Page 16 of Forever & Always You
“So, are you going to tell me why you’re here or are we going to stand here in silence forevermore? Because if so, I’d like to get back to eating my salmon.”
Austin scoffs. “Of course you’re eating salmon. Delivered personally straight out of the sea. Is there an in-house chef these days?”
“Okay, bye bye,” I say, reaching for the door.
Austin clasps my wrist. “Gabrielle, wait.”
My gaze drops to his hand, his touch light but secure. My heart decides to cut me a break from its hammering and skips a beat or two instead.
“I came here,” he says, clearing his throat, “because I found this.”
Releasing his grip on my arm, he tucks his hand into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and retrieves a small, folded piece of paper. He holds it up between his index and middle finger, raising an eyebrow. Yeah, fuck.
“It was on the floor beneath my desk,” he explains. “Is that why you came to me today? Because of some note we wrote together when we were kids?”
I try to snatch it from him, but his movements are quicker. He steps backward and unfolds the creased paper, running his eyes over the silly little words we wrote together. My cheeks blazewith heat.
He lifts his gaze from the paper, his piercing blue eyes finding mine. “After everything you did, you think this actually means something?”
I swallow hard, and my voice is nothing more than a quiet squeak when I ask, “Doesn’t it?”
“Oh, Gabby,” he says, my name laced with pity. To my disbelief, right in front of my face, he tears the note crisply down its center. “If only you were someone I actually wanted to be best friends with forever, then maybe itwouldmean something. But the Gabby I wrote this note with? Not the same Gabby I knew in the end.”
It shouldn’t sting as much as it does, but ouch. My only saving grace is that I’m self-aware enough to agree with his last statement and I won’t embarrass myself further by justifying my actions to him, so I simply nod in solemn acceptance.
“I don’t blame you for coming here to tear the note up in front of me,” I say, “but for complete clarity, I didn’t show up at your office expecting you to be my best friend again. I want to fix my mistakes, and the way I treated you? That was my worst.”
The front door cracks open, breaking our eye contact.
“Is everything okay out here?” Mom asks, and it is not out of concern, but out of nosiness.
“God, Mom, privacy?”
“We’re all good, Mrs. McKinley,” Austin says, way more polite than I am. “Just catching up.”
Mom does not return the smile he gives her. She looks to me with a disapproving frown instead. “Your dinner is getting cold. Will you please come back inside and join us?”
“I’ll come back inside when I’m ready,” I say sharply, because for fuck’s sake, I am not a child. This is why I never come home.
Mom tuts and shuts the door with a very dignified, gentle slam. Austin can’t stifle his laugh.
“Your mother hasn’t changed for as long as I’ve known her. She never did like me.”
“The real estate values, Austin,” I whine. “Think of the real estate values! How dare you exist in our vicinity!”
“You’d think I’d built those apartment blocks with my own bare hands, the way she hated me.”
We exchange laughter, but it quickly fades. There are these brief moments when the conversation feels natural, unstilted. No tension lingering between our words, just the hint of a former friendship finding its way through.
I look beyond Austin, over to the housing project across the street. It looks worse now than it did before, the building succumbing to years of extreme weather and a lack of maintenance. It was apparent this morning when I saw the random man on their balcony that the Pierces no longer live there these days. Good for them.
“What are you doing tonight?” Austin asks.
“I was going to head back to my apartment in Durham, but I’ve started on the wine, so .?.?.” I shrug.
“I thought you said your pipes burst.”
“They did.”
