CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Jamie – Now
Deciding I wanted to take Avi on a date was the easy part…
The challenging part? Actually making the date happen.
She’s been hard at work all week—refusing to take a night off because of her unexpected trip down to Glasgow last weekend. Her fear of failing my grandfather, or the kitchen, has had her nose to the grindstone from breakfast through dinner for eight straight days.
We’ve sought out quiet moments together—sitting on the garden swing when she takes her breaks mainly—but it’s not enough.
We’ve had more than enough time to think about things, now we just need the time to discuss them.
I’m ready to put into words the many thoughts I have in my head… and tonight I finally get to.
Not that this week’s been a complete loss.
While Avi has been busy in the kitchen, I’ve been immersed in With Love, From Skye.
It’s taking shape in a way I’ve never experienced with my writing before, the storyline and characters filling the pages with thousands of words I didn’t know were possible for me to write.
It’s nothing like I expected it to be—writing a love story—but I wonder if I should’ve listened to Avi all those years ago and given it a shot.
I might be in a very different place right now—professionally and personally.
Even after learning of the role they played in it all, I can’t regret my other books.
Those stories were the escape I needed during a time of my life when I felt dangerously unsettled.
They’re a part of my soul in a different way than this book will be.
Assuming I can get my agent on board to pitch it to the publisher.
But none of that could be further from my mind as I check my collar in the mirror.
Tonight I get to take Avi out on a real date—something I stopped imagining would happen a long time ago.
Even the downpour outside can’t dampen my spirits, but it is going to put a literal damper on my plan to walk to the high street for dinner.
In the lobby, I see Gran at the front desk talking with Freya, the town’s caffeine slinger.
I swing around the front desk and plant a kiss on the side of Gran’s head.
Her answering smile is bright and only grows wider as she takes me in.
I’m in a pair of dark jeans, cuffed at the hems above my brown leather Chelsea boots, and a dark green button-down.
“That shirt brings out your eyes,” she says. “Doesn’t it, Freya?”
Freya does a long perusal of my body that would make me blush if she wasn’t nearly eighty. “Aye, it does, and it definitely brings out your muscles too,” she says with a wink in my direction. “Hot date?”
Okay… well, now I’m definitely blushing.
“Matter of fact, yes,” I say just as Avi walks in the front door, making my heart stop.
Sweet Jesus.
Her head is braced against the rain when she steps inside and she’s focused on brushing the wet from her boots on the mat, giving me a glorious minute to absorb every inch of her.
The navy-blue dress she’s wearing fits her body like a glove from her exposed collarbone—due to the off-the-shoulder cut—to where it dips in at her waist then flares out again over her hips.
I’ve never wanted my hands on those hips more than I do right now.
Gone is her teenage-girl physique, and I don’t miss it even a little bit.
This is a woman’s body, and there has never been a body I’ve been more drawn to.
The dress hits her mid-thigh and her over-the-knee boots make my own knees want to buckle.
Fucking hell, is she trying to kill me?
She turns from the coat rack and catches me gawking, mouth open, eyes wide.
“Hi,” she says on a breathy sigh.
“Good evening, Avonlea,” Gran says, covering for my inability to speak. Her eyes twinkle and she exchanges a knowing look with Freya.
“Looks like I was indeed correct,” Freya says. “You’re smokin’ hot in those boots.”
Avi’s cheeks flush scarlet, and when she ducks her head in embarrassment, her hair falls forward to hide them.
“Alright, I think that’s enough of that,” I say, walking around the desk to greet her. With my hand on her elbow, I lean in to brush my lips against her cheek. The rush of having them against her skin is euphoric. “You ready?” I husk into her ear.
She shivers and looks up at me with those wide brown eyes I love so much. Our lips are only inches apart. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
Reaching behind her for her jacket, my fingers brush her back and she steps just slightly closer.
“Goodnight, Gran. Freya.” I shoot them a glance and Gran’s smug expression makes me want to roll my eyes.
“Goodnight, Jameson. Avonlea. Have fun.” She winks and I turn away, not needing to see the looks she’s exchanging with Freya right now or hear the words they’ll be speaking as soon as we walk out the door.
I slide Avi’s jacket into place, letting my hands linger a moment too long on the nape of her neck under her hair where she holds it aside. Then I grab my own and slip it on.
The rain has relented some, but not so much that we aren’t hustling to get to the car. I’m glad I thought ahead and brought the Land Rover around to the front of the inn so there’s no need to run through the garden to the cottage.
I jog to the passenger side—pleased with myself that I went to the correct one on instinct—and open the door for Avi. She gets in quickly and I close the door before hastily making my way behind the wheel.
As soon as the doors are closed and the sound of the rain on the roof encloses us in the space, an awareness blooms between us. She’s looking at me. I’m looking at her. The air in the car feels thin as I attempt to pull it into my lungs.
“You know, Freya was right,” I say with a wicked smile, “you are smokin’ hot in those boots.” I deepen my accent to match that of the older woman.
The girlish giggle that leaves Avi is the sweetest sound, and with it I turn the key in the ignition and drive us into town.
Soul Mio is the one little Italian restaurant on this part of the island.
I figured it would be a nice change from the pub food we’ve both become accustomed to.
My runs around the village have become much more frequent than my routine in Tahoe ever was, all to burn off the fried fish and chips, heavy meat pies, and stews.
It’s delicious, but damn.
“How’s Nox doing?” I ask from across the table, ripping a piece of bread from the chunk in the middle and dipping it into a mix of balsamic and olive oil. I ask about him in some capacity every day, but I don’t know how much is too much. I never know if I’m overstepping.
“I talked to him before I left and he said school was okay this week. He—well, he told his friends about you.” She glances up and the look on her face is… wary?
“Okay…” I say, unsure what the problem is. Honestly, I’m kind of flattered he’d want to tell his friends about me after only knowing me a week. But then I remember what he said about getting suspended. “Oh right, the fight. It was about you… and me.”
Avi’s mouth pops open. “He told you about that?” she asks.
“He did, that day on the roof.” I scrub my hand against the back of my neck.
“He told me some kid said he was an orphan because you’d left him…
like his dad.” I swallow against the bad taste the words leave in my mouth.
“I just didn’t know at the time that I was the dad in question.
God, I hate that for him.” I say the last sentence under my breath, but Avi catches it and reaches across the table to lace her fingers through mine. I hate it for me too.
“You didn’t leave him, Jamie.” Her eyes blaze and emotions war on her face. “You aren’t to blame for not being there. That’s all on me. I should have told him sooner. I should—” She squeezes her eyes shut and drops her chin.
“We don’t have to keep doing that,” I say, clutching her hand in mine, a reassurance for us both. “The ‘shoulds.’ They don’t help us move forward.”
She blows out a breath and shakes her head slightly. “I guess you’re right, they don’t.”
We order and eat our meals with easy conversation.
We talk more about her time in Paris, my books, Tahoe, even Rory.
She seems a bit sensitive to that particular subject, and though I’m glad she cares enough to be jealous, I realize I’m going to have to clarify just how much Rory is like a sister to me—that she is very happily taken by a strapping Australian.
I don’t ever want Avi to feel insecure about my friendship with Rory.
That’s a conversation for later though, as we sink further into the opportunity to catch each other up on the lives we’ve missed these last ten years.
Our fingers are interlaced once again on the drive back, resting on her thigh—her very bare thigh, which makes focusing on the road very hard for me.
It makes other things hard too. I breathe through my nose to stop my body from reacting to her, but instead, her scent fills my nostrils and it only makes it worse. Fuck.
“To the inn, or I can drop you at home and you can get your car in the morning?” I ask, wanting the opportunity to drop her off. To maybe kiss her goodnight—without the prying eyes of my grandparents or the inn’s visitors.
“Home, I think,” she says with a squeeze of her fingers in mine.
Watching her long legs stretch for the ground as I open her door, skirt hitching ever so slightly higher on her thighs, is a sweet torture. When her hand slides into mine, I clench my jaw to keep from taking what should be a wholesome kiss to end our first date to something nearly feral.
We reach the door and the glow of the porch light illuminates her hair, tumbling over her bare shoulders, her back… her breasts. Dammit. Oh, and the freckles across her face as well. She’s…
“Beautiful,” I say, pushing her hair behind one ear with my fingers, letting them brush the arch just enough to make her shiver and step into me. Her body brushes mine and every nerve ending ignites.
Her eyes drift closed, lashes fluttering against the skin that’s dappled by her freckles, and her breath quickens. Her hand comes between us and presses into my sternum, and the warmth over my heart makes me lean in, but she pushes ever so slightly.
I pause. “What is it?” I ask, searching her face.
Her eyes open and I wish I could read her mind. She takes my other hand that’s still in hers and places it over her heart. I can feel the rapid beat against my palm. “I’m scared, Jamie.”
The bravery in that statement—to tell me this—knocks the breath out of me.
She softens her voice and as she speaks I understand why. “I’ve been here before. I’ve been on this side of things.” She’s softening the blow. The blow to my heart as she lays bare the hurt I caused her. “The side where I’m not going anywhere, but you are, and I don’t know if I can do it again. I—”
“Avi.” I push her hand tighter against my chest so she can feel just how hard my own heart is beating.
I hate that I hurt her—that she has lived for eleven years believing I didn’t want her.
“I’m scared too. But walking away from you is the biggest regret of my life.
It is not a mistake I plan on repeating. Not now, not ever.”
Her eyes search mine for a moment—two—the silence between us filling with my desperate need for her to find truth in my words.
Please believe me, Avi.
Sometime in the last week I came to the conclusion that if she wanted me here, if she made space for me in her life—in her heart—I would fill it and there’d never be another place I’d rather be.
“Truth?” she asks, using our game for reassurance.
“Always,” I say, and in the next moment, her lips are on mine.