Chapter 8

Jen is holding a book by her favorite author and waving it around. “What do you mean he left?” She looks from me to Lila and then back to me.

“He had to go.” I put copies of the same book on the display table at the front of Booksmith’s. “His boss called early this morning and there was an emergency, so he caught a flight back to New York.”

“But he drove down here.” Jen flips to the first page, then closes the book and hugs it to her chest.

“I told him he could leave his pickup truck with me until he can come back and get it.” It’s impossible to not have a little hope that when he comes back, he’ll want to stay, but he didn’t say anything about that. We made love, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to bend a knee. I have to be realistic. We’re friends and for a couple of days, we were friends with benefits, nothing more.

“What did he say when you dropped him at the airport.” Lila toys with a bunch of pens that just came in with my shop name and logo. They’re in a box on the counter because I haven’t had a chance to put them away, and set a few out to give to customers.

Staying busy has helped me to keep my mind off of my mom and Aiden, but Jen and Lila are not helping my plan to avoid emotions. “He said he’d let me know when he can come for the truck and that he loves me.”

They both stare open-mouthed.

“No.” I hold up a finger. “He and I have been exchanging I love yous in letters and other correspondence for years. It doesn’t mean anything. Of course, he loves me, like any friend of twenty years. Don’t go all mushy, either one of you.”

“Did you have sex with him?” Jen asks in a soft, knowing tone.

I knock over five books I’ve just set on the display. “None of your business.”

Lila abandons the pens. “Oh my god, you did. How was it?”

“Not the point, Lila,” Jen scolds.

“Why not? Good sex is not something to push aside. It means he cares enough to give the very best orgasms.” Lila flips her shoulder-length curls and bounces her eyebrows.

“I’m not discussing this with the two of you. He’s gone, so there’s no point.” I fix my display. “Don’t you have to get back to work?”

Jen looks at the clock at the back of the shop. She puts the book down. “Crap. I do. I’ll be back for that. I’m coming over tonight and you’re telling me everything. He’s a nice guy, at least he sure seemed like it. If he’s not, I’m going to New Jersey and telling his mother what a jerk he is.”

“His mother?” Lila’s tone is amused, and she fixes her purple lipstick. “Is that the best you can do?”

Jen grabs her purse. “That woman had five children and carted them all over the world. He comes from an enormous extended family. I’m willing to bet his mother is a formidable woman.”

Plopping her lipstick back in her tiny blue purse, Lila shrugs and gives me a cheek kiss. “She has a point. See you tonight.”

The shop is blissfully peaceful once they leave. I’m almost disappointed when two teenage girls come in and run to the young adult section. It’s a small town so I know them both. As it turns out, Ashton and Shane have a lot of questions about a series and I have the answers. It gets my mind off of all the things.

In the end, they each buy book one in the series.

Shane pays for her book, then stares at me. “Miss Joy, we heard about your mom and we’re so sorry.”

It takes all my will to keep from bursting into tears. “Thank you, girls.”

They head for the door and are giggling about the book by the time they reach the street. Life continues to go on, even though my heart is broken in so many ways. It’s damned annoying.

By phone beeps as a text comes through.

Aiden:

I’m back in New York. How are you?

Me:

Glad you’re safe. I’m fine. I hope your project goes how you want.

Aiden:

Thanks. Me too.

My heart aches but I’m too cowardly to ask when he’s coming back. I also don’t want to be one of those clingy women. There’s still a chance that the two nights with Aiden were just a one-off fling and he never intended for it to be more. I brush that notion aside. He came here because my mother died, and he wanted to comfort me. He did that and more. It’s not fair to push my insecurities off on him as flaws.

I turn my phone off and put it on the end table in my living room.

When the doorbell rings, I’m relieved to have my friends arrive to take my mind off that stupid phone. Still, I’m not going to make it easy on them. They’ve come to pry information out of me.

And they’ve brought pizza and beer to ply me with.

Jen squeezes past me and puts the beer on the counter. “You know you are not going to turn down pizza, so let Lila in.”

Holding my smile back, I move aside. It’s hard to be mad at them for arriving with bribery to wheedle information out of me that I don’t want to divulge.

Lila winks at me, then marches into my kitchen, her pepperoni pizza smelling like heaven in a box. “I knew this was the right lure to get you to smile. Don’t think I can’t see you holding back.”

Man, I love these two. “Alright, I slept with Aiden. There, now you know, so you can let it go.”

They both stare at me with their eyebrows raised. It’s kind of comical. Lila has a slice of pizza halfway to her mouth, eating right out of the open box. Jen has two beers in her hands, about to give them to us. Neither moves.

“What?” I take my beer and twist the top before taking a long pull.

Lila puts the pizza back in the box. “What, she asks.”

Putting down the other beer, Jen narrows her gaze on me. “So, after all these years, the minute he gets you alone in person, he asks for sex?”

“No.” I’m surprised anyone would think badly about Aiden, but Jen is just being protective of me. “I asked. I’m sure if I had kept my clothes on and asked him to hold me through the night, he would have.”

“You took your clothes off?” Lila shakes her head as if in a daze. “Start from the beginning. What happened after I left on Sunday night?”

Taking a piece of pizza, Jen eats while leaning with her elbows on the kitchen peninsula. Her eyes are bright with far too much excitement. “And don’t leave out a single juicy minute.”

I give them the basics despite the request for more.

“So, you had a spectacular orgasm and then freaked out on him?” Jen finishes her beer and goes to the fridge for another.

“I wouldn’t put it that way.” I sigh out my frustration over the timing of everything. “But, yes. I was freaked out that I was enjoying myself when my mother is gone.”

Lila puts an arm around me. “Your mom wouldn’t want you to be unhappy and I think she’d be in favor of a relationship with Aiden.”

Mom never understood why we didn’t meet up in person once he came back to America. She even offered to take me to visit him instead of Rome for my graduation trip. I was so terrified that meeting would ruin what I considered a perfect friendship, I opted for Rome. Even now, I’m still doubting if his coming here was the end of our friendship. I’m mourning for that as much as I am for my mom. Losing Aiden would be almost as painful.

“I know she wouldn’t, but it feels wrong to be happy or even any emotion approaching joy. I miss her so much and now I miss him too.”

Jen swallows her bite and cocks her head. “So, you get scared and run, what did he do?”

“He came into my room and comforted me.” The more I think about him, the more I miss him.

“And that was it?” Lila asks.

“That first night, that was it.”

Jen lights up. “What happened the next night?”

“We made love.” The memory is so fresh, I have to stop thinking about it because my cheeks are on fire.

Lila repeats my words back to me and lets out a soft sigh.

“Then he got up in the morning, took a call, and left?”

“Basically, yes.” I try a bite of pizza, but I’m not hungry.

“Eat, Joy.” Lila’s voice is motherly and stern.

I force down the slice while they fall silent. I love pizza, but I’m just not that interested in food, drink, or anything right now.

Jen finishes her second slice. “You should call him and find out when he’s coming back for his truck.”

Shanking my head, I push the second beer aside. “No. I don’t want to pressure him. He probably feels guilty for leaving. I mean, maybe he does. It was just sex.”

“You said that you made love,” Lila reminds me. “That’s not a term you use for just sex.”

She’s right, but I don’t say anything.

During the following two weeks, his texts get shorter and impersonal, so I stop responding.

I can’t do small talk with Aiden. I don’t even like it with strangers. If he wanted to talk about the time we had together, he’d have called. If he wanted to convey any emotions at all, I’d be happy to hear from him. None of that happened and I have a business to run and a life to live.

I push aside how much I miss him and get through my days and my nights without knowing if he’ll ever come back, even if it is just for his old truck.

Memorial Day weekend is always busy at the store. The tourists flood into town looking for their final beach read of the summer. I’ve got all the paperbacks out front for them to go through.

The entire week is crazy with tourists escaping work and school for summer fun, and shipments of books coming to restock after the best week Wordsmith’s has ever had. I hardly had time to be truly sad. I miss Aiden, but I’m proud to be functioning fine without him.

After I close the store on Saturday, June 1st, I let the sad take me. It’s National Pen Pal Day, and I feel like for the first time in twenty years, I don’t have a pen pal. It’s not his fault, it’s mine. I can’t be just the person he writes to anymore, so I had to let him go.

As I walk home, dashing tears away, my phone beeps with a text message.

Aiden:

Happy NPP Day. I sent you a letter, did you get it?

I command my heart to slow down.

Me:

Hi. No. I haven’t been home all day.

Aiden:

I miss you.

I stop at the corner of my street and stare at the message. How can three words feel so good and hurt so bad at the same time? I don’t know what to say. The truth seems like a mistake. If I tell him, my heart is breaking just from his messages, will he stop writing? Is that what I want?

Aiden:

Are you there?

Me:

I’m here. I’m walking home from the store.

Aiden:

Let me know if the letter is there.

I approach my house and look in the mailbox, but there’s only a bill and some junk mail. Grabbing it, I go to my front door. An envelope with my name on it in Aiden’s handwriting is tucked into the screen door.

I pull it free and look around.

Nothing is out of place. The red pickup is still in my driveway.

Me:

Are you in town to get your truck?

Aiden:

No. Will you read the letter?

Me:

Yes.

Aiden:

Do you promise?

He knows me too well. I would put off reading it.

Me:

I promise.

Unlocking the door, I push through and dump the mail on the counter. Mustering my courage, I slip my finger under the envelope flap and tear it open.

The letter is handwritten, like we used to do years ago. My heart tightens.

Dear Joy,

I have missed you so desperately these last two weeks. I’m not sure why you stopped responding to my texts, but it broke my heart. I suspect you’re protecting yourself from hurt, but I will never hurt you.

I’m sorry I had to leave that day and even more regretful that these weeks I’ve been working fourteen-hour days to give my boss and this new client what they want. I can assure you, my distraction has nothing to do with you or how I feel.

Let me be perfectly clear about my feelings. I love you. You are my best friend, and I love you. Not only that, I’m in love with you. If you’ll let me, I’ll make it my life’s purpose to make you happy. Whatever that takes, I’ll do it because you are my joy and you deserve everything I have to give.

Now, if everything went as planned, I’m standing on your front porch waiting for your answer.

Love,

Aiden

I stare at the page as my tears smudge the ink, then turn to the door. Is he out there waiting for me? My head is spinning and my heart pounding. He loves me? Is that even possible?

There’s only one way to find out.