“Of course.” He gave her a big hug and then stood. His bags were already packed and sitting by the front door.
Over the past week, he’d helped her with the house, gone shopping with her, and just been there for her. She had enough money in her savings from what she’d earned working odd jobs during college, but she also had a trust fund her father had left her for when she turned twenty-one. In all honesty, with what her father had left her, and the fact she had no mortgage, she didn’t have to work. But Freya wanted to work, wanted to be able to go out into the real world every day and make something of herself. She’d worked too hard in school not to use her degree.
She stood and walked over to his bags, grabbed one off the ground, and opened the front door. Freya walked with Maurice out to his car, and after his bags were in the back seat, and they were standing in front of the other, she reached out and pulled him in for a hug.
“Be safe driving, and call me when you get home.” She felt him nod. Maurice pulled back, and after a watery smile on her part, Maurice was in his car and driving away.
And so it began… the start of her lonely life.
She turned and looked at her father’s house. No, her house now. She’d made it her home. Although she’d kept some of her father’s and mother’s things, some furniture, pictures, and even some dishes, she’d gotten new things that complemented who she was now. There were no memories of Meghan, and as strange as that kind of was, it was also freeing. She knew she could move on without letting things get in the way.
Yes, this was the first day of the rest of her life, and she knew her mother and father would be proud. Hell, she was kind of proud herself and where she was right now.Freya grabbed a bottle of blush wine, looked it over as though she actually knew what she staring at, and decided to get it based on the sole fact that she liked the color. She wasn’t a big drinker, but she did have a wine rack in her kitchen, one her father said her mother had made when she was in high school, and Freya, feeling pretty sentimental about it, wanted to stock it with wine.
After putting it in her basket, she looked at a bottle of ice wine. Besides the gorgeous iridescent blue bottle, she was drawn to the fact it was very sweet. That made the decision to purchase easy.
She walked down the aisle, went over to the beer section, and picked up some apricot ale. But when she turned around, the six-pack in her hand, everything stopped inside her. The man standing at the end of the aisle, dressed in a dark three-piece suit, his short dark hair styled immaculately, and holding a bottle of red wine, was Elijah.
Her heart had momentarily stopped in her chest, but now, as she stared at him longer, harder, it started beating faster, harder. He looked the same, but older in the sense that he seemed more distinguished, more established. He’d aged well, so well. She could even see the outline of his muscles underneath his suit.
God, he looked good, and she remembered all the talks they’d had during the years he’d stayed with Meghan. But what she remembered most was that last conversation she’d had with him at the house, the one when she’d been drunk, and he confessed about the divorce, how unhappy he was, and that he knew she’d make it because Freya was strong. They might have talked to each other one time when she was in school, but it had been that conversation, even drunk, that left an impression on her.
Of course she wanted to talk to him, to catch up, but she was nervous. Freya hated that, hated that after living in the same house with him for several years, looking up to him because he was a genuinely nice and good man, she was afraid.
Swallowing past her nerves, she tightened her hold on the cardboard box that held her six-pack and contemplated just turning and checking out. Surely, they’d have nothing to talk about. Of course Freya had wondered how he was and what he was doing. She’d seen him in the papers and knew how successful he was now, but that didn’t excuse the past four years of no contact. They had very different lives now. Well, at least he did.
She was frozen to the spot, not wanting to turn and run like some kind of child. But then Elijah turned around, lifted his gaze from the bottle of wine he held, and their eyes locked. For a second, neither moved, neither spoke, and it was like the air around them grew thick.