Starless Nights (Hale Brothers Series Book 2) (5 page)

I blink and the memory disappears. A fresh rush of anger and sadness sweeps over me.

“Yeah, well you didn’t really give me a way to share things with you, now did you?”

She’s watching me and it is unnerving me.

“I can’t believe that you kept it all of these years,” she says quietly.

“You gave it to me. Why wouldn’t I keep it?” She pauses and then abruptly ends the conversation and walks away.

I hate watching her walk away from me. It’s such a familiar sight that I almost call out to her to stop, but I don’t. Instead, I take another look around the café to see what has now become a part of Leila’s life.

She slips into the back and I let out a sigh. I need a minute to gather myself.

I know that I should be doing something other than just standing here, but my mind is screaming at me.

What do I say to her? Does she want me to say anything at all? She’s so close to where I live. Am I supposed to stop in and see her now? Does she even want me to stop in? It’s been a year, we aren’t even friends. We haven’t been for a long time. Do I want to be friends with her? I know in the end, she will hurt me like she always does.

She comes out from the back, makes the coffee, and walks it over to me. She is so beautiful that even after all these years it still hurts to look at her. She takes my breath away. She hands me the cup and somehow I push through my nerves and attempt to talk to her. Her answers are short and then the spell of the moment is broken by the door opening.

I watch as a guy walks in and wraps his arms around Leila. I think a part of me dies. I knew that she most likely had a boyfriend. How could she not? She is so beautiful. But to have it so suddenly shoved in my face like this, I could throw up all over again.

She turns around in his arms to face him and I feel like a third wheel, an intruder.

I can see by the look on this guy’s face that he deeply cares for Leila. They proceed to have a conversation that doesn’t include me and I hate every minute of it. I didn’t need to know that they were up super late and that he spent the night. Someone may as well take a dull fork and repeatedly stab me in the heart because that is what this feels like.

“You know what Leila, I’m just gonna take this to go,” I say. I’ve had enough and can’t stand here and witness them anymore. She spins back around to face me and my heart slams into my chest. Her crystal blue eyes are piercing and seem to be filled with an apology.

“Oh, you two know each other?” the guy says. He smiles real big at me, while stepping out from behind her and extending his hand. “Hi, I’m Charlie.”

Being polite I shake his hand back, when all I want to do is rip it off because it touches her. “Beau.”

Leila doesn’t say anything. She’s just watching me.

“So, how do you two know each other?” he asks curiously. I look down at her and can see that she is waiting to hear my response. Her face flushes.

“We grew up together,” I say without breaking eye contact with her.

“Really, well that’s fantastic. Babe, you were just saying how you were missing home. It must be so nice to see a familiar face.” Leila shoots him a look and he smirks at her. I don’t understand the look but it does tell me that they aren’t new friends. She’s been with him for a while.

I need to get out here.

Reaching into my bag, I pull out my wallet. Leila sees this and takes the cup of coffee back to the counter and pours it into a to-go cup.

“So do you live around here?” Charlie asks me. My eyes swing back to his.

“Uh, yeah, I live just around the corner.” Without Leila standing in front of him, I’m able to get a good look at the guy. I would say that we are about the same height. He has really dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. He looks like what I would expect a New Yorker to look like, he even has the accent.

“How convenient,” he says with a slight edge. “You’ll get to drop in and see Leila regularly.”

“Maybe.” I can feel him trying to read me and I don’t like it. Too many emotions are coursing through and I’ll be damned if I let some guy that I don’t know pass judgment on me or feel threatened by me. Taking my wallet, I walk away from him and toward the counter. Leila sees the money and holds up her hand.

“Coffee’s on me. It was nice to see you, Beau.”

Nice to see you? That’s all she has to say? Of course it is, an easy dismissal. She’s got to keep face in front of the boyfriend.

My hand shakes as I reach out for the coffee. She sees this and her brows furrow a little.

“Thanks Leila.” I turn, walk back to the chair, grab my things, nod at the guy, because he’s given me no reason to be rude to him, and push out the front door.

I can’t get out fast enough. The summer humidity slams into me and I take a deep breath. The door closes and I turn to the right to walk away. While squeezing the cup a little too tightly, it bends, and the hot coffee sloshes out. My heart was just ripped out of chest, my stomach is in knots. There is no way I can drink this coffee. Not wanting it anymore I drop it into the nearest garbage can and push forward. I’m not sure where I am headed; I just know I need to walk.

The sun has started to lighten the sky and more people have crowded onto the sidewalks. Who knows where they are all going, I just need to be lost in them.

Seeing her again pulls all these familiar emotions that I haven’t felt in so long. This is the third time that she has unexpectedly appeared in my life. The first time was when we were eight, the second time when we were sixteen.

All around me things are happening: taxi cabs racing down the street, horns blaring, dogs being walked, people laughing, buses whizzing by. But as I focus on the pounding of my heart, all of it fades away.

After Leila and her family moved away from the island, I honestly never expected to see her again.

Grant and I were on the beach outside of the café skim boarding when Chase walks out and calls over to us. Grant skips off to him as I run after the board.

“Hey Grant, you remember my cousin Leila, right?” Chase says behind me. My heart stops and I trip over the board. Please tell me that I didn’t hear him say what I think he just said.

“Oh yeah! It’s good to see you. Are you visiting or did you move back?”

“Moved back.” My eyes slide shut. I feel wrecked and I haven’t even done anything.

“That’s awesome! Beau, you have to come over here and see who it is.” I feel all three of them turn to look at me. Of course Grant thinks that this is good news. I even understand why he would be excited by this . . . I never told him what she did before she moved.

Over and over during those two and a half years, I dreamt about what it would be like to see her again. What type of reunion we would have, or if I would even want one. It’s interesting because once the devastation of her leaving wore off, the anger set in. But after so much time, the anger dulled and I seemed to remember so many of the good times. Knowing that she is finally near, the heartache she caused fuels an unexpected rage.

I take a deep breath, look up and over at them. Grant is smiling and saying something to me but I can’t hear him. My ears are thrumming from the blood that is rushing through them. Everything about this moment seems so surreal.

Time stops.

When we were kids, I always thought that she was pretty but as I look at her now, pretty isn’t the right word. She is beautiful. She matured in a way that makes her look classic and gorgeous. She is taller, leaner, and she has curves. Her face is thinner and she’s lost what most I guess most would call baby fat.

Pain slices through me. Her standing so close to me after all this time resurfaces how much she hurt me.

“Hey Beau.” Her voice touches me. It feels like her fingers are brushing over my heart.

Looking at her, I feel like I am looking at me. For so many years we were inseparable and all of my best memories include her. How she could have treated me the way that she did after all that time, I will never understand. What I do know though? I will never allow her or anyone else to hurt me like she did ever again.

It’s that thought that causes me to narrow my eyes at her, turn, and walk away from them.

“Beau! Where are you going?” I hear Grant call after me. I don’t really know where I am going except that it has to be somewhere far away from her.

My eyes burn. I won’t cry. I will never cry over her ever again.

Out of nowhere, Matt skips up next to me. His binoculars are hanging around his neck so he must have seen me coming.

“What’re you doing?” He never talks, so hearing the concern in his voice and seeing the way he’s looking at me . . . he knows something is wrong. Then again, maybe it’s the look on my face that gives it away.

“Walking.”

“Why?” His little legs are trying to keep up.

“Leila’s back.” He stops walking, but I don’t. I need to keep moving and I need to keep moving further away from her.

The sound of screeching tires from a city bus jerks me back into the present. Moving . . . that’s what I did that day on the beach, and that’s what I’m doing now. Block by block and street by street. With my hands shoved down into the pockets of my shorts, I stretch the distance between the café and me.

I COULDN’T WAIT for my shift to end. My heart hasn’t stopped racing for the last four hours and pouring coffee is very hard when your hands won’t stop shaking.

He didn’t know that I worked here. It was obvious once I calmed down from the shock of seeing him. He was just as surprised as I was. I will never understand why our paths continually cross. It’s as if the stars have aligned in a way where they are seeing how many times they can mess up my life.

Of course Charlie recognized him too. Not too long after we became friends, he was over at my apartment one night for dinner and after two six-packs of wine coolers he questioned my love life. I broke down, ugly tears and all, and told him why there has never been anyone. Anyone else besides Beau that is. I even pulled out the few pictures that I had of us and couldn’t seem to part with.

Charlie told me I was wasting the best years of my life, and maybe I am, but as I watched him stare at the only framed photo of Beau that I have ever put out, I knew that my life couldn’t be lead differently.

I love that picture. It was taken at my high school graduation. Drew, Ali, and I were all posing together in cap and gown, and right before Drew’s mom snapped the photo Beau jumped in between Drew and me. His arms were wrapped around all three of us in a giant hug and we were laughing. It’s such a carefree picture. He is beautiful.

Thinking about Beau, I find myself frowning. For so many years, I did such a great job ignoring him and blocking out all memories or emotions that were tied to him. If only I could remember how to do that now.

One by one, customers file in a line at the café counter and I fill their orders. I’m moving on autopilot while I’m staying continually lost in thought. It’s seeing a flash of the color teal that takes me back to our little house on Magnolia Street. I’m sixteen years old and it’s a warm sunny June afternoon.