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I showed up to Nola’s in a dress shirt and tie. She was wearing a low-cut green dress—green was my favorite color on her, and I was fairly sure I had never mentioned as much. I found my eyes already struggling not to drink in the sight and savor it. Red hair catching every damn hint of light as she stood in the doorway. The pert little pixie nose with a splash of freckles across the bridge. The big, doe eyes that were a pale, intoxicating blue. And the lips that held promises of pleasure I couldn’t dare accept again.
“Thanks for coming,” she said. There was an odd, formal stiffness to her voice.
I had to stop myself from reaching out to hug her. I could see how hard she was trying to make things right, and I had stupidly not prepared for that. I’d come imagining I could be like stone. Unyielding and firm. This was just a formality where I was confirming that we were over. At least that had been the plan before I saw her and all the stone in me threatened to melt.
I stepped inside, then hesitated. Music was playing and candles were lit at the little round table beside her kitchen. “Is that Marvin Gaye?”
Nola cleared her throat, then rushed over to tap something on her phone. The song Let’s Get It On was abruptly cut off and an instrumental jazz song followed. “Stupid internet playlists,” she muttered.
Her cheeks were flushed a red to match her hair, and I wished with everything in me that we were back to where we’d been just a couple days ago. When I’d let myself believe this could work.
There wasn’t much of a chance to talk for a few minutes as Nola scurried around the kitchen, checking things with a little thermometer and tasting others with a spoon. I waited at the small sliver of countertop she had, feeling like I should offer to help but knowing we’d end up brushing against each other a hundred times in the cramped kitchen if I did.
I needed to stay firm. Physical contact with Nola right now would cause an entirely different kind of firmness I did not need.
“Go ahead and get comfortable. I’ll bring you out a plate,” she said a short while later.
I sat at the table and let her set down a plate of breaded chicken, cheesy biscuits, and creamy mashed potatoes in front of me. She also set down a full-sized candy bar next to my plate. “For after,” she explained, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “Oh,” she said, “Do you want water, beer, soda, tea, coffee, or something else? Cause I could run out and—”
“Water is good,” I said.
“Great. Yeah. Me too.” I heard her pour something that sounded bubbly down the sink and then the refrigerator dispensing water.
She sat back down with about a tenth of the portion she’d given me on her plate and two glasses of water.
“Nola, I think we should—”
“Talk about the other night? Yes. I completely understand that you were mad. I would’ve been too. I just didn’t really feel like I got my point across before I… had to leave.”
Before I practically kicked her out the door, she meant. Guilt raged inside me to see the small, innocent woman across from me. She was trying her damndest to make this right, and I knew it. But I couldn’t let sympathy or guilt change my course.
Feelings didn’t lead us to the right decisions. They led us to selfish ones.
Logically, I knew the truth. Nola was a risk. She was an unknown quantity I couldn’t afford to keep injecting into Ben’s life when she could disappear or reveal some even more surprising secret down the line.
“Okay,” I said.
“I changed my mind. About Florida. I was going to cancel my plans and stay here because I realized I cared more about you and Ben. Griff, too. I was an idiot for waiting as long as I did to see it, but I did see it.”
“I don’t want you to change your plans.” Saying the words stung, and they seemed to sink into the air between us, gaining weight with each passing moment. “I think you should go to Florida and start the business. Ben and I will be better off if you do.”
Nola swallowed, making a clicking noise in the brief silence that followed as one song switched to the next. “Okay,” she said in a near whisper.
I shook my head and set my napkin down. “I’m sorry. Coming here was a mistake. I thought I needed to tie up loose ends, but I feel like I only made things worse. I should go.”
“You didn’t try your food.”
“Another time,” I said, knowing full-well there wouldn’t be another time.
She got up after me, picking up the candy bar with a sad little crinkle of the wrapper. “At least take the candy. For the road. And I could put a biscuit in a plastic baggie. They’re really good, I promise. I ate like four of them. For taste testing,” she added.
