Finally, Forever (2 page)

“I met
Gray in Phoenix a few years ago,” she explains. “We’re old friends. My car just died, and I’m trying to get to Flagstaff.”

“Flagstaff?” Rachel says and my hear
t pinches in my chest. Oh, no. Don’t say it.

“Well,
Gray’s on his way back to Phoenix today.” She turns to me and smiles like she solved all of our problems—not started them. “You can give her a ride.”

I clear my throat, trying to loosen a knot of tightening nerves.

“Oh, no, that’s okay. We, no…,” Dylan blunders and then she stalls and looks at me to gauge my reaction. I have to remind myself to breath. A shallow stream of hot hair squeezes through my throat. I swear I’m having a panic attack. 

“I’m sure there’s a bus,”
Dylan offers, and I nod enthusiastically. Yes, a bus, or a plane, or a hot air balloon, or she can roller skate there for all I care. That girl is not getting inside my car. It’s my one safe place. It’s my zone of tranquility.

“Seriously,” Rachel encourages us. “You can split gas money and trade off driving shifts. It’s perfect.” She gives me a confident nod. “We’d feel better knowing you were driving with someone,” she tells me. 

I laugh, a sort of choking sound. It brings my voice back.

“Why are you going to Arizona?” I demand to
Dylan.

Her constant smile flattens at the corners. “There’s a family emergency,” she says. She studies my eyes, the hostility behind them
, and understands what I’m not saying. “But don’t worry about it. I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

“That’s just silly,” Rachel pipes in. I want to smother my hand over her mouth. Don’t you see you’re planting the seeds of misery by inviting this girl back into my life?

“I
could
use a ride,” Dylan says.

Rachel nods. “Isn’t it
great how fate makes everything work out?”

“It is strangely fortuitous,”
Dylan agrees and meets my eyes for a second before I look away. I pretend to be fascinated by a red minivan pulling into the parking lot.    

“What are you going to do with your car?” Rachel asks.

“Well, it’s not actually
my
car,” Dylan says. I just named it. “It’s Nick’s.”

Just as she says this, a guy is walking up behind her, holding two sweating bottles of water and smiling. 

“Making friends already?” he asks and offers her a bottle. He gives her this adoring grin and it makes the muscles in my arms tense.

I stare him up and down. He’s exactly my height, 6’3”. His brown, wavy hair is pulled off of his face with a pair of sunglasses. He has these large, brown, really friendly eyes. He looks outdoorsy, dressed in a blue polo shirt and tan cargo shorts. I’m a good judge of character and Nick seems, unfortunately, cool. I automatically despise him.

Dylan turns and makes the introductions. As soon as she says my name, Nick’s eyes dart to mine like a javelin, hitting me with an unbelieving stare. I meet his gaze and hold. We’re having some kind of stare-down and I’m determined not to look away first. He definitely recognizes my name. I wonder how much Dylan told him about me. I wonder how badly he wants to kick my ass right now. But he doesn’t look angry, or jealous. More than anything, he looks curious. He actually reaches out his hand to shake mine. I grab his fingers and try not to squeeze so hard I break one.

“
Gray. Nice to meet you.” He says my name like he’s referencing a famous book title and I almost smile at his lie. He shakes Rachel’s hand and regards both of us for a few seconds like he’s trying to piece something together.

“I’m
Dylan’s boyfriend,” he says, specifically to me. He throws an arm around Dylan’s shoulder just to be a jackass. Even Dylan looks surprised by the possessive gesture.

I fight to keep my feet steady. I’ve seen one other guy touch
Dylan in my life. Once. And I threw a baseball at him as hard as I could. The same territorial instinct is flooding back. 

“I found a red eye flight I can catch tonight,” he says to
Dylan and leans in closely to tell her. Their noses almost touch. “Are you sure you want to take a bus to Flagstaff?” he asks her. “I found some cheap flights to Phoenix.”

Dylan
points over at me and grins like I’m her old pal from the neighborhood and this isn’t at all weird.

“Funny, actually,” she says. “
Gray’s headed to Phoenix today. So, he can drop me off in Flagstaff.”

“Wow,” Nick says and he regards me again. “What a coincidence.” 

Tell me how you really feel.

“I wish I could go with you,” Nick says and coos into her shoulder.

“Why don’t you guys eat dinner with us first?” Rachel offers. “Before you head out?”

I
stare at Rachel. Aren’t you just full of fun ideas?

“Perfect,” Nick agrees. He reaches down for
Dylan’s hand and I’m already stalking towards the front entrance. I have to make a concerted effort not to stomp. I hear Dylan commenting on the name of the restaurant behind me, and she wonders out loud if palm trees grow in Nebraska. If I weren’t currently loathing my life, I would smile.

Dylan

I watch
Gray disappear inside the restaurant so fast it’s as if he has a jet pack strapped to his back. I can almost see a trail of steam shooting out behind him. I stand in his exhaust trail, stunned.

“
Dylan?” A voice calls out to me through an abyss

of shock.
“Dylan?”

I blink and Nick’s worried eyes come into view.

“You’re scaring me. Focus,” he says and shakes my shoulders until I meet his brown eyes. “I’m worried you’re going to lose control of all bodily functions right now.”

Fragmented words start to appear in my mind but they’re not forming sentences. They drift and float but they’re difficult to connect. My heart is pounding as if I just sprinted around a track. Only one thing is clear.

“He hates me,” I say.

“Hate can easily be confused with love,” Nick argues. “They’re very similar emotions if you think about it.”

Now I’m even more confused. “That makes no sense, Nick.”

“Love never does,” he says. “We’ll figure it out. I promise.”

“I can’t believe Rachel offered Gray to drive me. It was
her
idea. Shouldn’t she be a little wary, loaning out her boyfriend to chauffer random girls across the country?”

Nick rests a hand sympathetically on my shoulder. “Honey, have you looked in the mirror recently? I don’t really think she was intimidated. You have a huge smear of motor oil running up the side of your face. And under your chin. And how did you get tire tread marks on your t-shirt?” He shakes his head and makes a “tsk, tsk,” sound.

“But, you told Gray you’re—”

“Just play along right now,” he interrupts. “Trust me.”

He swings the glass door open and half shoves, half escorts me inside the restaurant. My skin immediately chills in the freezing blast of air conditioning. The room is as cold as a meat locker. I bypass the hostess stand and head straight for the restroom sign. My thoughts are racing in front of me and I’m picturing Rachel’s face. One word: Rebound. She’s not right for him. She has a limp handshake that lacked any assertiveness. Her brown eyes are dull and lack any spirit of adventure. And she wears cardigans. In the summer.

I push through the door and stand in the middle of the room.

She would probably keep his cupboards stocked with daily multivitamins, one for men and one for women. She’d make cut-out cookies for his games, in baseball shapes and frosted with his number. She’d pack picnics with napkins neatly wrapped around the silverware. Her meals would contain the appropriate number of servings from the food pyramid.

But
Gray doesn’t want to be taken care of, he wants to be challenged. Doesn’t he? Or what if all the things that I think make her wrong for Gray are all the things that make her right? And why is a wide set man wearing a greasy apron giving me the stink eye? What is he doing in a women’s restroom?

“You lost?” he asks me and I blink a few times.

“I just need to use the bathroom,” I say.

“Does this look like a bathroom?”

I glance around at the industrial sized ovens and grills and refrigerators and I can smell sausage cooking and I can hear the bubbling sounds of French fries cooking in the fryer. Two other cooks, both guys, turn and stare at me. I see lots of piercings and tattoos and I get the feeling I’ve stumbled into a motorcycle gang’s initiation meeting. And they’re not happy about it.

I slowly take a step backwards.

“Sorry,” I say and try to redeem myself. “My nose must have been lured inside by the incredible smells.” They look me over.

“Did you get hit by a car?” one of them asks.

“No.”

“Run over?” another inquires. “Did you hit your head?”

“No. Why are you asking me that?”

“You have tire tread marks all over your shirt,” the heavier cook says
, pointing at me with his spatula.

“And you were mumbling to yourself when you walked in,” another adds.

I press my hands over my hips. “Look, if you want to know the truth, it feels like I have been hit by a car, okay? I just ran into the ex-love-of-my-life in the parking lot outside, looking like this,” I say and open my arms wide. “He hates me, and he happens to have a beautiful, freshly-showered trophy girlfriend. So can you give me break?”

Their faces fill with understanding.

“You want a slice of bacon?” the cook asks.

“Yes!” I cry. One of the guys pushes a folding chair in my direction and I slump down
and press my hands over my face.

***

Ten minutes and two crispy slices of bacon later, I find my way to the bathroom. I walk inside and use a paper towel to scrub the grease off of my face and hands. It refuses to abandon the beds of my fingernails. They’re black around the cuticles and under the tips. It’s a dirt tip manicure. Lovely.

I look at myself in the mirror. My pigtails are a mess. One actually looks longer than the other. Sweaty bands of
brown hair have escaped and cling to my neck. I do my best to wipe them away. Pools of freckles stand out on my face like tiny pebbles, darkened and multiplied by the summer sunshine. I look down at my stained t-shirt. There’s no point trying to wipe away the tread marks.

It’s no wonde
r Rachel offered to let Gray drive me to Flagstaff. Nick’s right, she isn’t intimidated. I literally look like I have been run over by a car. 

I lift my chin and stare into my eyes. They glow, amber and blue and green under the fluorescent lights. My eyes have never been able to settle on one color. I always loved
Gray’s eyes because they’re so piercing blue, so constant, so different from mine.

I mutter two words out loud.

“Fuck it.”

I’ve never cared what anyone has thought of me before. Why start now? I don’t see limitations. I see opportunities. It’s my superhero power. Captain Optimist.

I turn and walk out of the bathroom. My self-esteem gives self-doubt a flying ninja kick out of my head and I start to smile. I spot their table in the corner of the restaurant. Gray and Rachel are sitting across from Nick, and another older couple is sitting at the table. I pull back an empty chair next to Nick, across from Gray.

“Where were you?” Nick asks
as I sit down.

“In the bathroom,” I say. “Well, first I took a quick tour of the kitchen.
Did you know they have a walk-in cooler, the size of a bedroom, just for pies?” 

They all stare at me, but I ignore the
disbelief in their eyes.

“The cooks are really nice guys,” I continue. “Brock, Gus and Steve. Two of them are brothers and one of them builds motorcycles. He works here to supplement his income until his business takes off. Oh, and they say that the bacon scrambler is the house specialty. It’s not on the menu—you have to ask for it. The locals call it The Cardiac Arrest.”

Everyone is still staring at me.

I raise my filthy hands. “What?”

The woman next to me introduces herself as Rachel’s mom, and her father is sitting next to Rachel on the other side of the table. I shake their hands and I’m already assessing the lunch predicament.

Parents? A send off dinner with her parents? This is beyond a summer romance. First comes a family-infused goodbye. Next comes the engagement announcement.