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“True,” I say. “And Barrett’s family still leans on him. A lot.” I bite my lip. “So do I, I guess. He’s always the first person I call when I need my garbage disposal fixed or a crazed turkey removed from my front yard.”
Mom laughs. “How is my grand turkey? So glad Kyle’s turned his life around and learned how to be a good boy.”
I fill her in on Kyle’s flirtation with the female turkeys over the fence, but then can’t resist circling back to Barrett, this man I maybe don’t know as well as I thought I did. “Do you think Dr. McGuire’s always been sad? Or do you think it’s just since he and his wife divorced?”
“I’ve always felt a bit of sadness in him,” Mom says. “I get the sense that he feels like he doesn’t fit in, which can be hard. Even on a man who seems to have everything going for him. You can be smart and successful and handsome, and still feel like you’re on the outside looking in. And that’s a hard feeling.”
“Yeah,” I agree, softly. “It is.” I love my co-workers, but I’m not on intimate terms with any of them and my jewelry making friends are more like casual acquaintances.
My only deep friendship is with Tatum, Drew’s fiancée, and we’ve only known each other a few months, most of which I was out of the country. I’m hoping we’ll be close for a long time, but now that she’s getting married and having a baby, things might be different.
I might be back on the outside looking in again soon, too.
“Just know I’m here,” Mom says gently. “Any time you might be feeling lonely. I love you just the way you are, sweetheart, and so does Starling.”
“I know, Mom,” I say. “Thanks. Love and miss you.”
“Love and miss you, too. Let’s get coffee soon or shop the farmers’ market when it opens,” she says. “Drive safe.”
I promise I will and end the call, mulling over everything she said as I drive, until I come to a strange hypothesis.
Maybe Barrett and I are struggling to figure out how to be more than friends not because we’re so different, but because, in many ways, we’re very much the same.
We’re both nerdy and behind our peers when it comes to coupling up and settling down. We both find weird things funny and laugh at inappropriate times and have at least a touch of social anxiety. When mine rears its head during staff parties, I dull it with a glass of chardonnay, while Barrett deals by being grumpy or cutting out early without saying goodbye.
Insight hits like a bolt of lightning.
The night we were together, I’d had a couple drinks and a part of me still wanted to linger in the bathroom, just to delay what I expected would be a searingly awkward “so that happened” conversation. Barrett was sober and exhausted from a long day at work and a stakeout to try to capture Kyle.
If our positions were reversed, can I say with absolute certainty that I wouldn’t have made a run for it, too? Or at least been sorely tempted?
After a bit more self-reflection, I admit that I really can’t, and decide maybe I owe Barrett an apology.
And if not an apology, then at least an olive branch.
You think? I mean, the man did amazing, fantastical things to your body without asking anything in return. And told you how much he missed you. Several times. You from three months ago would be giddy with excitement. You’d be calling Tatum to share the happy news, dissecting every word he said for hidden meanings, and secretly scrolling through china patterns.
“Yeah, well, I’m not me from three months ago, anymore,” I grumble. “And who registers for china anymore? I’d rather have one of those indoor grills.”
I’d rather have a do-over, honestly.
If Barrett and I could just go back to that night in February and try again, maybe everything would be different. He wouldn’t run, I wouldn’t run away to Thailand and spend three months hardening my heart against the man I’ve crushed on for most of my life, and maybe we’d be living happily ever after by now.
Or realized that all we do is fight and miscommunicate and that we’re better off as colleagues and nothing more.
Either way, we’d be out of this weird limbo, this frustrating place where I feel compelled to fight my feelings and challenge him at every turn, no matter how much a part of me wants to lean into our attraction and all the fun we could be having after hours.
But do-overs don’t happen in real life.
At least not without a little help…
Chapter Twelve
BARRETT
I’m braced for a blow up, convinced Wren is going to think I planned this “mistake,” and storm out of the bed-and-breakfast before I can offer to sleep in my truck in the campground down the road.
