Come Alive (The Cityscape 2)

“Not that. Come here.” He reached out a long arm and pulled my jaw to him. A palpable silence settled around us when he gave me a hard peck that softened into an open-mouth kiss. When he pulled back, he wore a goofy grin.

“I’ll miss you,” I blurted.

His smile faltered, and he swallowed hard. With a nod, he said, “I’ll miss you too.”

CHAPTER 17

DAVID HAD MEANT TO CONVEY SOMETHING with the way he’d looked at me Saturday night, but I wasn’t prepared to learn what it was. Nonetheless, being looked at that way was addicting. In fact, I couldn’t get it, or other intimate things, off my mind the remainder of the weekend.

After an agonizing Monday morning, I took a break to call Gretchen. “Are you still asleep?” I asked when she picked up the phone.

“Maybe,” she rasped.

“Why aren’t you at work?”

“It was a long weekend.”

“Lucy is back from Paris. Should we do happy hour tonight? We can surprise her by having Greg show up.”

“Um, no.”

“Why not?” I pouted, thinking it had been a very clever idea.

“Greg . . . We’re off. It’s over.”

“What?” I screeched. “Oh honey, what did he do?”

“He didn’t do anything. It was me. I left with someone else on Saturday night.”

“From Revelin? Who?”

“Does it matter? I didn’t even really know the guy.”

“Why would you do that?” I waited as I heard her shifting around, most likely sitting up in bed.

“I don’t know,” she said finally, her voice cracking. “I just freaked, I guess.”

“Freaked?”

“I spent years hating Greg for what he did, and all of a sudden I’m supposed to forgive him?”

“You aren’t supposed to do anything.”

“Things are just moving too quickly. I think maybe this is for the best.”

“What’s for the best? Is it over?”

“I guess. We haven’t talked yet, but I don’t see how it could not be.”

“I’m really sorry, Gretch.”

“Why? It’s my fault.”

“Because I know how much he means to you. And I know it’s not just about some other guy.”

“Um. Why are you being so understanding?”

The question caught me off guard, and I hesitated. “Listen, I’m coming over tonight and bringing something really bad for us to eat. We can talk about everything.”

“I would like that,” she said. Her tone made me realize how much she needed to talk. And I hadn’t been there for her. I hadn’t even asked her how things had been with Greg, the one who broke her heart all those years ago.

~

Gretchen answered the door in her pajamas, and I wondered if she’d been wearing them all day.

“We come bearing gifts,” I said.

“Really?” Gretchen asked when I handed her a DVD. She stepped aside to let us into her apartment. “My Best Friend’s Wedding? That’s like the worst thing you could have picked.”

“Why?” Lucy asked, clearly hurt.

“No, it has nothing to do with you,” Gretchen said, looking at Lucy and then me. She plopped onto the couch, and we followed. “I’ll just put it out there. I’ve been seeing Greg again.”

“What? Greg as in Greg?” Lucy’s eyes doubled in size. “I think I need to sit down. Liv, wine, now,” she instructed.

“He called me a few months ago to say he’d taken a job here.”

“Here as in Chicago?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my,” Lucy said, shaking her head.

“I didn’t call him back at first. After several attempts to get in touch though, I finally gave in and agreed to see him.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. It started with a drink, an apology for what he’s put me through. He said he’d made a mistake by leaving. The second time we met up, he said he wanted to try again. Of course I protested, but you know how it goes. One thing led to another, and well, we’ve started dating again.”

Lucy clamped a hand over her mouth and muffled, “You’ve been keeping this to yourself?”

“Yes. I guess I was afraid he’d change his mind again. It was mortifying the first time being dumped like that. I don’t exactly want witnesses if it happens again.”

“He’s the one who should be mortified,” I pointed out.

“Why is he moving here?” Lucy asked.

“There was an opening with his company, but . . .”

“What?”

“Well, he says that’s not the reason. Something about wanting to be with me,” she said, reddening. “Because he misses how we were.”

Lucy sighed and rested her chin in her hand. “Wow.”

“I’m not sure I believe it, though,” Gretchen added.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Lucy demanded, her tone teetering on outrage.

“He doesn’t exactly have a squeaky clean record,” I reminded Lucy.

“But maybe it’s different this time,” Lucy countered. “People change, they want different things as they get older.”

“That’s putting a lot of faith in him,” Gretchen grumbled.

Lucy looked thoughtful as she took a sip of wine. “So let me get this straight. He left his entire life behind and moved across an ocean for you. Geez, that’s like right out of a movie.”

Gretchen looked skeptical. “I don’t know if I would quite say – ”

“This is like, super romantic,” Lucy chirped over her. “He realized he made a huge mistake and couldn’t spend another day without you.”

Gretchen rolled her eyes, but a dimple appeared in her cheek.

The corner of Lucy’s mouth tugged and she broke into a large smile. “This is major.”

“Why?”

“This could be it.”

“I don’t follow . . . .” Gretchen’s eyes narrowed as she focused on Lucy.

“He might be ‘the one.’”

“Jesus Christ,” Gretchen blurted. “It’s only been a month!”

“Gretchen, he moved here from Japan for you. It’s not like he drove over from Indianapolis. He couldn’t stop thinking about you for, like, five years or whatever. That’s true love. You’re the one that got away.”

“I think you have that the wrong way around.”

“Don’t you love him?”

“I think so.”

“You think?”

“After all this time, how do I know if I still love him? Is he the same person? Am I?”

“Of course,” Lucy stated.

“But how can I know that?”

“You can’t, Gretchen. Love means having faith.” Lucy swirled the wine in her glass and looked off into the distance. “Of course you still love him. That doesn’t just go away.”

“Maybe not . . . but what if it lessened? I’m not really sure how I feel.”

“Love doesn’t have levels,” Lucy decided. “It just is.”

“So you can’t love one person more than another?” I asked.

“No, I just mean that love doesn’t change or morph into something else. It just is, you either love him or you don’t. Of course I love Andrew more than anyone else, but that doesn’t mean I love you guys any less. I just love you in a different way.”

“What about loving two people at the same time?” They both looked at me. “In the same way,” I added.

“You mean like friends?”

I felt suddenly warm and pulled at my collar. “No . . . . Not friends.”

“I don’t understand,” was all Lucy said while her eyebrows met in the middle.

“Like what if Gretchen had met someone else when Greg was away. What if she were married now? When Greg shows up, does she love them both?”

“Well, no.”

“Why not?”