Kat
In the car, it really hit me. I saw Billy Morgan, my Billy. The boy who wrecked me for all others, and much to my chagrin, he looked good. He was bigger. He was a muscular guy at nineteen. I remembered hours running my hand over the ripples of his abs as a teenager, but the man version of Billy was more than rippling abs. He was big, broad shoulders, and arms so bulky that the fabric of his shirt pulled tight across his biceps. The softness of boyhood had left his face. His jaw was angular and shadowed with scruff. The eyes were the same though—the bright blue of the sky on a clear sun-shined day, my blue-eyed beau.
There were other things about him that felt different. When Billy looked at me ten years ago, he was light. He was solid but also mischievous. When you were in the room with him, it was fun. He was always ready to play. Grown-up Billy didn’t radiate that anymore. He was on task and the light that made everyone want to know him and be friends with him … that light was gone. I wanted to feel angry, but seeing him made me feel everything but anger.
I felt sick about it, my stomach writhing. I was nervous. He made me nervous, made my tongue thick in my mouth. I was sad that he didn’t look happy. I was desperate. I wanted to corner him, tell him again that I wasn’t making a choice. I was loving him and music at the same time. We had been so young. I had a dream. It was offered to me, but it didn’t have to mean that I didn’t want him too. I also ached to touch him. I was physically drawn to him, pulled to him like a magnet. All those years ago, he’d given me an ultimatum—him or New York. I said no. I said don’t make me choose and wondered why I couldn’t have both. I was already in New York when he decided it was one or the other, and with the wheels in motion, I couldn’t drop everything and run back. And then he stopped taking my calls.
I got angry because I needed to stop being sad. I decided I never wanted to return to Conway or be near him again. I realized that the love of men was unreliable. So, I brought my mom to New York and sold her house because the thought of Billy haunted me. And now, a few minutes of watching him glower at me in Hazel’s and I was tied up in knots after working ten years to try to unfurl them. Forget what I said, I felt angry.
The drive to my old house was about ten minutes. We followed Billy’s’ big ol’ dark blue truck down the dirt road. I was surprised he had the same truck. Who keeps a truck for over ten years? When we got to my old house, Wyatt jumped out and Billy drove on to his folks’ place, dust billowing behind the tires as he peeled off. I felt relieved that he was gone. I found myself smiling quietly, imagining the earful Wyatt was subject to on that drive.
When we got out of the car and stood in front of the house, the same thing that happened when Hazel hugged me happened again. The house was a Victorian-style beauty with a wraparound porch. Standing there looking at the well-cared-for and recently painted decorative trim, I had this teary-eyed hollow in the pit of my stomach. It was like I had a locked treasure box inside me, and these people and these things were prying it open. And the thing was, inside this treasure box, there weren’t gold coins and gems, instead, there was this hot white light that was burning through the thick skin I had worked so hard to develop. As a celebrity, a thick skin was my shield against everything—bad reviews, tabloid nonsense, failed relationships, no privacy, all the things that made being famous a nightmare. The girl who lived in this house didn’t have to be afraid of people who looked and acted like friends but weren’t. I felt loved in this town, and I loved the people in it. Until Billy ended our relationship, and then there was nothing here for me.
Everything about the house was shocking. First, as he was unlocking the door, Wyatt explained that he and Billy lived in the house. Billy lived in my house? Was that an effing joke? And then once I was inside, it was like a time warp. I mean, I knew they didn’t tear down the house, but I wasn’t expecting it to be exactly as I left it, same furniture, same everything. I mean, my gram’s tea towel was hanging over the oven handle.
Okay, it was sort of different. It was covered in man. I mean, what is it about guys that just changes the aura of a place? It felt weird that Billy lived in my house. It felt weird that any dudes lived in my house. There were never guys in our house. It was me and my momma and my gram, who died when I was ten. It was a house filled with women and women things and now it was packed with big menfolk. Wyatt and Billy were raised right, so it’s not like the place was dirty. It just somehow smelled different. And there were hats and boots strewn about. Actually, it was kinda manic, about half of the hats and boots were lined up in tidy lines. Billy and Wyatt were always of different dispositions, so I was guessing that their different personalities accounted for the varying degrees of mess. Again, it’s not like it was a hovel. Just the feeling of dudes everywhere.
So yeah, the house made me feel weird, and I was having a hard time managing that feeling and Casey’s questions. But that didn’t stop her from asking them. So far, she had gleaned that the Morgan’s were family to me, which was something I’d kept pretty quiet up until now because I didn’t want the press to bother them. It just sort of slipped out that with our house and their house being so close, we were connected. Also, Duke Morgan, Billy’s father, was an old school patriarch, and it just didn’t sit well with him, three women living alone with no man about the house. He looked after us, even though we were perfectly capable of looking after ourselves.
Casey had also gleaned that the house was all but untouched. I felt like she was nudging around that, trying to figure out why anyone would move into someone else’s house and not alter a thing. But since I didn’t really know, she wasn’t getting anything out of me. So, she asked Wyatt, “Didn’t you or your brother want to make this place your own?”
Up until this point, Wyatt had proved himself quite the troublemaker, but he played off her question like only a ranch boy could. “Why? Everything in here works perfectly well. No need to change things. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, amiright?”
Casey smiled but was clearly not satisfied with his answer. “Can I take some pictures?” she asked.
I didn’t really want her to, but Wyatt shrugged his approval, and honestly, that’s why I was on this PR disaster tour, right? Casey proceeded to poke around the bottom floor and June followed her because June was good like that. She always had my back. Wyatt stayed back in the kitchen with me.
“I think it’s best we don’t go upstairs,” he said under his breath conspiratorially to me. I looked at him, my eyes wide. What would she find upstairs? “It’s gonna be harder to explain why your old room is frozen in time, don’t ya think?”
My room was the same too? I had an instinct to turn and head straight up the stairs, but I didn’t. Wait, why wasn’t one of them using my room? My room got the best light and had the most windows.
Wyatt read the curiosity on my face, “He won’t change it, Kat. If you ask me, it’s not so complicated.”
I needed a drink. I crossed the room and opened the fridge, which was also strange. Hanging at the top of the left side was a label that read, “Bill” and on the right was a label that said “Wyatt.” Bill’s side was a series of well-organized labeled items, they were marked with the date, and some even looked like meal prep, marked with the weekday and the mealtime. Was Billy really a sergeant in the cold storage commandos? Wyatt’s side featured a bottle of ketchup, a funky-looking apple, and a half-empty six-pack of beer in cans. I looked to Wyatt for an explanation. He rolled his eyes but didn’t get to respond because the back door, which led right into the kitchen, slammed open and Sarah Morgan, the only girl child in the Morgan clan, clamored through in a huff. “Honestly,” she whined. “You’re in Conway and you didn’t tell me?”
Sarah and I had secretly exchanged emails for the last ten years. When Billy and I broke up, I couldn’t just leave her all alone in a house full of guys—and the Morgan men were like guys with a capital G. Her mother died when she was eight and even if I wasn’t with Billy, she still needed a woman in her life. I mean, I was the one who helped her through her first period. Plus, I loved her. I also wrote Duke a few letters a year. He was as close as I ever got to having a father. I couldn’t just walk away. The boys had Billy. But I needed Duke and Sarah, and they needed me. In our exchanges, neither one of them ever mentioned Billy and I never asked. It was like the unwritten rule of our continued communication.
I didn’t know what to say about not telling her I was coming to Conway. I’d hoped I’d get in and out without anyone knowing, but now that she was standing in front of me, I knew that it was terrible that I didn’t tell her.
“I should have,” I said. I took a step toward her. “That wasn't right. I’m sorry.” Even though we stayed in touch, I hadn’t seen her in years. I mean, a photo here and there, but standing across from her was so different. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was a woman, a tall, pretty brunette who looked a lot like Molly, her late mom. “God, Sarah,” I smiled. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Shut up,” she pout-smiled. “I’m trying hard to be mad at you.”
I hugged her and after a beat, she lifted her arms and hugged me in return.
When we broke apart, Wyatt said, “You didn’t make a move to hug me like that … I see how it is.”
I sucker-punched him in the arm.
“You had a ‘no girls allowed’ sign on your bedroom door,” Sarah retorted. “Why would she still be friends with you?
“I missed all of you,” I said, smiling, happy to be back in the middle of their banter, and then immediately blushed, realizing how my words could be misinterpreted.
At that moment, Casey and June walked back into the kitchen and Marcus, who had been out in the SUV making phone calls to try to manage our flight, came in behind them. I immediately looked to Marcus, hoping for some good news.
He shook his head. That wasn’t good.
“What’s the word?” I asked.
“Grounded tonight and maybe tomorrow, snow and ice. We’re just not getting out of here all that soon, Kat.”
I sucked in a deep breath. Trapped in Conway. This was literally my nightmare.
Beside me, Sarah started to jump up and down, excited. “Oh yay! That’s so good.” Then she took in the tone of the room and asked, “Isn’t it?”
Marcus continued, “It gets worse. Not enough room at the Inn.”
“The Dew Drop?” Wyatt asked.
Marcus nodded and then said, “Only three rooms.”
I sighed, “Listen, that’s okay. June and I will camp out together. It’s fine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sarah said. “You’ll stay here. This is your house. Plus, you have to see Daddy. Ohhhh, and I’m singing at Sadie’s on Sunday. You should come. Oh my God, will you come?” She was talking so fast.
“Umm…” I didn’t see an easy way out of this situation.
Wyatt smirked, “Ab-so-lute-ly. You should so stay here, Kat. That is a fantastic idea.”