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  “Well, I’m not vegetarian, but I’m pretty sure your referring to it as raw cow isn’t helping,” I replied instinctually.

  Pink tinged my cheeks in the seconds immediately following, my every vicariousness overwhelmed with embarrassment. I spoke my mind, and I liked it. But I wasn’t so sure what I had said didn’t come off as mildly disrespectful when saying it to someone else’s parent. My mom would have been throwing my first, middle, and last name all over the place.

  Thankfully, Mr. Hunt didn’t make me suffer long, his laughter ringing loudly into the empty space of their big backyard.

  “I see why Blane likes you so much,” he said with a wink. Now his wink, that was just like Blane’s. He nodded, his eyes shining with what looked like pride. “You hold on to that fiery spirit, Whitney. Smart men will look for a smart woman.”

  His unsolicited advice could have come off as condescending, but it didn’t. He said it with honesty, ease, and passion, and it seemed as though it was something he didn’t do often. But for some reason, he looked at me and saw someone worthy of his wisdom.

  At least, that was the way it felt.

  The gate burst open suddenly, Blane and Franny tumbling through it, laughing raucously. Their cheeks were flushed, and their eyes never left one another. Where one’s limbs started, the other’s seemed to end.

  I rarely felt out of place with the two of them, but in that moment, I shifted uncomfortably between my feet. I felt like a voyeur. Still, my eyes stayed glued to them until a gentle hand squeezed my shoulder.

  As I looked up to him on my left, Mr. Hunt spoke. But it wasn’t to me. “You’re late, son.” He didn’t yell, but his voice did boom. It was enough to pull Blane’s eyes in my direction, and subsequently, after meeting his father’s briefly, to mine.

  His face lit up.

  “Hey, pretty girl! My old man’s not trying to put you to work, is he?” he teased as he disentangled himself from his hold on Franny and came sauntering my way. His walk was casual, but his speed was fast. He had the amazing ability to hurry without ever looking like he was hurrying.

  “It’s not my fault you left her here unoccupied,” his father joked before I could answer, pulling me even closer into his embrace.

  “Well, she’s occupied now,” he proclaimed, throwing an arm around my shoulders, breaking me free, and leading me away.

  Looking back at Mr. Hunt, I watched as he winked and smiled.

  “I can still help you, Mr. Hunt,” I offered earnestly, pulling Blane to a stop. It didn’t feel right to just bail on him now that Blane was there.

  “Nah. I’ll be fine, sweetheart,” he said as he waved a masculine hand.

  Accepting his response, if only for lack of something else to do, I succumbed to Blane’s arm and allowed him to lead me away.

  But when I looked back a second time, he was still watching the three of us, and he took a deep breath.

  As much as I wondered, I couldn’t figure out why.

  One day, though, I would know.

  September 2001

  A SINGULAR MOMENT.

  One that changes everyone and everything, and you can’t go back.

  For me, it was the moment I fell in love. The moment I knew that the soul staring at me through magnificent, pain-filled blue eyes was the one I wanted to connect with mine for the rest of my life.

  The problem with that was, at that exact same moment, I could see his soul recognize that mine was not the one he wanted.

  Not ever.

  THE SOUND OF SEAGULLS WARNED of the closeness of the New Jersey coast—one of the state’s most unexpected treasures and New Yorker magnets in equal measure—and the random crispness of a September day clenched my short sleeve-encased arms close to my body.

  I rounded the corner with my hands in my pant pockets, the small ball of lint in my left one serving as a good distraction for the thumb and forefinger of that hand, and came face to face with Blane Hunt.

  We’d come so far together, the intricacies of our friendship growing and enhancing with time, but this change wasn’t welcome.

  His long, scraggly hair curled around his ears and fell into the lush lashes surrounding his eyes, and his posture told a story of casualness that was noticeably absent from his face. His blue eyes blazed into mine, licking and stinging like a tangible flame despite the twenty or so feet that still separated us.

  That was him, though.

  Intense. Foreboding. Sincere, loyal, and completely anti-bullshit.

  His muscles were imposing, and his smile dropped panties.

  He was the ultimate teenage bad boy, complete with the knocked up girlfriend.

  Make that, used to be knocked up girlfriend.

  Shit.

  My step faltered slightly, but I pushed forward, making my way to his side despite the bone-crushing discomfort weighing me down.

  And no, his girlfriend wasn’t me. I was the long-time best friend, hanging out and enjoying each other in a strictly platonic way for what was going on several years now. We had each other’s backs. We held each other up without ever going down. Cough, cough, you get what I mean.

  But I liked it that way. I had never felt something more for him. No longing. No doodles on my notebooks scribbled and scrawled with “Mrs. Blane Hunt” or “Blane and Whitney” in big, obnoxious bubble letters.

  In fact, I wasn’t catching any of the offers being thrown my way. And there were plenty.

  I was what most people would consider “traditionally beautiful”. Petite of stature, I had a slender but womanly body, appropriate and then some for my seventeen years, and the features of my face were delicate and proportional—except for my eyes. They were entirely too big for my face and made me look far too doe-like for my taste. But the boys seemed to like it, so they made offers. All of which I rejected.

  Instead, I was focused. Determined. I hadn’t chosen a career, but I was headed there fast, and when I got there, I was going to be the best damn one there had ever been. Whatever that was.

  That much I knew.

  As for Blane, he either wasn’t interested like the rest or knew better than to offer. Either way, I liked him right where he was, filling my heart and life with laughter and friendship.

  His actual girlfriend, Franny, was my other best friend, and she was mousey and bland in every aspect other than her personality. It sounded mean, but she wasn’t the Plain Jane turned supermodel. She was just Jane. And I loved it. I loved them together. There was something inspiring about the superhero using his x-ray vision to fall in love with someone for what was truly on the inside.

  But it was more than that. They clicked more than the orange button on Amazon.

  She lifted him up with light and laughter, and he made her feel beautiful.

  When Blane looked at Franny, you’d swear that his heart pulled a Grinch and swelled two sizes at the sight of her.

  But now, as I stopped a foot and a half in front of him, his face wasn’t smiling, and his heart surely stayed just its size.

  Blane would rather beat the actual bush than spend any time around it, so it didn’t take him long to lay his heart on the ground right in between us.

  I’d never seen carnage so bloody.

  “I can’t believe you took her,” he whispered, his eyes on the weather-worn brick at our feet with his sun-highlighted hair falling in and around his face.

  Taking a deep breath, I braced myself for a conversation I knew would be heavily laden with the sharp lash of his heartache. Just yesterday I had gone with Franny to the family clinic to have an abortion.

  Part of me was still reeling from the reality, but I was doing my best to be supportive of Franny by withholding all judgment. She would suffer enough from everyone else.

  “Blane, she’s seventeen. You’re seventeen. You can’t tell me you think you’re ready to be parents,” I reasoned logically.

  His eyes jerked to mine, the incredulity in them almost blinding.

  “You think I don’t know that, W
hit? You don’t think I know that’s what everyone sees? Just another tragic, young love story. Bad boy on a motorcycle seduces the girl and leaves her pregnant, broke, and alone.” He shook his head in an effort to quiet his rising voice and continued on, “Sometimes kids have sex for the right reason–they’re in love–wear everything they’re supposed to wear, respect each other completely, and take all the precautions necessary, and things still turn out like this. That’s the unheard version of our story.”

  “That’s what everyone sees because you’re seventeen. People don’t know what you two are like together. Not everyone knows how different you are from what you look like.”

  “But you should know it.”

  The truth of his words stung briefly, but it didn’t take long for rational thought to once again take control of my mouth.

  “You aren’t ready to be a daddy, Blane.”

  His anger hit me like a wave, all at once and mighty with its power.

  “A motorcycle and long hair do not a deadbeat make,” he whispered roughly, the whites of his eyes shimmery with unshed tears.

  “Yoda?” I questioned with a tilt of my head as my heart fluttered uncontrollably fast in my chest.

  I didn’t want to mess this up, me and him. He was hurting, and all I was doing was adding to it.

  But I had two friends to look out for.

  Just his eyes smiled—distant and hollow and completely not the friend I knew.

  “Aristotle. And being ready doesn’t mean shit. Working your hardest to provide for that baby and swallowing it up with love is what’s important. Seventeen, twenty-seven, old and gray. You love that child with all that you have and all that you could work hard to get, and when that’s not enough, you love harder. That baby was made in love by Franny and me, and by God, I wanted the chance to work toward loving it enough for the rest of my goddamn life.”

  By the time he finished, his breathing was ragged, and tears flooded the entirety of my face.

  A new, previously unused section of my heart was aching. This man—and he was all man, Father Time laughing at the absurdity of his seventeen years—hadn’t been given a chance to fight for his child. Not to save its anticipated life and not to love it enough as they both grew older.

  But there was a reason I was here. A reason we’d found ourselves in this uncomfortable place.

  A girl at the center of the issue. The one with the most to lose.

  And she was my friend too.

  “Franny is scared, Blane,” I murmured gently, knowing that no words spoken would be enough to balm his open wound. “I had to be there for her. Be the friend to her that you’ve always expected me to be. But this time, you’re in the middle.”

  “No,” he said fiercely with a shake of his head as his teeth clenched noticeably in his mouth.

  I didn’t understand. This was what I thought Blane would want me to be for Franny. The Blane I knew would want me to be there for her in her time of need, whatever that may require.

  That’s what friends did. After all, he was the one who taught me that.

  “What do you mean “no”?” I questioned, struggling for the understanding I needed to fix this.

  “I mean,” he started slowly, his hand reaching out gingerly to hold mine as he spoke. “Franny’s scared. And she has every right to it. She’s the one who has to do all of the work building that little life inside her, sacrificing her own body and mind in the process. She’s the one who would carry the burden of a swollen belly and bare the brunt of an ill-informed youth’s ridicule. But she’s strong. And she would have had me right beside her, every step, every minute, every day, and she would have had you. That’s what you were suppose to be doing. Nudging her away from a decision that cannot be reversed and instead lifting her up with the love of the two most important people in her life.”

  His thumb moved gently against mine, and his voice was as soft as a whisper, but his words held power.

  “In a time that’s scary for Franny, we’re supposed to be strong. Now, I know you didn’t create this situation, and I know none of it’s your fault.” Softening the corners of his eyes in an attempt to ease his words, he continued, “But Franny needed you to be a stronger friend today. Someone she could listen to when she had no interest in listening to me.”

  Unwilling to be contained, the hurtful words surged right out of my throat before I could stop them. “Maybe this was the right choice for her, though. Maybe she isn’t ready to love your baby harder. Maybe she isn’t ready to give it everything she has.”

  My bottom lip quivered as I spoke, and I felt my heart stutter when he dropped my hand and the light went out of his eyes.

  It was all right there in front of me, plain to see, his soul severing violently from mine.

  He wasn’t even mad at me anymore.

  He felt nothing.

  “She needed more time, and now she can’t go back. You know her, and you know her heart. When the regret sets in, it will break her.” His voice cracked at the edges, pain tearing at the last vestiges of his control.

  Tears blurred my vision, but not so much that I didn’t see him turn and walk the ten paces to his bike, swing his leg over, and look back my way.

  “Promise me you’ll be there for her. Promise me you’ll take care of her when she won’t let me.” His voice was tenacious in the face of adversity.

  He didn’t wait for me to promise. He just knew I would.

  The engine roared to life with a flick of his finger, and the throttle revved higher with a twist of his wrist.

  Ten seconds later he had his small helmet strapped onto the crown of his head, and he was riding off into the distance.

  I hated that that was how we left it.

  And I hated that that was the moment I finally saw what should have never gone unnoticed in the first place.

  Blane Hunt lived life hard and loved harder. Years I’d spent living it without seeing it. Without letting it in and accepting it. Without wrapping it up in my arms and loving it back.

  He would have been the best fucking father I’d ever known.

  Most of all, I loathed that that was the moment I fell in love.

  “MA!”

  “What?!”

  “Ma!”

  “What?!”

  “Ma, dinner will be ready in—”

  “Heh?!”

  Oh sweet baby Jesus, this was the last thing I needed—my mom and Gram yelling back and forth up and down the stairs, neither one of them hearing a word the other said.

  “Ma, just go downstairs and talk to her,” I begged. “She can’t hear you, and this could go on forever. Frankly, I’m not in the mood.”

  “Whitney Marisella Lenox,” she chastised, using my whole name for dramatic effect, “You respect your Gram and me.” Her finger came up, snapping from one side to the other. “Nobody cares if you’re in the mood or not.”

  I knew I hadn’t been insolent at all, but that didn’t matter to Lydia Lenox. In her house, her word was law. But I wasn’t in the mood. Not to listen and certainly not to fight about who I did or didn’t disrespect. It was a never ending argument anyway. Since my Gram lived with us, this was a scene I watched repeatedly. And since my Gram annoyed my mom, she was constantly punishing me for it.

  Usually, I could hang in there with the best of them and throw my own punches. But today was different.

  It had been a long walk home from the front of the high school where I had met Blane to talk. I only lived a mile away, so while I had a car, I had decided to walk as a way to clear my head.

  Ironically, on the way home, all it did was give me time to fill it with more and more nonsense, let the ache grow deeper in my chest, and be one step away from full-on distraught by the time I reached my red front door.

  Huffing out a disgruntled breath, I turned away from my mom and headed for the stairs to the basement, eager to be closed into the sanctuary of my bedroom. My boots thunked on the aging, carpet-covered wood on my way down, and the scuff of t
he fibers under my feet grounded me emotionally all the way—until I was two feet from my door.

  “Whit,” my Gram whispered in my ear while simultaneously tapping me on the shoulder.

  “Jesus!” I yelled, spun, and nearly fell down, surprised at my seventy-seven year old Grandma’s ninja-like capabilities.

  “Jesus Christ, Whit! Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain!” she scolded hypocritically.

  Nothing could have stopped me from rolling my eyes in that moment. Nothing.

  But the thump my Gram’s flick brought to my forehead rolled them right back forward.

  “What’s the deal, girl? You look like shit,” she deadpanned.

  “Gee, thanks, Gram,” I muttered, steadying myself against the tan drywall.

  “Stop it, you twit,” she snapped as she grabbed my hand and squeezed it between the two of hers. “You’ve got something working behind those puffy eyes of yours, and I’m not wasting any time getting it out. I’ve had seventy-seven years to learn the signs of someone on the wet side of an emotional wringer, and you’re practically dripping despair all over my orthotics. So you turn your butt around and keep on heading into that room of yours, but make space for an old lady with a wide set of hips because my feet are swollen from ping pong practice, and I’m coming in hot for a landing on the first horizontal surface I find.”

  “Jesus,” I remarked again. Her speech wasn’t unexpected—after all, this is what Gram did—but it sure as hell wasn’t welcome either. I wanted to wallow.

  I wanted Matchbox Twenty’s “If You’re Gone” and a family-size bag of Spicy Nacho Doritos. Smothered in ice cream. And chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.

  Couldn’t anyone understand that?

  Gram pursed her lips and gave me a shove, sending me tripping and careening into the purple surroundings of my bedroom. “I prefer Ellie. Or darling. I always loved it when the fellas called me darling.”

  “I bet they’d call you darling in the nursing home,” I mumbled under my breath.

  Thank God for the deterioration of hearing in the elderly.