AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nothing. But they’re all so young and sheltered and so obsessed with work. I mean, I am, too. Obviously. This is like, my passion. But it’s also just a stepping stone, ya know?” She smiles sweetly. “What about you?” She cocks her head, an eager smile directed at Regan.
I glance at Tyson and glare at him. None of what she just said matches the story he gave me when he introduced us. I look over at Celine and she shoots me one of those sweet smiles, but I don’t miss the way she can’t seem to hold my gaze.
Who the hell is this girl?
“Oh, I met Stone when he was ten. He stabbed my boyfriend while I was giving him a blow job and then I didn’t see him again for twenty years,” Regan announces with a smile so pleasant that it’s not until after she’s done that what she said sinks in. I turn toward Tyson, my explanation already halfway out of my mouth, “It was so long ago. I didn’t think it—"
He slaps my shoulder, hard, “You stabbed somebody? Man, Stone. I guess that was before you took your whole do no harm oath, huh?”
I wince, and rub my shoulder, eyeing warily, waiting for him to ask why I hadn’t mentioned any of this.
“So, did he die?” he asks with a conspiratorial grin, and I quirk my brow at him, confused.
“Who?”
“The dude you stabbed.”
I snort in surprise. “I was ten and scrawny. It was a flesh wound, right?” I try to catch Regan’s eyes. But she’s staring at Celine with barely disguised malice.
“What was Regan like back then?” Dina nudges me and leans forward with an eager smile on her face.
“Exactly as she is now,” I answer. Regan’s eyes flash to mine before she looks down at her lap, but she watches me under her crescent sweep of her sooty lashes.
“She loved The Temptations and the Love Jones soundtrack. She loved to bake, loved history and politics. She was obsessed with the idea of rewriting history and living like every day might be her last.”
“You remember all that?” Her eyes have lost the intensity they held just a moment ago and now are limpid with nostalgia.
“I remember every second, every lesson.” I admit.
“What was so profound that you remember?” Tyson asks, breaking the spell and saving me from myself.
I look up at the sky, as if I have to search my memory for an answer. I don’t have to do more than blink to be back in the bakery, standing next to Regan at the marble slab kneading dough, zesting lemons, grating ginger and putting butter on everything.
If I let myself dwell in the memory long enough, I’m sure I’ll smell the sugar and vanilla, feel the roll of sweat down my back and the ache in my forearms. I can hear her speaking the words that changed my life.
“She told me I was perfectly made.” Saying it aloud makes my heart do something strange. I glance up and we share a smile. It’s the first time she’s smiled at me since I’ve been in Houston and that twinkle in her eye is like a door to a different time.
I don’t know if it’s the weed or if it’s that Regan is a sorceress. Because, even with everyone watching and an entire ocean of shit between us, for the few seconds our eyes hold, we’re completely alone and back on that beach. And in that dimension, there’s only room for the truth.
“I was in free-fall when I met you.” I say and she nods, as if remembering. “I was hanging on by a thread and so focused on surviving that I wasn’t living. And then, I met you.”
“You revolutionized the way I saw myself,” I tell Regan the simple, but powerful truth about how much she impacted my life. It’s much more than I should say, but I don’t regret it.
While I was talking, her expression morphed from discomfort, to surprise, to pained, and now, it’s all of those things together and layered with wide eyed wonder and simple, but unfiltered happiness.
“I said that?” She asks in a whisper
“You don’t r
emember?” I laugh in surprise.
“No, God, but I want to.” My laughter dies at the plea in her voice. I don’t know what she sees when she looks at me. But when I look at her, my breath feels like it’s tangled around my heart.
In the space of the seconds that our gazes are locked, I feel like I’ve fallen back through time. Back to when I was sure she was going to change my life and was stupid enough to pin my hopes on it.
“Aww,” Celine sighs and claps loudly. “And then you grew up and became this man…she says and grabs my biceps. “I’m guessing you’ve got a huge appetite.”
“Uh, I need to get dessert out of the freezer.” Regan stands. practically runs back into the house.
