Well Met(87)

“That’s the plan.” Her face was so full of sympathy I had to turn away from her, look down at the armload of books I carried. “Don’t worry. I won’t ask him to drop by the store. I know you can’t avoid him forever in a town this size, but I’m not going to . . .”

“No.” I waved a hand. “That’s fine. I mean, yes, thank you, I can’t . . .” My breath started to shudder, and how long was I going to cry about this? I shoved the emotion down. “That’s not why I was asking.” I put down the books. I was going to shelve them, but multitasking was off the menu today. “Look, when you talk to him, about next year. He needs help.”

Her brow furrowed. “Well, of course he needs help. That’s why I help him plan . . .”

“More than that,” I said. “I know he loves doing this Faire. It’s his highest priority.” Boy, did I ever know that. “But sometimes I think . . . Chris, I think he’s taking on too much. He’s drowning in it.”

“What?” She looked startled for a second, then shook her head. “No, he’s fine. Faire’s his thing. He’s always a little burned out at the end of the summer.”

“Faire isn’t his thing. It was Sean’s thing, and now Simon has to do it.” My heart was pounding hard now. I felt like I was bringing up something I had no right to discuss. Chris had known Simon for years. Decades, even. I’d known him for a handful of months. But all I could see were Simon’s eyes. How tired they’d looked. How trapped. If I truly was the only person who saw it, I needed to say something. “He’s doing it the way Sean did it because he doesn’t know what else to do. And he can’t move on. He’ll keep doing this Faire till he drops, and he’ll be nothing more than Sean’s little brother forever, carrying on what Sean wanted. But he needs to be his own person with his own life.” I ran out of nerve and shrugged. “I don’t know. I could be wrong. You probably know him better than I do. Just . . . could you ask him? Make sure he’s really okay?”

Chris looked at me carefully, and I waited for her to tell me that it was none of my business. I had broken up with Simon; what right did I have to tell her how he felt? But instead she nodded, her face as kind as ever. “Of course. I’ll talk to him, don’t worry.”

“Thanks.” I picked up the books and went back to work, ignoring the tears that had dropped to my cheeks. I’d said what I needed to say. Maybe Simon and I weren’t meant to be, but if saying something to Chris could help him in some way, it was worth it. Fixing things was what I did, after all.



* * *



? ? ?

A little after noon on Friday the bell over the door chimed, and I was surprised to see Stacey walk in, wearing her blue work scrubs and carrying a bag from the deli down the street.

“You haven’t eaten, have you?”

“No.” Unless you counted the three brownies I’d shoved in my face from the coffee counter. Chris was an excellent baker and I was still wallowing.

“That’s what I thought.” She unpacked sandwiches at one of the café tables while I grabbed some bottles of water for us. She’d brought me a Reuben, which she knew was my favorite. I thanked her and bit into it gratefully. My stomach growled in appreciation at the first bite of real food of the day. We ate in companionable silence for a little while, which was refreshing. Most conversation around me lately tended to be of the how are you holding up variety, and I’d run out of ways to answer that question.

After we’d finished, she started to gather up the lunch trash, but I slapped her hands away and started the cleanup myself.

“You should come out to Jackson’s tonight.”

I sucked in a breath. “I don’t know. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Yes. I think it’s an excellent idea. Our night out last week got cut short, remember?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Because you had to go get laid.”

She wrinkled her nose at me but didn’t deny it. “And you were crying in your beer.” I had to concede that point. “Seriously, let’s go out. Simon won’t be there. You know he likes to get his beauty sleep on Friday nights.”

I started to smirk, but the mental image of Simon sleeping reminded me of his room. His bed. That warm quilt. His arms around me during the night, like I was something worth holding on to. Had he ever felt that way? Had I imagined it all? Stop. “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I will.”

Of course, I changed my mind about fourteen times, back and forth as to whether or not I should meet up with Stacey for our night out. No matter what, Jackson’s was the unofficial Faire hangout. Simon might not be there, and while Stacey had made it clear our friendship was still intact, I had no idea how everyone else would react to me.

But I’d also spent a good part of the week researching apartments and made appointments to look at some I could afford that were close to the bookstore. I was planning for my future in Willow Creek. This was going to be my town too, damn it, so if I wanted to meet my friend for happy hour I should be able to do so without fear of being run out on a rail.

I shouldn’t have worried.

“Paaaaaarrrrrk!”

Mitch threw his arm around my neck in that weird, strangling hug he liked to do. It was like being attacked by a tree, but he only did it to the people he liked, so I smiled and leaned into it. “How you doing? I heard you had a shitty week.”