Free Come Back To Me by Melissa Foster Page A

concerned. “Do you think she really believes it, or she just doesn’t want to talk about it?”
    Kevin leaned back in his chair shaking his head. His voice grew louder, “Nope. She believes it. She still checks Skype every night—or at least she was still doing it a few weeks ago.”
    “Really?” That surprised Alice.
    “Yup, and when I tried to talk to her about that, she laughed at me, like I was the crazy one.”
    Alice immediately stood up for Tess, “I don’t think she’s crazy, Kevin. Maybe she’s depressed, or in denial, but not crazy.”
    “That’s just it, Alice. She’s going through her days like there’s nothing wrong, but she won’t even let us have a memorial service for him. That’s why I stopped going over. I need that. I need closure. He was my best friend for God’s sake.” He stared at her.
    She looked down. Normal people knew how to comfort others. All she could do was push through the discomfort. “I know,” she said awkwardly. “There’s got to be something we can do. We can’t just turn our backs on her. This is seriously wrong. I mean, Beau’s gone. He’s not coming back, and she’s causing conflicts with his parents, and now you.” Alice shook her head.
    “I talked to Carol and Robert. They called me this morning. They’re going to hold a memorial anyway, and if Tess doesn’t want to be part of it, then so be it.”
    Conflicting emotions beleaguered Alice—guilt for knowing about the memorial and feeling as though it was the right thing to do, and heartbreak for recognizing that it went against Tess’s wishes.
     “Can you talk any sense into her?” Kevin asked.
    “I have to admit, I kind of tippy toe around the topic myself. I didn’t realize that she really thought he was alive. I figured she was just having, you know, a hard time with it.”
     
    A few drinks and two hours later, they laughed about Kevin and Beau’s hunting trips—Kevin with his bow and arrow (he had yet to actually kill any animals), and Beau with his camera, hunting his prey.
    “There’s this one raccoon by my grandfather’s hunting cabin. It gets into the trash every time we’re there. I swear I’ve been trying to kill the damn thing for five years, and Beau’s been trying to capture it on film.” He laughed at the memory. Kevin told Alice that Beau had always seemed to him like an old married man, even when he was single. Marrying Tess had brought a certain contentedness to Beau that Kevin had secretly envied. He’d had a hard time committing to the movies, much less a lifetime.
    Kevin swigged his fourth beer. What was that sexy scent she was wearing? “So, Al, what’s really up with you?” His inhibitions were nowhere to be found.
    Alice sucked down the last of her third (or was it her fourth?) drink and waved to the waitress for another. “Whaddaya mean?” she asked. If she wasn’t mistaken, her words sounded almost flirtatious. Her body was numb, and it felt damned good to let go for a while.
    “C’mon. You know what I mean.” Kevin laughed, “Men, guys, doing the nasty.” There was that scent again . He tucked his heightened sexual impulses away.
    Alice feigned insult, pulling back from the table, her eyes wide.
    “I’ve known you for what…forever? And I’ve never seen you with a dude.” Kevin’s head rocked to the beat of the bad rap song playing loudly in the background.
    “Date? I date.” She leaned over the table. “I date guys, I mean.”
    “Well, I didn’t think you dated chicks!”
    They fell into fits of drunken laughter.
    “Maybe I do! How would you know?” she quipped.
    “That’d be cool, too. Maybe I could watch,” he roared.
    Alice grinned.
     
    Tess hesitated by the bed, thinking of Beau. She’d been such a mess earlier, with Alice, she’d felt as though she were on an emotional roller coaster. Even the bike ride she’d taken to clear her mind hadn’t helped. She touched Beau’s side of the bed, lingering in thought, then made her