The River House. Carla Neggers

      She glanced back at him, slouched against the doorjamb. “Maybe I didn’t consider you at all,” she said lightly. “It’s a little stuffy in here. Feel free to open the windows.”

      He stood straight. “I can make up the bed.”

      “I don’t mind. You’re my first company. It’ll be good practice.”

      She didn’t need to tell him that the guest room shared a bathroom with the house’s third bedroom, which she used as her office—when she wasn’t working in the living room, out on the deck or in the town library. The master bedroom had its own bathroom. Mercifully, Felicity thought.

      He stepped into the room and peered out a window. “The trees are bigger now. Mark and I planted the apple tree out front when we were in high school. We promised each other we’d be out of here before it was big enough to climb.”

      “And now it is,” Felicity said.

      “The apples will be ripe soon. My mother talked about making pie with apples from that tree, once it was big enough. She didn’t get that chance, but she liked coming out here when she was sick.”

      “I remember.” Felicity could see it wasn’t a subject he wanted to pursue. She pointed at the single blanket on her stack of linens. “There are more blankets in the closet. I’ve never lived anywhere but New England. I have lots of blankets.”

      “It’s the humidity that gets to me compared to Southern California.” He drew away from the window. “I’ll take a walk. Don’t let me keep you from anything.”

      “No problem.”

      “And, really, leave the bed to me—I still know how to make up a bed.”

      But he didn’t, she realized. He had household help. She didn’t. Every chore at her house had her name on it. “Enjoy your walk.”

      “I will, thanks.”

      He headed back down the hall. Felicity heard the front door open and shut. She made up the bed, fluffed the pillows and checked the towels and basic supplies in the bathroom. All set for a guest, if not for one accustomed to five-star accommodations. But he’d known what to expect. He’d been here before. He’d been a part owner of the place.

      She went into the kitchen and pulled open her baking cupboard. She scanned the shelves and saw she had the ingredients for brownies. She could have taken some of Maggie’s brownies home with her, but she’d been thinking of her waistline, not Gabe showing up in her driveway. She grabbed the ingredients she needed—flour, sugar, baking chocolate, vanilla—and set them on the counter, then collected eggs and butter from the refrigerator. She got out a bowl, measuring spoons and cups, turned on the oven to preheat and went to work.

      She hadn’t really made brownies that February morning. She didn’t know why she’d lied, probably just an impulse after the shock of seeing him. What did the truth matter, anyway? She hadn’t stuck around that morning, but she hadn’t acted out of spite about the brownies. If she’d taken the time to make brownies, she could have cooled off, vacated the premises for the evening and come back for more pizza deliveries and Judge Judy. She’d have prolonged the inevitable, and so she’d skipped the brownies and left.

      When she’d knocked on Gabe’s door after losing her latest job as a financial analyst, she hadn’t expected to stay for more than a day or two. She’d been broke, in debt, kicked out of her apartment, desperate not to go crawling to her parents for help. She’d turned to Gabe, then living in the smaller of two apartments in a house he owned on the Charles River in Watertown, just outside Boston. They’d known each other since nursery school. He’d taken her in, but he hadn’t been that excited to see her. “Again, Felicity? Wasn’t this job supposed to last three years?”

      “It didn’t.”

      “Did you quit or get fired?”

      “I was outsourced.”

      “Fired, then.”

      He’d let her sleep on his couch and take as many hot showers as she’d wanted. It had been winter. The showers helped with her perpetually cold feet. After five days of putting up with her camped out in his living room, he’d read her the riot act. It couldn’t have been more than an hour before he’d written his fateful note. Maybe he’d already had it written, because he’d started his speech while she’d been getting out of the shower.

      “You need a career change,” he’d told her. “You’re a lousy financial analyst.”

      “How would you know? You quit college. I have an MBA.”

      “Your MBA isn’t doing you any good, is it? You get jobs, but you don’t keep them. Why is that?”

      “Bad luck.”

      “Bad career choice. Do something else. You’re hacking away in the wrong jungle.”

      She’d been incensed. How could he be so blunt? How could he not get how terrible she felt about herself?

      She’d shouted through the bathroom door about his lousy people skills.

      He hadn’t responded, and she’d stared at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She’d seen the truth of what he said in the dark circles under her eyes, the lines of fatigue at her mouth, the puffiness of her skin. Brown hair dripping, eyes somewhat bloodshot from too much television and last night’s bottle of wine, full lips, high cheeks, a strong chin. In high school, Gabe had said she reminded him of Maureen O’Hara in The Quiet Man. Felicity had taken that to mean he’d wanted to spank her and told him as much, thinking it was funny—but he’d found it sexy, provocative.

      She’d loved Gabe Flanagan then, as a teenager, before college and graduate school. Her first jobs after getting her degrees hadn’t worked out, but she’d had high hopes when she’d landed a job at a large insurance firm in Boston’s financial district. She hadn’t known many people in Boston, and she’d been so busy keeping her nose above water, scrambling to learn the job, that she hadn’t made many new friends. Certainly none who would take her in after she’d been fired.

      There’d been Gabe, and she’d landed on his doorstep with her weekender bag in hand, explaining she needed a couple of days to regroup. She’d rented a house with two other women, but they had a friend willing to take her room, since she could no longer afford it. Gabe hadn’t asked for details. He was successful and hard-driving and impatient, and he could read between the lines and didn’t need her to spell out how broke she was.

      She’d been making wrong choice after wrong choice. But it hadn’t seemed that way. It’d seemed—she’d truly believed—she just needed the right fit, the right job. She just had to tough it out. Persevere. She wasn’t a quitter, she’d told herself—and Gabe. But that had been part of the problem. She’d needed to quit. He’d pointed out he’d started businesses that failed. He’d made mistakes. “I learned from my failures. That’s the trick, Felicity. Acknowledging your failures and learning from them.”

      In all the years she’d known him, she’d never let Gabe see her cry. Even when he’d broken her heart that summer after high school, she hadn’t let him see her melt down. It wasn’t as if it had been unexpected. That’s what Gabe Flanagan did in high school. He broke girls’ hearts. Everyone knew.

      Still, they’d been there for each other through high school, college, their first jobs, various ups and downs. They’d go weeks without speaking, texting or emailing, and then she’d call him to tell him she’d just burned her mouth on a hot pepper or he’d send her a silly puppy video off the internet at 2:00 a.m.

      She’d known their friendship had needed to change. They were proper adults. Gabe needed to be free to get on with his life. He’d sell his place and move into something grander, more expensive. He’d meet other up-and-coming, hard-driving entrepreneurs. People who got him. People he got. He’d come to rely on her, the hometown girl, to be there when he didn’t have time or want to take time to socialize. She was easy,