The Hookup (Moonlight and Motor Oil #1)(35)

~J


He didn’t mean to be cruel, I knew it. He meant it to be what I hoped one day it would become.

Sweet.

And when I bunched the T-shirt to my face and smelled he’d laundered it, I knew he meant that to be sweet too.

But I wished he hadn’t washed it.

I allowed one tear to fall, soaking into the material.

Then I sniffed, pulled the T-shirt away from my face and moved to my door in order to let out my dogs.





Margot

Izzy

IT WAS EXACTLY two weeks and one day after Johnny and I ended what had never begun.

I’d gone home from work, let the dogs out, changed from heels to boots, checked the horses but left them in their paddock, put my heels back on, grabbed up my purse and keys but also my journal, selecting a few colored pens to go with it, and I headed out.

I was going to The Star. A very nice but not fancy (I was told) steak joint about ten miles out of town that Deanna and Charlie had been rhapsodizing about for years.

Deanna demanded all her birthdays be celebrated at The Star and Charlie hogged her birthdays, letting people celebrate it with her on the weekend (or the next weekend day if her birthday fell on a weekend), so I’d never been there.

And instead of continuing to mope about coming to terms with the fact that I would not ever be my sister or mother and thus be able to grab on to life and take what I wanted without giving too much in return, simply enjoy myself and what life offered without wanting more, I was going out to have a nice steak.

In other words, continuing to mope about the fact that Johnny and I had ended something that could never begin.

Or precisely, moping about the fact that what I wanted with Johnny could never begin.

The last steak I’d eaten, Johnny had cooked for me.

I didn’t allow myself to think about that.

That said, I knew part of me was breaking that seal or I’d get to the point I’d never eat steak again.

My mother would smile down from heaven at that.

But as much as I wished I didn’t, I loved steak.

So I needed to break the seal.

In the time since it happened, I also hadn’t allowed myself to spend too much time in town.

I’d been in Matlock for months, but steaming into summer, it was waking up. People were out and about, the big square was setting up to have what Deanna and Charlie had explained were nearly weekly weekend events of bands or festivals or open air plays, or whatever (I’d even been to a concert in the past, and their Memorial Day food festival, which was happening that weekend). And if he happened to be one of those people waking up, out and about, I didn’t want to run into Johnny.

Instead I’d caught up on my chores and planted my big garden and given up on the idea of a chicken coop, because Johnny was right. I should save up to build a garage. I’d be happy I had one for a variety of reasons and chickens just offered up fresh eggs.

I was nearly at the restaurant when it came on the radio.

And it was just my luck it would.

Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

I pulled into the parking lot of The Star, my fingers on the steering wheel adjusting to change the channel or completely wind down the volume.

Something made me not do that.

Instead I parked and sat in my car with goose bumps on my arms, staring unseeing out my windshield toward the rough, unpainted clapboard at the side of The Star, listening to the whole song.

When it was done, I switched off the car and said to the windshield, “It was two breakfasts, two dinners, one phone conversation, one text exchange and lots of sex. Get over yourself.”

With that, I grabbed my clutch, my journal and got out of my car.

I went in.

I asked for a table.

I got one.

I selected a seat with my back to the door so I could focus on my journal and not people watching.

I perused the menu and ordered a glass of Malbec.

I put my journal on the table and pulled out a couple of the pens.

I opened it up to the crazy doodles and wonky writing that slanted this way, then that, or went straight across, or curled around word for word from a circle in the center. Short notes, long meanderings and drawn flowers or balloons or whatever sprang to mind.

My journal was the only thing I allowed to be truly disordered in my life.

My mother’s journals had looked like that. Just like that. Except without all the colored pens because the only pens we had were ones she picked up wherever they gave out free pens, and she didn’t have the luxury of bringing color to her innermost thoughts.

The wine was served, I ordered my filet with no potato but instead steamed broccoli and roasted asparagus and had been bent back to my journal for maybe two minutes before I heard an achingly familiar, “Izzy?”

My head shot back and I stared into Johnny’s black eyes in his beautiful face staring down at me looking stricken and searching and gentle and gorgeous.

Those eyes slid to the empty chair opposite me then back to me and he asked, “Are you here alone?”

Was he?

Oh God.

Or was he there with Shandra? She was back and they were celebrating their reunion with steak at The Star.

“I . . . uh . . .” I stammered.

“Who’s this?”

My attention zipped to a woman who appeared at Johnny’s side.