My stomach drops at what I find.
Riley is seated at the edge of the bed, leaning in towards a woman perched beside him. His arm is wrapped around herback, and she’s shirtless, wearing only a red lacy bra. It’s the woman Lucky had shoved on the floor last night. The woman that Riley had helped up.Smiledat.
Their foreheads are almost touching as he murmurs something to her, and she grins back at him seductively. It’s intimate.
It’s nauseating.
There’s a high-pitched keening sound, one that manages to carry over the music, and Riley’s eyes shoot up to meet mine. It’s then I realize the sound came from me. I’m frozen in the doorway, trembling, staring at the sight before me. Riley keeps his gaze averted, and I watch as his throat works on a swallow, my eyes tracing the path of his Adam’s apple. He rises slowly to his feet and crosses the room, leaning against the open door and blocking my view of the woman.
“What is this?” I ask, my voice shaking.
He closes his eyes and lets out a long breath.
I continue to stare.
Finally, he says, “Steph.” That’s it. Just my name, yet he says it with such gentleness, such tenderness, that for a brief moment, hope flares once again. A wealth of emotion is carried in that single word, yet as I let it sink in, let this whole visit sink in, I finally understand.
This was never about getting back together. It was always goodbye. I’d been prepared for that beforehand, but seeing him again, well…
The woman behind him says something, his name, maybe, I don’t know. I’m too shattered to hear anything over the blood rushing in my ears and the pulsing bass soundtrack to my heartbreak.
Riley glances over his shoulder in response to her, and I watch as she boldly meets my eyes, then returns her attention to him. All the while, she’s playing seductively with the cup of her bra, running a finger along the edge. When he turns back to me, his eyes are glassy and unseeing, but they meet mine, for the first time this morning—for one final moment—and I see a flash of something, there and gone.
Grief?
Regret?
Then he shuts the door in my face.
“Goodbye,” I whisper to the faded wood.
Unbelievably, I manage to make it back to my car before I completely fall apart. Even more unbelievably, it’s still intact, I marvel, as I slide into the driver’s seat.
Then the tears finally spill over.
And I allow myself to break for this boy one last time.
9
Riley
Along,lowwhistleannouncesmy arrival as I sidle up to the bar.
“Well, shit,” the bartender says. “Is that Riley Walker? Number twenty-nine?”
I look up into the eyes of a grizzled older man, competently pulling beers at the taps behind the counter. I nod, quickly dropping my gaze.
“Heard you were back in town,” he continues.
“Yes, sir,” I reply, my voicegruff.
The man slides the pints across the bar to some customers a few stools down, then turns back to me. “Well, hell. Welcome back,” he says. “The name’s Bobby. Knew your daddy back in the day … was a good man.”
“He was.”
“An’ I was a big fan of yours. The way you led the team to state your senior year?” he grunts, and Ithinkit’s in appreciation. “Always thought ya might go pro.”
I huff out a laugh, scratching at my jaw. “That was never in the cards. I was good by local standards, but …” I trail off with a shrug, staring down at the bar. The chances of me going pro were always slim, and I wasn’t fooling myself about that even before I left for CU, but the truth is, I have no way of knowing what might have happened had I not gone and fucked everything up.
