The Second Chance (Inferno Falls Book Three) (14 page)

“How big of a cat?” It’s a worthless question, but I have to say
something
.
 

Grady holds out hands to show me. “I think he’s actually closer to a kitten.”
 

“Oh. Well, that’s nice.”
 

Grady nods. More silence.
 

Finally, he sighs. Grady seem to mentally rummage through several possible things to say, rejecting one or two before deciding. Then he locks eyes with me, weakening my resolve, and says, “I missed you, Maya.”
 

My tongue finds my cheek. I nod. I should answer in kind, but now that he’s exposing his belly, all I want to do is slash at it. Not because I hate him, but because I know I should. Because I still have some dignity left, and responding in the wrong/right way simply says I’ve accepted the apology he didn’t care enough to properly give.
 

“Looks like a lot has changed around here,” he says, backtracking when I don’t say what he wants me to.
 

“You’ve been away a long time.” It’s just a statement, but I can hear the bitterness in my words.
 

“I keep hearing about Inferno Falls. It’s like everyone’s decided it’s suddenly hip.”
 

“It is.”
 

“Do you approve? Or is the change annoying?”
 

“I like it. I always figured I’d leave some day, but now I can see staying.”
 

Which is good, because I can’t leave.
 

I keep that last bit to myself, but I can’t help saying what comes out next.
 

“If you heard so much about it, maybe you could have come back.”
 

He looks right at me. That was too blunt. I have to soften it.
 

“Just out of curiosity,” I add.
 

“I was all the way across the country. It’s just me and my truck.”
 

“Exploring the world like we always wanted to.”
 

“Well … ”
 

“So what was your favorite place?”
 

Grady looks disoriented by the small talk. It’s clearly not what we’re here to discuss, but where can we possibly start? The gulf between us is enormous. I wouldn’t know where to jump if I wanted to.

“Um … New York?”
 

“That’s predictable,” I say.
 

“And too expensive, I guess. Maybe Austin?”
 

“Texas?”
 

Gavin nods, but he does it like someone being interviewed by an executioner. He doesn’t seem to think we’re actually having a conversation, so the answers don’t matter.
 

“You don’t strike me as a Texan.”
 

“We used to talk about Austin,” he says. “Do you remember?”
 

Of course I do. We used to talk about a lot of things. We used to talk about having a place in France and Hawaii, too. We were two stupid kids, clueless to the world’s harsh realities.
 

“We did?”

“We even looked at homes there. Did a Zillow search.” He laughs a little. “Don’t you remember? You were going to bring it up to your dad.”
 

Jesus. I’d forgotten that gem, but now I remember it plenty. I’d been lying with my head in Grady’s lap, and his PowerBook had been on my as-of-yet-unpregnant belly. He’d done the search using me as a desk, and at some point I’d set the PowerBook aside and rolled around to kiss him, and the potential and energy of youth had taken things from there. That was shortly before we broke up for the first time, before the first bump as the road got rocky then turned bad.

“My dad in Texas,” I say, forcing a laugh.
 

“Has he left Inferno since … you know?”
 

“No.”
 

“You should pose it to him as a challenge. Just to see if it’s possible for him to leave his fifty-mile radius.”
 

“I don’t think he can.” I don’t want to play along, but Dad’s general distrust of the outside world is something we always found funny. He’s sure Inferno Falls is the best place in the world because he’s eliminated none of the alternatives. “It’s like he has one of those electronic tethers.”
 

“You know what Arthur would be
great
at?” Grady says.
 

I look up.
 

“House arrest.”
 

For some reason, that strikes me as hilarious. I’ve been sipping water, but I spray a bit on the table as the waitress shows up with my coffee. For a second, I feel an internal wall sigh, but her intrusion gives me a moment to rebuild it. I’d almost fallen right back into our old ways. To torture myself and stay focused, I turn my mind to Chadd’s photo, the one of him and Tommy. What would Grady say if I showed him?
 

It’s not a fair thing to think, but this exercise is for me, not Grady. I won’t be taken in this easily. I’ve held two things for nearly a decade now, and I’m not sure which to set down. In one hand, I’ve held a grudge. In the other, I’ve carried a torch. I won’t show him either. Not yet.
 

“How
are
your parents?” Grady says, apparently not reading my obvious tumult.
 

“They’re good. They help me take care of Mackenzie because I work so much.”
 

Again, an acutely uncomfortable expression crosses Grady’s features. I’m pretty sure I’m saying these things to twist a knife, but if I am, it’s not something under conscious control.

This is your fault too, Maya,
I tell myself
. You started what happened between us.
 

But no. That’s not true. Grady left. I played my role, but
he
ran.

“They asked about you,” I say, the peacemaker within me gaining a temporary upper hand.
 

“Really?”
 

“Not recently. A few years ago. They were watching one of those on-the-road-type shows, and Dad asked if I’d heard about you.”
 

“He did?”
 

“Mackenzie showed him your postcards.”
 

That seems to punch Grady a little, but he swallows it. “Did your dad think that was … I don’t know … weird? Me sending her postcards?”
 

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
 

“So you’ve been giving them to her. The postcards. To Mackenzie.”
 

“Of course.”
 

“Well, what have you told her about me?”
 

“That you’re a friend I once had.”
 

I imagine the past tense hurts, but fuck it. Let him ache. He never came back. He never called. He never even sent a proper letter, or anything that didn’t say more than where he was. What was I supposed to tell my daughter about her mysterious pen pal?

“What’s she like?”
 

“Smart. Kind. Mature because she had to be.”
 

“That’s good to h — ”

“She’s a lot like her dad.”
 

“Really.”
 

“The good parts and the bad.”
 

“Maya … ”

“She’s proud. But she’s stubborn. She’s good at sports, but doesn’t really want to participate, which is probably my influence. Or my inability to get her to enough activities to really, truly join a team.”
 

His look is sympathetic. “That must be tough on you.”
 

“It is, Grady.”
 

“There are times I wish I hadn’t left.”
 

“Just times?”
 

“I couldn’t handle things back then. It was … too much.”
 

“Do you know how else she’s like her dad, Grady?”

“Don’t do this.”

“She’s proud. She won’t admit when she’s wrong.”
 

“It wasn’t just me, Maya. You have to see how it was for me. Not just with my parents and my uncle, but with you, too.”
 

“With me. With pregnant, little old me,” I say, my anger growing despite my intention to dampen it.
 

“We were both stupid.”

“And yet only one of us had to pay.”

“Don’t play innocent. You made your choices. I didn’t have anything to do with — ”

I raise my hands. I can stop this. I
should
stop this. We’ve taken a first step, but I’m suddenly certain I don’t want it to be our last. And besides, other diners are tossing glances. Grady may have forgotten how Inferno Falls is, but I know its penchant for gossip and nosiness. And if Vincent comes over to talk to us, which he’s socially retarded enough to do, even at this moment, it’ll all be over, and whatever this might be will end before it’s had a chance to draw its first breath.
 

“Okay,” I say with effort. “Let’s … let’s not go into all that old baggage now.”
 

I watch Grady’s face as he seems to decide whether to let this become a fight or something different. There’s a moment where the old stubborn independence I remember flares like a hot coal within him, and I’m sure he’ll not just keep fighting — but maybe flee the booth. He never liked confrontation, always preferring to solve things by leaving them behind.
 

“Fine,” he finally says.
 

“Clean slate. That’s the only way this will work.” Timidly, not liking what it exposes, I add, “If you want it to work.”
 

Work?
Even I’m not sure what I mean. Aren’t we just meeting to catch up? There’s nothing to “work,” is there? My princess fantasies of rescue are showing. I’m being a fool all over again. I try to remind myself that what’s between us is done and that I don’t even want him around, but it’s so much harder to believe when I meet his eyes. I’ve looked into them too many times with hope in the past. There’s too much history there, and it breaks my heart to think of throwing it all away.
 

“Clean slate,” he finally repeats. Then, after a pause: “So what next?”
 

The next thing comes out of me like a traitor, and is between us before I can stop it.
 

“I have Thursday off. Let’s all go to the park.”
 

All.
 

Because I guess that somewhere deep down, my stupid heart must want Mackenzie to meet him after all.

CHAPTER 17

Cleaning out my uncle’s place isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. If I’d liked the guy, I can see how it might be tricky because every object would have pleasant memories attached. I can imagine how this would be hard if, with each little thing, I sweated what he would have wanted preserved and taken care of after he’s gone. But my Uncle Ernie was a bastard. So I’m mostly just tossing everything that the church or Salvation Army don’t want.
 

Because it’s a pain in the ass — and because I have the sticky issue of Maya dangling over my head until Thursday — I decide to reframe the cleanup process as something enjoyable. It’s challenging, but beer and pizza solve everything. With enticement duly offered, I call the few people I’ve kept in touch with and invite them over then ply them into doing my bidding.
 

I consider an evil laugh when this plan starts to succeed, but something tells me this would be pushing my luck.
 

My guest roster is short. Other than the postcards and infrequent emails I’ve sent to Maya over the years, my general eschewing of LiveLyfe means there are only two people I’ve kept in touch with at all. The first is Joe Harper, who became a fireman like his old man. The second is Brandon. Joe arrives first, just in time to point out how stupid I was to try and lure Brandon with free food and beer like a college kid.
 

“You know Brandon’s rich now, right?” Joe asks when he shows up. He has a pair of work gloves in hand and is wearing a tight, ratty T-shirt that makes him look like the Hulk in the middle of his shirt-busting transformation. I like to think I’m sly about my bait-and-switch cleanup tactics, but Joe’s attire and gloves are proof that I’m not as sly as I think. He’s brought everything but a shovel.
 

“Brandon’s not rich.”
 

“He married rich.”
 

“But this is Brandon we’re talking about,” I say, as if no time has passed. We were practically three gutter rats together. But then again, Joe used to be this skinny little kid with thick glasses and slicked-down hair, and now I’m pretty sure I saw, like, three women have orgasms as they watched him cross the street outside.
 

“You’ve been gone a long-ass time, G.” There’s something unsaid in that short sentence, but I don’t want to ask. I might sense judgment in my old friend, whose eyes stay on me a bit too long before settling in and looking around, likely seeing Ernie’s legacy as the fire hazard it is.