Return To You: A Small Town, Second Chance Romance

11. Grace

eleven

Igather my things and follow Tracy and Ethan from afar, planning on dashing to my car to avoid any awkward goodbyes. The plan of having coffee with Ethan went out the door real fast tonight. Because the truth is, there’s no way talking things through with Ethan will help put anything behind me.

The only way forward for me is to leave him where he belongs: in the past. Not to pretend he wasn’t anything to me, or that we could be friends.

Lying to myself is never a good idea.

A car door slams, and then another.

And then voices, carried through the still summer night.

“Ethan! Ohmygod, Ethan!” This comes from a sultry female voice.

“Annie?” Ethan’s deep voice answers.

“It’s me, Amy!” Laughter this time, light and playful, coming from her.

Amy Keller.My blood runs cold. Amy Keller was Ethan’s girlfriend at some point, and to say that I hated her at the time is an understatement. My physical reaction to her now underlines truth number one that I’m finally accepting. Ethan meant something to me, and that part of my past still affects me.

All the more reason to stay away from it.

“Hey!” Ethan’s deep voice echoes. Silence, then lower, “It’s good to see you.”

I stop in my tracks. I can’t walk in on them. I hold my breath.

“Same here, big boy.” Under the merciless moonlight, I see her shapely arms wrap around Ethan in a full-body hug. He lets go of her, but she keeps one hand on his shoulder, the other on his chest, her head tilted back to take him all in.

My heart is thumping so hard, I can’t hear myself think. They talk but I don’t know what they’re saying. Her melodious voice mixes with his raspy bass. I don’t want to know what they’re saying.

Oh god, please get me out of here.

I take a deep breath and announce my presence by stomping to the parking area, pretending I’m seeing them just now.

“Good night,” I say as I pass them.

“Grace, hold on a sec!” Ethan says.

I have no choice but to stop and look at him. At them. “Hey, Amy.”

He steps back, away from her, and she looks between us, mouth slightly agape.

“Of course you’re together now. How cute.”

“Oh no, we’re not together,” I say as it’s the most outlandish idea ever. Why would she think that?

“Really?” she frowns, but still backs away from Ethan, plunging her hands in the pockets of her tight jeans. “Well, I’m back for good now. Can you believe it? We should catch up.” Her eyes are on Ethan the whole time.

Amy Keller and Ethan King catching up is not something I need to witness. Even if I know there’s nothing between them, and probably was very little any way back in the day, jealousy is rearing its ugly head and I need to smack it away right now. “’Night,” I say with a small wave.

“Grace, hold up. I need to give you something.” Ethan’s commanding voice stops me, and I can’t help but look, look at their bodies so close, at the way she claims him with her eyes, with a hand back on his arm.

Ethan steps away from her, his gaze drilling into me.

Amy squeezes Ethan’s arm. “I’ll be at the Growler tonight.”

He looks down at her hand on his arm like he can’t wait to flick it away. “Okay.”

“See you there?”

“Probably not.”

Even if his last words warm me, my whole being reels. Why can’t I be more like her? Grabbing what I want? Going for it? Enjoying the little time we have together without a care for the future? I bet you I could be in his arms, right now, if I wanted.

I used to be that girl.

She glances at the passenger door, where Tracy is oblivious to her, headphones on, the silver glare of her screen lighting her face. “I hope you change your mind,” she purrs. Her gaze travels around the parking space, glides over me, and stops on his motorcycle. “Ohmygod, is this yours?” She steps away from him, sashays to his bike, caresses the saddle, then whips around and strikes a suggestive pose. “Give me a ride?”

He glances toward the car where Tracy is waiting. “Not today.”

She crosses her arms and walks to her car. Then turns around and says, “Growler, tonight. Yeah?”

“Doubt it.”

She winks at him. “Can’t wait.”

Then she’s gone and I can’t help myself. “That should be fun.” I hate the snarkiness in my tone. The pinch in my underbelly.

“What?”

“A night on the town with Amy Keller.”

He huffs. “Right.”

“Seriously, why not?”

“Not my idea of fun.”

“She seems to still have feelings for you.”

Disbelief paints his features. “Not my idea of feelings either.” He lowers his gaze on me, a question in his eyes. Then it comes. He says it. “I really need to talk to you. About what happened back then. Between us. I need to understand.”

Those few years come back to me in a whirlwind. The way he let me take his mouth the first time I kissed him in the church basement at youth night. How he didn’t push me back right away, rather let me taste him. How his hands fell on my hips naturally. How his heartbeat was so strong I could feel it, and that’s how I knew he loved me, even when he said, “I’m too old for you, Grace,” and he gently broke the kiss. The way he said it, the way he acted, I knew—I thought I knew—he was just asking me for more time.

And two years later, there we were. He took control of our second first kiss, opened me to new sensations, sensations I had no idea could be so much better than in my fantasies. The way he later caressed my breasts, and teased the tips, and lowered his mouth to them, and trailed wet kisses down my navel, and unbuttoned my jeans, and the way his fingers felt oh so much better than mine and how was that even possible? I thought I knew how to pleasure myself, but my god—Ethan? Ethan created wants I didn’t know I had, and he assuaged them and then created others and teased me endlessly until I begged and he growled and he let me come on his fingers, on his mouth, against his crotch.

Beyond and way deeper than that, he was my hero in so many ways. Standing up for my brother when he was being bullied. Helping his father on the farm from dusk to dawn. Volunteering for every cause Emerald Creek stood up for. And still making me feel like I was the most important thing in his life. Telling me as much.

“It’s so long ago, I don’t even remember any of it,” I say.

“Really.”

I scoff. “Ethan. We were kids, just fooling around. I mean—yeah, really.”

He stays silent for a beat. “That’s all it was to you?”

What am I supposed to say or do now? Getting closure means revisiting painful events I haven’t thought about in years. It means reopening old wounds.

Why would I do that?

It was ten years ago. Ten years!

I need to live in the present so I can build my future. I need to be grounded.

Accept the past, enjoy the present, and embrace the future. That’s all there is to it.

I won’t get closure by revisiting the past. I’ll get closure by walking away and never looking back, and that’s what I’ve been doing. Been doing it with things more painful than my first heartbreak, and it works perfectly fine.

And if I need to lie to Ethan to protect myself, then I’ll lie.

It’s best for him too.

“Of course it’s all it was. You know it.”

“Right,” he mumbles and turns away. His shoulders are hunched, and his stride powerful. I want to run after him. Tell him I’m full of shit. Tell him I still love him and it’s killing me.

But that’s the whole thing, right? I’m still in love with a shadow from the past—that’s what’s killing me.

So I’m doing the right thing by walking away. I’m looking out for myself. Which is what I need to do.

My vision blurred, I watch Ethan straddle his bike and disappear in a cloud of dirt, his red light dimming behind the branches, until there’s nothing left of him.

Then I get in my car, wait for my heartbeat to slow down, wipe my tears, and drive home to Damian.

He’s locked himself in the closet again, and this time I nearly lose it trying to pry the damn door open. But instead of giving into the temptation of a self-pity party—because, really, nothing is going right—I do the one, easy thing I can do to fix one thing in my life. I call Lucas and Thalia to have them send someone asap. I tell them where I hide the spare key, knowing I can trust them.

When my phone dings with messages from the girls, I don’t even have the strength to check what they want. I put my phone on silent.

I can barely stand myself right now. I’d be a shit friend.