Page 25 of Ever After

I turn back to Alex, seeing confusion on his face. “I was there with a friend and things ended up going bad, and then I met Jay, so I spent the rest of the vacation with him.”

“Okay,” Alex says, apparently over with his brief interrogation. “Let’s grill.” He gets up from the couch and walks out to the back patio.

Well, that was easy. He’s not so anal about his friend’s new friend.

Since Jay doesn’t have a table, we all sit down on the couch to eat. I start making a list in my mind of all the important everyday things he needs to get for his place. Considering all he’s done for me, it’s the least I can do for him.

“So, Alex, are you married or have a girlfriend?” I ask.

“Nah. Haven’t found the right person.” I wonder if he still lives with his parents then. He’s old enough not to be.

“Do you live around here?” Jay chokes on his beer after asking that. Guilt arises from his face.

“I live next door.” Well, that was something Jay forgot to mention. No wonder he’s choking on his beer.

“Is that how you found this house?” I ask Jay, dipping a homemade fry in fry sauce and popping it into my mouth. When I started making my fry sauce, Jay and Alex looked at me weird. I explained to them it’s a Utah thing. It’s only mayo and ketchup mixed. I’m seriously surprised that more people don’t do this.

“Yes, I lucked out. It went on the market just as I put my other house up for sale.”

“You guys must be close if you two live right next door to each other,” I say before carefully taking a bite of my hamburger. Alex made these burgers so big it’s hard to eat them and not look like a slob.

“We’ve known each other for a long time. He used to live with me when he emancipated—” He stops abruptly and looks over at Jay, then hurries and grabs his beer and chugs it.

“She knows.”

So, this is the Alex, Jay talked about when he said his best friend took him in when he emancipated himself.

“I better get going. It’s getting late.” Alex stands up and takes his plate to the sink.

I sit up and face Alex in the kitchen. “It was nice to meet you. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

“Oh, you will.” Alex gives me a wink and walks out the front door.

After finishing my burger, I go into the kitchen to clean. Jay walks in as I rinse the dishes. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you he lived next door. Was that too much for you?”

The worry in his eyes makes me feel bad. I put him in this position, and he keeps second guessing what he should say.

“You have nothing to be sorry about. Your life is being interrupted by me. I really liked him. Your life can’t stop because of me. He seems very easygoing.” Putting the last of the dishes away in the dishwasher, I ask, “Where am I sleeping? A shower sounds nice, too.”

“About that,” he says.

“Oh, no. You’re full of surprises.”

“Since you know I barely moved in, I hardly have anything. I let Lindsee keep most of it because I wanted to start from scratch. I only have one bed right now and one shower that can be used because I only have one shower curtain. That’s all in the master bedroom. The bedroom I use.”

I walk over to Jay and pat his chest. “We have a lot of work to do here.”

After wakingup by someone this week, it felt strange waking up in an empty bed. Jay must be working. He said he had work he had to do.

Aiden crosses my mind while I try to wake up. For the past week, I have ignored both calls and text messages from him. Leaning over to the nightstand to grab my phone, I decide to listen to his latest voicemail. “Lilah. Where are you? I miss you. I’ve been staying away from the house, as you asked. I need to see you and talk to you. No one will tell me where you are. I understand why they won’t. I don’t deserve to know. I hope you’re safe. I know we can work this out. You need to give me a chance.” Irritation causes me to slam my phone down. His voicemail proves my point that he doesn’t fully understand what he did or what I’ve been trying to get us to work on. It’s all about him. It’s been like this for a while. I this, I that. It’s never aweor anus.

My heart sinks a little, not because I miss him, but because of how he asks me to give him another chance. He’s delusional still. There is no way I can go back to that. To him. He ripped my heart out. No, he has been ripping my heart out little by little over the years. This was the final straw. There is no need to listen to all his voice mails. One by one, I go through and delete them all.

The last thing I want to do is disturb Jay while he works. Instead of looking for him, I head for the kitchen.

The coffee brews and the aroma fills up the kitchen as I prepare a cup for myself. The smell of coffee makes mornings so much better. Even though caffeine doesn’t do much for me in the morning, the smell and taste wakes me up. After it’s done brewing, I head outside to the backyard and take a seat on the cement stairs. There is a pond in the back of Jay’s house, and the other house’s backyards surround it, too, creating a circle.

I decided to finally give Lia a call. She’s going to be so mad at me for ignoring her for this long. We tell each other everything, and I’ve been keeping her in the dark.

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