair bone-straight and would pick her up from laborious hair appointments where the stylist made her blonde. She had lost the fullness in her cheeks, and her face was clear of all the makeup he had always told her she looked great without. He used to love bringing her camping so she would look like she did in this coffee shop. Natural and free. She looked thinner than she’d been in high school, though he had enjoyed her curves when they dated. She looked different, sure, but the Zoey he knew was still there. The quick wit. The endearing awkwardness. The propensity to spill everything to strangers.

She also almost reversed into a Lexus on the street, so she was still a bad driver. He could tell she would’ve avoided him forever if she could have, but he was glad to finally see her face to face again. It felt like it had taken a lifetime to get here. The wedding would be an excuse to clear the air, move forward. Best-case scenario would be to try to be friends again.

Every once in a while, he would ask his best friend Brady how she was doing. Brady didn’t really answer him since his fiancée, Caroline, threatened to withhold sex if he divulged anything about Zoey. Zoey had scrubbed herself off almost all social media, except for Instagram. He felt proud of her for setting it to private, especially with how his targets gave away a lot on social media and made his job easier. People loved to share their car accidents online and say “he will pay” in the comments of a photo of a demolished car.

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