Misunderstandings (Woodfalls Girls 2)

“Yeah. You know, from Winnie the Pooh,” he said at my puzzled expression. “You don’t know who Tigger is?” he asked, like I’d just told him I didn’t know who the president was. >My heart stuttered for a fraction of a moment before kicking into warp speed at his close proximity. The tantalizing smell of his cologne, which I had spent the last three hours trying to ignore, swirled around me like a blanket woven from countless memories. It was his scent. It didn’t matter that millions of men probably owned the same cologne. On him it smelled different. I knew this because back in my pain-filled road to recovery, I had made the forty-five-minute drive to the mall outside Woodfalls and purchased a bottle of it. Unable to wait until I got home, I had sprayed my jacket, wanting that small part of him. I was bitterly disappointed that it wasn’t the same. Sitting across from him on the elevator floor, I couldn’t help breathing in, trying to brand the smell to my memory so maybe this time it wouldn’t leave me.

“What do you want to play?” Justin asked, shuffling the cards like he was a blackjack dealer in Vegas.

“Go Fish,” I teased, laughing outright at his look of dismay.

“Not funny,” he claimed. “If I never play another hand of Go Fish, I’ll die a happy person.”

“Oh, that’s right. You don’t like Go Fish,” I commented in a voice laced with false innocence.

“You’d feel the same way if you were me. I swear Hollie made me play a million hands the week she was recovering from getting her appendix out when she was seven. Mom threw out all the decks of cards after that.”

“I remember you telling me. You always were a great big brother. Travis and Hollie are lucky to have you.”

“They’re good kids. Well, I guess they’re really not kids anymore. Hollie would have my head if she heard me referring to her in that capacity. I haven’t seen a whole lot of them these past six months,” he said, shuffling the cards again.

“You don’t still live at home with them?” I asked, surprised. I just assumed nothing had changed in my absence, which was silly of course. Just because I was no longer there didn’t mean time had stood still.”

“Nah, once Mom married Paul I was no longer needed at home.”

“What? When? Your mom married Paul.” I said the last part as a statement. I’d met Paul only once, since he and Trish had just started seeing each other right before our relationship had gone to crap. He was the new single parent who had moved in next door right after Christmas. Hollie had been ecstatic when she found out he had two kids, including a daughter her age.

“Yeah, right after Christmas last year. Exactly one year after their first date.”

“Oh boy,” I muttered, snickering at how cliché it seemed.

“You never were one to overromanticize things,” Justin commented as a smirk spread across his face.

“I’m not the only one. If memory serves, you mocked such rituals yourself.”

“Can you blame a guy? I’m not against romantic gestures, but if you’re going to do something, do it right. Go big or go home,” he said. “Anyway, once Paul moved in with Brady and Andrea, the house became pretty crowded. Travis took over my basement and I moved out.”

His words faded as I focused on his previous romantic gestures comment. Go big or go home. He had done that once. One grand romantic gesture that had stolen my heart completely and left me breathless. I wondered if that moment crossed his mind as he told the story of Paul and his mother. Only in my loneliest self-pitying moods did I allow myself to ever think about it.

20.

Christmas 2010

“I’m going to miss you,” Melissa cried, wrapping me in a tight hug.

“Mel, it’s only three and a half weeks.” I focused on breathing since she had her arms around my neck like a drowning victim.

“Almost four weeks,” she sniffled.

“Oh my. You are very dramatic today. What’s the real issue? Are you sad you’re leaving Rob for the next few weeks?

“Yes,” she wailed.

At least I had gotten to the root of the problem. “Why didn’t you ask him to go with you?”

“I didn’t want to appear needy and clingy,” she replied, sniffing loudly.

“Honey, I think that ship has sailed,” I told her, pointing to the I Love Rob shrine on the bulletin board above her desk.

“Hey, I like to save everything,” she protested, looking at her board with misty eyes.

“Sweets, you’re a mess. Maybe you should compromise and see if he wants to spend New Year’s with you,” I said cheerfully.

“You’re only so cheerful because you get to spend all four weeks with your boyfriend,” she said wistfully.