Always a Love Song Page 8

  “Just ask her to meet you in a private place so you can talk without all this.” He gestured around, meaning the entire town.

  “He’s right. You have shit to talk out,” Jordan said.

  “You’re only agreeing because you’re married to him.”

  “I picked a smart one.” Jordan wrapped a hand around Owen’s neck, pulled him in to kiss his cheek, and then bent to plop a kiss on Keiko’s head.

  “One problem,” Alex said. “I’m not interested.”

  “Well,” Lu started.

  She straightened up, and Alex knew that posture. She was about to be a little shit.

  “It doesn’t matter if you’re not interested. You may think you’re over it, but this fucked you both up for a long time. The only way you move forward is if you two talk.”

  Alex tightened her jaw and shook her head. “I wasn’t the one who left.”

  “Did you give her much reason to stay?” Lu asked.

  “Hey,” Jordan said. “It’s not about blame. It’s about not walling yourself off for the rest of your life.”

  All three of her friends looked at Alex expectantly. She leaned on the bar and lowered her head onto her arms. It wasn’t that she was broken. It was just that she wasn’t all that interested in a relationship. Not right now, at least. Probably not for a while. And that preference had nothing to do with the fact that Bridget had left her. She wasn’t some gaping wound that needed to be stitched up. She could take care of herself. She was taking care of herself.

  She let out a frustrated growl.

  The jingling of the bell above the door was so commonplace that she didn’t even notice Riley coming back from her break until she walked behind the bar.

  “I’m back,” Riley said. “I can take over, Boss.”

  Alex stowed the rag beneath the bar. “Thanks. I have to go catch up on some paperwork. Holler if you need me.”

  She bid her friends a good-bye that was only slightly frosty and headed to her office, where she lost herself in work until a knock sounded on the frame of her open door.

  “Come in,” Alex said without looking up.

  “Hey,” Bridget said. She took a hesitant step inside.

  “Oh, um…” Alex stood up quickly, swiping a hand through her hair. Was there a single place Bridget couldn’t haunt her? “I didn’t expect you. Sorry. Did we have an appointment?”

  God, she was such an idiot. She winced at her own rambling. Why would Bridget have set up an appointment? And on a weeknight? She took a deep breath.

  Bridget smiled gently. “No, no appointment. I just came by to bring you this.” She held out Alex’s coat. “And to apologize.”

  Alex took the coat and hung it on her chair. She rounded her desk to lean against it and cross her arms. “Apologize?”

  “Yeah,” Bridget said, twiddling her fingers. “For pushing you to be friends. Clearly, I hurt you even worse than I thought, so I came to apologize for that. And to tell you I won’t bother you anymore. Max and I won’t come to the bar anymore. We probably won’t even hang around town.” Her smile turned sad. “It’ll be like we’re not even here.”

  “That’s…” Alex trailed off because her mouth was way too dry. She licked her lips and fought to swallow.

  Bridget turned, a question in her eyes, like she wondered if Alex would object.

  Distance was exactly what Alex needed. All she wanted to do was keep living her life without interruption. Bridget threatened that. And yet…Alex didn’t own the whole town. She could find refuge in her own house. She could limit the amount of times she’d be likely to run into Bridget. She could handle this.

  Alex cleared her throat. “That’s not necessary. I mean, it’s your town, too. I don’t want to keep you from it, especially since…”

  “Since I haven’t visited in years.” Bridget chest rose with relief, but her brow furrowed. “I thought that was what you wanted, though. After dinner…”

  God, they were always talking in half-sentences, never sure whether to finish their thoughts, always dreading how the other would react.

  Owen was right. They needed breathing space, time alone, someplace without the pressure of the town closing in on them.

  And now here they were, and they couldn’t find anything to say to one another. Not anything real, at least.

  The problem, she thought, was that she’d never really expected Bridget to come back. They ran in totally separate spheres now. For half a decade, it seemed Bridget had pulled up her roots entirely, which meant Alex had never thought through what she wanted to say because she never thought she’d get the chance.

  And the problem with not thinking about what she wanted to say meant she never really thought about how she felt, either, beyond the surface-level anger that had carried her through five whole years. Now, she couldn’t force any of that emotion into comprehensible words.

  She breathed in deeply. When she finally looked up, Bridget’s expression was unreadable, and her eyes were dark.

  Half a second later, before Alex could process anything, Bridget surged forward, took Alex’s face between her hands, and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around Alex’s waist, and Alex’s mouth opened immediately beneath hers. Like instinct. Like muscle memory. Like: This, this person is mine and so are those lips and so is everything she is.

  She tasted like beer and peppermint. She tasted like memories.

  Familiar. That was what this felt like. Five years, eighteen hundred days, and she hadn’t forgotten the shape of Bridget’s lips or the press of their bodies or the way Bridget’s breath hitched when Alex ran her thumb over her hip. Bridget was etched into her, a tattoo she could never be rid of, its ink poisoning her blood.

  Bridget snaked a hand beneath Alex’s T-shirt. Alex shivered.

  If this was what it meant to die a slow and agonizing death, Alex accepted the poison willingly because, with the two of them, pain and pleasure went hand-in-hand. At least they’d stopped pretending they didn’t.

  Bridget walked them backward, straight into the desk. Alex felt the reverberation through her body as the backs of her thighs hit the wood, and Bridget took the momentary pause to change the angle of the kiss, brushing her nose over Alex’s. The move, oddly tender, sent another shiver down Alex’s spine.

  Alex moaned. Her nerves were on fire. Her whole body was on fire. Bridget’s hands were on her hips, on her stomach, brushing her breasts over her bra.

  Alex bit down on Bridget’s lower lip, eliciting a growl that, in turn, elicited a pang of desire in Alex’s stomach. She whined when Bridget pulled away. Ten minutes ago, she would’ve been ashamed of herself for wanting her ex so vocally. But ten minutes ago, Bridget wasn’t kissing her like they were twenty-three years old again. This kind of visceral attraction was hard to fight.

  Smirking, Bridget pushed Alex’s papers off the desktop and lifted her onto it. Her panties were probably soaked, but with Bridget’s fingers curling tightly on her hips, Alex couldn’t bring herself to care.

  “Fuck,” she gasped. She latched her legs around Bridget’s waist, tugging her even closer, and kissed her again, stopping Bridget’s smug laughter.

  Memories flashed through Alex’s mind. The kitchen in their tiny apartment in the city. The roof under the stars. The private study room in the university library. This was one of the many ways Bridget had loved Alex, unraveling and needy and affectionate.

  Had loved? Or was it still loved? Was this more for Bridget than it was for Alex? Was it more than the specific combination of proximity and a need for release? Because that was all it was for Alex. A purely physical thing. Wasn’t it?

  She broke off the kiss, breathing hard. “Stop,” she said. “Stop. This isn’t… We shouldn’t…”

  “Why not?” Bridget murmured. She cupped Alex’s cheek to pull their foreheads together. “Have you found anything with a
nyone that feels as right as we do together?”

  Alex licked her lips, bruised by the pressure of Bridget’s. She didn’t have a good answer, but not because it didn’t exist. Only because her head spun and she couldn’t think straight. Physically, they’d always been a fantastic match. But they weren’t eighteen anymore. They couldn’t skate by on physical attraction.

  “Alex…” Bridget breathed against her lips. She brushed Alex’s hair behind her ears. “Oh, my beautiful, darling Alex, tell me—”

  “Hey, Boss. Oh!”

  Bridget jumped away from Alex as Riley stood, shocked, just inside the door.

  “Um, I thought my question was important, but I see now that it isn’t, so…” Riley scurried back into the hallway and closed the door behind her.

  Alex blew out a quick breath. She could still feel Bridget pressed against her, her hands gripping Alex’s hips. She could still taste her, taste the tang of hops on her tongue.

  “I should…” Bridget said, backing away.

  When Alex looked up, Bridget looked down.

  “Yeah,” Alex said, nodding like a damned bobble head. “Yeah.” She didn’t even know what she was agreeing to. What was even happening? What had they just done?

  “So…”

  “Right.”

  Then Bridget was backing into the door, fumbling it open, and walking through. But she stopped in the doorway to glance at Alex, her expression heavy with desire and….regret?

  Chest heaving with a well of emotions that Bridget’s kiss had incited, emotions she hadn’t given thought to in much too long, Alex watched Bridget walk away. Again.

  And when she was gone, Alex raised a hand to her still-tingling lips.

  Softly, in the safety of her dingy office, she whispered, “Fuck.”

  Bridget stumbled out of the bar without paying any attention to where she was walking or who she was walking into, her mind consumed with Alex.

  Alex’s hands in her hair.

  Alex’s legs around her waist.

  Alex’s lips against hers.

  The cold air stung, but it was nothing compared to the shock she had gotten in that office.

  She slowed her steps. Once she buttoned her coat, it was a pleasant enough night, and she didn’t want to waste it.

  As she strolled down Main Street, she let the memories that had been bumping up against the barrier of her mental reservoir through. The moment she let go, the moment she let that wall collapse, she felt freer, lighter than she had in ages.

  There was the park where they’d sneak out to swing beneath the stars. There was the diner where they’d hang out on Friday nights because they had nothing better to do. There was the library, where they’d spend afternoons sprawled on the bean bags in the reading room as sunlight poured in.

  So much of her life here revolved around Alex, and when she’d cut off Alex, she’d cut off the rest of it, too. She’d cut off Edna from the diner who occasionally gave them pie on the house. She’d cut off George at the library, who was always ready with a new book recommendation. She wanted them back. She wanted this whole town back. But most, most, most of all, she wanted Alex back.

  She laughed, ran her hands through her hair. Alex had kissed her back. She was giddy with the taste of Alex on her lips. Because that was not the kiss of a disinterested ex-girlfriend. That was the kiss of a woman who’d finally let herself want without any thought of the consequences, and Bridget knew because that’s exactly how she’d felt, too.

  A brief, blissful moment interrupted too quickly. Bridget could curse Riley for her bad timing.

  She stopped walking.

  Riley hadn’t interrupted them.

  Alex had.

  Alex had wanted to stop.

  Oh, God. Had Alex regretted the kiss as soon as it’d happened?

  Horrified, Bridget covered her mouth with her hands.

  Shit.

  A door right in front of her opened with a jingle. She stepped out of the way and pressed her back against the brick wall. She felt stupid. She felt sick.

  Alex held so much anger now. Bridget remembered a soft, sweet woman, someone who’d had trouble opening up but had never been actively hurtful. Bridget only half-recognized this Alex. The change couldn’t be completely contributed to her, could it? Even if it couldn’t, how were they supposed to fix this? They couldn’t even sit down and have a civil conversation.

  Across the street, the town grocery store’s lights were on. Not bothering to use the crosswalk, she jogged over and into the store.

  As she headed for the frozen section, a dry laugh escaped her throat when she passed the beer display.

  Life on the Berm. Fitting. When she got to the register, the clerk gave her a sympathetic look, though Bridget couldn’t tell if it was because all she was buying was a carton of ice cream and a plastic spoon or because she was Bridget Callahan and all she was buying was a carton of ice cream and a plastic spoon.

  With her purchase in a plastic bag, she exited the grocery store and headed toward the one place in town no one would look for her, the one place she could be alone with no pressure from anyone—intended or otherwise—over how to act.

  The theater was just a few blocks over, down a side street without much traffic.

  The theater where they had their first kiss. Also fitting.

  The hardware store and the music shop across the street were closed for the night, and no foot traffic meant she didn’t have a problem sneaking in. The padlock on the far right door was broken but still on the chain. In a decade, no one had bothered to replace it, and once she got inside and shined her phone flashlight around, it was clear the secret had stayed well kept. Kids these days must be less curious. Or maybe they just had more activities and less free time to go running around town on the hunt for secret hiding places.

  Bridget sighed as she moved through the lobby. Despite the cobwebs that lived in the corners of the walls and ceiling, there was a somber elegance to this place. The red velvet carpet. The naked bulbs around the ticket booth window. Remnants of an earlier, fancier time.

  When she opened the door to the theater floor, her hand came away covered in dust. She wiped it on her jeans. Dust covered the entire theater, too, and a good number of the seats were broken. She walked down the left aisle and up the stage stairs to sit on the top step.

  It was dark in here, but it wasn’t scary. With all the wonderful memories it housed, it couldn’t be.

  She took out her phone, turned on Do Not Disturb mode, and switched off the screen. She set the phone on the stage face-up so the flashlight illuminated a small circle next to her. Then she opened the ice cream and scooped out a mammoth spoonful.

  Well, damn. She’d really fucked everything up, and she had no clue how to make it right.

  Most nights, Alex loved the bar. She loved the camaraderie, and she loved that everyone who stepped through the door shared in it. She loved the familiar faces, familiar smiles, familiar laughter. Tonight, though, it was all too loud. She didn’t have to hear the thoughts circling through her head to know who they were about.

  When it came time for her break, she shrugged into her jacket and headed outside. Her bad days usually meant she had too much energy and nowhere to put it. Those were the days she went on ten- or twelve-mile runs, did an hour with the heavy bag, exercised until exhaustion turned her body to jelly and made her mind go blank.

  She wasn’t used to this new type of restlessness that thrummed through her and kept her unsteady, so she couldn’t treat it with the same old medicine. Instead of pushing herself to the brink and collapsing for an extra-long night of dreamless sleep, she focused on the cool air moving in and out of her lungs. She focused on the sidewalk beneath her feet and on putting one foot in front of the other. She focused on calming the tempest that raged in her mind.

  Bridget had kissed her, and A
lex had been reeling ever since. She thought at the most, Bridget wanted to clear the air, wanted forgiveness for the way she’d left.

  But to be kissed—like that—had only dragged Alex back in time. She ran her fingers over her lips, still feeling the press of Bridget’s.

  Abruptly, she pulled her hand away. So it was a really good kiss. That wasn’t enough to suck her back under. If she really needed to be kissed, she could go to that lesbian bar in the city and find someone who’d take her home and keep her warm for a night.

  She was headed nowhere in particular, hardly paying attention to her meandering path until a car honked at her. She waved an apology, jogged across the rest of the street, and hopped onto the sidewalk.

  Directly in front of the theater.

  If she was looking for a sign that she needed to face her demons, no sense in looking any further.

  The lock was still busted. She had been meaning to change it for years, just to keep the space that was so precious to them private, but she’d never gotten around to it. She’d let her life get too busy as a way to distract herself from all the memories, all the hurt.

  It was funny that the memories didn’t seem so painful right now. The pain was still present, but mingled with…sweetness.

  Edging into the darkened lobby, she turned on the flashlight on her phone.

  She walked into the main theater and stopped just inside the doors. On the stage was a diluted light pointing at the ceiling. A phone flashlight. At the sound of the doors closing, a figure sat up.

  A pit settled in Alex’s stomach. It could only be one person, the only person she wasn’t sure she could talk to, the only person she needed to talk to.

  The beam of light moved, and Bridget called, “Hello? Who’s there?”

  Alex cleared her throat.

  Bridget was already up and walking down the aisle toward her. She held the light above her head. “Alex?” she asked as she approached.

  “I didn’t… I didn’t know you were here,” Alex said, but the words I’ll go got stuck on the way out.