Page 14 of The Perfect Heart

Chapter 7

Halle

THE CAR RIDE HOME WAS quiet, and I didn’t think it was because we were full and drowsy. I hadn’t eaten very much, anyway. Nash’s question about my husband and the state of our relationship had dissolved my appetite, and even though I had ordered food—Nash’s warning about ordering more for me ringing in my ears—it tasted like sand on my tongue.

I had shut Nash down and knew he hadn’t been happy about it. I’d seen the way his eyes had narrowed and flashed before he caught himself and schooled his features. But that hadn’t erased the tension in his jaw or his shoulders or the way the fingers of one hand drummed on the tabletop as he looked through the menu. It was his tell, one that I recognized easily, his inner turmoil turned physical.

The rest of the evening had been pleasant enough, if a bit stilted, as we stuck to safer subjects: what old classmates were up to, town gossip, things that had changed, and others that remained the same. But Nash had remained slightly edgy, his laugh a little too brittle, his smile lacking its usual easy warmth. It wasn’t anything detectable, nothing someone at another table would have seen. But though Nash and I were no longer as close as we had been, I could still read him, could sense his unhappiness, maybe annoyance, or frustration.

I hadn’t meant to ruin the night, but the last thing I wanted to do was talk about my relationship and what had brought me back to Leavenworth, though I knew he wanted to because he was worried about me.

Sure, a part of it was just Nash. He had always been the one to take care of people, and that hadn’t changed with the ownership of his bar. He checked in on all his employees, regardless of gender, cared for them, and ensured they ate and stayed safe.

But Nash was in danger of hovering. His check-ins were too frequent, his insistence too insistent, his questions too close to home. At times, I found him leaning against the doorway separating the front of the house from the back, his eyes on me until I caught him, and he turned away. It was at odds with his usual laid-back demeanor, and people were starting to take notice if Nicole’s continued hostility was any indication.

Knowing Nash as I did, at least as I had, his actions meant he suspected something was up. And how could he not? I had given him exactly two clues: that I had left my husband and come back home. That had been it. Our friendship might have lapsed, but from how he reacted the night I came into the bar, checking to see if I was okay, giving me the hug I so desperately needed, instantly offering me the job, there was still some kind of affection there. Maybe loyalty.

What I didn’t know was whether the care was genuine or simply loyalty to what we had been. What we’d had. What I had let crumble to ruins.

At one time, Nash and I had been close. Closer than close—he had been my best friend, my confidant, my safe place. When the outside world was too much, I had known I could find solace and safety with him. He had been the best listener, my champion when and if I needed one, my biggest cheerleader outside of my own mother.

But that had been a long time ago, and we hadn’t exchanged a single word before that night two weeks ago when I walked into his bar. Now, I didn’t know how to share my secrets with him. It had been awkward between us, as though we wanted to go back to the friends we had been but didn’t know how because we weren’t anymore, moving around each other in this odd dance that was both familiar and foreign at the same time.

Or maybe I was afraid to tell him the real reason I had moved back to town, the real reason I had run that night, that leaving my husband simplified a terribly complicated situation. Whenever I thought about telling him, whenever the words jumped to my lips, I pictured the judgment, the disgust in his eyes, the way his mouth would twist into something akin to distaste. I hadn’t realized how much I still valued his opinion out of anyone I knew until the thought of that expression made my stomach twist.

I didn’t want him to know what a mistake I had made, what a fool I had been.

Turning my head away from my thoughts to look out the window, I watched the lights of the town go by, my breath making rounded puffs of moisture on the frozen glass, there for one heartbeat and gone the next. The sun had gone down, but people still walked by on the sidewalk, sledding down the hill in the park and stepping in and out of brightly lit shops.

It was an odd dichotomy between where I had been and where I was now. From the largest city on the West Coast to one of the smallest, from a glowing metropolis that never went to sleep to a town brought to life by tourists and Christmas lights. The atmospheres were so entirely different, diametrically opposed.

And yet, what I had once chafed against, the small-town life that became dark silence after the shops closed, had somehow become a sanctuary to me, its people comfortable and known. What had once been my dream, my paradise, had become dark and ominous in my memory.

So, too, had Nash become something more, the beacon of light and safety I had sought as soon as the bus had let me off at the station.

I closed my eyes, the bright lights shifting behind my eyelids.

All I wanted to do was forget the past years, pretend they had never happened. But I knew the people closest to me, the ones left, wouldn’t let it go without an explanation. Maybe someday I’d have one for them.

But that day wasn’t now.

“Hey, are you okay?”

My eyes fluttered open to see Nash flicking concerned glances between the road and me.

“Is something wrong? Is the food not sitting well?”

I straightened, the residual sensation of the frigid glass a buzz on my cheek. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

Lies, half-truths, kept tripping off my tongue like laughter used to. Not that I wasn’t tired—I still wasn’t sleeping well—but I couldn’t describe my feelings. I couldn’t tell him.

I could barely tell myself.

Nash flicked a final concerned grimace my way but didn’t say anything else until we had pulled up to the old garage with my apartment over it. Out of habit, I looked up, searching the windows and the snow I could see. No footprints besides the ones I had made that morning disturbed the powder, and no shadow walked past the light I had left on for just that reason.

“I had a nice time tonight.”

My gaze slid from the apartment to Nash, who had unbuckled his seatbelt so he could turn to me.