Second Chance (14 page)

With aching clarity, he told her. About the first letter. The first phone call. Subsequent letters and the rest of the missed phone calls. She drank one glass of scotch, then another, as he related what he’d written and what he’d said.

“You know what I don’t understand?” Elle asked as she sloshed more scotch into her empty cup. “Why you didn’t get my letters. My phone calls.”

He drained his glass and filled it halfway. “I know. Tell me again what you sent. When you called.”

Elle tried to think but the alcohol made the memories fuzzy and unclear. “I wrote right away,” she said, her brow furrowed as she tried to remember. “Right after I left, I think. And then again a couple of months later. The phone calls were right around then, too. Definitely before Christmas.”

Cash studied her. “I didn’t get them. I know that for a fact.”

She nodded. “I guess my mom could have intercepted my letters. Before the mailman picked them up. I mean, I just stuck them out in the mailbox before school, you know? But the phone calls? I left messages, too.”

He traced the rim of his glass with his finger as he thought. “Yeah. That doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s true,” she said.

He smiled at her. “Oh, I believe you. Just not sure how I could’ve missed them. My parents didn’t have it in for us, you know?”

Elle remembered his parents as being warm, welcoming people. They’d always included her in cookouts and bonfires, had taken her sailing a couple of times.

“Except…” Cash started to say and then stopped. His expression grew somber.

“Except what?”

“When did you call?”

“Once in September, I think. Then–”

“No,” he cut her off. “What time of day? Did you talk to anyone?”

Elle shook her head. “No, I never talked to anyone. I left two messages. And I called at night.”

She remembered exactly what time it was. After dinner, while she was studying, when she couldn’t stop thinking about the boy she’d left behind.

He sighed. “Unbelievable.”

“What?” Elle sat up and leaned closer. What had she missed? “What is?”

Cash shook his head and drained his drink. “My sister.”

Elle stared at him, her brow furrowed. “Your sister?”

Cash’s sister, Rose, was two years older than them. They’d never run in the same circles on the island.

He set his glass on the coffee table and rubbed his temple. “Yeah.”

“I’m so lost,” Elle said.

“Do you remember why she was home that summer?” he asked.

Elle thought back. She remembered. She’d been put on academic probation at the University of North Carolina.

“Yes.” She paused. “But what does that have to do with me and phone calls?”

“I can’t be sure,” he said. “But we didn’t get along that summer. She was mad at the world, pissed off that she’d been ordered back home for the summer. And we had a big blow-out after you left.”

She couldn’t imagine Cash blowing up at anyone. “You did?”

He nodded.

“About what?”

“You.”

“Me? Why on earth would you fight over me?”

“No,” he said. “Not over you. She was pissed. Pissed that I had a girlfriend, pissed that I had more freedom than she did. Don’t you remember? My parents had her on lockdown for most of the summer, trying to figure out a way to straighten her out.”

Elle remembered this. As welcoming as his parents had been, his sister had not. She’d distanced herself from everyone that summer, locking herself in her room or sneaking off alone to the beach.

“After you left, I talked to my parents about going to visit you. At Christmas.” He stroked his chin, thinking. “Like we talked about.”

She felt the butterflies stir. They had talked about it. A lot.

“Rose found out and she freaked. Couldn’t believe they’d let me fly halfway across the country to go and see my girlfriend. Especially since she wasn't allowed back to school that Fall.” His smile was grim. “She was furious. Broke my surfboard. Scratched my entire CD collection. And I’ll bet she was the reason I didn’t get those messages from you.”

Elle shook her head in disbelief. She didn’t have any siblings and couldn’t imagine anyone related to her behaving that way. But then she thought of her mother and what she and Cash both suspected she’d done to keep them apart. She sighed. It was as if the Universe hadn’t wanted them together and had used everything in its power to plot against them.

“So, anyway, I didn’t get your letters. Or your phone calls,” Cash finished.

“And I didn’t get yours.”

“Yeah, guess we’ve established that.”

They were both quiet for a minute, lost in both shared and separate memories. Elle set her glass down next to Cash’s and topped it off with more scotch.

“OK,” she said, sipping her drink. Her lips were numb and the liquid slid down her throat easily. “Then what?”

“Well, I kept writing.” He splashed more of the alcohol into his own glass and brought it to his lips. “And calling. Not as often, but I kept trying. The letter to your grandmother was from the spring after you left. I’d just gotten back from a visit to Charleston.”

She shot him a questioning look.

“College visit,” he said simply.

She nodded, trying to stem the hurt she felt bubbling up. It was ridiculous and ill-placed but she couldn’t help it. They’d talked about choosing a school together. She didn’t expect him to not go, simply because of her—after all, she’d gone ahead and applied to the University of Wisconsin. But it still stung, knowing he’d made choices alone, choices they’d meant to make together.

“I don’t know why I thought to give her the letter,” he said. “I mean, I saw her every once in a while, asked about you and stuff. I don’t think she knew we weren’t in touch, you know?”

Elle nodded. She’d been awful about keeping in touch with her grandmother that year and it had eaten at her over the last several years. If she’d known that was the last visit she’d ever have with her grandmother, if she’d known that those subsequent months would be the last opportunity she’d have to talk with her, she would have done things differently.

But hindsight was everything.

“Anyway, I was frustrated.” He sipped again. “Frustrated by how it ended. How we ended. I’d gotten over being angry and I knew there was nothing I could do to get you back. Figured I’d already lost you. But I wanted to reach out one last time. Just in case. So I wrote that letter. Drove it over and dropped it off with your grandmother. She asked why I wasn’t mailing it myself.”

“What did you tell her?”

He shrugged. “Just told her it was special, let her know we’d had some trouble staying in touch. Told her that I wanted to make sure it got to you. She smiled and said she’d be certain to mail it out first thing.”

Elle sighed. “And she forgot.”

Again, the Universe did not play fair. At all.

“No, she didn’t,” Cash said. “She died two days later.”

TWENTY-FIVE

The tears slipped down Elle’s cheeks and, once again, she let them fall. There were too many emotions swirling inside of her to keep anything in check anymore. Losing Cash. Missing her grandmother. The whole mess of twelve years of lost time together. It was too much. And the alcohol hadn’t helped.

Cash noticed and he moved closer to her, extending his hand. With his thumb and forefinger, he brushed the tears away, just like he’d done earlier that night.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered.

She shook her head. “I can’t help it. I feel…” her voice trailed off. She took a deep breath. “I feel cheated. Out of so many things.”

Cash let his hand fall to his lap. He nodded. “Yeah.”

“All this time,” she said. “All this time, I blamed you. Thought you’d just been a coward. An ass.”

He stared at the drink in his hand. “And all this time, I thought you’d changed your mind.”

Elle nodded. “Yeah. I thought you just fell out of love with me.”

He reached for her hand and she trembled as his fingers closed over hers. “No,” he said, his voice firm. “I didn’t fall out of love with you.”

She looked up at him. She was just sober enough to know that her defenses were down. She didn’t think about the present or the future or the past, even. All she could think about was the man sitting next to her. The man who used to be the boy she loved. The man who’d somehow become even more handsome in the twelve years since she’d last seen him. The man who still knew how to make her smile and laugh, the man who knew what she needed most, even when she herself couldn’t recognize it.

His eyes locked on to hers. “Elle,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

He reached out with his free hand and cupped her chin. Elle watched as he moved closer. Slowly, he touched his lips to hers. Warm, soft, achingly sweet. She leaned into him and the kiss exploded. Cash pulled her into him, his arms wrapped around her shoulders, his fingers entwined in her hair. His lips moved against hers and she felt the tears sting her eyes again as she tasted the familiar flavor of him. He used his tongue to nudge her lips apart and then groaned when she darted her tongue out, gently touching the tip of his.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured against her lips. His hands drifted down her back, his fingers splayed across her spine. “God, I’ve missed you.”

In response, she kissed him harder, leaning her body more fully into his. His hands traced across her back and to her sides, settling just below her breasts. He inched his hands up, softly cupping her. She moaned.

“We can’t do this,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as him.

His fingers dipped into the cup of her bra and brushed across her nipples. “Yes, we can,” he breathed, his mouth hot on her neck.

For a minute, she let him. She kissed him and clung to him and died a little inside as he caressed her. It wasn’t how she remembered from all those years ago.

It was a thousand times better.

And it scared the hell out of her.

“No,” she said, tearing her mouth from his. She pulled away, shifting to the edge of the sofa.

Cash sat there and stared at her, his eyes dark with passion. “No what?”

“No,” she repeated. “We can’t do this.”

A slow smile played across his lips and she felt her heart somersault.

“We just did,” he said.

Elle tugged her shirt down. “Well, we can’t do any more.”

Cash brushed the hair off his forehead and took a deep breath. “Okay.”

He sat there and looked at her and she shifted uncomfortably on the couch. She knew he was waiting for a better explanation.

“I just mean,” she said, her voice faltering. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea. With me leaving and everything.”

He nodded, his eyes boring into her. “Right. The job.”

“Yes.” She picked up her glass to take a drink, then thought better of it. The last thing she needed was more alcohol in her system.

He expelled a breath. “OK. Fair enough.” He stood up.

“What are you doing?” she asked, hating that she could hear the alarm in her voice. Because if she could hear it, she was pretty sure he could, too. “Where are you going?”

She didn’t want him to leave. But she didn’t want him to stay, either. She shook her head in disgust. She was a mess. A monumental mess.

“To the bathroom,” he said. “And then we need to finish the wallpaper. We were having a contest, remember? And I already got my prize.”

She sagged against the back cushion of the couch as he disappeared down the hallway. She tried to process what had just happened in the last hour. The revelations about the missing letters and missed phone calls. The fact that she’d had it all wrong all this time. And the fact that maybe, just maybe, Cash still had feelings for her.

Elle didn’t get a chance to think about it for very long. Cash was back before she knew it. Instead of resuming his position on the couch next to her, he grabbed the discarded putty knife and turned to the unfinished wall.

“Are you gonna help?” he asked. “Or was that part of the deal, too?”

“You didn’t win,” Elle said, standing up. “We were supposed to finish before prizes were handed out.”

“Oops,” was all he said.

She stood and picked up the sponge. It was cold and she felt a shiver run down her spine. She rubbed it along the wall, moistening the paper. Cash worked next to her, silent. It was a good thing that it was mindless work, that no precision was necessary, because her mind went into overdrive with all that they’d talked about and shared.

As much sense as it made, she couldn’t believe that her mother would’ve hidden letters and phone calls from her. No, she hadn’t approved of their relationship. But to steal letters? Delete messages? It seemed so dirty and deceptive, beneath even her mother.

She wasn’t sure there was another good explanation, though.

“I think we’re pretty much done,” Cash said a few minutes later.

Elle glanced at the piles of wet paper on the floor. Except for a few odd globs of paste, the walls had been stripped bare.