Chapter 17
chapter
seventeen
MAREN
The sun shining through the open blinds nudges me halfway awake.
Nate’s arm hangs over my bare chest from where he’s pressed against my back, comforting and strong.
My hand dangles off the couch, and I shake it loose. The numbness slowly fades as I shift on the couch cushions, and snippets of last night roll through my mind.
Confessions interrupted with kisses.
Pauses filled with heated touches.
At one point, Nate coaxed me awake with a hand between my legs—and I was embarrassingly ready for more of him. With half-lidded, dusky eyes, he laid me back, hiked one of my legs over his shoulder, and hooked the other around his thigh. He gripped his thick length by the tip and started slow.
I held on to the armrest above my head as the delicious sting of him stretching me launched a parade of sensations throughout my body.
My heart had never beat so quickly. So hard. So crazy.
It escalated from there when he drilled into me at a sideways angle that felt so damn good I came in record time—twice.
When I shuddered underneath him, Nate licked his lips like he felt my explosion of pleasure as his own.
As I rode the second wave of sexual bliss, he placed a surprisingly tender kiss on my calf, then thrusted far more deeply inside me at an ungodly pace like a deprived man on ecstasy.
I dreamt of the way he pulsed inside me.
My subconscious replayed it all night in a marathon of filthy satisfaction.
It was a position we’d never tried before, and it was yet another reminder of all the ways we’ve changed.
Maybe last night was a way for us to start over. To leave the past where it belongs—behind us—and move forward, together as new, more evolved people.
Hope blooms in my chest… until the slam of a car door, followed by muffled giggles, yanks me from my deep slumber.
I bolt upright, bumping the back of my head against Nate’s chin in the process.
“Ow.” He groans.
And the sound of giggles grows louder.
“Wake up. Wake up!” I whisper-scream. “Someone’s here.”
“Shit.” He throws the blanket off us.
My hands fly to my bare chest. “Oh my God,” I chant, frantically searching for my clothes. I snatch up one article at a time, like building blocks until I have one whole outfit.
Wonder Woman’s outfit, nonetheless. Shit!
When the key squeaks in the lock, I have half a mind to simply race out the back door with my ass as naked as the day I was born, but our nosey neighbor is likely on her morning walk—I can’t risk the attention.
“You can change in the bathroom,” I hear from behind me.
“Then what? I can’t let them know I spent the night here, which will be obvious with one look at me!” I gape and nearly dislocate my shoulder in order to throw the spandex top on. I don’t bother to pull it all the way down, and I wear it instead like a strapless bra.
“Right—that would be hard to explain.” Nate mutters a curse and frowns. “How are you going to get out of here without being seen?”
“Just like I used to.” I snort, feeling eighteen again. How many times did I sneak in and out of here after curfew? Probably as many times as Nate snuck out of my bedroom too.
A squeal interrupts my mad dash to cover up, and I jump back, convinced we’ve been caught. But much to my relief, the living room still holds only Nate and me—and what we did last night.
“A ladybug!” Teagan’s voice carries toward us from the porch. “Did you know they bring good luck, happiness, and love?”
“Some cultures even make wishes when they find one.” This comes from Evie’s unmistakable voice.
“I know what I’m going to wish for,” Teagan chirps.
I’ve broken into a sweat by the time I force the skintight leather skirt of my costume up my thighs, stuff my thong into my makeshift bra, and fish my boots out from under the couch.
“I want to see you later.” Nate reaches for me and catches my hand as he peers into my eyes like the seconds aren’t chasing us at all.
But with him looking at me like that, time truly does stop.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear the front door shut, but it sounds far, far away.
I cup his cheek and kiss him. “Call me.”
He doesn’t let me leave before placing a tender kiss to the inside of my palm, which reminds me of the one he gave my calf in the middle of the night, his hooded gaze glowing in the lamplight.
With heat sizzling throughout my bloodstream, I flee through the other side of the living room, opposite the voices filtering down the hall, and I enter the kitchen, round the breakfast table, and exit through the back door.
With my boots tucked under one arm, I take great care to shut the door behind me as quietly as possible.
Then I hop off the back deck onto the patch of grass, expertly avoiding the gravel path that leads to a fire pit. This is a newer addition by the McAllisters, so this part of my escape isn’t as familiar or practiced as the rest.
I race right to the loose board in our shared fence and slip through, officially home free.
But instead of hurrying into the house, I lean the back of my head against the fence, dig my toes farther into the grass, and close my eyes, appreciating the crisp chill of the morning.
I rarely enjoy such a luxury, not with running Cream and Sugar. I’m usually at work before the sun rises, and even though the park is right next to my truck, I never get to feel the earth on my skin.
Thankfully, Tonya was adamant about opening for me today since she had no plans of attending the Halloween party. Evidently, she despises the “sorry excuse for a holiday” and never partakes in its festivities.
Her loss. My gain.
The breeze sweeps across my flushed cheeks, the birds chirp and swoop in shapes of figure eights, and I smile.
Nate’s addictive taste lingers on my lips.
His scent hovers over my skin.
The phantom scorch marks from his heated touches cover me from head to toe.
I don’t know how long I stand here, dazed and delirious, but a car engine whirring to life from the other side of my house jars me from my trance.
With a dopey smile plastered on my face, I float through my yard, fish the key from my belt bag, and let myself into the back door.
That’s when déjà vu slams into me like I’ve been hit by a car.
The kitchen is the exact same as it was when Mama was still with us. The cushions tied around the old wooden chairs are faded and worn, not from all the company I have. I rarely have people over; I just haven’t changed them since Mama brought them home.
The backsplash is the same as it was twenty years ago. The short curtains on the window above the sink are the same too—the only difference is the dust collecting on them that gives the fabric a darker color.
It was ten years ago when I’d walked into this very kitchen, where my mother sat at the table with a hot tea between her hands, waiting for me. She’d been worried sick because of the late hour, and when she took in my tear-streaked cheeks, her concern grew tenfold.
She’d given me the tea to help my scratchy throat. After all the crying I’d done at the spot Nate and I shared in the football stadium, it was going to take more than a few sips to soothe it.
I don’t even like tea, but I’d accepted it, anyway. I’d needed something to hold on to.
Mama didn’t need to ask to know what had happened—that Nate and I had broken up. She knew no one and nothing else could make me cry enough to worry of long-lasting damage to my tear ducts.
The sun rose a few hours later, and most of the time we’d spent together was in silence. She didn’t give me any bullshit that Nate was the first of many boyfriends I’d have. That there were plenty of other fish in the sea, or that he didn’t deserve me to begin with.
She didn’t even scold me for being out alone in the middle of the night.
It was the one time in my life that she didn’t have anything to say. No words of encouragement or wise piece of advice.
Instead, she led me to the living room, where she played with my hair while I sipped on the tea.
When Dixie eventually woke up, Mama whispered to me, “I’m so sorry, baby.
” Then she got up, took my mug to the kitchen, and whipped up gingerbread man-shaped pancakes, even though it wasn’t Christmas.
She still decorated them with whipped cream and smiley faces, claiming we needed to start our day with joy.
Then she called in sick to work, and she let us play hooky from school so that we could nap and have a girls’ day in Savannah.
It was enough to distract me for a few hours, but once we got home and I returned to my room, which was basically a shrine to my relationship with Nate, tears flooded my cheeks once again.
My heart had been shredded.
And almost a year later, when I believed my heart couldn’t endure any more pain, I overheard a conversation at Bready or Knot.
“Did you hear Evie at church? Her boy’s getting married.” Annabelle eyed her table over her tea.
“I heard he’s having a baby too,” one of the other ladies added with a nod.
“I wonder if that’s why he and the Clayton girl called it quits.”
“He was always meant for more than this town.”
They hadn’t noticed me at the counter. They hadn’t noticed the way my breath had hiccupped or how spectacularly they’d just shattered what was left of me.
I’d gathered all the strength in my eighteen-year-old bones to stifle a sob before I’d escaped to the alley around the corner. That’s where I’d broken down.
That’s where the muffin had fallen out of my hands, and I’d crushed it as I’d collapsed onto it all alone in the shadows between the buildings.
I remember it all too well, and the feeling of my soul leaving my body is as fresh as if it happened yesterday.
I wrap my arms around my waist and hug myself like my mother did back then.
I never really moved on—that’s never been clearer to me than it is now.
I’m living in the same house, staring at the same furniture and decorations, and sneaking back across the fucking yard as if I’m eighteen again.
I’m trapped in a past that left me bruised and cynical and insecure.
And I just waltzed in here like sleeping with Nate again is a good thing, when I know how that story ends.
I had last night all wrong. It wasn’t a way for us to start over. It was the best way to say goodbye, once and for all.
Because no matter how much Nate and I may have changed, so much is the same. There’s still a lot of history that hasn’t been forgotten—or forgiven.