Page 40

WEDNESDAY CAME MUCH too fast for my liking.

My parents never brought up our conversation before I left for Mitch and Gigi’s.

I had a feeling they wouldn’t—and I was glad.

Sasha and I met in the afternoons and worked Monday and Tuesday, but we didn’t really get much done.

It was like there was a strange wall wedged between us.

We toyed with the chorus, played with the verses, but it felt more like kicking a ball back and forth, hoping the ball would change into something else, and it never did.

Then on Wednesday morning, Dad asked me if I could help open the Rev for a special bridge card tournament because Mom had a doctor’s appointment, so I ended up getting ready for my dinner in the women’s bathroom while the retirement community toddled in through the front door.

Van looked unfairly handsome as he stood outside of Vi’s Bistro, hands in the pockets of his charcoal-colored trousers, in an ironed white button-down and a fitted matching gray jacket.

I wouldn’t have guessed he’d be in anything less.

He was in his natural habitat in a suit, pressed to perfection.

If Sasha thought him in a white T-shirt and ironed jeans was to impress me, then I wondered what he’d think of this.

We met out front, and Van gave me a slow once-over as I came up to greet him, lingering on my loose, long hair. “I always thought green was your color,” he said in greeting.

I smiled, flattered, as I smoothed my hands down the front of the dress. A few days after I’d tried it on at the boutique, I went back and bought it. Now I was glad I did. “Thanks. It’s not too much?”

“It’s just right,” he replied as he opened the door and let me inside.

Vi’s Bistro was an expensive restaurant I’d been to once before—dinner before senior prom with none other than Van himself.

It was in an old, converted cottage located on the far side of Vienna, opposite my parents’ house, so if I wasn’t heading out this way toward Cape Hatteras or Avon, I wouldn’t ever pass it.

I think the last time I came down this way was for a midnight release of a video game at the GameStop down the street.

I told Van as much, and he laughed at the memory and started chatting about his job.

My phone vibrated. I wondered if it was Sasha, texting because he knew I was on a date, but when I checked it, the message was from Gigi.

I didn’t know what she could want from me, especially after our fight yesterday.

We hadn’t had a fight like that … ever, really.

We’d always sorted things out. But this seemed to be a year of the bad kind of firsts.

It was something I didn’t want to think about.

“I knew talking about video games would bore you,” Van joked.

I turned my phone to silent and told myself I’d text her later as I dropped it into my purse on the back of my chair. “Sorry, sorry, you know I only ever got into video games to read the fanfic.”

He shook his head sadly. “I’ve still never read fanfic.”

“Not everyone can have good taste.”

“Wow, is this a date or a roast?”

“Oh, this is a date?” The question slipped out before I could stop myself, and then I couldn’t take it back.

He took it in stride, grinning. “Do you want it to be?”

“Do you?” I asked hesitantly.

In reply, he reached over the small table and gently tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. His hand lingered there, his thumb brushing against my cheek. He said softly, “I think I want that very much.”

Oh.

For a moment, all I felt was my own flustered feelings, and then I heard … a growl.

Deep, strangled.

My heart stuttered, and I pulled back from Van. Sasha? I quickly glanced at the tables around me, but he wasn’t here. He was just in my head.

Van looked concerned. “Sorry, did I overstep?”

“No,” I replied quickly, my heart thundering. “It just took me by surprise, is all.”

The waiter came back to ask for our orders. We both got what we had before our senior prom—crab cakes and risotto. It was the best thing on the menu, after all.

Van pushed his fingers through his thick, dark hair, and straightened the farthest fork on his place setting because he’d accidentally knocked it crooked. “You know, I’ve played out this moment so many times in my head since asking you out, but it’s not going at all like I imagined.”

That made me curious. “You imagined dinner with me?”

His mouth twisted into a surprisingly sexy grin. That was something new. “More often than I want to admit.”

I waited for my heart to leap. For the butterflies in my stomach.

I listened for the voice in my head, but all was quiet.

Van’s eyes crinkled when he smiled. I’d always liked that about his smiles. He picked up his wineglass and swirled the chardonnay around, thoughtful. “Truth be told, mostly I imagined how angry you would be with me.”

That took me by surprise. I sat back. “Angry?”

“Come on, Jo,” he said, giving me a wary look, “I broke your heart, and I did it in such a shitty way … I just didn’t want to lose you until …”

“Until you decided that you wanted something else.”

He shifted, uncomfortable at my bluntness.

“Yeah. And distance gave me some perspective on a lot of things. I realized that I treated people like I did video games. Whenever I wanted to try something else, I’d just save and come back when I felt like it, and I expected the other person to do the same. ”

I sat there quietly, feeling a little déjà vu.

The words were different, but wasn’t this sort of what Gigi had accused me of doing, too?

He’d left me on the beach, and in a way, I’d left Gigi as a direct result.

His body language—the tense shoulders, the bobbing leg, the way he kept righting his utensils—seemed so obvious now.

He wasn’t nervous to be on a date with me.

I didn’t think this even was a date, despite what he said.

This was him, sitting down with me, finally unspooling the knot he left me in almost a decade ago.

“So, I guess recently, I’ve just been … imagining , over and over, what to say to you to make it better.”

Make it better … ? It had happened so long ago. How did he—

Oh.

“The song,” I guessed, my dread palpable.

“It’s really good,” he assured me quickly. “I mean, you know I’m more into Oasis and Nirvana. But it’s good. Like, really good. I wouldn’t have known it was your writing if my mom hadn’t kept up with you for all these years. She told me you had written a song for some pop star—”

“Willa Grey.”

“Right. Willa Grey. So, I listened to the song and I … realized that you deserve an apology.”

Oh god. This wasn’t how I imagined tonight going at all. I drained my wine.

“It’s about us, isn’t it? Yeah …” He answered his own question, and it was easier to just let him.

He trailed off, straightening his fork again, even though it was already perfect.

“I guess I just sort of realized that I had a different experience of that night than you did. I moved on and you—you stayed there. Metaphorically, you know.”

For a long time after he walked away from me on the beach.

Our dinner came, and I looked down at the crab cake and risotto. It hadn’t changed since we last ordered it on senior prom night, but I had. Whatever bitterness I once felt when he’d left, whatever wishfulness I’d hung on to, was nothing more than the ghost of a memory.

And I knew with absolute clarity, the song had not been about Van.

Just as I knew I didn’t want to be here.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “But I got over you a long time ago. I’ve just been too afraid to try something new.”

I studied his face, honest and open, and that was how I knew he was different. We both were. So I reached out my hand across the table, and he took it, and squeezed it tightly.

“I accept your apology for the girl I was nine years ago,” I said. “We both deserve something different now. I don’t think this is going to work out.”

His eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “You don’t want to try?”

“No.”

He took his hand out of mine. “But—why?”

I debated whether or not to tell him. “Does it matter?”

“No,” he replied truthfully. We sat there for a moment longer, though neither of us made a move to touch our food, and then I asked, “Can we … ?”

“ Please .” And he raised his hand and signaled the waiter. “Can we take this to go?”

Flustered, the waiter looked between the two of us, wondering if it was the service, but I explained that we had places to be.

He took the plates away to get them boxed up.

Van made a move to pull his wallet out of his back pocket (he always kept it in the right one—that never changed), and I said, “Oh, no, let me get this.”

“But I invited you to dinner …”

“For old times’ sake,” I replied, taking out my card from my purse.

He snorted a laugh and sat back. “I won’t say no to that.”

So I took the check, and once we got our food back in cute little boxes, we left together.

He was parked nearby and asked if I wanted a ride home.

I told him I’d rather walk, though I stressed it was not because of him.

The night was warm and windy—my favorite kind—carrying with it that same telltale scent of storms on the horizon. It was a good one for a stroll.

Besides, I wasn’t going back to my house, but he didn’t have to know that.

I spun, walking backward down the sidewalk toward the center of town. “I guess I’ll see you around?”

He shook his head. “I’m heading back to Boston in the morning. Getting out before the hurricane comes in.”

I rolled my eyes. “You know it’s not going to hit.”

“I won’t take my chances,” he called back to me. “Good luck out there, Joni.”

“You, too, Van.” I waved goodbye, and he waved, too. Perhaps the Jo that he knew would’ve kept walking backward until he turned away, because she wanted to find herself in his gaze as long as she could. But tonight, I turned around first.

My heart pulled me somewhere else, faster and faster, and before I knew it, I was running toward something new.