Page 8 of Forever & Always You

Austin’s eyebrows draw together. He doesn’t respond, simply shrugs on his suit jacket and secures the front button. Just before I turn to walk away, he finally says, “That’s your apology? I’m sorry for ruining high school? Jesus, Gabrielle. You’re the worst.”

“Um, excuse me.” I point a finger across the car roof at him. “Wasn’t I trying to apologize earlier? Remember that? When you were telling me to get out of your office? I’m the concussed one yet somehow I remember.”

Austin scoffs and walks away, heading around the building to the front entrance. I follow, not because I have anything more I’m willing to say to him, but because my car is parked out there. When he reaches the door of his office, he hesitates.

“Goodbye, loser,” he says. His tone is a touch warmer now, his features softer, and my heart stutters. I can’t believe he remembers that too. It’s how we always said goodbye when we were kids.

“Goodbye, other loser,” I reply, and the corner of his mouth twitches.

I’d appreciate it if he didn’t do this whole hot and cold thing with me, because just when I feel ready to abandon the idea of fighting for his forgiveness, he pulls me back in again.

Not this time. I spin on my heels and take a step in the direction of my car, but my stomach sinks. “ No ,” I whisper. “Noooo.”

“That’s your car?” Austin asks. “Gabrielle McKinley, the girl who got a soft-top BMW for her birthday, now drives—” he mock gasps “—a Prius? What in the parallel universe is this? I thought you were supposed to be wealthy.”

“I am wealthy. I’m just not materialistic like you ,” I fire back, then groan again as I dash across the street to examine my car.

There’s a yellow parking boot on my rear wheel. The same rear wheel I just replaced in the middle of the night. Now I’m trapped outside of Austin’s office. Why is the world so cruel to me?

Austin, most likely out of pure joy at my misfortune, joins me by my car. Over my shoulder, he asks, “You didn’t realize you parked in the fire lane?”

“Clearly fucking not, Austin.”

I snatch the note stuck to my windshield and skim through the legal garble. I have a set time limit to pay this parking fine and have the clamp removed before my whole ass car gets towed to the impound lot. It’s yet another headache I really don’t need right now.

“Sucks to be you,” Austin says, and I could smack the smugness from his face.

“Yes, it does suck to be me,” I snap, twisting around at lightning speed and glowering fiercely.

Now I’m triggered. “First I get fired from my job, then when I get home, guess what? My shitty apartment’s pipes had burst!

” I step forward. “When I admit defeat and decide to come home to my mom’s, I then had a flat tire to contend with.

That tire. The one with the clamp.” Another step closer, my anger so palpable I’m convinced I have steam coming from my ears.

“I put up with my mother’s judgment for approximately five minutes before deciding maybe there was a sliver of truth in her words, so I made the very overdue decision to finally try to fix my life, and I decided to start with you.

” I close the remaining gap between us, tilting my chin up.

Austin’s gaze is challenging, our eyes locked firm.

“And then what happens? I come here to apologize for my wrongdoings, and you don’t want to hear it, and then I ballerina twirl into your glass table.

Now my scalp is stitched together and my car is clamped. ”

“Hmm.”

My eyes are so narrowed, I’m glaring at him through slits. “ Hmm? ”

Austin’s lips curve into a smile and he lowers his head, drawing his face even closer to mine. I can almost taste the mint of his breath when he says, “Look how the tables have turned, Gabby.”

Ugh. I flatten my hand on his chest and shove him back. “You know what? Maybe I don’t want you to forgive me, anyway.”

Austin nonchalantly shrugs. “Cool. So how are you getting that boot off?”

“Go back to work.”

“Do you require help?”

“ Go back to work, ” I repeat more forcefully, because now I’m under immense pressure with him watching. I sink down onto the hot sidewalk in defeat and pull out my phone, dialing the number on the ticket.

Austin, annoyingly, doesn’t head back to work like I demanded. He stares down at me seated on the curb, his tall frame shielding me from the blazing sun. “Do you really only have eight hundred bucks and some change in your checking account?”

“Yes, and what about it?” I bite, my phone pressed to my ear as the dial tone continues on and on.

“Weren’t you a trust fund kid? Did you blow through all of it already?”

How was I ever best friends with this annoying man? I sigh and look away from him, feigning disinterest in his presence and staring across the street at his office building instead. My trust fund is a sensitive topic. “Haven’t spent a penny of it, but thanks for being so patronizing.”

Austin holds out his hand, palm up. He nods to my phone as it continues to ring in my ear. “Give me that.”

“No.”

“Gabrielle.”

“ No . I don’t need your help.”

“I know you don’t need it, but I want to help,” he says, then tilts his head to the side with a gentle expression, like he’s trying to reassure me he’s offering an olive branch and not a smack in the face.

“Every time the ice cream truck came around, you bought me those fudge pops I loved so much. Let me pay this fine for you.”

He remembers so many of the little details.

Numbly, I drop my phone into his waiting palm. As he presses it to his ear, he murmurs, “I owe you a lot of fudge pops.”

I remain on the curb as he paces back and forth in front of me, eventually getting through to the parking enforcement agency and settling my debt to society on my behalf.

It’s only thirty bucks and a drop in the ocean to him, but I appreciate it regardless.

It’s abundantly clear he has an everlasting grudge against me, but maybe he doesn’t totally despise me to the ends of the earth and back.

We first met sixteen years ago, and were best friends for nearly ten of those . Surely that counts for something.

“Boot will be removed within a half-hour,” Austin informs me, passing my phone back. “You can’t sit outside in this heat. Come wait inside.”

“And view the damage I caused in your reception? No thanks. I’d rather deal with the sunburn.”

Austin grins. An actual teeth-on-display smile. “Oh, c’mon. It wasn’t that bad.”

“I. Smashed. A. Table,” I remind him, forcing out the words as the visual replays in my head. Then I add, “With my face.”

“Helen’s already cleared away the evidence. Our lobby’s centerpiece is now a cactus.”

“ Oooh. A cactus!” I say brightly, lifting my brows, before immediately rearranging my features back into a blank canvas. “Yeah, still not coming inside.”

“What if I said you could name the cactus?”

Okay, he’s got me there. I love naming things. Rabid raccoons, storm-damaged trees, the half-eaten cheeseburger on the side of the road. They always receive a name, courtesy of me.

“Fine,” I huff.

I push myself up from the curb and head back inside the office building. True to Austin’s word, there’s not a single shard of glass in sight. The lobby is spotless once again and the leather couches now circle a potted cactus.

Helen on the front desk pokes her head up to check I’m okay.

“Other than mentally unstable like always? Just concussed and mortified,” I say, but my joke goes down like a lead balloon. I’m clearly not mature enough to be around professionals, because Helen frowns and disappears back behind the computer.

Austin points to the cactus. “Well?”

And it’s way too easy. There is only one possible name for this plant. “Carly Buck the Cactus.”

Austin scoffs. “Carly Buck the Cactus,” he confirms. And for the avoidance of doubt that I have just named the office plant after myself like a self-obsessed bitch, Austin calls over to the front desk, “Helen, this is Gabrielle McKinley. Unfortunately, she won’t be coming on board as a client at this time, and luckily she won’t be suing us for her injuries here today. ”

“I don’t recall promising that. I am absolutely suing you.”

Austin turns to me, a teasing smirk on his lips. “Try it.”

“Watch me.”

Helen glances between Austin and me with a worried look, but visibly relaxes when Austin lets out a breath of laughter.

“We grew up in the same neighborhood,” he tells her, and I expect him to explain further; tell her we were once inseparable best friends for ten whole years, but no.

I’m resigned to being just another kid who lived across the street, which I suppose is more than I deserve.

He turns to me. “I need to make some calls to the clients I’ve had to reschedule.

Are you good to hang out here until your car’s ready? ”

“Oh.” He’s saying goodbye for real now. “Yeah. I’m good here. Thanks for taking me to the hospital.”

He smiles tightly and gives me a clipped nod before he heads back down the hall to his office, because unlike me, he has a career and that means he has shit to do.

I sit down on the leather couch, accept the water Helen offers me, stare at Carly Buck the Cactus for the twenty-three minutes it takes for my car to be unclamped, then hightail it out of the offices of Pierce Wealth Management with no intention of ever returning.