Page 13 of Be My Reason

“Your hotel has a great running trail.” He stops talking and scrunches his eyebrows together while stroking his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Um. . . so what are you studying?”

“Small business management.”

“Not big on words tonight, are you Brooklyn?”

“It’s Lyn.L-Y-N,” I spell it out for him.

“Well,Brooklyn . . .”

I roll my eyes at him.

“It looks like you’ve gotten everything you wanted.” He frowns and looks down at his wrist which he is moving around in circles. I notice some small scars on it but don’t ask about them. The less we talk the better.

“You’re really getting married, huh?Why would you do that?” he asks.

“It is usually the progression of events after meeting, dating and falling in love,” I quip.

He looks pissed. “Marriage is a bunch of crap, you know. Expecting two people to stay together forever is unrealistic.”

Whoa, hello Mr. Personal.I really don’t want to talk about love and marriage and forever with the guy, who I thought, eight years ago, was going to be all of that for me. I know. Deep down, I know it was just one night and that it obviously meant so much more to me than to him. But for a minute, actually for thirty-three hours and twenty minutes, I really thought that he was it for me. I was finished. Done. At seventeen I had found my prince and he came in with his silver pickup truck and swept me off my feet.

“Just because your marriage failed doesn’t mean everyone else’s will,” I say, twisting my engagement ring.

He shakes his head. “No, it’s not natural. Most people end up divorced anyway so why bother to go through all the trouble of dating, flowers, meeting the parents and garbage like that?”

“The trouble of dating?”I snap at him, raising my voice because he has really hit a nerve. “Oh, yes, how could I forget? Itistoo much trouble foryou. You would rather just sleep with everyone and then leave.” There, I’ve said it.

He takes in a sharp breath and looks like I’ve just punched him in the stomach.Is that. . . regret, I see? He shakes his head and recovers quickly. “Whatever,” he says in clear frustration. “It won’t work out. You’ll see.” He rubs his tattoo again.

I see out of the corner of my eye that Emma and Graham have been following our conversation like watching a tennis match.Emma is turning red.This is not good.

“What thehell is your problem, Nate?” she yells at him. “You have no right to say that to her, especially since you are the man-whore of the East Coast. What could you possibly know about having a good relationship?”

I look at my best friend in awe of her brashness, the hypocrisy of what she has said is not lost on me, but I have to smile as she defends my honor.

“You don’t know shit, Emma!” He slams his drink down. I’m getting pretty tired of being splashed with drinks tonight.

“Hold on there.” Graham puts a hand on his friend’s chest to hold him back. “I think now might be a good time to call it a night.” He looks at me apologetically as he motions for the waitress to come over.

Graham settles the check and we all stand up andgo out the door quietly and in single file. I thank Graham for dinner and head over in the direction of Emma’s car to give her and Graham some privacy. Nate follows me.

“Hey, I’m sorry about that.A lot of things have happened since back then, Brooklyn.” He holds out his hand to me and I stare at it as if it might burn me. “Come on, friends?” He looks at me with that smile I haven’t seen since that night. The one that reaches his eyes. The one I thought was just for me.

Since this will be the last I ever see of Nate Riley, I put my hand out to shake his.He takes it as he looks into my eyes. When our hands touch there is a familiar spark of electricity shooting through me and I’m seventeen again. He stares into me for a long minute while he rubs his thumb on the back of my hand. He must feel my scar and he brings my hand up into the light. “You got injured,” he says, tracing the scar carefully. He meets my eyes again. “We all have scars, Brooklyn. Some are simply easier to see.” He leans in and pecks me quickly on the cheek and then walks away.

Confused as hell, I wave to Graham and quickly climb into the passenger seat of Emma’s car to await her.What just happened? He was a jerk the entire night until just now. Maybe he is bi-polar or something. All these years of wondering what happened to him and here he is, whoring all over North Carolina. Then he is talking to me about scars. What scars, the ones on his wrist? His tattoo? I’m not sure how to process this information.

Emma slides into the driver’s seat and looks over at me. “I am so sorry. We should have left when he walked through that door. He is such an asshole.” She leans over the stick shift to hug me.

“I love you Emma, but I will not be doing that again.Ever. If you want to see Graham, you can go on your own and I’ll stay at the hotel.”Maybe I can book a plane ticket home.

“I will do no such thing.I dragged you here. We are going to go out and have fun. I’m not leaving you. I can just eat lunch with Graham at the conference.” She looks sad and I’m not sure if it’s because I am hurt from seeing Nate or because she won’t be seeing Graham as much as she wanted to. Probably both.

“I don’t want to ruin this for you. I can see you really like hi—”

“No way, Lyn. I’m not leaving you alone. We are Thelma and Louise, remember? Well, except for killing someone and robbing a store and driving off a cliff.” She laughs. “Although, I came awfully close to killing someone tonight.”

“Okay, you’ve piqued my curiosity.Let’s go order up some drinks and watch us a movie.”

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