Take Two

  She rested her head against the seat back and smiled at the late-afternoon sunshine. Somewhere out there her guy existed, a guy who wasn’t already married. She concentrated on the road ahead and felt no shame in the way she’d prayed. God understood what she meant. She wasn’t attracted to Chase, though she still wanted to be careful around him. His wedding ring almost always stopped her from feeling an attraction toward him. But it didn’t stop her from praying that the guy she married wouldn’t be some Hollywood phony, some high-ranking executive with money and power and prestige. She wasn’t looking for that in a man, not anymore.

  She was looking for a guy like Chase Ryan.

  Twenty-One

  BAILEY WALKED INTO THE CRU MEETING and wondered if she’d see Cody. Tim wasn’t with her tonight. They’d been home from New York less than a week, and since they’d missed a day of classes, Tim didn’t want to fall behind on homework. Andi hadn’t come either. She was hanging out with Taz again.

  Bailey was about to head down the aisle to her place near the front when she spotted Cody sitting by himself in a seat near the back row. He smiled at her with his usual enthusiasm and motioned for her. Bailey felt her heart leap. His text while she was in New York had said they should hang out some time. Now at least maybe they could talk about it.

  She walked down the empty row of seats and took the one beside him. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” He stood and hesitated. Then, as if he didn’t want things to be awkward between them, he gave her a quick hug. “Where’s Tim?”

  “Studying.”

  They sat down next to each other, and the sound of his voice felt wonderful beside her. “What about you?”

  “I’m caught up. I didn’t do the spring play, so I guess I had more time.”

  They had five minutes before Cru began. Cody shifted so he could see her better. In the process, his knee brushed against hers. Bailey didn’t shift away from him.

  “I stopped by your parents’ house a few times.”

  Once a week, Bailey wanted to say, because her family shared with her each time Cody came by. But she stopped herself. Her brothers loved seeing Cody, and her dad said he’d been talking to him about coaching. She felt her smile light her eyes, the way it so easily did when she was with him. “They love when you come over. You’re part of the family.”

  “I feel that way.”

  Cody seemed uncomfortable with silence between them, so he told her about his mom, how she was doing better and staying sober. “I take her to church every weekend, and each time she’s getting a little closer to God. It’s amazing.” He chuckled. “For the first time in my life I have a mom, only now it’s more like the tables are turned and I’m the one taking care of her.”

  Bailey could picture that. Cody had walked away from alcohol and escaped a prisoner-of-war situation in Iraq. Back in the U.S., he’d learned how to walk on a prosthetic leg without any limp whatsoever. He even competed in local triathlons. Of course he could take care of his mother. He could take care of anyone.

  “So you wanna coach? That’s what my dad said.” She looked at him, let herself get lost in his eyes. Not because she wanted to have feelings for him again, but because she missed the connection between them. Missed it more than she realized.

  “Yeah, I think I’m made for it. I want to help kids and teach them football. It’s an important time in a kid’s life. Without your dad, I would’ve drunk myself to death by now. So that’s my new goal. Be a guy like your dad for some kid like me. For a hundred kids like me.”

  The picture warmed Bailey’s heart. “You’ll be wonderful at it.”

  “I hope so. It means an extra year of schooling to get my teaching credential, but I don’t mind. I’m taking a few summer classes, so I might finish early, anyway.”

  She nodded, and without meaning to she thought about Tim. The trip had changed something in Bailey. She still wanted to perform on Broadway, but the city had lost some of its glamour. Even if she won a starring role, she couldn’t picture herself living in Manhattan for long. But Tim … Tim could hardly wait to pack his bags and find an apartment.

  Her mother’s voice came to mind, something she’d said the afternoon of Bailey’s eighth-grade graduation. All the other girls had boys who liked them, but Bailey had only friends. She had wondered if maybe something was wrong with her, since none of the boys had wanted to go out with her.

  “You’re too mature for them,” her mom had told her. “They think you’re pretty, but they don’t dare say so. Because they know none of them is what you’ll be looking for someday.”

  “What’ll I be looking for when I’m ready?”

  Her mother had smiled, a knowing look warming her eyes. “For someone like your daddy.”

  Bailey had never forgotten that conversation, and along the way she could look back and realize why guys she’d had crushes on in high school had never worked out, and why a guy like Bryan Smythe from CKT would never have been a match for her. Those guys were nothing like her dad. But then, more often lately, neither was Tim.

  “What’re you thinking about?” Cody nudged his knee against hers.

  “Nothing.” She didn’t dare say. Especially not in the wake of their discussion about Cody’s coaching dreams.

  The Cru leader, Daniel, took his spot at the front of the classroom. He started by reading from Psalm 139 about how God had known them since before they were born, and how He’d knit them together inside their mothers’ bodies, and how His plans for them had been destined since before the beginning of time.

  When he finished taking questions about the Scripture passage, he moved onto the year-end events. First, they were planning a retreat on the far side of Lake Monroe. A church camp had been there for decades. A cluster of cabins and a mess hall, located in a place secluded from the rest of the lake. Perfect for time away, time to reflect.

  The weekend sounded perfect to Bailey. She listened intently as Daniel continued.

  “We’ll be there the third weekend in May. There are no classes that Friday, so we’ll have three days.” He held up an orange flyer. “The details are here.”

  Finally he told them about a mission trip to Costa Rica set for August. Cody leaned close to her. “I think I’m going. What about you?”

  Bailey wanted to go in the worst way, but she needed to talk to Tim. The two of them were planning a weekend trip to New York in June so they could audition for the opening ensemble roles. If they won parts, then the mission trip would have to wait. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Maybe.”

  “What about the lake retreat?”

  “Definitely.”

  After signing up for the May weekend and after Bailey connected with the girls in her Bible study, she and Cody walked out into the night. The week had been the warmest since winter, and now, after nine o’clock, the air still felt fairly warm.

  They walked slowly, side by side, until they came to the place where a couple of main paths intersected. “Can I walk you back to the dorm?”

  As much as Bailey worried about her heart, she was glad for his offer. She didn’t want to walk alone, but even more she didn’t want to say good night yet. Cody kept his pace slow and easy, and Bailey fell into his rhythm.

  “Okay …” Cody’s voice rang with subtle teasing. “Is this my lucky day?”

  “Your what?” She smiled at him. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because here we are hanging out, and I keep thinking if get lucky — I mean, really lucky — maybe you’ll tell me why you pulled so far away. I mean, I apologized for my stupidity in staying away from you last fall, right?”

  She stifled a giggle. “Okay. Right.”

  He made a funny face. “So maybe you think I have bubonic plague? Or maybe you’re so blinded with love for Tim you forgot I’m alive.” His eyes lit up and he pointed at her. “Or you fell and hit your head and now you have amnesia and you can’t remember where you know me from.” He shrugged. “Or if you know me.”

  She laughed
again. “Cody …” They were walking more slowly now, and once in awhile Bailey felt his arm brush against hers. She had missed this so much, this camaraderie with Cody. “You’re crazy.” She grinned at him. “I don’t think you have the plague.”

  “You saw my picture in a post office on a Most Wanted poster, and you’ve convinced yourself I’m a felon?”

  “Come on …”

  Cody was laughing now too. “Or you’ve got it in your mind that I’m not Cody Coleman at all, but some evil twin, and now you’re afraid to talk to me?”

  Bailey laughed harder, so much that she slowed to catch her breath. How long had it been since she’d felt this way? Her feelings took her back and made her long for another time. She poked her elbow at him. “You’re ridiculous.”

  “Actually …” He gradually came to a stop and faced her. “I don’t want to be too serious, Bailey, but really, for the life of me, I can’t understand it.”

  They were at a part of the path that lay out in the open, no seclusion whatsoever. Even still, Bailey felt like they were the only two people on campus. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. She’d avoided him this long, so maybe he was right. Maybe it was time she gave him an answer. “Really, Cody?” Her voice was soft, the laughter gone for her too. “You want the truth?”

  “I do.” He looked so good in his gray Colts sweatshirt and jeans. For a moment he looked like he might hug her, or touch her face. But instead he slipped his hands in his back pockets and waited. His eyes never left hers for a single second. “Why do you stay away from me? I miss you more each day.”

  “Because …” She didn’t want to cry, not now and not ever around him. But her heart didn’t know the rules, and tears built up anyway. “I know you’re sorry. But you cut me out of your life for nearly three months. Like you didn’t care at all, and something happened to me during that time.” She raised the zipper on her sweater, but the extra warmth didn’t touch the chill inside her.

  “What?” He studied her eyes, her expression. “What happened, Bailey?”

  A hot tear slid down her cheek, and she caught it with her shoulder. “It’s like I told you before. I still can’t trust you. I almost deleted your texts last week too.”

  He couldn’t have looked more hurt if she’d told him she’d forgotten his name. “Then you don’t understand me at all.”

  “Of course I do. When you came back from war you told me you weren’t interested in me as more than a friend. You wanted me to date Tim Reed, and that’s what I’m doing.” She wished she sounded more enthusiastic about the fact. “But you promised me I’d at least have your friendship. Only then …” Another tear fell. “Then school started and you started going after my roommate.” Her voice was slightly louder than before. “How did you think I was going to take that?”

  He exhaled hard and rubbed the back of his neck. Without saying anything, he turned and stared at the empty campus lawn. After a few seconds he looked at her again, his eyes full of a hurt deeper than any she’d seen in him before. “You really think I could replace you with Andi Ellison?” The sound that came from him was more a frustrated cry than a laugh. “She’s nothing like you.”

  “But that’s what you did.” Bailey pressed her knuckles beneath her eyes and willed herself to find control. “You became her friend instead of mine.”

  “Because you had Tim.”

  “Of course I had Tim.” She caught her voice this time, and dropped it to a frustrated whisper. “You wanted me to. Wasn’t that what you said? He had more in common with me, and he was better for me. All to distract me from the real issue. Why you weren’t interested. But I didn’t think you’d turn your back on me.”

  He looked completely defeated, and for a long time he only stared at her. Then finally he allowed a sad laugh and a shake of his head. “You’ll never understand. You were already with Tim when I came home. You were happy, I could see that. It wouldn’t have been cool to call you and text you all the time when you already had Tim.”

  She wanted to tell him that they weren’t all that serious, even now, and that Tim’s dreams were starting to feel very different from hers. But that would feel like a betrayal to Tim. She loved Tim, and however long they stayed together, she could never talk bad about him behind his back. Not now or ever. He’d done nothing to deserve that.

  Instead she swallowed hard and lifted her eyes to the trees up ahead. New leaves showed on their branches, proof that once more winter wouldn’t have the final say.

  “Tim and I are still serious.” She gave him a conflicted look. “So why the effort these past few months, Cody? Why the texting and calling?”

  “Because God made it clear to me that I was an idiot. I never should’ve backed off just because of Tim. I wasn’t a threat to him, and by backing off I only confused you.” He looked intently at her, past the surface and straight to her soul. “I never stopped thinking about you.”

  “So that’s it, huh? You want to be my friend.”

  “Exactly.” His eyes gradually took on the light they’d lost in the heat of their discussion. “Because really, Bailey, I don’t have the plague. I promise you.”

  Her cheeks were dry, and she laughed even though she hadn’t intended to. Maybe things hadn’t changed as much between them as she’d thought. Not if he could still make her laugh at will. “Brat.” She kicked at his feet, then paused for a long while, lost in his eyes. “So you’re saying I can trust you this time, that you’ll be a real friend.”

  “As long as Tim doesn’t care.”

  “He doesn’t.” Her answer came quickly. “He trusts me.”

  The joy in Cody’s eyes was enough to make her laugh again, and once she started, he joined in. “You’re not worried I’m an evil twin?”

  “A little. But I’ll stop erasing your messages.” They started walking once more and she felt her eyes dance as she gave him a side glance. “How would that be?”

  “Wow. I feel like the luckiest guy on campus.” He leaned his head back and shouted. “Bailey Flanigan’s going to stop deleting my messages!” He took a long breath and grinned at her. “Definitely the luckiest guy.”

  She kept laughing. “Shhh. People will wonder.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not always a bad thing.” His laugh fell to a quiet chuckle. They were almost back at her dorm. “Now here’s what’ll happen. You’ll go into your dorm and put away your backpack and before you can even think about washing your face you’ll get a text message.” He held out his elbow and touched it lightly to hers. “It’ll be from me, and then … instead of erasing it or ignoring it or banning it from your phone the way you’re used to doing, you’ll sit down on the edge of your bed and text me back.”

  They were at her dorm now, and they stopped at the bottom of the steps. “That’s what’s going to happen?”

  “Yes.” His eyes glimmered. “Okay?”

  “Mm-hmm.” She lowered her chin, feeling a little sheepish. “I guess I’ve been sort of rude.”

  “No, no.” He punctuated the night air with his forefinger. “The plague can be very contagious, and you had to look out for your health.”

  She allowed herself to get serious one more time. “Not for my health. For my heart. In my book, friends don’t just stop talking to each other.”

  A long breath slid between his lips. “I know. It was my fault. I’m asking you again to forgive me, Bailey. So we can try one more time.”

  “Okay.” Her heart hung on every word he said. “I forgive you.” They were standing so close she could feel the warmth from his body. “And I need you to forgive me too.”

  He tapped his foot against hers. “For what?”

  “For not talking about this with you sooner.”

  This time they needed no words. Slowly Cody wrapped his arms around her. The hug lasted a long time, and Bailey wished it would’ve gone on longer. Because against all the odds, she and Cody had finally done the impossible.

  They’d found their way back to each oth
er.

  They whispered good-byes, and when Bailey was inside her dorm, before she had time to wash her face, her phone alerted her to a text message. She smiled and picked it up.

  I’M TRYING TO FEEL THE GROUND BENEATH ME, BUT IT ISN’T EASY.

  Bailey grinned and texted back her answer. ME TOO.

  ACTUALLY, I’M THANKING GOD WITH EVERY STEP BECAUSE I WASN’T SURE WE’D EVER HAVE THIS AGAIN, AND NOW WE DO.

  MORE THAN THAT, she tapped out her response, WE ALWAYS WILL.

  It was the one thought that kept her company as she fell asleep. She and Cody had found their way back to each other, back to the friendship they’d almost lost. No matter what Andi was out doing tonight, or how her feelings for Tim were shifting, that was all that mattered.

  She had Cody again, and all was right with the world.

  Twenty-Two

  ANDI WAS GLAD THE SPRING SHOW WAS OVER. She’d received much praise for her role as Maid Marian, but deep inside she knew she could’ve done better. Her focus was off — the way it had been off since she and Taz began spending time together. For the past month, ever since they’d shot the first scenes of Taz’s movie, the two of them had been nearly inseparable. When they weren’t together, they were texting or talking on the phone.

  Taz told her she was his kindred spirit, his soul mate. In the past words like that would’ve seemed cliché or trite, but with Taz they took on new meaning, the way all of life did with him.

  “What is it with this Taz guy?” Bailey asked every few days. “Come on, Andi. Be honest.”

  But Andi would only smile and shrug. “He’s nice. We’re not dating or anything.” She was telling the truth, even if she was purposefully evasive. “Just getting to know each other.”

  Even so, Taz had become an obsession. Andi was grateful she was a strong student and that her grades hadn’t suffered. Because when she wasn’t in class, she was all about Taz.