Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Rhett
Present Day
“ I f you’re going to go into detail about what happened between you and my sister, I don’t want to hear it.”
“And if you’re going to tell me you weren’t high when it happened, don’t bother. I already know you were.”
Lainey stared at me from the bottom row of the bleachers, waiting for a response.
Of course this entire conversation was going to be about Penelope. And how I’d felt. And what had actually gone down that day.
Why would Lainey think otherwise?
Penelope was the reason we were sitting so far apart right now.
She was the reason Lainey and I had gone fifteen years without speaking.
She was the reason there was so much hurt between us.
She was the reason why just being here and looking at Lainey made my fingers clench nonstop and made my heart fucking ache.
I rubbed my hands over my pant legs for what felt like the millionth time as the silence between us grew.
I needed to find a starting point.
I needed to proceed carefully because once I went there, I had to go all the way. I couldn’t back out; I couldn’t hold anything from her.
I had to make her see a side she’d never considered.
A side she hadn’t heard.
And that was my fault.
Fuck.
But what tripped me up was the shiver that I watched pass through her body.
I grabbed my suit jacket and stepped over the bleacher between us and wrapped the jacket around her shoulders. “You probably don’t want it, but I can’t sit here and watch you shake.”
“I’m not cold. I … don’t know what I am.” She held the lapels, turning her face to run her nose across one. “It smells just like you.”
“I would hope so. I’ve been wearing it all morning.”
“I mean, your scent. It hasn’t changed at all.”
Neither had hers.
I could smell her rose perfume as though my face were nuzzled in her neck.
A spot that I missed, that I would fucking beg for.
I put my feet on the metal in front of me and rested my elbows on my knees. “After all these years, why would you return to LA?”
She began to rock again, holding her bent legs close to her chest. “I’ve been telling people I missed home. To me, that sounds like a good enough reason.”
“I’m not people, Lainey. There’s no need to hide anything from me.”
There was the slightest nod of her head before her eyes slowly found mine. “I’m tired of running.” Her body stilled. “Have you ever felt like you were going a hundred miles per hour, but you weren’t moving at all?”
“Every day of my goddamn life.”
I recognized the expression—it was the comfort in knowing you weren’t alone.
“That was me in London. My feet were barely moving, but I felt like I’d tackled a marathon by every nightfall.”
“Is that why you came to this track? So you could actually walk that marathon?”
“No.” She glanced toward the school, which made her look over her shoulder, and the wind carried her whisper to me. “I came so I could remember …”