Page 7 of Always a Chance
“Tan, I only have a few minutes. My publisher is riding my…” His words trailed off as I turned to face him.
Johnny Kelly with his soft brown hair, short on the sides and long on top. Johnny with the brilliant green Kelly eyes and dimple above his right eyebrow. The boy I’d once thought would be the most important part of my life for years. My best friend.
And we’d broken each other’s hearts.
Some words could never be taken back.I hate you. I will never forgive you. It was a mistake. All your fault.Once they were out, the universe remembered. Even once we no longer did, they’d be there, an impenetrable barrier.
Johnny’s fists clenched, and he forced them flat against his dark jeans, a tell he could hardly control his anger. I read every sign, every emotion. The way his lips pressed tight as they always had when something irritated him. The silence that tended to follow a surprise—something he wasn’t fond of.
Johnny liked to know what was coming. When he’d started writing, he told me he enjoyed it because he always decided the ending. It was never a shock to him.
Real life isn’t like that, I’d once said. What if there are no endings? Just a thousand beginnings. We’d been so hopeful then, so optimistic. Children.
All chatter in the cafe ceased, as if everyone waited to see what their golden boy would say to the fallen princess.
Johnny’s brow furrowed, and he opened his mouth, but no words came out.
“Johnny—” Tanner tried to intervene, but his brother cut him off with a sharp look.
“I’m out of here.” Johnny turned on his heel and pushed through the door. It swung shut behind him, and frustration coursed through me. Ten years, and that was our reunion? Not happening.
Before I knew what I was doing, I barged out the door and stomped down the sidewalk. A car horn blared as I crossed the street, and I jumped back, letting the car go by. Couldn’t those people see I was in crisis mode? I had no control over my actions, my words. All I knew was I had to have my say.
“Johnny Kelly, stop right there.”
He’d reached his BMW and stilled with his hand on the open door. “I don’t have anything to say to you, Tali.”
Hearing my name on his lips was salt in a gaping wound. “Well, I have plenty to say to you.”
“Wonderful.” He slammed the door shut and turned. “Guess nothing has changed. You always have to have the final word.”
Only with him. Except now, as I stopped feet away, the words faded from my mind and all I could do was stare at him, memorize him, remember him.
He frowned, and I drifted back to the one and only time I’d tasted those lips. A night neither of us would ever forget. Not for the single moment where our friendship shifted into something else. No, it was everything that happened after that had ruined us.
He tapped his fingers on the hood of his car. “Are we done here?” he asked after a prolonged silence.
“Is this all we have for each other?” My voice sounded small to my ears. Like it lost the last ten years of maturity, of hardening.
For a moment, Johnny’s mask of anger slipped, revealing more of the kind boy I knew. Then, it was back. His jaw clenched, and he yanked open the door. “Yes. This is all that’s left.”
4
JOHNNY
We made a mistake. Can’t you see that? This is all our fault. If you hadn’t done this now, tonight, none of this would have happened.
I hated her. On the surface, every inch of me never wanted to see her again. I never wanted to hear her voice, to remember the girl she was before that night.
But underneath all of that, seeing Talia felt right, like Gulf City wasn’t home while she was gone. The truth was, I’d heard her voice in my head every day since she left. Telling me I wasn’t good enough, that she regretted everything about us.
There never truly was an us, not the way I wanted there to be. We broke before we even got a chance to build anything. So, yes, I hated her. And I freaking loved her. And everything in between.
I leaned back with my elbows in the sand, my board beside me. I’d come straight from the cafe to the beach, hoping for any kind of waves to thrash out there. And it was flat. That had to be a metaphor or something.
Why was I such a jerk? I should have told Talia it was good to see her and then left, hoping she’d return to her new life in the city, a life I heard way too much about from Gianna.
A foot nudged my neoprene-clad leg, and I shielded my eyes from the sun to look up at Tanner and Shane. Groaning, I pushed myself to my feet. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” I looked behind them, expecting my sister to jump out. When they ganged up on me, it was usually all three of them.
