Chapter 8
chapter
eight
MAREN
I sip my drink, savoring the bitter taste as Daphne holds the final note of “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” by Shania Twain.
Daphne might own the cutest boutique on the square, but she has a voice made for the stage. She’s definitely one of our better karaoke singers. In truth, she probably could’ve made it in Nashville.
It’s a joy to listen to her, but right now, I’m not giving her the respect she deserves.
Not with my traitorous eyes drifting to the man across the room, an onslaught of memories and emotions clashing in the pit of my stomach.
My Jack and Coke travels down my throat with absurd difficulty, and the rate of the tapping of my boot on the footstool of my seat increases the longer I stare at Nate.
He’s talking to a girl.
I shouldn’t care. What he does is none of my business anymore.
But they’re standing close, and I can’t tell if it’s because it’s too loud in here or if he enjoys the smell of her perfume. Why do I care? It doesn’t matter.
After all, he’ll be doing a lot of this soon. He’s going to ride into town with his tattoos and dimpled grin and sweep the single ladies off their feet with his irresistible charm.
Which works well for me, because I don’t plan on being one of those single ladies for much longer.
I have plenty of time before Nate moves back at the end of this month to dive into a new relationship to keep me occupied. It’s the only reasonable solution to absolve myself of these stupid, unresolved feelings that plague me.
I need a future.
It’s something I’ve repeated to myself a thousand times since my chat with Dixie last weekend. It’s a similar chat I had with Addie this week too, which ended with my resolution to find a new man—stat.
With another dick to keep me busy, I’ll be less likely to go crawling back to the old one—airtight logic at its finest.
Dixie hasn’t come through with a setup yet, but it doesn’t mean I can’t make shit happen on my own. I’m totally capable of finding a man myself.
“I have to go to the bathroom!” Addie hops onto her feet. “Be right back.”
I swivel around to grab my drink off the bar and finger the straw before taking a sip. I eye the male talent in my vicinity, but so far, I’m highly unimpressed.
Another singer replaces Daphne on stage, bringing with her a slow song—the opposite of Daphne’s upbeat jam.
The woman sways to the sensual melody of a more recent country song, and the soft notes of a guitar serenade the bar.
The previously rowdy crowd lowers the volume of their chatter as they pair up for a romantic dance.
I’ve never been a huge fan of dancing, but right now, I long to join the couples out there.
“Can I buy you another?” Nate slides onto Addie’s abandoned stool next me.
I expect—and hope for—Owen to join us, but Nate is alone. With a sharp inhale, I swirl the remaining few drops of my drink in my glass. “I better not.”
He dips his head and gives me the perfect view of his profile. The sharp edges of his jaw. The shadow of an impending beard. His short, thick black hair.
His damn cologne permeates my senses like smoke through a crack in a door. It’s slow at first, but the longer he sits next to me, the more it engulfs me.
And if I’m being honest, the more it calls to me.
“Are you ever going to tell me what you think of me moving back here? About being neighbors again?” Nate angles his body to face me head-on, and my legs twitch to turn away.
His laser focus is a little much. It’s hard to think under that kind of scrutiny.
“Why does it matter what I think?” I lift a brow. “It’s not like it’s going to change your mind if I say I hate the idea.”
“Do you hate it?”
I struggle to swallow my next sip. “I’m simply curious, is all.”
“About?”
I put my drink down and turn, giving him my full attention. “Why now? Why are you moving back now, after all these years?”
He shrugs. “I always figured I’d move back here someday, and the timing works out.”
This is news to me. Once he left, I figured he’d stay gone forever. He was always one of those “I want to go where the wind blows” types of people, itching for the next adventure.
He didn’t want to be tied down here, not with so much of the world to experience.
“What does your wife think?” I blurt, and my tongue fizzles from my previous sip of Jack like the drink loosened my filter.
“Ex-wife.” He nurses his beer while his correction hangs in the air alongside the low, haunting note of the karaoke singer. “We divorced four years ago, and actually, Sabrina got re-married last month.”
My noncommittal response is lost in the shuffle of the couple next to me as they order drinks and greet their friends on the other side of the bar.
I knew all that about Nate and his ex.
Just like she informed me that Nate’s in town for the weekend, Evie’s also told me about their divorce, though she hasn’t given me details, and I’ve never asked.
Talking with the source himself about it is surreal, to say the least, but also, it twists something inside me.
Once this side of the bar quiets down again, Nate says, “Her new husband is being relocated to Spain for work for the next year, if not longer, and when we asked Teagan if she’d like to move with them, she looked us both up and down and said, ‘No, gracias. I’ll live with Daddy.
’” Nate’s chuckle is low, and the shift of his chin higher in the air is prideful.
It’s cute that he’s so enamored by fatherhood, but it’s not enough to smooth the wrinkle in his reasoning for me.
“So, this move has nothing to do with timing. You’re moving because you have to.”
His eyes widen with as much shock as I feel. Where did that come from? I shouldn’t have said anything. Just because I don’t like the prospect of my ex crowding my space, it doesn’t give me the right to butt into his personal business.
“I like to think that I’m taking advantage of what life throws at me,” he says carefully, as if he’s on camera for an inspirational commercial.
“And what if life throws you a new adventure next week? Are you going to chase it right out of here? What happens to Teagan then?”
He twists his lips. “I’m settling down, Maren. This is what’s best for my daughter and for me. We’re going to create a new life in a place that we can call home.”
“This has always been your home. It was, anyway, before life lured you out west.” I laugh, but it’s humorless—and wholly sad even to my own ears.
His lips disappear into a thin line, and a cloud of something I can’t decipher amplifies the darkness of his eyes.
Once upon a time, I could read him so easily. While so much of him is familiar, there’s a lot that I don’t recognize, and the disconnect bothers me more than it should.
“Is that why you’re getting so upset? Because I left ten years ago?” he whispers, but it hits me like a punch in the stomach, especially when he adds, “Let’s not forget the part you played in that.”
I scoff—and purposely ignore his accusation. “I have not been sitting around stewing because you left, Nathan. Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“Good. Because I haven’t.”
“I’m glad,” he clips. His gaze bores into me, like a dare. “Then what is it?”
“I just don’t believe you’re going to stay, not if it’s something you have to do.” I hop off the stool, and my knees wobble at the first point of contact with the floor like I jumped out of a second-story building. “But it’s none of my business, nor do you need my thoughts or permission on it.”
“I wasn’t looking for your permission. I was just…”
I arch a brow.
“I guess I was hoping you and I could be friends again.” Given how deep his frown is, it’s obvious he doesn’t believe that’s possible, even as he says it.
But he does say it, nonetheless, and rage fills my chest with the force of a bull released from its bay during a rodeo.
My nostrils flare—I need all the room I can get to release the pressure of every exhale. My head is about to explode.
The next singer on stage launches into “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by Charlie Daniels. There’s always someone who chooses this song.
Addie and I usually find it amusing, but I’m far from such a sentiment right now.
I need to put my foot down with Nate right now. To nip this in the bud before his asinine idea of friendship takes root and grows into something I don’t need in my life—not from him.
“We can’t be friends again,” I bite out. “It’s too late for that.”
The shadow of defeat crosses his previously animated features like a ghost, and it follows me all the way out the door.
The hint of his cologne sticks to me as I jerk my car door open and climb inside.
My words were curt and harsh, and while Nate deserves far worse from me, I can’t help the way my heart aches as I vacate the Tap’s parking lot.
Pain pours into my chest, filling an open wound like salt.
The agony only worsens as I drift through town.
I pass the park, where Nate and I once spun each other on the merry-go-round until one of us threw up. I meander through the square, where he and I would often share a sundae at Quinton’s. Then we’d make out in the alley behind it, the taste of chocolate fresh and sweet on our tongues.
This town is full of memories, but they’re no contest to the ones that flood my mind as I pull into my driveway.
These houses built us.
As Evie told Teagan last weekend, Nate and I were inseparable—until he was no longer mine to keep.
“This isn’t working, is it?”
I hear his words in my head as clear as if he spoke them to me yesterday. It’s what he’d said on the phone back then. I’d hoped he was referring to his phone’s service, but I knew he meant us.
My wilting heart knew.
I’d nearly combusted from holding back sobs until we ended the call.
I wanted to tell him the truth. That I was still considering moving to LA, but things in my life had changed so drastically. I needed to be home, for my family’s sake.
But I couldn’t tell him. Doing so would’ve derailed his life too, and I couldn’t do that to him.
And instead of fighting for me, he met another woman. He was happy with her, and they started a family together.
When I needed Nate the most, he was gone in more ways than one—on the other side of the country, with a new wife and a baby.
There was a time when I still held out hope that none of it was real. I pictured him racing back to Sapphire Creek, his breaths labored like he’d run across the entire country just for me. I’d leap into his arms, and we’d dance into the sunset together.
Back then, I was delusional—I didn’t know any better. Not like I do now.
It’s probably why I was so harsh with him. He’s moving back here, but it’s not because it’s his choice. He simply has to, and truthfully, it’s admirable the way he wants to settle down for his daughter. I respect that he wants to be present for her like that.
As someone whose own father disappeared before I took my first steps, I appreciate the hell out of his love and dedication for Teagan.
But it’s not me he’s running back to.
It’s been ten years. My dumbass fantasy of him racing across the country should’ve fizzled long ago, right alongside the exhaust fumes of his car when he pulled out of town.
I thought I was over it—and him.
I want to be over him. I wish I could forgive him and forget our history in order to be friends with him again, but the idea alone launches a riot in my stomach.
After everything Nate and I have been through, him wanting to be friends is such a slap in the face.
I’m still reeling fifteen minutes later. I’ve just entered my bedroom when my phone vibrates. I check the message at the same time that I hear Nate’s Jeep rolling into his driveway.
ADDIE
I came out of the bathroom, and you were gone. Are you okay?
Just needed some space. One too many people in there.
Next Sunday, you and I will have our own karaoke night at my house. No tattooed jerks allowed.
Bless you.
I toss my phone onto my bed, and that’s when I make a colossal mistake—I catch Nate in his own bedroom, his curtains spread wide open like an invitation, begging me to look.
I can’t stop myself, not when he yanks off his leather jacket like he’s pissed. Soon after, his T-shirt flies to the floor, and he unbuttons his pants with the same raging movements.
It would be a waste not to peruse such chiseled abs. They taper into the most delicious V hovering above the open waistband of his jeans.
So many tattoos decorate the side of his tan skin, the ink mostly black with a few splashes of color. I can’t make out the exact drawings, and disappointment crawls its way down my spine.
My racing pulse skids this way and that, my heart careening against my rib cage like a NASCAR swerving and ramming into the sides of a track.
Nate pauses the angry striptease to swipe at the corners of his lips, his jaw slowly loosening. He turns, and it could be my mind playing tricks on me, but it seems like he walks away in slow motion.
Which is when I glimpse the dimples in his lower back above his ass.
My God.
I thought the dimples in his cheeks were something special, but the ones in his back are just plain obscene.
The second he’s gone, an exhale tears from my chest. My lungs squeeze, working overtime to help my heart resume basic functioning.
Nathan McAllister has grown into a fucking god.
No matter how rational my brain is about staying away from him, my body can’t help its reaction.
I’m on fire. Everything from my head to my toes sizzles with desire for a man who isn’t even in the same room as me.
There’s so much distance between us beyond the physical measures between our houses. I shouldn’t feel him like he’s next to me. I shouldn’t be able to smell him.
I shouldn’t fucking miss him as much as I do.
But I know him too well to forget. My love for that man was too strong to pretend like it didn’t travel out west right alongside him all those years ago.
My feelings have lingered, lying dormant like a virus, but all he wants is to be friends—fucking friends.
With labored breaths, I yank my curtains closed and lean my back to the window as sweat trickles down my chest.
Pursuing a future with Nate nowhere in it—the future I desperately need—is going to be much harder than I thought.