When Sky Breaks: Burn & Break Duet Book 2

7. Sky

Chemo.A terrible word. But it’s the best option for Foster and he’s forever the optimist.

“Thanks, Doc. See you soon,” he says as he shakes Dr. Ramirez’s dainty hand. She’s rated the best in the county, and I refuse to accept anything but the most optimal care for him.

For a split second, I wonder if Johnny would have the same feelings I do about her opinion, but I brush that thought aside. There would be too much of a conflict of interest there.

“Now, before your brain goes into overdrive, how about we all go get some ice cream?” Foster suggests as we pile into his car. He refused to let Trek or me drive. Says he’s not an invalid and while I agree, I’m hard-wired to care too much and worry all the same.

“Let’s go to Frozen Delights,” Trek offers from the rear.

“But Cool Scoops is just up the street on Main,” I counter.

Trek shifts in his seat, and I hazard a glance over my shoulder at him. He’s biting a nail but gives me a wane smile. “Come on, it’s good. Let’s go to that one.”

Foster shrugs. “Okay, sure. I don’t have any other plans for the day. Really, for the next six months, actually,” he says with a grin, but I’m too focused on Trek and how he won’t meet my gaze.

I may have ignored him for five years, but I lived with him slightly longer, and I know the signs of shifty behavior. He’s hiding something.

“No, we should go to Scoops. They have your favorite flavor. Delights skimps on their chocolate.”

“Sky? For real? Come on.” Trek half whines like the immature man he’ll always be.

“It’s Dad’s choice,” I remind him, annoyance dripping from my tone.

“Wow, you two haven’t forgotten how to bicker, have you?” Foster chuckles and pats me on the knee.

I glare at Trek until he shifts to stare out the window, his mouth turned down. What is his deal?

Somehow, I win the argument, and we pull into the lot of Cool Scoops. A prickly nostalgia wraps around my throat. Maybe this is why Trek didn’t want to eat here—he knows how many moments I shared in this tiny town square. One being Snaps where August worked just a few stores down. But, if he truly had me in mind, he’d say so.

Would he, though? I’ve been incredibly successful at pushing him away, and he’s processing Foster’s diagnosis just like I am.

Time to pull up my big girl pants. It’s just ole Colonel in that camera store, anyway.

“Double fudge brownie, please,” I tell the kid behind the counter.

Foster and Trek rattle off their orders, and after I pay, I step over to fist a bunch of napkins.

“Let’s sit outside.” Foster’s already licking off a bite of strawberry ice cream that plopped on his hand.

Trek grabs a chair, the sound grating across the tiled flooring. “The inside looks good to me.”

I stare at him. “Did you suddenly develop an allergy to the sun?”

He drags his blazing blues in my direction and shoves the chair back. “Fine. After you.”

Confused, I follow a bemused father, with Trek shuffling behind me, to the fenced-in patio facing the street. The wire chairs scrape against the concrete once we sit, the material digging into my bare legs. Early September is still warm, and the dress I’m wearing rides up, my legs sticking to the metal.

“Good choice, Dad. This is so good,” I say in between licks, finally taking a moment to enjoy myself and not think about the past or the man next to me who keeps looking suspiciously down the street.

“I still think Delights would’ve been better,” Trek mumbles, and I’ve about had it with his attitude.

“Are you all right, Son?” Foster beats me to it, arching a brow as Trek slinks in his seat.

“I’m fine, just ignore me. But hurry.”

What a grump. And I thought I was the moody one.

In the spirit of people-watching, I eat my cone and check out how the town has changed. Snaps and the bookstore look the same, but a new coffee place opened where the old barber shop was. Guess Lou finally retired and sold it.

Since it’s afternoon and school’s out, teens walk the sidewalks, earbuds in their ears, faces buried in their phones. The door swings open to Snaps, and a man walks out.

My heart gutters like an overheated engine. I’d recognize him anywhere.

Goosebumps lift on my bare arms and legs as August steps from the store and onto the sidewalk. He adjusts the straps to the bag slung across his chest before pulling down a pair of sunglasses over those soft gray eyes I often stared into. His hand rakes back that dusky brown hair still hanging messily about his head and uses the other to shove his phone into the back pocket of his jeans. He still prefers ripped jeans and black T-shirts, but the form that fills them…is all man. Even his tattoos add to the illustrious hold he always had over me.

I. Can’t. Breathe.

August morphed from a lanky teen into a man built to destroy girls’ hearts. He’s taller and broader, yet his waist is trim and lean, and I remember the feel of those arms around my shoulders, now packed with muscles he didn’t have before.

He’s devastatingly beautiful and I can’t stop my sharp intake of breath nor the shaking of my hands clutching the ice cream cone. Disbelief clings to my burning lungs, my heart turning to ash. I watch as August treads from the sidewalk and walks toward a motorcycle that was at first hidden by another car. He sits astride it and turns on the engine, that familiar purr lancing through my chest.

“Sky?” Trek asks before following where my eyes remain riveted on the man I loved to hate for the last five years. “Shit,” I hear him mutter.

August reverses and speeds off in the other direction, the sound of his muffler echoing across the lot. If he saw me, he didn’t show any signs of recognition.

All I do is swallow the last remnants of my melting ice cream and pray it makes it past the lump in my throat.

Why is he here? Of all times and places, he’s back in town?

Why, why, why?

Trek stares at the side of my head until I look at him. It’s there on his face. The guilt. He knew, and that’s why he was acting weird. When will the lying end?

A raw curiosity grips me in its fierce clutches, and I can’t go back home until I know. “Hey guys, I’ll be right back. This won’t take long.”

Trek groans lightly and Foster shrugs, happy to eat his ice cream with no clue about the internal screaming fest his daughter is having. Nor the profanities I’m sending Trek through my eyes.

One foot in front of me, I stalk down the sidewalk and fling open the door to Snaps.