I swallowed and nodded. “It sure would have.”
He laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just love that Southern accent.”
I gasped. “I donothave a Southern accent.” I had lived in Manhattan for the first ten years of my life, until my dad died, so I had convinced myself that I had the neutral accent that was perfect for an actress. Yet I had to admit that Southern roles were awfully easy for me to get.
He smiled. “No, no. I love it. I’m actually getting ready to move to Georgia. I’m opening another coffee shop there. Giving this one to my cousin Keith.”
I thought about telling him that I had lived in Georgia for most of my life, that my mom was still there. But then I would have to go to the trouble of explaining where Peachtree Bluff was, and it wasn’t worth it. I knew I’d never see him again anyway.
“Good peaches,” I said, leaning forward the slightest bit, indicating to him that he could kiss me but not wanting to be so forward as to kiss him.
He took my cue, putting his hand on my cheek, stroking my chin with his thumb. His lips met mine in a way that was soft and warm and good. It felt almost familiar, like coming home. It was the sweetest kiss I had had in quite some time. It was the first kiss, in fact, that made me wonder if maybe I had been right to leave Mark—and the life we could have had—behind.
Now, all these years later, the script had flipped. It was Kyle I had left behind. It was Mark I had come back to. As I took the last sip of green juice Kyle had made for me and threw the cup into Mom’s bathroom trash can, taking her concealer out of her makeup bag and piling on yet more so she wouldn’t notice the deep purple circles under my eyes, the ones that were a visible sign on my face that something wasn’t right inside my body, I had to admit to myself that the Kyle in the here and now had continued to impress me just as much as the Kyle of all those years ago.
He was different now, of course. He had grown up, become even more sure of himself, a man in every sense of the word. As I added concealer to the deep red bruise above my elbow, the one I had gotten from merely bumping the chair this morning, I had the disturbing thought that Kyle might always be the one who got away. And that, worse still, we would both be right here to remember it every day.
SEVEN
ansley: grack
Ihad made a fledgling attempt at Instagram in the past few years to share photos of my design work. But I was less than consistent and mostly just enjoyed looking at pictures of my friends’ grandchildren. As I scrolled through my feed, enjoying the noises of my girls drying and fixing one another’s hair upstairs as they got ready for their night out, a new story popped up on Caroline’s profile, a video of the three of them singing into hairbrushes in the mirror, just like the old days. I clicked on the icon by her name to see if she had posted any pictures of Preston lately that I had missed. And I almost dropped the phone. “Caroline!” I called, running up the stairs.
Emerson was applying blush to Sloane’s cheeks, and Caroline was holding a round brush in one hand and a blow-dryer in the other. She turned it off when she saw me in the mirror.
“Oh, my gosh!” I said. “Caroline! You have almost a million Instagram followers!”
“What?” Emerson said. “That’s more thanIhave.”
Caroline shrugged. “James having the public affair of the decade really upped my social-media game.”
“Do you have any idea what you could do with all those followers?” Emerson asked.
“I know exactly what,” Caroline said, holding up the hair dryer. “Do you know how much Dyson just paid me for that post?”
An hour later, I was calling, “Don’t drink too much!” as Emerson, Sloane, and Caroline walked out my front door. I was shocked, actually, that Sloane was finally leaving. She had been glued to Adam’s side since he got home. But according to Sloane, he had insisted she take Emerson out to celebrate her engagement, saying, “Just because I’m home now doesn’t mean I’m the only person in your world. You can’t stop your entire life for me.”
As I poured myself a glass of wine and got ready for an evening alone, I wondered where they were off to. Probably walking downtown to our favorite restaurant, Sharpie’s, which was perfectly safe and filled with locals who would watch out for them. Still, when I saw all three of them walk away together, panic welled up in my throat that I might never see them again. What if they were all hit by a car? What if a shooter came into their restaurant? I knew it was silly, but after Carter had been killed on an ordinary day in an extraordinary way, I was all too aware that every time the people I loved walked out the door, I was in danger of never seeing them again. Thinking that Emerson might be sick had intensified the anxious feelings that always seemed to ebb and flow a bit.
I jumped when I felt a pair of arms wrap around me from behind. “Alone at last,” Jack whispered.
I smiled and turned to kiss him. I knew that kiss would turn into something more.
“Want to go back to my house?” Jack asked.
I smiled. I would always,always, want to go back to Jack’s house.
An hour and a half later, I was sitting in Jack’s backyard sipping sweet tea while steaks sizzled on the grill. Every time Jack grilled steaks, it reminded me of the day I’d gone to his house in Atlanta, the day I’d seen him for the first time since I’d told him I was pregnant with Caroline, the day I’d made love to him right there on his back patio until the steak turned to absolute charcoal.
We never really talked about it now, about our past. But I couldn’t let the moment go. He might not even remember. “Try not to burn these,” I said, testing the waters.
“That was the best worst steak of my life.”
I smiled wistfully, knowing exactly what he meant, knowing that he felt such pure relief at my return to Atlanta, to him, all those years ago, that it was scarcely something he could verbalize. But we both also knew what we were getting back into. My getting pregnant with Caroline, Carter’s knowing—but never saying—that another man must have been a part of that, had shifted something in our relationship. Still, we both wanted a sibling for Caroline.
