Resigned to an hour-long drive, I turn up the radio only to catch myself thumping my fingers on the steering wheel. My mind drifts to thoughts of Kate and college and the guys in the band. Specifically drummers. I force my hands to stop, gripping the wheel tight. If my life has come to this, still fixated on a man I met a decade ago, a man with more issues than he has tattoos—and he has ink covering most of his skin—then I really, really need a date.
Fifty frustrating minutes later, I pull into my small but newly updated beach cott
age in Ocean Park. After toeing off my heels, I pad into the kitchen and grab a glass and a half empty bottle of white wine out of the fridge. The view is the reason I bought this little one-bedroom fixer-upper. It’s steps from the beach; the palm trees rustling in the breeze and the ocean crashing against the shore are the sounds I fall asleep to every night.
It’s beautiful. But is it enough? Am I happy?
Being a clinical psychologist with a PhD, one would think I could figure out what’s missing from my life, what causes the hollow ache in my chest when I’m alone, but it’s like my old boss used to say: “Doctor, heal thyself.” We never want to look too closely at the reflection in the mirror. What if we don’t like what we find?
I pull out my phone and scroll through my contacts, looking for someone, anyone, to call for a night of fun. My old coworker, Rena? No, she’s a newlywed and won’t want to leave her husband. Helen, a woman who used to live next door to me in my condo in Malibu? No, she’s always way too descriptive with her sex life, and not in a Sex in the City girl-bonding way. It’s more of a shut up before I have to bleach my brain of the graphic pictures you’re describing kind of way.
My finger hovers over a number I never erased but haven’t dialed in years. For all I know, he changed it eons ago and I’ll get a dry cleaner’s somewhere downtown. I can’t count the number of hours I’ve stared at the contact information, never gathering the courage to hit send. Instead, I’ve been content to remember the fun times we used to have when we were together. In these memories, I conveniently choose to forget all of his self-destructive behaviors. Ones which, if you believe the gossip magazines, he still has to this day.
I down the rest of the wine and push the green button before I can talk myself out of it.
The phone rings once… twice… three times until voice mail picks up.
“Hey.” My body tenses at the sound of his familiar voice. It vibrates down my spine, where a pool of warmth spreads over my skin. “This is Hawke, leave a message.”
My fingers fumble with the phone before I clumsily hang up.
Crap!
I toss the phone on a nearby table and clutch my chest where my heart is hammering. I honestly didn’t expect the number to be the same. Who manages to keep the same phone number for almost ten years, let alone after rising to the level of fame that Hawke and the rest of the guys have found?
Memories of sitting close to Hawke, our arms and knees brushing, electricity crackling between us, assault my mind. I close my eyes and picture it as if it were just yesterday. Hawke’s handsome face and those stunning multicolored eyes looking fondly at me from behind thick, black-framed glasses.
No. We were never meant to be. We were so wrong for each other. I was right to walk away.
The pain in my chest reminds me that breaking it off with Hawke didn’t stop me from getting hurt.
Shaking and upset, I try to distract myself by reading, watching TV, cooking dinner, online shopping… anything and everything possible. When nothing works, I change clothes and go for a run on the beach, cranking up the music and pounding out five miles, and still can’t rid my mind of Hawke’s beautiful face, strong profile, and swaths of colored ink trailing down his arms.
“Way to go, Abby. You’re officially a head case.” I snort and take a quick shower.
As I get ready for bed, I check the time— eight p.m. That’s eleven in New Jersey. Would Kate still be awake? Last time I saw her she was four months pregnant. Now, she’s closer to eight months, and as friendly as an irritated badger every time I talk to her. Before I can overthink the situation, I take my chances and call my best friend, who lives thousands of miles from me on the East Coast.
“Abby! I’m so glad you called!” Kate is perky and excited. Far from the sleepy, grumbling person I expected to answer.
“Huh? You are?”
The phone is muffled for a moment and I hear Dax speaking in the background, then Kate replying to him sharply.
“Sorry,” she huffs, exasperated.
“What’s going on? Everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Dax is just driving me mental! His overprotectiveness is going to send me over the edge.”
I grin at her frustration. Knowing Dax—her enormous, hot-tempered husband—he’s likely threatening anyone who comes anywhere near his pregnant wife.
“I bet he is,” I chuckle.
“It’s not funny, Abby!” Kate whines, her British accent as endearing as ever. “He doesn’t want me coaching until after the baby is born. It’s ridiculous!”
“What does he think will happen?” I picture Kate arguing her point, big belly protruding, while her six-foot-three-inch monster of a man scowls and crosses his arms over his wide chest.
“Who bloody knows?” Kate is sure to be throwing her arms up in the air, accentuating her irritation. We lived together for years while we were both in college here in southern California, so I’m well acquainted with her quirks. “Maybe he thinks the baby will fall out onto the pitch and get punted into the goal.”