Steele
Five Days Later
Iparked my bike at Southwest Dine, took off my helmet, put it in the seat of my bike, and paused for a moment.
The last few days had felt like a massive whirlwind that I could barely keep up with. I buried my mother on Wednesday, a funeral for which all the Black Reapers—including Cole—came out for. Even the Rogers sisters showed up, though they remained at the back of the procession and left as soon as the actual funeral ended. I couldn’t blame them; I suspected they wanted to pay their respects but not take away my attention.
The funeral itself was tough, but I held it together long enough in front of everyone that I didn’t turn into a bawling idiot. And even then, when I got the chance to stand over the three graves of my mother, my father, and my brother, I just felt…uncertain. I wasn’t empty, but I wasn’t really sad, either. I was angry, but not in a blow-my-top kind of way.
I guess you could say I was cautious to feel too strongly one way or the other, knowing full well that a tendency to believe one emotion was the absolute right one had been my downfall. At times, sure, I hit a deep hell, and at other times, I felt strangely grateful for the times we’d had, but for the most part, I cautiously kept myself somewhat low key.
But as I looked back up at the diner and headed for the front door, I had no idea what to expect with this early evening coffee and food.
I opened the door, walked past the waitress to the back corner I had always taken, and nodded as none other than Tara Rogers got out of her seat and walked up to me.
“Hey, Steele,” she said as she opened her arms in an embrace.
“Hey.”
I took her in for a hug. It lasted just a beat longer than a normal hug would. And I felt…
I couldn’t say I didn’t feel anything. I couldn’t just forget that I’d dated this woman for two years and thought I’d marry her, only to then have her dump me and six months later wind up with my best friend. Some scars didn’t heal, no matter how much treatment you got.
But I have to say, the feelings were nowhere near as strong as I had feared they were. I could easily be myself around her, and I could easily stay in her presence without feeling anything more than the faintest tinge of nostalgia for the good days.
“How are you feeling?” she said as she sat back down in the booth. “I’m sorry about what happened to your mother.”
“It’s OK, I appreciate you and Elizabeth coming to the funeral.”
I took a sip of the water the waitress had already left.
“I’m not sure how I feel. But I’m moving forward each day.”
I smirked at her.
“I suppose I should say sorry for taking all week to arrange to meet up with you.”
“Oh, please, if you’d asked to wait a month after everything you’ve gone through, I’d understand.”
It was strange to say, but even for all the drama our breakup and her getting with Brock had caused, she seemed much more at ease than I could ever remember. I knew she still had that spunk and that fire that had made her so damn attractive before, but she was not a ball of stress as she’d once been. Brock, it seemed, had settled her—as much as Tara Rogers could settle.
“Your message had me curious enough I had to take you up on it,” I said. “Does Brock know we’re meeting?”
“Of course,” Tara said, but it wasn’t said with snark. It was just said as simply as if I had asked her if we’d come here to have food. “He didn’t inquire any further.”
“Interesting,” I said.
I suppose you can be in a relationship and not stress twenty-four-seven about the other person.
Tara gave a soft smile to me.
“What?”
I shrugged. I figured if we were diving into this topic, we might as well just put it all out there.
“I think if this were a year ago, back when we were still a thing, and you’d wanted to go have coffee and a late lunch with Brock, I’d have my guard up so hard,” I said. “I would have glared at the fucker when he came back, that’s for sure.”
Tara smiled.
