7. Dove #2
“I’d hardly call that cooking,” he dismissed, but his gaze flitted away guiltily, and he shrugged. “But I guess it happens when you gotta fend for yourself. I didn’t have homemade meals to rely on.”
Meaning he missed my mom’s meals. The food in my mouth turned to ash, reminding me that the small truce that had grown between us while he was back was tentative at best. His absence loomed over both of us like a dark raincloud, one that looked seconds away from pouring.
“Right,” I agreed icily. “I would imagine there are drawbacks to just up and leaving your family.”
I schooled my face into something cold and indifferent. The sandwich slipped from my fingers and dropped back down onto the plate. “I’m full.” I shoved the plate of half-eaten food back at him. “Thanks for lunch.”
Josh was forced to grab it as I breezed past him, bristling with anger.
“Dove,” his voice was a desperate plea. “Can we please just talk?”
Something in his voice caused me to still. Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I steeled myself for whatever conversation was about to rear its ugly head between us. I’d been waiting for it, after all.
“What is there to talk about, Josh?” I kept my back to him, refusing to turn and look at the man behind me, begging me to talk to him.
Talk? I’d been wishing for that since the day he left, but every message I sent went unopened.
Every call I made went unanswered. Until finally, I gave up entirely and promised myself never again.
Now he wanted to talk?
Too damn late.
“I don’t want it to be like this between us,” Josh confessed. The gravel crunched under his feet as he moved.
“Then you shouldn’t have left,” I whispered, some of the hurt I’d kept locked up slipping past my defenses and bleeding into my voice.
He took another step closer, enough that I could almost feel the warmth of him along my back.
“Please, Dove,” he begged, voice low, as if he was sharing a secret. Like there weren’t miles of farmland separating us and the next neighbor over.
A touch to my shoulder, light and barely there. “We’re all each other have now.”
Everything in me ached to take one step back. Just one. To step into his space and wrap myself up in him.
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t .
Instead, I turned around. Meeting him halfway.
It wasn’t forgiveness—not yet. But I was willing to listen to him, at least. Because he had a point.
We were the only people we had left. Neither one of us came from large families, and our parents were both only children.
The grandparents I had that were still alive were my dad’s parents, but they called Florida home, a far cry away from middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania.
I knew Josh had a similar family situation.
If we didn’t have each other, we’d have nobody.
Even with that realization, my anger wasn’t quick to leave me, smoldering stubbornly like the embers of a once-blazing fire.
A part of me didn’t want to extinguish it.
There were no words to describe how hurt I’d been by Josh leaving.
Not when I’d confessed and confided in him how much I worried every day I’d be left alone, losing my loved ones like I had that day I’d lost my dad.
Even if a small part of Josh had somehow missed me—though it had been his choice to leave—it couldn’t compare to how much I’d missed him.
Every day without him was lived hollow-chested, as if my beating heart had been ripped from me and I’d been forced to go on living, a shell of a person.
Stubbornly, I wanted to hold on to my anger, refuse to give in so easily like I always had in the past, but not if it meant losing him again.
But that was the thing, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t lose him again.
He’d given no indication that his stay was anything but temporary.
I didn’t trust him not to leave me. Not yet.
Our eyes locked. His dim with sadness, mine bright with hostile anger.
Damn him and those puppy dog eyes.
“It’s Friday,” I begrudgingly pointed out, offering up a metaphorical olive branch.
He’d know exactly what I meant.
“Feast Fridays” were born in our teenage years from growing appetites, a shared love for takeout, and the knowledge that our parents escaped for date night at the start of the weekend, unable to monitor our intake.
Miggy’s had always been my favorite to order from, but it wasn’t like our local town was briming with choices.
Those nights started out as all teenage endeavors do, with a healthy amount of greasy food, a good movie, and the freedom of an empty house.
As we’d grown, pizza night shifted into something different; less and less just the two of us and more Josh inviting his friends over, so we could all party by the lake as one big group.
Beer replaced takeout, sitting on the couch watching a movie evolved into sitting around a roaring bonfire, and the time that had been shared between the two of us became filled instead with the raucous laughter of a group full of friends.
I never did have enough courage to tell Josh I missed the times when it was just us. Enjoyed it more when we could share a large pepperoni pie, some cheese fries, and revel in an empty house. Preferring it, even, to the loud, noisy parties we hosted.
A small smile curved his lips. “It is.”
I eyed him, crossing my arms defensively. “Do you still enjoy pepperoni as a topping, or did you turn into one of those kinds that prefer fruit on their pizza?” I pretended to shudder.
“What would you do if I said yes?” His voice was teasing, and it sounded so normal, so similar to how it used to be between us, back when he still called this place home, when he’d called me home, that I nearly stopped breathing.
“Then I’d say you’re on your own, because I won’t let you desecrate the sanctity of pizza for that abomination.”
He laughed, a sharp bright sound, with his head thrown back and the muscles constricting under the material of his tight shirt. My breath really did leave me this time.
When his head tilted back down to me, mirth still sparkled in his eyes. “No, Dove, I don’t like fruit on my pizza. Nothing could make that happen.”
I shrugged one shoulder casually. “Stranger things have happened,” I retorted mystically, thinking of his flashy SUV sitting a few yards away from us in the driveway.
He just shook his head amusedly before offering the plate of food to me again.
“Eat this at least,” he suggested. “We’ve got a while until dinner, and we both have chores to wrap up before we can call it a day.
I’ll place the order to Miggy’s as soon as I’m finished.
I’m still patching that hole I found in the fence over by the huckleberry bushes, and I have to call the feed store to put in an order before they close. ”
My stomach fluttered as if a small butterfly had become trapped somewhere inside it.
Over the simple mention of my favorite pizza joint.
Even though it was one of only a handful of restaurants in the area, let alone one of the only that delivered this far out, it still meant something to me that he remembered.
Like a part of me had stayed with him, even if he’d decided to move on.
The lone butterfly multiplied as I imagined us sharing pizza, sitting on the couch, and watching a movie together—like old times. We hadn’t done that in a while, even before he’d left.
But he made a good point. We both still had a long day ahead of us. Thinking of my own chores I had filling the rest of my day I took the offered plate between us. I might be stubborn, but I was also hungry. All that talk of pizza reminded me of the cramp in my empty stomach.
“I want garlic knots, too,” I added, before taking another bite of the sandwich he’d made me.
It was addicting to watch the sly curl of his smile, and to know I’d put it there. The ghost of a dimple formed at that small uptick, just the slightly bit. However small, it warmed me all over to know I’d caused it. He was pleased, and I was pleased he was pleased.
Ugh. I forgot how disgusting I could get when he was around.
The immunity I’d built up to one Joshua James Hex had clearly waned in his absence.
Time to build up a tolerance again , I decided resolutely. Because even if I yearned for him to come back, to not leave, he could never be mine.
Not how I wanted him to be.