Page 14 of Everything After

“Is not. Jeez. And if anyone should be annoyed it’s me. Why did you wait until I was out of town to visit Sienna Oliver? If I hadn’t called you, would you even have told me that you’d gone there today?”

“Of course I would have,” he replied, frowning that I could think any different.

“You have never once mentioned that you were thinking about going to see her, and that visit was planned. Tell me I’m wrong.”

My heart pounded both from how quickly we’d gotten into an argument after being apart for weeks. And how jealous and irrational I felt inside whenever the topic of Sienna came up.

“No, you’re not wrong. I had been thinking about it,” he quietly admitted. Panic rose in my chest until it became harder to breathe. After a few beats of silence he drew in a long breath, puffed out his cheeks, then exhaled. “Hell, if I’m honest, I’ve been thinking about her for a while. I just figured as it was Memorial Day and I had time to kill, I’d go there.”

“So you could spend a day with her without me realizing you were gone?”

“Fuck, no. That’s not it at all… and it wasn’t a day… wasn’t even an hour… since you called to say you were landing early. I meant that we wouldn’t have time to go deep because I had to be somewhere else.”

“Go deep? Balls deep?” Did I think that’s why he’d gone there? Of course not. But I was furious about his comment toward me regarding Cody.

“Now who’s being ridiculous,” he muttered. We fell silent for a minute and I watched him and wondered what thoughts ran through his head. “I guess I still miss Gary sometimes,” he said as he stole another glance in my direction. “He was like a brother to me, and when I realized it was Memorial Day and I was at a loose end, I just did it.”

“That last part may be true, but from all you’ve told me about Sienna, she was hardly like a sister to you,” I argued.

“Christ, Lily, it’s not like you to be jealous. I was only a kid when I dated Sienna.”

“Right,” I replied, agreeing. “But you’ve been inside her. So you’d be fine if I visited with Saffy’s brother Max without mentioning it?”

Alfie’s shoulders bunched and the glare he stole told me I’d gone too far. “Now you’re throwing him in my fucking face?” he questioned.

During my early, complicated relationship with Alfie, I had a rebound affair with my friend Saffy’s brother Max.

“And if you had treated me right in the first place, Max would never have happened,” I replied. I placed my hand on his and softened my tone. “Look, can we not fight?” I asked. “It’s been five weeks. We’re not even home yet and we’re at each other’s throats.”

Alfie exhaled and glanced toward me again. “Sure. But I am going to talk to Cody, no arguments,” he stated in a flat tone.

“Why did you go to see her?” I probed, unwilling to let the subject of Sienna slide easily.

“She’s been on my mind for a while.” My heart sank with his admission. “But I haven’t been pining for her, if that’s what you think.”

My heart began to pound, and I felt panic rise from my gut. “Then why?” I insisted.

“I don’t know… well maybe I do. I thought if I saw her again… spoke with her, she’d make me feel closer to Gary.”

“And did you?” I demanded, concerned that it wasn’t the whole truth.

For a long moment he considered my question. “Standing in his grandpa’s house spurred a torrent of memories within me, mostly good ones. Yet at the same time I felt an immense sense of guilt.”

“Guilt?” I placed a hand on his forearm, concerned.

“Yeah, that he never got to experience his bucket list that we’d both talked about.”

“No, but from what you told me, he made a personal choice, and lived his dream to be a soldier for a while.”

“True. Since we’d been kids the army was all he talked about.” Alfie sighed and shot me a look of frustration. “What kind of man wants to go to war? I mean those men and women are built differently to you and me. They’re brave beyond measure, but I still can’t accept that he made the ultimate sacrifice like that.”

“Yeah, a wasted life,” I muttered.

“Never a waste,” he quickly admonished. “Gary and people like him are the reason the rest of us have the freedom to live our dreams.” With a helpless shrug, he glanced toward me again with a softer expression on his face. “This isn’t exactly how I’d envisioned your homecoming.”

“Me neither,” I confessed and turned my attention toward our imposing waterfront house as it came into view. “Oh, my body’s aching to climb into a warm bubble bath,” I admitted, changing the subject to a lighter topic.

“Do I get an invite to that party?” he mused.