Page 110 of A Better Place

“Beautiful, every single thing I’ve told you is truth. The restaurant? It was always my dream. Not hers. She wanted no part of it. Have I been pining away after her all these years? Hell. No. I mean that. I never found anyone I wanted more with. Until you. You changed it all. The reason I never moved on was because you were my only chance at moving on, and I simply hadn’t met you yet.”

She looks between my eyes as a wide smile spreads across her face. “I really love you. You know that, right?”

“And I love you. Forever. Now, dance with me?” I ask her.

“Always,” she tells me.

And for the rest of the evening, we laugh and we dance. Maggie manages to help Jack remove the two left feet he claimed to have, and the rest of my nieces and nephews went back and forth between dancing, eating cake, and playing cards at the tables. Everyone is having a great time, drama now gone and over with, and thankfully not made much of.

I even show Carly how it’s done according to Lily and me, entertaining her with our insane dance moves. Really, it’s just a dance Lily choreographed for us when she was ten years old that’s a combination of moves worthy of an 80s’ pop star, but hey, we had to entertain ourselves somehow in Michigan winters when she was growing up. Snow day dance parties seemed like the perfect way. It’s not my fault I grew up in the decade of the best dancing and taught them to my daughter. I reach down and pick Lily up under her legs and flip her over my arm, and she spins away, taking over the show for a bit. When it’s my turn, I slide across the dance floor on my knees, something that made Lily crack up when she was little, and Carly’s cheers explode through the crowd. By the time we’re finished, the crowd had made a circle around us, but it isn’t about us. We pull in the bride and groom, and thus begins the rest of the guests joining us. At one point, I saw Barrett doing the Carlton, and Tess leading everyone in the best rendition of Thriller.

I don’t remember the last time I’ve ever been this happy. And by the smile that’s reaching Carly’s beautiful brown eyes that are sparkling underneath the twinkle lights of the reception hall, or the flushed look on her face when she squeals in laughter as my dad spins her around the dance floor, I don’t think she’s ever been this happy either.

It’s been a week since the wedding, and I’m about ready to shut the lights off at Balance, head upstairs, and get cleaned up. I’ve seen Carly every day since the ceremony, and tonight I have no plans on switching that up.

Just as I get to the front door, it opens and, low and behold, who walks in… Nicole.

“Can we talk?” she asks as soon as she steps inside.

“How did you find me?”

She shrugs her shoulders. “Asked around.”

“You’re a real piece of work.”

“We need to talk.”

“No, we really don’t.”

“You think I’m leaving? After the way your girl treated me at Em’s wedding?”

“Don’t. Don’t talk about Carly, and don’t call Emily Em, like you have any right to use her nickname after all these years.”

“What happened to you? Carly sure made you cranky.”

“No, you do not get to say shit about Carly, or how my behavior is. You don’t have any idea who I am anymore.”

“And I’m trying to fix that, James. Don’t you see?”

I walk through the restaurant, turning off lights, putting away tools, trying to ignore the wart that seems to have just grown on my backside.

I walk into the office, flip on the light, and whirl around to face her.

“I’m here. You want to talk. So talk.”

“James. You’re not exactly acting very nice.”

“Nice? Nice would have not been ambushing me at Emily’s wedding. Nice would have been you keeping your talons inside when you saw I was with another woman. A woman who I love. Nice would have been you staying away, for good, just like you did for the past nineteen years.”

She flinches, but I continue. “You know, a part of me has always been curious about what happened to you,” I tell her. Not hiding a smidgen of my hatred for the woman who tore our lives apart.

“I know,” she says, lowering her eyes. A move that used to turn me on. How she remembers that is beyond me, but apparently, she’s pulling out all the stops tonight.

“You know?” I laugh humorlessly. “You know… what exactly? What the hell is it that you think you know, Nicole?”

“I know that I left, and it was an awful thing to do. But I also know that I made a huge mistake, and I want to make it up to you.”

“You want to make it up to me,” I say in a monotone voice that I can only pray she picks up on.

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