“Not feeling too good, huh?” he asked.
“I think the appropriate word here would be
yuck
.”
He chuckled. “No dinner out, then?”
“I just don’t think I can, Dibs. I need to go home and put on my warm jammies, and sit under a blanket with the remote.”
“Is this one of those crises that calls for pizza and chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream?”
Her cheeks heated. Weren’t those her exact words to him on the plane? “Very funny.”
“What time are you knocking off?”
“You don’t have to do that, Dibs, really. I’m not going to be any fun, that’s for sure.”
“Relax, Rex. It’s just me.”
How could he want to spend time with her after she’d acted like such a fool? He should’ve been thrilled with the prospect of having the night off. Evidently his compassion for her trumped any necessity to place judgment on her behavior. And truth was, her psyche could use a little TLC. “Okay, sure. That sounds wonderful, actually.”
“Pick you up at six?”
“Make it five-thirty.”
She dropped the phone in the cradle and stared at the handset. He’d done it again. With one call, a few kind words, everything in her world was back to being bearable. Now all she needed was his warm hug and life would be perfect.
The expectation of spending the evening with him lightened her mood, as well as bolstered her confidence, and thankfully so because one unsavory task still required her attention.
Once the hands on the clock had crept close to five-thirty, Tessa pushed away from her desk, approached Tiffany’s open door, and leaned against the threshold. “Are we speaking yet?”
Tiffany’s head stayed lowered, her hand jotting notes along the edge of her accounting ledger. “Depends.”
“I’m really sorry, Tiff.”
“We’re speaking.” She lifted her chin, folding her hands atop her desk.
Tessa crossed the office and flopped into a chair. “If it makes you feel any better, Dibs said I spent the remainder of the evening apologizing.”
“And what does that tell you, Tessa?”
“That I’m screwed up.” She flipped her hands in the air around her head. “Big surprise there.”
“The question is, what are you going to do about it?” Sadness clouded Tiffany’s dark blueberry eyes. “You know I say things like this because I care about you, but goddamn it, Tessa, sometimes you are the most frustrating person to be around.”
She filled her lungs and slowly exhaled. God, what she wouldn’t give to rewind the past and make different decisions…better decisions. “I know I need to change things, Tiff, but it’s not that easy for me. You know…you were there when he left.”
“That was over three years ago. Never in my wildest dreams did I think you would hang on to the hurt for this long.”
The doorbell chimed and Tessa twisted in the seat as Dibs strode into reception. She held up a finger, asking him to wait a moment. He nodded, propped an elbow against the reception counter and pulled his cell phone from his breast pocket.
“Again with the Dibs?”
She swiveled back to Tiffany’s confused frown and shrugged. “We’re getting pizza.”
“Well,” she sighed, “you must be doing something right.”
****
Standing near the back of Dibs’s Jag, pizza box in hand, Tessa waited while he collected some suspicious-looking grocery bags from the trunk. Once inside her condo, he marched directly into the kitchen and swung both the refrigerator and freezer doors wide.
She laughed when he centered a pint of chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream in the freezer, and then followed that with stocking various food items in the refrigerator—a gallon of milk, orange juice, some bottled water…
“You just can’t stand it, can you?” She strolled the length of the counter, perusing the bags, her first genuine smile of the day blooming when she located a generous bouquet of fuchsia gladiolas.
“All that empty space bothers me.” He tossed in a loaf of bread and some shaved turkey. “It’s like a black hole or something.”
She arranged the flowers in tall vase, carried them down the hall to her bedroom, and stashed them on her dresser while she changed into the most comfortable silk tank top and pajama pants she owned. Each time she caught sight of the beautiful flowers, an arrow of happiness shot straight into her heart. In a silly way, having them within arm’s reach was like keeping a small part of Dibs near.
The bouquet went with her into the bathroom, where she took a stab at repairing the day’s damage—clipping her hair on top of her head and brushing until the tresses cascaded sleek and smooth down her back. She added a dab of lip gloss, but no amount of concealer would hide the heavy shadows beneath her eyes, or the ashen hue of her cheeks. Sighing, she turned away from the glass.
The throw blanket from the couch carried a hint of his cologne. Keeping one corner pressed to her lips, she tossed the other end around her shoulders, shuffling and straightening the length until both her and the re-appropriated flowers were wrapped up snug and tight.
In the kitchen, Dibs still stood before the open fridge. “I forgot condiments.”
“Well, since I don’t need them, it’s really not that big a deal.” She set the vase on the counter and flipped open the pizza box.
He followed her motions, his smile slowly fading, worry darkening his gaze to stormy gray.
“What?” She folded a slice and bit off the end.
“You look like you should go lie down.”
“I feel like I should go lie down.”
He crossed his arms, the seams of his blue V-neck T-shirt straining around his shoulders. “Other than that pizza in your hand, have you eaten anything today?”
“Don’t start. I wasn’t hungry.”
He swung the refrigerator door closed and waited for her to hoist the flowers in one arm before marshalling her into the living room. “Sit down.” He pointed to the couch. “And why do you keep toting those flowers around?”
He reached for the vase, but she scowled and twisted away from him. “Get your own. These are mine.”
Eyes wide, hands raised in surrender, he backed into the kitchen and reappeared a few seconds later, plates and napkins balanced on top of the pizza box. Handing her the bottle of water he’d tucked under his arm, he joined her on the couch. “So, other than feeling yucky, how was your day?”
“It stunk. Tiff and I had a fight.” She hesitated, inwardly cringing. Talk about stupid. Discussing whether or not she was developing feelings for him beyond friendship wasn’t a good idea. That topic would only lead in a dangerous direction.
“About what?”
She chewed her pizza, mulling over her answer. Coming clean with him about a few things seemed the most obvious choice. Besides, she valued his opinion. And he always seemed to know the right thing to say. “You know the little voice inside your head that supposedly tells you what’s wrong from right?”
“Ah, you mean your conscience?”
She slanted a glare at him from under her brows. “Well, Tiffany thinks mine is broken, so she’s volunteered to fill in. In her opinion, I’m living my life in an inappropriate fashion.” She braced and waited. Chances were good he would agree.
He grunted, the cheese stretching when he shoveled some pizza onto his plate. “How long have you two been friends?”
“Almost ten years. Why?”
“Well, do you think she’s right?”
“That’s not the point,” she said. “Sometimes I just don’t want to listen to the voice.”
He leaned away from her, frowning. “Why not?”
“Okay, you’ve been married before, so maybe you’ll get this.” She settled into the couch, tucking her cold feet underneath her bottom. “How were you feeling the week before you got married?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Happy, I guess, and excited and a little nervous.”
“Right. Normal feelings, right?”
He nodded, tearing off a bite of pizza with his teeth.
“Well, I was feeling the same way. I remember thinking, in a few days I would be Mrs. Michael Phoenix. I was happy, you know, really happy. TNT had just opened its doors, Michael was about to receive his film degree. Everything was perfect…and then
poof
, he vanished.”
Dibs’s pizza clattered back onto the plate. “What do you mean, ‘poof, he vanished’? Like he disappeared?”
She smiled ruefully. “Tiff and I had gone for my last fitting. And when we returned to the apartment, all Michael’s things were cleared out. No note. No phone call. No…nothing.” And she’d suffered the next two weeks in a panic—searching out hospitals, his friends and family. But if they had any information, they’d never shared it with her. And a month later, the truth finally hit home.
She picked at a spot on her pizza crust. “So, tell me, Dibs. Where was my little voice then? Why wasn’t it screaming for attention a week or even days before he left, trying to warn me? Where the hell was it?” Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them away. “I think sometimes when a person spends that much time with someone, it’s easy to take for granted they’ll always be there.”
The intensity of Dibs’s gaze was like a beam of light on her face, exposing her weaknesses. So she avoided his inspection, afraid of the reproach she might find.
“And he never gave you any explanations? You haven’t spoken with him since?”
“He never returned any of my phone calls…and believe me, I called.” Six years of her life she had wasted on Michael. Six years, only to end looking the fool. And afterward, well, the foolish mistakes had all been hers. She’d never needed anyone’s help with that. “My best guess is he just didn’t love me anymore.”
She set her plate on the coffee table, her appetite gone. It seemed forever and back again since she’d shared such intimate details with anyone. But what did it matter? Dibs would most likely agree with everyone else. She should just get over the hurt, pick up the tattered pieces of her heart, and forget the past had ever happened. “Now when I think back, I remember seeing it on his face, you know? I could tell by how he looked at me, by the things he said, he was about to leave. But my little voice kept silent. It never prepared me for what was coming.”
She shook her head. “So, in the grand scheme of things, I guess Tiffany’s right. When it comes to matters of love, my compass no longer points north. My little voice is broken. And now I don’t trust it. So I ignore it altogether. I make my emotional decisions based on how risky they are, on how much of myself I have to invest. Not by listening to my conscience.”
“That explains a lot,” Dibs said quietly.
“It explains why I’m so screwed up, you mean.”
He smiled, but no happiness shone his eyes. “It’s like me with my family.”
“How so?”
“Well, take Margaret for example. My parents told me I should marry her, so I did. But they weren’t the ones who got cheated on. They weren’t the ones who got hurt or had to suffer through a divorce. I was. I had to learn the hard way. And now I know. I won’t listen to them again.”
Sorrow etched a deep crevasse in her heart. She and Dibs were more alike than she’d imagined. He had lived her same nightmare, but whereas she’d been spared the abhorrence of divorce, he’d been cajoled into marrying someone who was a mistake, and in the end paid the ultimate price with his family. Another tear welled in her eye. She broke off from him and dropped her gaze to the floor.
A long moment of silence stretched between them. And while she couldn’t speak for Dibs, her thoughts became mired in the past. Had it only been a week ago she was so rude to him on the phone?
Her stomach sank over the memory of that phone call. Lucky for her fate had stepped in, offered her another chance to know him. Even though they’d only spent a few days together, on another level, it seemed liked they’d always been friends. And yet, things could have so easily gone differently. If not for that plane ride, she might never have seen him again. He would have floated out of her life just like all the others, no hint of him left behind, no reminders to rub out…which is exactly the way she’d wanted it thanks to how intricately her and Michael’s lives had been entwined.
A grim shudder wrenched her shoulders as she swept the moisture from her face. Nearly twelve months had passed before she’d successfully erased all traces of his existence. Well, everything except for one specific item she’d purposely retained…as a last dire warning about the true nature of relationships.
She peeked at Dibs out of the corner of her eye. What would he think of her secret? “Can I show you something?”
He lifted his focus off the floor. “Sure.”
She pushed up from the couch, down the hall to her jewelry box, and retrieved the diamond engagement ring she had kept in its black velvet box ever since the day she had removed it from her finger. Once seated back in the living room, she dropped the jewelry into Dibs’s open palm.
“Is this…?” He locked onto her and she nodded. Tipping his hand toward the kitchen light, he bounced the ring in his palm, and then snagged it on the end of his index finger. “Huh. That’s really ugly.”
“Hey.” She bumped him shoulder to shoulder.
“And really small. This ring is really ugly and really small.”
The marquise cluster of pavé diamonds didn’t even fit past his first knuckle. “It is sort of ugly, isn’t it?”
He held up his finger so the ring faced her. “You should sell it. Maybe you could get something nice. Like a prize out of a bubble gum machine or something.”
She slugged his arm. “Be nice, Dibs.”
“Ouch.” He rubbed his shoulder, chuckling, and discarded the jewelry next to the vase. “Seriously, why are you keeping that thing?”
“I don’t know. I guess at first I kept it because I had already owned it for so long it seemed like a part of me. And now, I guess maybe I keep it as a symbol.”
“Of how you never want to get hurt again?”
She nodded.
“You should get rid of it.”
And strangely enough, his advice wafted comfortably into the center of her chest. Perhaps it was time she destroy all traces of Michael once and for all.
Tightening the blanket around her shoulders, she yawned, and then scrubbed a thumb and index finger into her tired eyes.