Page 53 of Back for Seconds

At the end of our ninety minutes together, Old Guy clapped me on the back with a soaking wet hand and boomed, “Best workout yet, Pagano. This is why they told me to call you.”

If he hadn’t snapped me out of my trance, I’d still be standing in the gym, slack-jawed and sweaty at the memory of her pale pink nipples and the taste of her tongue, sweet and gentle against mine. The memory of her body pressing firmly into mine, seizing and relaxing in pleasure, had my stomach in an iron vise grip. I wanted that—her—again, as soon as possible.

Heading back out in the freezing gray morning toward to my car, I checked my phone no less than fifteen times, my desire to see June’s name on my screen ballooning from a vague flutter in my stomach to full-throated desperation. My car clock said it was only six thirty. No way June was awake yet. And still I thought, what if she was? What if she was wide awake, staring out at the bleak winter horizon with the same middle-of-summer feeling in her stomach?

I’d experienced a fraction of this giddiness with the cabin. The whirlwind days leading up to submitting my official offer had been the most hopeful and blindly optimistic I’d felt in years.

That had been a mirage in the desert. This felt real.

I pulled out of my spot and began my drive back toward the mainland, the entirety of my day and life stretching out in an infinite mosaic of possibility. I turned on the radio and let the Christmas music play, uninterrupted. When I made it to the traffic light before the bridge, I gave in and let myself check my phone one more time.

This time, I did have a text.

We need to talk.

***

I settled into the slightly too-small chair opposite Amber.

She’d recommended this place—a coffee shop with white and black penny floors, big copper lights that hung over the bar. It never would stop striking me as strange to see businesses like this popping up around Evergreen. In the far corner, there was a group of old heads gathered around a table in their worn-out Eagles Super Bowl jackets and New Balance sneakers, sipping dainty mugs of black coffee. They’d probably been here for hours already. It was only a matter of time before they said the wrong thing too loud and had their invitation back permanently rescinded. I cringed at the way their milky eyes flitted around the room, and yet somehow I managed to feel sad for them. It was the greatest tragedy of life, really—living long enough to see everything you love either go away or change into something completely unrecognizable.

Amber followed my eyes to the table of men. She let out a scoff. “You know them?”

“Nah.” I pulled my hat off and adjusted my ponytail. Amber had actually always hated that I did that. Just cut your hair. I slid my fingers between my curls and smoothed them back into place.

Her green eyes tracked over my hands, over my chest, then they fell to her own hands, wrapped around a mug between us. “They seem like the kind of guys you’d know.”

I rolled my lips over my teeth to hold back my own scoff. “Ok? I guess.” I knew what she meant. I knew almost everyone in Evergreen, or at least I thought I had until I met June. And I knew what she wanted to mean—that’s the type of guy you wanna end up like, huh? I wasn’t taking the bait.

“So, you’re a morning person now?”

Amber scoffed. “I’ve always been a morning person.”

“It’s nice to see you,” I pivoted. “You look—” She looked like she always had—beautiful, sun-soaked, soft and sweet like caramel. Not happy to see me, that’s for damn sure, but even disdain couldn’t wrestle her features into something ugly.

“Same with you,” she cut me off, taking a sip of her coffee. “Were you surprised by my text?”

“Ah.” I blew out a breath. “I guess, yeah. I bumped into your mom. She said you weren’t in town.” I cleared my throat and quickly added. “Not that I asked.”

She watched me for a moment—everything about her look was inscrutable. Then she reached into the pocket of her jacket, pulled out a plastic bag, and pushed it across the table. In it was a simple gold band, at the center a small ruby.

“The promise ring,” she said. The promise ring. Not my promise ring. Not your promise ring. “I know the ruby was your grandmother’s. I wanted to make sure you had it back.”

The ring looked small, tarnished. Kind of pathetic. I thought back to Darla’s bangs in the department store. The look on her face when she saw Isaac. How had we ever thought we would work out?

I picked it up and pulled the plastic back around the ring. The ruby was still bright, unmarked. My grandmother had worn this ring on her pinky for my entire life—her hands had been swollen with arthritis from years of working as a seamstress. The ring had easily slipped onto Amber’s ring finger, with room. She’d needed to get it resized—but she’d never done that. She’d never really worn the ring at all.

I cleared my throat again and shoved the bag into my jacket pocket. “That means a lot, Amber. Thank you.”

She didn’t reply right away. She took a long sip of coffee and leaned back in her chair, eyes cast out the window toward the bare trees swaying in the wind. “You’re seeing someone new?”

My breath stalled in my chest. That fast, huh? Sandra must have gone to Mass this morning.

I scratched quickly at my cheeks, rubbing against the hot red blotches materializing there. “Uh, yeah. Kinda.”

“And you’re in love with her.”

“Huh?” A shocked, terse laugh ripped through me. “Amber, come on.”