“Come in.” Valentine broke the silence, stepping back from the doorway.
What I really wanted to do was leave.
And roar my frustration and rage out into a dark sky somewhere.
Instead, like I was on autopilot, I followed her into the rundown space that acted as both kitchen and sitting room.
“What brings you to my part of town?” she asked, running her fingers nervously through her hair.
I tried not to notice how kiss-stung her mouth was and failed. Clenching my jaw, I looked away. “Just in the neighborhood. Thought I’d stop by. Didn’t mean to… interrupt.”
“Oh, it’s fine.”
“Who is he?” I picked a book up off the side table. A romance novel. I assumed it was Val’s. Pretending to read the blurb, I waited for her to speak.
“He’s my boss. He owns the bar I bar tend at.”
Disbelief scored through me.
Was she fucking kidding me?
I turned to face her. “Are you insane?”
She flinched like I slapped her. “What?”
“Cupid, how could you be so stupid? You don’t fuck your boss.” My anger took over me. “Jesus, he looks twice your age. Too old for you. And is he too married for you too? Is that reason for the clandestine fuck in the middle of the day? Are you really that much of a screwup?”
The color drained from Valentine’s cheeks.
The hurt and betrayal in her gaze was worse than I was feeling.
I wanted to take back what I’d said. It was ugly. It was so fucking ugly. Assumptions based on nothing but my jealousy and rage.
Tears filled her eyes and I hated myself.
“Val—”
She raised a palm. “Don’t. Now I know… now I know what you really think of me. I…” she brushed her tears away angrily and huffed bitterly, “I always thought you were the one person in my life who really saw me. But you’re just like them. And I’ve decided I don’t need people who make me feel like a failure in my life.” She stormed toward the door and threw it open, gesturing for me to leave. “You can go.”
“Valentine, I didn’t—”
“You can’t take it back.” She shrugged miserably. “It’s out there now. Always between us.”
“That’s not… I was just surprised… I didn’t expect—”
“Just stop, Micah.”
Everything I wanted to say just wouldn’t come out.
I left.
And I would curse myself for years to come for not just telling her right in that moment that I was in love with her, I was a jealous bastard, and it had made me say things I didn’t mean.
5
Micah
AGE 22
* * *
The table, as always, laid out before us, covered in delicious goodness. Turkey, ham, chicken. Stuffing. Mashed potatoes, candied yams, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, corn bread. Not to mention the three different kinds of pie for dessert. Pecan, pumpkin and chocolate.
The Fairchilds always went all out on Thanksgiving.
But that wasn’t the reason I always came back.
I was a graduate student, had my own place in Boston with a few of the guys I’d met at college. All of them but Wells went home for Thanksgiving. I could have stayed with him.
However, I had hope.
That she would be there.
She never was.
Caroline had inadvertently pushed Valentine away as much as I had.
Not that she didn’t stay in contact. We emailed. We texted. It wasn’t the same. But it was something.
She talked with Jim too.
And for some reason, I’d really thought she’d be here this year. She was turning twenty-one next January… time was slipping away.
Mom was the only one who noticed my disappointment when I realized Valentine wasn’t coming. She didn’t say anything. The one good thing that had come out of the last few years, other than me getting closer to becoming a qualified architect, was my mom. We were closer. We were building trust again.
“Didn’t Valentine say she’d call?” Her grandmother asked for the ninetieth time. “A child who feels loved and wanted would have called by now.”
If Caroline came down hard on Val, her mother came down hard on her. She’d been making these little digs at Caroline every Thanksgiving for the past three years.
“My daughter knows I love her.” Caroline glared at her mom.
Caroline’s dad tsked. “Your mother means nothing by it. Lose the tone, Caro.”
Shit.
“I don’t have a tone.” She sniffed and stuffed more food into her mouth.
Jim stared forlornly at his dinner plate.
They missed their kid.
I missed her too.
Mom and I shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m not saying you weren’t right to guide her on her future, but you have to know when to let go and just let your child make her own mistakes.”
“I know that, Mother.”
“And Valentine seems perfectly happy. And that’s all anyone can ask for.”
“Really? Because when I was growing up, you made it perfectly clear that my happiness depended upon how successful I was in life and thus how proud I made you.”
“Jesus,” Mom murmured under her breath.
Things were about to go south very quickly.
A sharp ringing from the TV on the wall behind Jim jolted us.
“Oh, thank God,” Jim muttered. “That’ll be Val.” He tapped his phone as he turned toward the TV and suddenly Valentine’s beautiful beaming face was on the screen.
“Happy Thanksgiving!” she cried, waving at us.
“Happy Thanksgiving!” we called back.
I was so busy staring at her face it took me a minute to register the background.
“Where are you?” Jim asked.
Although it was dark out, there were palm trees blowing in the breeze behind her.
And she was wearing a white dress.
Valentine giggled. “I have a surprise. I’m in Cancun.”
“Mexico?” Caroline asked, leaning toward the screen. Her face paled. “Valentine… what is that on your left hand?”
Her dimples popped as dread filled me.
She raised her left hand, showing off the gold wedding band, and then there was a guy stepping into the shot. A guy in a tuxedo. Holding her close. Like she was his. “Louis and I got married!”
The room erupted.
Dazed, I barely registered what was being shouted at the television by both parents and grandparents.
Valentine had only been seeing this guy for three months.
He was a comic bookstore owner. That’s all I’d known about him.
Her parents thought he was a loser.
Her grandparents changed their tune. Valentine was wasting her life.
I could hear her arguing with them but I couldn’t look at her.
I got up out of my seat and was leaving the room when I heard her shout at them she didn’t need their approval. From the way the four of them turned on each other, I assumed Valentine had cut off the video.
Feeling sick to my stomach, I grabbed my coat with my car keys, and rushed outside for a deep gulp of crisp, cold fresh air.