Feels Like Falling Read online

  I smiled at Dad. “Yeah. I really do. Sometimes I wish I’d had her advice on the whole thing while she was still here, but it really was for the better. I didn’t want her to worry.”

  Dad took a bite of his shrimp and smiled. “Can you imagine how hot she was when she got up there and realized what was going on?”

  We both laughed. Mom didn’t like to be kept out of the loop. I shrugged. “Yeah. She’ll probably have an earful waiting for me.”

  Dad raised his eyebrow. “Or Greg. Let’s hope he gets there first.”

  I smiled, and Wagner called from outside, “Pop, are you watching? Do you see me?”

  Dad gave him his best thumbs-up. “So, what else? Are you doing okay besides the company and the fighting and all that?”

  I shrugged. “Worse things have happened.” I pointed out into the yard. “He’s okay, I’m okay.”

  He nodded. “Are you dating anyone? After all that Forbes magazine business, you have to be careful. There are plenty of men out there looking to take advantage of a pretty, rich woman.”

  I smiled tightly. The “Forbes magazine business” was a nod in a “Companies to Watch” listicle. I had been thrilled that my name and my company had so much as graced the website, but it had panicked my dad. I guessed worrying about me was his right as a father. Even still, it took everything I had not to ask him how stupid he thought I was. But I didn’t. Instead, I asked, “Are you dating anyone?”

  He smiled sadly. “No. Never. Your mother was the love of my life.” He shrugged.

  I smiled, my heart warming again. I knew my father should be loved again too, but it was so very hard to think about someone replacing your parent in your other parent’s life. I could only imagine how Wagner felt about it deep down. As he shouted, “Hey, Mom, watch this!” I said, “You know, Dad, you have to be careful. You might not be looking for love, but sometimes it sneaks up on you.”

  * * *

  I was proud of how lunch with my dad had gone. It had started off rocky, but it ended well. I wanted that closeness with him. I wanted to be a united front. Mom was gone. Quinn was as good as gone. We needed each other now.

  As I was putting the last of the dinner dishes in the dishwasher that night, Marcy walked through the unlocked back door.

  “It’s about damn time,” I said. I was about to put my wineglass in the dishwasher, but I thought better of it, filling it up again and pouring a glass for Marcy too.

  “What?” she asked innocently.

  I crossed my arms and leaned against the counter as she leaned over the island. “Don’t play coy with me. Why were you at Greg’s office?” I held her glass of wine to my chest and said, “You don’t get this until you tell me the truth.”

  She laughed. “Okay, okay. You guys have been fighting about this long enough. I decided to take matters into my own hands.”

  I handed her the glass. “And?”

  “And so I did.”

  I sighed. “Marcy, I know you love these long dramatic monologues, but could you cut to the chase?”

  She smiled. “The bottom line is that after an hour or so of fancy therapizing, I finally got Greg to admit that, as you so wisely suspected, he doesn’t even want your company. What he wants is to be out of your shadow and to do his own thing, but he’s afraid of falling on his face and making a fool of himself.”

  “What do you mean, ‘do his own thing’?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, Gray. Who cares? Start a strip club. Buy and sell used cars on the Internet. It makes no difference as long as he’s out of your company.”

  That’s when my mind started racing. I’ll be honest: I couldn’t imagine Greg running his own show. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t hire the right people and start a competing company. And I didn’t know Brooke that well, but who knew what she was capable of? I remembered her sparkling résumé and how much she had impressed me during our interview. There was a good reason I’d hired her. I said all that, and Marcy responded, “He said, and I quote, ‘I would never do this mind-numbing bullshit an hour longer than I had to.’ ”

  I laughed. That was a relief. “So what does he want?”

  She handed me a piece of paper. I opened it, saw the seven digits on it, and about spit out my wine. “That is insane. No. Absolutely not.”

  Marcy shrugged. “Look, I’m a therapist. We both know I’m not good with money. But I’m assuming this isn’t close to as valuable as half your company, right?”

  That was technically true. And I could get rid of him. I could be rid of Greg and not have to see him except at handoffs and not have to be annoyed every single moment that he had not only ruined our marriage but had taken half of what was rightfully mine. Mine, mine, mine. Yes, divorce drives grown adults back into toddlerhood.

  “I love that you are suddenly negotiating my divorce. You have to teach me your tricks sometime, how you get into people’s souls like that and figure out what they really want.”

  She scoffed. “I would never. I manipulate the hell out of you on the regular.”

  “I will give him half of this,” I said. “Half of this should be enough for him to completely start over.”

  Marcy nodded. “I don’t know that he’ll take it. But I’ll try.”

  I held up my glass. “Should we finish these on the porch?”

  As Marcy followed me outside, she said, “Look. I’m getting you out of your marriage. In return, it would be fantastic if you could help me get into mine.”

  “Want me to see if Andrew has, like, a twenty-one-year-old friend for you?” We both laughed as we folded ourselves into the oversize cushioned chairs on the back porch.

  “Keep the house,” Marcy said. “I don’t know what we’ll do without this back porch.”

  I nodded. And I realized that I didn’t know what I would do without a best friend like her.

  diana: shine again

  One of the first things people do after a breakup is get rid of their pictures. Makes sense. But I had saved two. The one in the locket, and one of Frank and me standing outside his car. It wasn’t a special day or a special occasion or anything like that. It was just me and him and his friend Ronnie. Ronnie had snapped a Polaroid of us. And we looked so happy. I pulled it out every now and then and thought, This is all I want, to be this happy again.

  So, all I had been able to think about these past few days was Frank saying that he couldn’t be happy without me—and my not being able to be happy without him. He was right. I couldn’t be happy without him. Ever. None of the other many, many men in my life could take his place. Harry was the only one I’d managed to even somewhat settle down with for more than a couple of months.

  But the scared little girl part of me had been avoiding Frank since I had seen him. Ignoring his texts, refusing to return his calls. His words—I knew I’d never be happy without you—ran through my mind over and over. But, well, I was in shock. And the ball was still in his court after all this time. If he wanted me, he knew where to find me.

  When I pulled into the Beach Pub parking lot Thursday night, I recognized that car right off the bat, before I even saw Frank. That old, rusted-out T-bird was painted a perfect, glossy Carolina blue. Its fenders gleamed. I couldn’t help but smile. He had done it. He had taken that beat-up car and made it shine again.

  Frank was leaning against the side of the car, arms crossed, his hair lying just so across his forehead, looking so much like he did twenty years ago that I forgot for a minute we were forty and forty-four. And I think that’s the danger—and the fun—of old loves, of past lives. When you haven’t seen someone in twenty-two years, you have no frame of reference for each other as adults. You are, for a while anyway, thrust back to that period of time where you left off. I was still eighteen. Frank was still twenty-two. And in the moment of reconnection, you forget all the pain; you forget all the hurt. You remember the happy. You remember the good. I was trying to protect myself from that.

  When I parked right beside him and got
out of the car, I said, “You traded me for a chain of auto parts stores, Frank. How am I ever supposed to get over that?”

  “Diana,” he said soothingly, reaching his arms out to me. “I didn’t trade you for a chain of auto parts stores. You know it was a lot more complicated than that.”

  I sniffed. “It didn’t feel complicated. It felt like your mom called me a trailer trash orphan and threatened to take away the stores, and you caved like a barn loft holding too much hay.”

  He shook his head, and even though he didn’t move, I could see that he was getting impatient. I studied his face. He had the same deep, dark tan and some lines on his forehead, a tiny bit of gray around his temples. He was even more handsome, if that was possible. The door of the bar swung open, and Robin came out hesitantly. The girls knew the battle I’d been fighting. I was sure Robin had been sent out to check on me.

  “How you doing, Frank?”

  He ventured a smile. “Oh, I been better, Robin. How about you?”

  “I’m doing pretty good. You hanging around here for a while? Should we pull up a chair for you or grab our guns?”

  “That depends on this one, I suppose.” He gestured toward me.

  Robin raised her eyebrows for about a half second. “You okay, D?”

  I nodded and she gave me a once-over to make sure I was telling the truth before she left.

  “Look,” Frank said, “let’s go somewhere quiet where we can talk about this.”

  Suddenly it all came flooding back. The pain of leaving him, the nights I’d cried myself to sleep, the years I’d prayed he’d come back to me. Thinking every evening as I came home that maybe I’d see his car in my driveway, that maybe he’d finally come to his senses and tracked me down. But he never did. Twenty-two years, and he never came. And now he was here, begging for redemption. All I knew was I needed to get the hell away, just like I did all those years ago.

  I opened my car door, slid in, and started the ignition in one smooth move. Well, as smooth as it can be when your battery only half charges and it sounds like a choking dog for a few seconds before it finally takes. Frank didn’t try to stop me or ask where I was going. He just disappeared into his T-bird.

  Tears welled up in my eyes as I took off across the bridge, trying to steady myself, trying to breathe. I banged my hand on the steering wheel. “I’m such an idiot,” I yelled. He had come back for me—what I’d waited for my whole life—and I had missed my chance. But that was me. No matter how old I got or how hard I tried or how much living I had in me, I was always going to run away from anybody trying to love me—anybody good, anyway. The possibility of losing it down the road was too much to bear.

  About the time I pulled into Gray’s driveway, I laid my head down on the steering wheel and started to cry. Nothing else to do. When I picked my head up, I screamed so loud I was surprised the neighbors didn’t come out. Frank was standing there, face in my window.

  “You got away from me once, Diana. It won’t happen again without a fight.”

  I flung my door open. “Frank, I don’t know why you don’t get that I don’t want you around anymore. Just get out of here.” I took off toward the door of the guesthouse, him following right behind.

  “That’d be a whole lot easier to believe if you weren’t just crying about me in the car.”

  I opened the door, prepared to say something cutting, but he interrupted me: “You leave your house unlocked so any nutso off the street can walk right in?”

  I looked at him pointedly, like, Yup. And the nutso did walk right in.

  “I can’t do this again, Frank. I can’t. I can’t love you and trust you and fall for you and you disappoint me all over again.” I tossed my purse on the tiny kitchen counter and sat down in one of the pair of club chairs.

  “Diana,” Frank said, crossing his arms and standing tall and strong right in front of me. “You’re right, okay? I didn’t want to lose those stores. But I would’ve figured out a way. I wasn’t the one who left you. You left me. And I want to know why.”

  I crossed my arms, mimicking his action from a moment before. “I just knew that it was going to be too hard. I could see it that night, clear as day. I didn’t want to spend my life with you taking your momma’s side over mine. I didn’t want to spend my life with us arguing over having to see them.…” I trailed off.

  He was still staring down at me hard. “So you’re telling me that that’s it? That’s why we never spoke again?”

  I shrugged.

  “You expect me to believe that, feisty as you are, you walked away because you were scared to stand up to my momma? I don’t buy it.”

  I suddenly felt hard inside, like maybe he deserved to feel what I had been feeling all this time, like maybe I didn’t care about protecting him or his precious tender heart anymore. “I was pregnant, okay?”

  That stopped him cold. His eyes got wide and his arms just fell down. “You mean to tell me I got a kid wandering around out there that I don’t even know about?”

  I looked at him like he was an idiot and shook my head the tiniest bit.

  His eyes met mine, and I could feel the same pain flash through both of us at the same time. Like he was about to faint or something, Frank fell to his knees, his face in his hands.

  “Look,” I said, standing up, feeling like I couldn’t breathe. “I’ve spent the last twenty-two years getting over this, so let’s not make too big a thing—”

  He wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his head on my stomach. “Oh, Diana,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. So sorry. If I had known… things could have been so different.”

  He put his lips all along the expanse of that flat, tight emptiness. I could feel the heat running through me, muscle memory taking over, my body remembering how it was to have his lips on it, how his hands felt. It wasn’t here. It wasn’t now. It was then, and we were young and we were in love and we were the only two people in the world.

  “Di, you are all I want in this life,” he said. “You’re the reason I never married. You’re the reason I never told another woman except my momma that I loved her. You’re the reason I have cried myself to sleep more nights than not. And when Daddy died, I knew that, no matter what happened, I had to try. I had to come back for you.”

  Maybe it was because I had missed him so much. Maybe it was because I was so vulnerable, at the lowest point in my life, and Frank was the only person who had ever really, truly taken care of me. Maybe it’s because I just wanted to feel loved and cherished even for just a little bit.

  But I kissed Frank. He held me in his arms like he’d never let me go. He lifted the white shirt with the lace trim that Gray had given me over my head and threw it on the floor beside him, and I thought briefly that if I’d had on one of my T-shirts I would have remembered. This never would have happened. And I thought about protesting, but, oh, those big navy eyes looking down at me, those powerful hands that took my face in them, the way he kissed me slow and deep and sweet, with a touch of whiskey on those lips.

  “Frank,” I whispered, wanting the heat of this moment to last forever. Wanting to rewind time, to tell Frank about the baby, to stand up to his momma, to be married with a family of our own. A tear seeped out of my closed eye, partially for the memories we’d lost and partly for all the ones we could still have.

  “You’re so beautiful, Diana,” he whispered. “You’re still so beautiful.”

  I unbuttoned his shirt slowly as he continued to kiss me. He said, “I’ll never walk away from you again. I’ll chase you to the ends of the earth.”

  My mind was swimming, lost in a collision of past and present, my body and mind struggling to remember what was then and what was now. In the swirling sea of all of it, in the heat and the passion and the relief, in the confusion surrounding his return, I could only make sense of one thing: this was the only man I had ever loved.

  CHAPTER 11

  gray: ready position

  If my life looked more like my Pinterest boar
d, I’d be all set. I’d be a DIY queen (I’ve never done a DIY project in my life), have my house decorated to the nines for even the most secondary holidays (I can barely get my Christmas wreath up before December 15), and be able to bake a professional-looking wedding cake in an hour or less (I don’t even need to clarify this one). But my smoothie recipes? My smoothie recipes I referenced religiously.

  Diana looked a little sleepy in the kitchen this morning, making one of the aforementioned Pinterest smoothies. “It’s Sunday,” I said. “I don’t think I can be clearer that you don’t have to work every day.”

  She turned to me like I was dumb and said, “Maybe I want to see Wagner. And I’ll work more if I want to. Get over it.”

  As Wagner walked into the kitchen, I said, “Okay! Prepare to be dominated.” I bounced up and down in mock ready position.

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Ah, there’s the eight-year-old I know.”

  “I made you your favorite,” Diana whispered to Wagner.

  He brightened. “The one that tastes like apple pie?”

  She smiled like she was so proud and nodded. She sipped from her own straw and handed me a glass, saying, “You too.”

  I took a sip, closed my eyes, and groaned. “Amazing.”

  Diana looked the same, but I sensed that something was up with her. Something was a bit different. She seemed… lighter somehow.

  “Y’all get out of here,” she said. “Don’t want to keep the tennis pro waiting.” She smiled at me slyly, and I tried not to laugh.

  A few minutes later, I parked beside the row of tennis courts on the water. It was a hot day, but the breeze coming off the sound made it almost refreshing.

  “Well, well, well,” Andrew said as Wagner stepped out of the car. “Decided to take me up on my little wager, huh?”

  “Yeah!” Wagner said. “Me and Johnny are going to wipe the court with you! Look who I brought you to play with.” He pointed at me and snickered.