Hold Me Close(81)

“You can’t stay, though. I mean, I’ll give you cab fare. It’s pretty late.” He runs a hand over his hair. His smile this time is guilty. “I...um... Look, I should’ve told you before. I have a girlfriend.”

Effie doesn’t need his cab fare and she doesn’t want to sleep over, and she really doesn’t want to see him again. She frowns at his admission, though. “Oh.”

“She’s out of town. We’re kind of on a break.”

“For the weekend?” Effie asks as she slips into her panties and jeans and finds her bra.

Jason coughs uncomfortably. Effie has no desire to make this easier for him. She’s kind of pissed off, to be honest, if only because of all the men in the bar tonight, Jason had been the first to buy her a drink and she might’ve found someone else if she hadn’t been so damned eager to just get this out of her system.

“Listen, don’t worry about it. It’s cool. Thanks for the ride,” Effie says.

“You want to give me your number?”

She glances at him over her shoulder from the doorway. “No.”

“Oh,” Jason says. “Okay.”

She thinks about him all the way home, and in the shower when she scrubs away the scent of sex, and later in bed when she stares up at the ceiling and tries to figure out how she feels about what she did. When the morning comes, though, Effie doesn’t think much about Jason again. There will be many, many other men.

Sunday afternoon, she goes to the apartment that still feels like home no matter how much she tries not to let it. She knocks on the door like a salesman. At the sight of Heath, a dish towel slung over his shoulder and a smudge of flour on his cheek, a surge of love sweeps over her in a rush so strong she’s sure, for a moment, that it’s going to send her to her knees.

Together, they finish baking the sugar cookies Heath and Polly had been baking. He wraps a platter of them with plastic and Polly proudly carries it. Heath and Effie both watch her, waiting for her to stumble and drop them, but she makes it all the way through the front door without so much as a crumb being spilled.


“You know,” he says to Effie as they very specifically don’t hug in the doorway, “you and Polly can always come back.”

For a moment, she almost says yes, but the truth is, if Effie wants all of them to keep moving forward, looking back is not the way to do it. She kisses him instead of speaking, a brief brush of her lips on his cheek. It’s the last time she will kiss him for a very long time.

* * *

“I’m really doing it. A whole show. In the spring. So, yeah, I need to work on a lot of things. I’m going to pull out some older pieces,” Effie told Heath. “See if anything’s worth showing.”

“I’m sure they’re all worth showing.” Heath had not taken off his coat. Effie noticed but pretended she didn’t. “Wog! Let’s go, we’re going to be late for the movie!”

“Thanks for taking her,” Effie said.

Heath shrugged. “You know I’m happy to, anytime. I’ve missed taking her on the weekends. It’s been a long time. I’ll have her back on Sunday before I have to head into work for an event.”

“The show will be a lot of work.” Effie paced, already thinking ahead to the hours she’d have to herself over the next couple of days. How much she might be able to get done. Heath was right, it had been a long time since he’d had Polly for the entire weekend. Years, probably. “I’ve been making sketches. I have some ideas. But I won’t know until I start if I can really pull any of it off.”

“Effie.”

She stopped to face him. Heath’s smile, so familiar, so beloved, urged her own in response. “Heath.”

“You’re amazing, and you’re going to make this happen. Wog! C’mon! I told Lisa we’d pick her up on the way!”

Effie had been about to hug him for his support, but at his words, she kept herself still. Heath caught her look. They both stared.

“It’s not serious,” he said finally.

“Does she know that?”

He shrugged. “We haven’t talked about it. She’s fun. You’d like her, Effie.”

“I’m sure I would.” Effie’s chin went up, but only a little. She forced a smile. “You should bring her around. Maybe we could all have dinner or something.”

“Sure. Me, you, Lisa, Polly. Mitchell,” Heath added lightly. “It would be awesome. Supercool. A big old family get-together. Invite your mom, too, she’ll have a great time.”

Effie laughed. “Your sarcasm is showing, love.”

Heath flinched. She couldn’t miss it, and it killed her. Again she thought of hugging him, and again she kept herself from it.

“We are a family,” Effie said. “We’ll always be.”

Heath nodded and called again for Polly, who hollered back that she’d be there in a minute. He cut his gaze from Effie’s. “You know what, Effie, I think I need to take a break from you for a while.”

“Again?” was all she managed to say.

“Yeah. Only this time, I mean it. I’ll still be here for Polly, of course. Always. But she’s old enough now that she and I can make any arrangements we have to. I don’t want you to call me anymore, or text me, unless it’s about her.” Heath’s voice had gone low but smooth, as though he’d rehearsed what he was saying.