“Hey,” I say back in a disinterested tone.
“It’s really good to see you, Dylan,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice as she climbs onto the barstool next to mine.
I nod and give her a cursory glance before looking back at my bottle. She doesn’t deserve more. However, I’m surprised to find that she looks… happy? I frown, confused.
“Prez said you wanted to talk to me.”
She catches the prospect's eye and points at my bottle. “I still can’t get over the fact that Sly is Prez now.”
I shrug. Her father used to be the Prez, and when he died, her brother inherited the title. If she had stayed for longer than an hour after the fucking funeral, she would have seen the change in real time, and it would be more natural now.
It’s like she can hear my thoughts. “I desperately wanted to talk to you at Daddy’s funeral, you know.”
The words cause me to really look at her for the first time since her arrival.
Her face has lost the softness of her teenage years. It’s sharper now, more wary. Her black hair is in a ponytail, but I can tell it’s still as long as it was back then. I don’t know why that pleases me. She didn’t keep it long for me, I know that.
She’s wearing tight black jeans and a tiny black tank top. Her sleeves are now filled in all the way, and I see the tentacles of a new neck tattoo peeking out from behind her hair whenever she turns her head. I itch to move her hair to the side so I can see it.
“No one was stopping you,” I reply, trying with all my might to keep the hurt out of my voice.
We both turn to look at the prospect who’s placing her drink in front of her.
“I was stopping myself,” she admits after a brief silence. “Daddy was gone, and I felt lost. You’ve always been my safe space, so naturally, I wanted to be near you, to be comforted by you, to fall into old patterns and into the way things used to be so easy between us, and that wasn’t fair to you.”
I scoff. I find it hard to believe that she cared about what was fair to me. She’s proven that by sneaking out like a thief in the night.
“I can see why you don’t believe me, and I don’t blame you for it.”
“How come?” I find myself being drawn into this back-and-forth, despite my better judgment.
“I know you were hurt by how I chose to leave, and I admit, it was horrible of me. A real bitch move,” she says and frowns - at herself, apparently. “I know I have to apologize for all the hurt I’ve caused you. But I was only 24, Dylan. I was nowhere near mature enough to have the hard conversations. All I’d ever known was the club; being the princess was intoxicating at first, but it got suffocating at some point. I just wanted to live on my own terms for a little while, away from everyone and everything. And being with you…”
She trails off, and my heart contracts painfully in my chest. This is where she’ll say that being with me was unfulfilling and a mistake, and I have to direct all my energies towards keeping my face straight and unaffected, but she surprises me again by putting her small, warm hand on my knee.
“Being with you was the best part of my life. But then the pregnancy happened, and everything just became too serious and too much.”
“Why the fuck are you bringing that up now?” I ask through clenched teeth.
My skin feels too tight. The hand on my knee pats it soothingly before disappearing. I miss its warmth instantly.
“Because it’s part of our story, Dylan. I know you were ready to start a family back then, and I can never thank you enough for supporting my choice to terminate despite that, but you can’t deny that things changed between us after that.”
Neither of us says anything for a while. I wonder if she’s also reliving those awful months after The Appointment.
“Why did you come back?” I ask, and let myself look at her again.
“I wanted to come home,” she says wistfully. “I know you’re happy and you’ve gotten what you wanted from life, and since we’re both grown now, I hope we can have a respectful coworking relationship. Maybe one day we can even be friends again.”
She smiles as she looks up at me with those baby blues. Once upon a time, one such look from her and we'd be out of there.
I shake my head at myself.
“Maybe one day, Bell,” I say in my conciliatory tone, and she must recognize it because she bites her lip to hide her smile.
“I see you got my autograph covered up,” she says as her eyes flicker down to the side of my neck.
I rub the spot in question reflexively. “Yeah. No sense keeping your name on there when you’re not my girl anymore.”
