Page 53 of The 7 Rules of Moving On
* * *
In the hourssince Kissie had run off, the light snowfall they’d been having all day had turned heavy. Fat, fluffy flakes fell straight down from the sky, blanketing the town in white. Aside from the Montgomery party—and he knew she wouldn’t have gone there—there was only one place still open at this time of night on Valentine’s Day.
Trig kicked away the snow banked against the door and pull hard to get it open.
“Hey, Trig,” Forrest said, wiping down the counter. “Need a coffee? Pie?” He narrowed his eyes, reconsidering when he noticed Trig’s expression, which was probably frantic. “Maybe something stronger?”
“Have you seen a short blond woman? Funny? Beautiful? Wearing a polka dotted dress?”Held my beating heart in her hands, he thought.
“Who, Kissie? Yeah, she left about an hour ago.”
“Where? Do you know where?”
Forrest’s expression became guarded. “She was with Lane. I heard him say something about the party.”
The floor dropped out beneath Trig’s feet. “Lane?”
“Yeah, dude. He brought her in, they sat over there and had a coffee.” Trig would have set the booth Forrest pointed to on fire with his eyes if he could have. “Then they left.”
Swallowing a bowling ball, Trig asked, “Did they seem…together?” He couldn’t imagine Kissie doing anything so low as hooking up with Lane. But he also never thought Tina would have done that to him either.
Forrest shrugged. “You know Lane. He always gets what he wants. But I don’t know. They weren’t making out or anything.”
Trig couldn’t hear anymore, the ringing in his ears drowning everything else out. “Thanks, Forrest,” he said, wheeling around and barreling through the door back out into the storm.
The Montgomery mansion perched like a turreted vulture up on the hill opposite town from Mystic. By the time Trig reached the gated entryway, usually locked up like Fort Knox, but open for the party tonight, his blood was boiling, armpits sweating, his hat and coat so covered in snow he probably looked like a marshmallow.
He knew he wasn’t thinking clearly. His brain kept replaying the last time Lane took someone he cared about from him so many times he nearly slapped himself to get the images out of his head.
Not Kissie, he kept repeating to himself, like if he said it enough times it would make it true. But when he reached the house, when he saw two shapes in the window, one tall and broad, the other short and perfect, his heart cracked.
They were sitting on a couch, Lane’s arm lounging possessively across the back, Kissie leaning toward him, a wide smile on her mouth. When she threw her head back, laughing at something Lane had said, Trig couldn’t watch anymore.
“Not again,” he said, even though nothing but the cold and empty night could hear him.
* * *
He walked backto the bar, waited for her, shot darts with Ryan, went for a swim hoping it would calm him down. He made himself some tea, spiked it with whiskey. Each tick of the clock, each hour that passed was a punch to the gut. When the clock struck two and he realized she wasn’t coming back tonight, he told Ryan to go home, stumbled drunk to his room, and collapsed onto his bed.
Sleep refused to come, his chest aching, his ceiling spinning.
How could she do this to him? Why? Was it his fault? Had he scared her straight into Lane’s arms?
What they had was real. He knew it was. He couldn’t believe it had only been his heart that felt like it finally met its reason for beating. But maybe it had. Maybe he was nothing more than a rebound.
It was around four thirty when he heard a noise, so soft at first he’d almost convinced himself he’d imagined it. Sitting up, tuning his ears, it became clear, unmistakable.
Someone was playing his grandmother’s piano.
He pulled on his shirt, zipped up his jeans, and crept from his room. When he saw her, hunched over the keys, her head turned like she was listening for a train coming down the tracks, he couldn’t help the strangled noise that escaped from his throat.
Whipping her head up, she turned around.
“Trig,” she said, wide-eyed and guilty.
It was the guilt that spurred him, kicking him sharply in the sides.
“Welcome back, Kissie,” he said. “Enjoy the party?”
