Page 3 of One Hundred Lights
It was ancient history.
I never did tell Reese about that kiss, and I assume Adrian didn’t either. There was nothing to tell.
Reese and I were immediate besties. We had the same taste in clothes, loved the same movies, laughed at the same cheesy jokes, and were both obsessed with our cranky cats. She helped me through the divorce, immediately taking my side like a protective older sister.
But now she’ll probably never talk to me again.
I miss both of them.
And I miss working out. I massage my biceps. Have they become softer? Shit. I need another way to stay in shape.
I get up and move to the long sectional couch, grabbing my laptop from the coffee table before settling in. The Idea Garage will be open this week, then shut for the last two weeks of the year. I bought this house because it had a one-car garage attached to the house, plus a giant garage next to it, which I converted to a working space complete with a kitchen, bathroom, large open area with multiple tables, plus a cozy loft with bean bags and two more small, mismatched tables I found at an estate sale.
I got lucky. Walking away from my divorce with some money, I’d used my corporate experience and the MBA I got when Jackson was young to invest in a few app startups, giving them my coaching and input. As it turns out, I have a knack for that kind of thing. So when we sold the first app—a corporate training video game—I officially started the Idea Garage, hosting one team at a time. My place is within easy access to New York City and offers meeting space, funding, and coaching, in exchange for a cut of the profits when the apps sell. I’m always trying to make it better. The team currently rents a house across town, but when something comes up around here, I’ll buy it and convert it into team living quarters.
Do I spoil the twenty-something-year-old teams with gifts and affection, as well as strategic guidance and management? Yes. Yes, I do.
I settle down and Frappy, my giant white snowball of a cat, materializes out of nowhere and settles on my lap, so I balance my laptop on the arm of the couch. There are zero responses to the post I made on the parent message board an hour ago about an emergency school dance meeting tomorrow night at my house.
“Shit.”
Frappy looks at me with her yellow eyes, unimpressed with my concern or obsession with making the holidays perfect.
I get that everyone is busy at this time of year, but I’m hoping a few parents will help finalize the details for Friday’s event. I’m not sure what the chair was doing before she got sick, because the decorations are buried in some storage closet in the school basement, status unknown, the chaperone list isn’t finalized (or even started, maybe?), and I know nothing about the catering. I need a handful of good volunteers.
Making the school dance amazing shouldn’t be that hard. Maybe it won’t solve the ache in my heart from losing Adrian and Reese, but it’ll show Jackson that I would do anything for him.
2
ADRIAN
Laura walks away, our short, unhelpful conversation finished. The sliver of hope that formed in my belly when I saw Britt’s gym friend disappears.
“Dammit.” I stretch out my shoulders by pulling my left arm across my body and gently pushing my elbow.
When I started coming back to CrossFit two weeks ago, did I expect Britt would be waiting for me by the medicine balls, eyes filled with tears, ready to restart our friendship? Maybe. I’d rotated my days to see if maybe I was just missing her, but now I know.
Britt hasn’t returned since that night at the airport.
And the look she gave me at the high school musical two weeks ago?
Ouch.
I was waiting in the lobby for Chelsea, which, in hindsight, wasn’t my best idea. What teenager wants their parent waiting for them like that? I’m still figuring out how to be a single dad. Trying to let Chelsea know she’s the most important person in the world to me.
Britt walked out of the auditorium with Jackson and one of his friends. She screeched to a halt, eyes wide like a baby deer’s in the beams of a tractor trailer, and disappeared behind a group of parents. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she actually dropped to the floor. But it got crowded right afterward and I couldn’t spot her again.
I know one thing—it can’t go on like this.
A beefy dude grunts, lifting the deadlift bar in front of me as his giant muscles strain against his skin. The sharp, unpleasant scent of end-of-workout body odor drifts over. I take a step back to save my senses, stretching my right shoulder.
I shouldn’t have let us go so long without talking. Not after how things happened. I almost texted her a hundred times. Called her, stopped by her house or the Idea Garage, where our families had spent so much time together over the past six years.
But things were complicated with Reese.
After Britt announced she was stepping away from us, I’d thought more about my marriage, diving in with my therapist, separate from the marriage counseling Reese and I’d been attending. But it was too late. Too many years of distance and our connection was permanently gone. When Chelsea got to middle school and was suddenly even busier than before with soccer and a newfound social life, Reese and I found ourselves staring at each other as strangers.
We tried, but our marriage was over. I moved out a few weeks later.
