Falling Into Fate: A Stand-Alone Friends-to-Lovers Short Romance Read online

  “Oh,” I say, “You don’t have to ruin your shirt, sir,” I assure him.

  “I ruined your hat; it’s only fair compensation,” he replies.

  Not going to lie; I don’t mind the view of his shoulder blades peeking out from his tank as he bends over to wipe down my calves and feet while I stand there, helpless.

  When the chaos is more or less under control, he meets my gaze again. His eyes are no longer shocked but intense. His brow furrowed in worry and regret. And then he speaks the name I haven’t heard in ten years. “Nora?”

  My palms sweat. What. The. Hell? Someone doxxed me, and this man is some kind of bizarre stalker of mousy small-town women who are desperately trying to live under the radar.

  But then, I see it. The dark eyes, the shape of his face, the line of his mouth…but it’s his nose that jerks me back to reality. That prominent, beautiful nose is still the same. The rest of him? Not the skinny kid I used to know.

  It can’t be him.

  Confident this is some kind of sick joke, I take the bait anyway and say the words, “Ben? Ben Cotton?” I have to swallow to hide the emotion because I’m about to crack in two.

  His face breaks into raw sadness, mixed with happiness and relief. “Yes,” he says.

  The last time I saw Ben Cotton, he’d just gotten over the pubescent voice cracking. Now, his voice breaks for a different reason.

  Except not. Because this can’t be Ben Cotton. This is a hoax.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I seethe.

  Hayden is now kindly ushering everyone else out of the tent, knowing that something serious is going down and intuiting that I need this to be a private moment.

  The man named Ben, pretending to be my Ben, seems surprised that I’m accusing him of toying with me. “Nora. It’s me.”

  Hearing that name for the second time in a minute makes tears well up in my eyes and sting my sinuses. The dam is about to break.

  I inhale a shaky breath. “You can’t be Ben. Because Ben Cotton is dead.”

  Chapter Three

  Ben

  “Is that what they told you, Nora?”

  Somehow, that was the wrong thing to ask her because her lip trembles. Such a sweet, pink bottom lip that I kissed only once, more than ten years ago.

  She heaves a watery sigh. “Please stop calling me that name. I’m Billie Jane.”

  Confused, sensing my broken heart is about to get annihilated, I press on.

  “But I know you. We know each other. We were friends. Remember when we sneaked out of in-school suspension and got caught smoking behind woodshop in high school?”

  She takes a step back and clutches at the front of her crochet duster. “I don’t know why you look like him, and I don’t know how you found out all these personal details, but I need a minute.”

  “I’m him. I’m Ben Cotton,” I insist. “I’ll prove it to you.”

  “Please don’t.”

  My insistence gets away from me. The need to get through to her overwhelms every decent instinct to be gentle. If I’d been thinking straight, I would have seen that she’s been through something awful, and I’m making it worse by dredging up terrible memories things.

  Instead of being correctly sensitive, I blurt out my proof. “Mr. Carter, the vice-principal, added on a week of suspension for every day we ditched, remember that? But before that…when we were eight years old, you showed me how to tie my shoes. My dad got frustrated with me and my—what was it?—low muscle tone because of my sensory issues. So you tied my shoes for me. When the other kids made fun of me, you caught up with me after school and showed me how to do it myself.”

  Tears leak out of her sad eyes and spill down her cheeks. Nora—Billie Jane—shoves the meat of her palms against her eye sockets and sucks in a heaving breath. “Please stop.”

  Wait. What am I doing to her? This is going very, very badly.

  “Nora, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare you, I—“

  Another man steps in and cuts me off, slipping his arm around Nora. “You’ve upset her, and you need to leave.”

  This jars me to a full awareness of what I’ve done. Seeing her with this other man, I realize she’s moved on without me. She has not been thinking about me all this time. Why would she? Someone she trusted told her I had died. It seems like a far-fetched excuse for not keeping in contact with someone under normal circumstances. But I can see that whatever she’s been through, it’s not far-fetched. It’s very, very real and painful. And I’m making it worse.

  Examining this man who’s got his arm around her, I control the urge to ask who he is. The way she leans into him, I can see that she trusts him. I don’t sense that they’re a couple, but I should know better than trusting my instincts.

  “I’m sorry, Nor—I mean, Billie Jane. I didn’t mean to upset you. But we need to talk. When you’re ready.”

  Her deep ocean-blue eyes peer over my shoulder. “You have customers waiting.”

  “Let’s set a time,” I say.

  “Come on, dude. Stop pushing. She’s not interested,” says the man with her.

  Nora/Billie Jane pats her friend’s hand that’s clasping her shoulder. It’s a sweet, maternal gesture. “I can handle this, Hayden.” Turning to me, she says, “This is all…a lot. I will talk to you, but I need you to be patient.”

  Her wide eyes show every emotional scar that has cut her open. Her wounds are right there on the surface for everyone to see. Me? I’ve spent the last ten years building a fortress around my heart. I did it to survive military school without falling apart. I didn’t want anyone to see the pain. My beating heart was gone, as far as everyone around me was concerned.

  But here I am, hearing the tell-tale ka-thunk, ka-thunk beating on the other side of the wall. The other piece of my heart is standing right in front of me, calling out to that piece of me that still beats. And within ten seconds of finally finding her, I fucked it all up.

  I hold my hands up in surrender. “Whenever you’re ready,” I tell her. “I’ve been waiting for ten years. I can wait for ten more if that’s what you need. I’m sorry for being so clumsy.”

  I turn and start back to my beer stand.

  “One hour!”

  Looking back over my shoulder, I see her standing there, her hands clasping her wet beanie hat. She repeats, “I’ll come to see you in one hour.” For the first time today, I see a whisper of the mischievous smile I used to know. This floods me with a foolish new hope.

  Hayden shoots me a wary look and whisks my beautiful, sad girl away. I fight the urge to flatten that guy. It’s easier to be a decent human when I know that I’ll only make things worse for Billie Jane if I act out.

  Simmer down, Ben Cotton, I tell myself while I commence to filling red Solo cups with homebrew. Let’s not make your first act as an adult with real feelings be the actions of an asshole.

  Let her come to you.

  Where have I heard that before?

  The phrase has echoed in my brain for so long, ever since New Year’s Eve at the age of 15. In the week since I’d seen her on Christmas Eve, I felt that first kiss on my lips every time I closed my eyes. A week later, her parents ripped her from my life entirely. No goodbye, just vague reasons from any adult who would speak to me. And there were few, other than my own preoccupied father. Something about her being sent to live with her grandparents.

  I didn’t accept that. I’d run to her house, called her phone. No one would speak to me.

  No one except my older brother Deacon, already away at college and not in the loop. After days and days of listening to my frustrations, he’d finally said it. “Let her come to you.”

  And I didn’t listen then, but I’m listening now.

  I know she’ll come to talk to me.

  Before I get back to work at the beer stand, I shoot a text to Deacon, who’s running our bar and brewery over the river in Gold Hill.

  “I found her.”

  Chapter Four

&
nbsp; Billie

  Hayden waits to say anything until I’ve drunk a bottle of water from the pumpkin food truck.

  When I drain the last drop, he folds his arms across his chest. “Are you going to tell me, or do I have to start singing Kelly Clarkson at you?”

  I love Hayden, but he’s a terrible singer. “Please don’t,” I say. “I’ll tell you.” Taking a deep breath, I tell my best knitting pal everything. Fortunately, I do not need a lot of breath because he only requires one name from me to understand everything that just happened.

  “That was Ben. Not just Brother Ben from that bar across the river. That’s my Ben.”

  He pauses, blinks several times, lets his jaw drop, then closes it again. “Your Ben?”

  I nod solemnly.

  “That Ben?”

  “Yep.” My heart thuds against my sternum just knowing that Ben is a few feet away, serving drinks, no doubt watching me like a hawk.

  Hayden looks past me, apparently sizing Ben up. He lifts one eyebrow. “You didn’t tell me your Ben was a ruggedly handsome bearded snack.”

  I snort through tears at my friend. “We were 15! He had acne, pop bottle glasses, no facial hair, and his body was…not filling out a flannel shirt, to say the least.”

  “And yet you let Urkel kiss you, as I recall the story.”

  I roll my eyes at the comparison to a ‘90s TV sitcom nerd. “He was my best friend, and I caught feelings! Can we focus on the fact that until ten minutes ago, I thought he was dead?”

  A grandma walks by then, pushing a baby in a stroller, and gives me a strange look. I lower my voice. “In the year I was at the treatment academy, my mom and dad said his family moved away and placed him in military school, where he died in an accident. I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone else—no friends, no grandparents—because it was against policy. The director wouldn’t let me out, even for an hour, to go to the funeral. Which, as we now know, wasn’t even real!”

  Hayden nods, his face full of empathy. “So the question is, did your parents lie, or did someone lie to them?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer. “Maybe both.”

  I rub my arm out of stress and look back. I’m not prepared for the staring. Those big, dark eyes are on me like a wise old owl, even as he’s taking money and slinging beer.

  I busy myself with small tasks; as head organizer of the day’s events, there’s plenty to do.

  Every time I pass by the beer stand, I feel those eyes on me.

  Ben had been my childhood safe place. He’d sat with me through all of my problems—my depression, suicidal thoughts, bulimia. He never judged me when I’d binge and purge. He just…stayed with me. And when I caught him cutting, I silently cleaned him up, bandaged him, hid the evidence, and ditched gym class with him so none of the other kids would see his arms. And then, I made him promise never to do that again unless I was there, in case he really hurt himself. No, it wasn’t the right decision to hide our problems, but at the time, we felt differently. Our brains were not fully formed, and we trusted each other.

  Today, Ben’s gaze is like that wise old owl but also full of something else. Wanting. My heart rate spikes in anticipation, anxiety, excitement, desire, and sadness all wrapped up together.

  I look down and check my watch. I’d told him an hour, and it’s only been fifteen minutes.

  “Hello?”

  Turning back to Hayden, I apologize for ignoring him.

  “You know I’m here for this telenovela that seems to be unfolding before my eyes, but that guy who was supposed to bring the sheep? He’s fifteen minutes late, and I’m leading the next knit-along in five.”

  Stuffing down the latest bout of emotions that bubbles up, I nod and smile.

  Hayden examines me, not sure I’m capable of carrying out my duties today. “Or I can call. I can get someone else to do the knit-along.”

  I stand and point, giving him his marching orders. “I’m fine. Get going. I can handle the sheep problem.”

  I am definitely not able to tackle the sheep problem. But I do it. Pacing the square and dialing the farmer’s phone number, I have a feeling he might flake out. And he’s the only sheep farmer in the state that would return my calls.

  “Yeah,” he answers abruptly.

  “Hi, this is Billie Jane from the fiber festival in Fate. I was just wondering when you thought you’d be arriving to set up the shearing demo?”

  He hems and haws and finally says what the pit in my stomach has been telling me all along. “About that. I…ah…I got a better offer from the craft store in Gold Hill.”

  My heart sinks. “That’s not what I wanted to hear, Jake. It wasn’t just about making a sale on wool. We were going to do a whole live presentation of turning the wool into yarn. It was going to be incorporated into the big yarn ball. I mean, it’s on the poster. People came here specifically to see that. Don’t you want to help our little town do something cool?”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just business, ma’am.”

  Somehow that makes it worse.

  And now I’ve got to get up on the stage and be the world’s biggest disappointment.

  Silent Doyle is in the middle of setting up his music stand for his cello solo. Respecting his vow of silence, I ask him through a series of gestures if I can take a moment to say a few words first. He nods and waves me over to the mic. My clogs tromping awkwardly up the steps; I walk over to the mic, pick it up, and look out at the crowd. No one is paying attention to me.

  Everyone is enjoying themselves, and I realize that I just can’t do it. I set the mic back into the stand without anyone even noticing I was there. That happens to me a lot. This time, I’m grateful to go unnoticed.

  So now, I have some desperate phone calls to make.

  Chapter Five

  Ben

  I waited ten years and almost gave up. And now that I found her, I can wait one hour longer.

  In the meantime, the beer stand is gaining popularity. Almost every adult in Fate of legal drinking age has now tried every brew I brought with me today, and I’m nearly tapped out of Granny Smith.

  A happy-looking couple approaches that have partaken of two pumpkin ales and now want to try the apple flavor. I recognize Danny as the one I had to speak to about the beer permit for this event. I pour him the last Granny Smith from the keg, and he takes a sip, then tells me, “You should consider relocating to Fate. We need a decent bar downtown.”

  “I can’t afford another business loan at the moment, but I agree,” I counter. The closest bar is ten miles away on the river, or the Eagle’s Lodge, a private club that doesn’t serve the general public.

  The woman, who looks vaguely like someone I’ve spoken to at city hall in my town across the river, fusses and wipes the foam off the man’s beard. “Don’t you dare recruit any more people to move here from Gold Hill! I am still catching crap at city hall for moving across the river.”

  Danny laughs. “Pinky, you are nothing if not capable of dealing with people giving you crap.”

  The snark between these two cannot hide the love I see. They remind me of everything I missed by not being with Nora—now Billie. If only I’d kept trying, maybe I would have solved the mystery. We could have put the past behind us years ago and been as happy as this couple in front of me.

  Danny and Izzy aren’t the only happy couple around. Another set of volunteers in matching purple shirts with the word “FAFFF” printed across the front, making out behind the pumpkin food truck. At the same time, a golden retriever serves as their lookout.

  I’ve created my own torment, as the alcohol seems to be fueling a lot of making out.

  Hell, even the guy they call Silent Doyle seems to have someone. A young woman is watching this cello solo, and the two of them stare at each other like they are ready to rip each other’s clothes off.

  When the time comes and goes for Billie to meet me, I start to get nervous.

  Fortunately, the customers have moved on from beer to needing food
to soak up the alcohol.

  Sacrificing the possibility of earning more money, I post my “closed” sign and decide to go look for Billie.

  “Hey,” slurs someone just moseying up to the stand.

  I nod and wave him off politely. “You’ve had enough.”

  I look for her everywhere but don’t see her. She can’t have gone far.

  I run over to the tent where she and her friend were working this morning, and the man who was with Billie earlier is now helping a group of kids make friendship bracelets.

  “Where did she go?” I ask, a little too fervently as I have no chill when it comes to Billie.

  Without looking up at me from the table, he snarks, “Whatever happened to let her come to you?”

  “Please. I must talk to her. I have a lot to say, and then I’ll leave her alone.”

  Her friend finally makes eye contact, assessing me. I must look like the world’s biggest sad sack because he sighs, gets up from the table, and comes over.

  “Listen. Don’t spread this around, but we’ve had a little mishap with the wool demonstrations. The farmer bailed on us, and now she’s scrambling around to fix this. So I’m sorry if you are not her sole focus right now, beefcake, but this is a big deal for her.”

  Ignoring the beefcake thing, my mind races.

  I ask him what I can do to help.

  Her friend regards me with cool blue eyes, trying to decide if I’m reliable for the job. Setting aside his apparent apprehension, he finally tells me everything that needs to happen today.

  “Be right back,” I tell him and turn to hop in my truck. I’m not sure where I’m going, but with a bit of luck and asking around, I’m sure I can come up with something.

  I actually have a bit of a skip in my step.

  For ten years, I never knew what happened to my best friend, not knowing if she was alive or dead or how to help her if she needed me. And now, I know.