Wildflower (Colors #4) (6 page)

Both of those things were gone now. But I couldn’t help but think that maybe I was getting a second chance at one of them.

“She’s good. I mean, all things considering. Going a little crazy if you ask me.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked as I rested before my third set.

Another shrug. “She kinda lost her shit this morning. Said she’s going stir crazy, or something. She wants to get a job to get her out of the house. I told her about the photography teacher’s position here, so she might apply for it. Who knows?”

Sure, digging for information about my ex from her fourteen-year-old brother could be viewed as fucked up in some people’s eyes, but I had to take what I could get. I hadn’t gotten shit in almost six years. I was feeling a little desperate.

I knew the moment Harlow left that she and Lucille had kept the whole truth about what happened between us from Ethan, only telling him what they felt he needed to know, so if he was the only ally I had in getting her back, I wasn’t holding back any punches.

I laid back and started my last set, trying my hardest to sound casual. Even though my pounding heart and prickling skin had shit-all to do with working out. “You think she’s interested?”

Another shrug. “I dunno.”

Jesus. Did kids now a days do anything other than shrug? Two years of working at a high school made me cringe at the thought that I’d ever been anything like some of the little shits I had to deal with on a daily basis.

I finished my last set and racked the bar. Standing up, I wiped my damp forehead on the sleeve of my t-shirt. “Well,” I pressed, “did she seem to like the idea when you mentioned it?”

By the way his eyes narrowed skeptically and his head tilted to the side—just like his damn sister’s used to always do when she thought she had one up on me—I knew I’d pushed too far.
Damn it
.

His voice was heavy with exasperation when he spoke. “Dude, are you seriously trying to grill me for info on my sister?”

Yes
.

“No,” I scoffed.

One part of my brain said a
h hell, be cool, Murphy,
while the other shouted,
Divert! Divert!
I went with the second option.

“And don’t call me
dude
. You talk to every adult with respect. You got me?”

I breathed a minuscule sigh of relief when his expression shifted and he mumbled, “Yes, sir.”

That was another thing kids seemed to do all the damn time. Fucking
mumble
. Shrugging and mumbling, that’s all anyone between the ages of thirteen and eighteen did anymore. How my players got any dates was beyond me.

I knew I was probably stretching my luck thin, but I had to keep trying. No matter how pathetic it made me seem. “So, you think she’ll take the job?”

Ethan eyed me carefully, like he was putting serious thought into his answer. “No offense, Coach, but it feels kinda messed up talking to you about my sister.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s just…” he trailed off and looked around the room, making sure we hadn’t drawn any attention as I stood with my hands planted on my hips. When he spoke again his voice was several octaves lower. “I mean, you guys use to be…
married
.” He drew that last word out like it tasted funny in his mouth. “I don’t know what happened between you guys, but I already told Harlow this morning I didn’t want to be put in the middle of it.

I knew there was so much more that I should’ve taken from what he just said, but my brain was stalled out on one particular little nugget.

“Wait… so, she was talking about me?” Yep, I officially sounded like a desperate douchebag.

His eyebrows dipped and his forehead crinkled. “No. Not really.”

My chest inflated as I grasped hold of that tiny glimmer of hope. “Well, which was it? No, or not really? Because those are two totally different answers.”

Jesus Christ! Stop fucking talking, Murphy. You’re making a goddamned ass out of yourself.

“This is getting weird,” Ethan replied, taking a hesitant step back. But I’d already lost any modicum of cool I’d had earlier. I figured, might as well go big or go home.

“Do you think she’d talk to me if I like… ran into her or something? You know, just by coincidence?” To try and play off what sounded quite a bit like the rantings of a stalker, I added, “I mean, it’s a small town and I’m sure we’re bound to see each other. I don’t want to make her feel uncomfortable.”

He shrugged again and I felt my eye twitch. “I guess so. She said she didn’t hate you, so maybe?”

I let those words marinate in my mind for several seconds. She said she didn’t hate me.

Hell yeah!
I could work with that.

“That’s good. That’s really good,” I spoke quietly, more to myself than to anyone else.

While I was fist bumping the shit out of myself in my head I missed Ethan creeping back a few steps. “Look, Coach. I gotta…” he threw his thumb over his shoulder to the free weights.

“Oh, yeah. Sure. Get back to it.”

“Thanks.”

He was only a few feet away when he stopped and looked over his shoulder. “You know, if you think you and Low-Low are gonna be cool with each other, why don’t you stop by for Thanksgiving?”

Oh, God bless clueless, naïve, self-involved teenagers
.

I made a mental note to buy Ethan a kickass Christmas present. Like a car. There was no way in hell I was turning down that invite, but I had to play it cool. “You think that’d be all right?”

He shrugged. I was going to have to have a talk with Harlow about teaching the boy some basic communications skills. “Don’t see why not. I mean, she doesn’t hate you and you just said yourself, you’re gonna both be living here… unless you have plans already?”

“No!” I answered a little too hastily. “Uh, nope. No plans. I was just gonna crash in front of the TV and watch football all day.”

“Might as well do that with company, right? Besides, it’s Thanksgiving. It’s a time for caring.”

“I think you mean Christmas, buddy.”

“Oh,” he replied thoughtfully. He looked like he was just seconds away from rescinding his invite. That could
not
happen.

“But technically, I think the entire holiday season should be about caring, right?” I laughed awkwardly.

I was the world’s biggest moron. Luckily, like most fourteen-year-old boys, Ethan had the attention span of a toddler and didn’t seem to notice. “Sure. So you’ll come?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll see you then.”

“Later, Coach.”

It took everything I had not to break out in my happy dance and lose the respect of every single one of my players, but I somehow managed. I wanted to pat myself on the back. My plan went off brilliantly. I was only looking for a little intel and managed to smuggle myself an invite to Thanksgiving dinner.

Hell. Fucking. Yeah!

Time to put Operation Get-Harlow-Back into overdrive.

What had started as a pretty craptastic morning, ended up turning into something epically better. After Ethan took off, I’d booted up my laptop to email the high school principal about the photography teacher position, making sure to attach my resume, beefing it up to highlight my studies in photography at NYU. To my surprise I’d gotten a call back only two hours later. Mr. Whitfield had been the principal for as long as I could remember, and I was shocked to find that he remembered me. We spoke for well over an hour and he specified how impressed he was with my knowledge in the subject. He asked that I come in after Thanksgiving break for a formal interview, and by the time we got off the phone, he had indicated that as long as all the paperwork and background checks came back fine, the position was as good as mine.

I was ecstatic. I would finally have something to do. And it was icing on the cake that my job would entail something I was actually passionate about.

After that call, I decided to ride that high and do something I hadn’t done in a very long time—I went grocery shopping. Back in New York, Navie and I mainly lived off of takeout. On the rare occasion we bought groceries, it was as simple as a trip down the block to the little corner store where we only picked up what we needed.

Thanksgiving was only two days away and I was determined to make it a good one for Ethan. He needed it to help fill the hole left behind by losing Grammy. And if I were being honest, I needed it just as badly. The only thing that could throw a wrench in my plan for a good Thanksgiving was the fact that I couldn’t cook for shit. But that was what YouTube videos were for, right?

After climbing into my grandmother’s rusted, beaten-down, old Ford pickup, I started her up… or at least tried. It took twisting the key five times as I jammed the gas pedal in, beating the steering wheel repeatedly, and cussing a blue streak, but I finally got the old fossil started. It took a two minute long pep talk, but I pumped myself up enough to throw the truck in reverse and pull out of the driveway. I hadn’t driven in almost four years. Add that with the fact there was snow on the ground and it was safe to say that it was
not
just like riding a bike. By the time I pulled into the parking lot unscathed—physically, at least—I’d had a near brush with a tree, a concrete median, a senior citizen, and a partridge in a pear tree.

But I made it, damn it! And I was going to buy everything I needed for an epic Thanksgiving feast.

I was going all out. Homemade mashed potatoes and giblet gravy just like Grammy used to make. I bought the biggest turkey I could find, and sprung for the fresh sweet potatoes as opposed to the stuff in a can. I was going to make Grammy’s signature dressing and pumpkin pie, green beans almondine, and macaroni casserole from scratch. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

I heard someone calling my name from behind me just as I tossed the can of cranberry sauce into my cart. I knew my culinary limits and homemade cranberry sauce wasn’t happening.

Glancing over my shoulder, I sucked in a deep breath at who I saw standing in the aisle. “Chloe,” I breathed. I watched as her lips parted in a wide grin just before she rushed toward me. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, really. Part of me thought she’d punch me square in the face, for sure. Not that I would have blamed her. Chloe had been my best friend all the years I’d lived in Pembrooke, but when I ran for the hills I hadn’t just cut off all contact with Noah. With the exception of Ethan and Grammy, I had closed everyone out. She tried to reach out a thousand times, but I left every call and message unanswered.

What I hadn’t expected was for her to break down in tears in the middle of aisle four and wrap me in a hug so tight the air was instantly expelled from my lungs. “Oh my God,” she sniffled against my shoulder. “It’s so good to see you, Low-Low. I’ve missed you so much.”

My own eyes burned as I returned her embrace, squeezing just as hard. “Chloe,” was all I could get past the lump forming in my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face in her familiar strawberry blonde curls as different memories from growing up together assaulted my senses. “I’ve missed you, too,” I whispered.

There was no telling how long we stood there because I lost all sense of time as I got swept away in the familiarity of my old best friend. When she finally pulled back, I let go, reluctantly, not quite ready for it to end.

“Oh, God, Harlow.” Her green eyes sparkled with sympathy as she looked at me. “I’m so sorry about Lucille. I was thinking of stopping by to talk to you after the funeral but I figured you were already dealing with enough as it was. I didn’t want to cause you any more stress than you were already feeling. I planned on stopping by after Thanksgiving. I wanted to give you some time…”

A typical Chloe reaction, always putting the wellbeing of others first. It was one of the things I loved most about her. Standing there in front of the woman I’d basically abandoned, for all intents and purposes, I felt like the world’s biggest asshole for how I handled things.

It was at that very moment that the weight of everything in my life came crashing down on me. Standing right there in the middle of Smith’s grocery store, I broke down into loud, body-shaking sobs. The loss of Grammy, leaving my friends behind in New York, moving back
here
, knowing Noah was just a few miles away at any time, not having any idea what I was doing with my life… it all became too much. And Chloe’s undeserved kindness on top of everything else caused the dam to break.