Chapter 4
Nate
I suppose technically I never asked for forgiveness. I never apologized, and I never explained to her why. Even now she might not understand, but...she looks so dejected, and I just want to help. I want to cheer her up, and there’s just this part of me that doesn’t want to leave her. Even though I know that this is not a good time. She already has enough on her hands, with her aunt’s accident, taking over the business, and now this major catastrophe that she has to get through along with an old boyfriend showing up, one she obviously doesn’t want to see, if I’m any judge, which I believe I am. No one knows Jenna like I do.
“I appreciate knowing you think it was a mistake,” she says wearily, like she’s giving up for the day. I don’t blame her. But I want to help her.
“I do. The biggest mistake of my life, and that’s not a line. I never use lines, and you know that.”
“I used to know you, but that was years ago. I don’t know what you do now,” she says airily, giving me a weary look, before she looks back at the boxes as though she’s thinking.
“You can find out. Eat with me. We’ll talk about this. Maybe there’s a solution we haven’t come up with yet. And you and I were always great at thinking of things together.”
We often talked about how opposite we were. But together we were so much better than the sum of our parts. I always felt like that with Jenna, and I didn’t realize I wouldn’t feel like that with any other girl. I tried dating in college before I came back home, and it just wasn’t the same.
“I suppose you’re not going to leave until I say yes?” she says, and I know she’s wavering.
I was always more stubborn than she was. At least about stuff like this. She is a workaholic, and I was much more likely to knock off and have fun than she was, but I could usually convince her to go along with me. In our junior year, I convinced her to skip school during finals week. That was a mistake, but we had a good time. And we got some much-needed relaxation in.
I smile at the memories.
“You can wipe that triumphant smile off your face, because I’m not saying yes,” she says, and I realize what she saw when she looked at me.
“No. Really. I was smiling at the memory of the year I talked you into skipping school during finals week.”
Her eyes widen with comprehension before a little smile tilts the corners of her mouth too.
“You borrowed your aunt’s boat,” she says, and that’s all she needs to say.
I know both of us are thinking about our day on the lake, swimming beside the boat, paddling on the inner tube, sunning ourselves on the boat, and I recall a lot of kissing as well.
I suppose it’s that last part that really makes me smile. But if I know Jenna, it’s that last part that chases the smile off her face. Because it was less than a year after that that I went to prom with Abby, and I’m pretty sure the one time we kissed that day was the one time that everyone and their mother took pictures of us and plastered them everywhere. There’s one in the yearbook for all posterity to see.
I hate that, but I can’t change it.
I never heard about Jenna dating anyone else, although I’m sure she has. She’s attractive, funny, and sweet. Just the kind of girl that any guy would go after, unless he was only looking for a good time and not for a relationship. Jenna is definitely the kind of girl that has relationship written all over her.
“Those days are long over. There is no point in bringing up old memories,” she says, her hands on her hips, her eyes on the box, as though she is trying to focus on her job now and push the memories of me aside.
I guess I don’t mind if she does, as long as she doesn’t push the actual real-life, physical me aside.
“I hear your stomach growling,” I say. “Let’s go take care of that, and then we’ll figure this out.”
“You’re paying?” she asks, looking at me with her brows raised, as though she isn’t going to consent to going out with me if she actually has to buy her own meal.
“Of course. It was my idea.” I will pay for her meal happily for now until eternity, if she’ll just realize that I made a mistake and forgive me.
“I need to go tell my aunt. Maybe she’ll have some ideas.”
“It’s okay if I come too?”
“Don’t you need to do something with your truck?” she asks.
“It’s fine there.” I will put it away, change my clothes, and come back and get her, but if she doesn’t want to wait that long, I’ll take her out in my delivery truck. I don’t care.
“How did you end up as a delivery driver anyway?” she asks as she turns and starts walking through the store, assuming that I’ll follow her. It’s so tempting to slip back into the familiar camaraderie that we used to have.
“I’ll tell you about it while we eat,” I say. Not that it’s a big, long story. But I don’t want to talk to her back, and that’s what I see now as she disappears through the door behind the counter.
I’ve never been shy, and I’m not going to allow her to walk away from me now. I follow her through, and we go down a hall and up the stairs.
I didn’t realize we were going to her aunt’s bedroom, but I assume that’s what we’re doing. Still, if she thinks I’m going to flake out, she’s wrong. If she’s going to let me, I’m going to follow her. She’s worth it.