Chapter 23
twenty-three
“You just do!” I throw my hands up in exasperation.
Rowan is standing so close I can barely keep my head on straight. He smells way too delicious for someone who’s been working on a movie set all day. Not to mention the scraggily beard he’d had is now gone, leaving behind a hint of five o’clock shadow.
The way he’s looking at me, desperation written all over his face, has the impenetrable walls I’ve worked too hard to build, start to crumble.
Deep down, I know I’ve held on to this anger for far too long.
Shoulders sagging, I blow out a breath. “Okay. You win. Let’s talk.”
The look on his face shifts from pained to hopeful as his body visibly relaxes.
“You want a beer?” I ask as I turn away, striding into the kitchen.
“Sure.”
I can feel his gaze burning into my back as I reach into the fridge and pull out two bottles of IPA.
For a moment, I consider the fact that I’m about to sit down and have a somewhat civil conversation with the man who broke my heart more than once. The same man I’ve desperately been trying to hate for years. The one who still makes my pulse race when he looks at me like he did just a minute ago.
Like he’s still doing now.
“Here.” I slide one of the bottles across the counter.
He catches it effortlessly, twisting off the cap. Those hands. God, I remember what those hands can do…
Nope. Slow your roll, babes.
“So...” I take a swig, willing the alcohol to hurry the fuck up and calm the butterflies fluttering in my belly. “Talk.”
Rowan leans against the counter, studying me with those intense hazel eyes. Eyes that have always, somehow, been able to see into my soul. “I want to explain why I left the way I did.”
I snort. “This should be good.”
“I’m serious.” He runs a hand through his hair, leaving it slightly tousled in an annoyingly sexy way.
“When I left for Ireland after my parents died, I was a mess. I was angry at the world. At everyone and everything. At the time, I couldn’t even think about you without feeling like I was drowning. ”
Despite all the therapy that helped me to understand why he probably did what he did, I still need this last bit of closure… from him.
“So you just... what? Decided not to say goodbye? Just, cut me off completely?” Old hurt bubbles to the surface as I grip the beer bottle tighter.
“I was twelve, Lizzy. I didn’t know how to handle any of it.
My whole world had just imploded. And you.
..” His voice cracks. “…you were the one good thing. The one person who was always there for me. But every time I thought about you, I was reminded of everything I’d lost. Everything that had changed. ”
Fighting an unwelcome surge of empathy, I bite my lip. “Doesn’t explain why you never wanted to talk to me. Only Logan.”
“I wrote you letters,” he deflects quietly. “Dozens of them. My therapist recommended it. But I could never bring myself to send them.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was ashamed. Of how broken I was. Of how much I missed you. I couldn’t make sense of what I was feeling.
” He takes another sip from the bottle, a look of sad contemplation on his face.
“And then more time passed, and it got harder and harder to reach out. I’d hoped you’d moved on. Forgotten about me.”
My laugh is bitter. “Forgotten about you? Are you serious? You were my best friend, Rowan. My first… everything. I spent years thinking I’d done something wrong.”
Pain flashes across his face. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Yeah, and after years of therapy, I came to understand that. For the most part, anyway. But what about after graduation?” I throw at him.
His eyes darken. “It was... complicated.”
“No. Complicated is trying to decide what to wear on a first date.” I lean my forearms on the marble countertop, heart picking up speed when I see Rowan’s gaze flick down to my chest.
Suddenly, I come to the realization that I’m not wearing a bra or a top of any kind. From the moment Rowan scared the shit out of me, I’ve been oblivious to everything but him. Including the fact that I’m half naked behind my apron.
A muscle in his jaw twitches as he swallows hard. “What happened after graduation wasn’t just complicated,” he says, voice rough. “It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.”
Unable to keep the hurt from my voice, I barely manage to keep it from trembling. “You didn’t say goodbye.”
Setting his bottle aside, he drags both hands down his face. “That’s just it, Sunshine. I couldn’t. Because if I did, I don’t think I would’ve been able to leave.”
My heart stutters, leaving me at a loss for words.
“I was terrified, Iz.” Raw with emotion, his eyes meet mine.
“I’d loved you since we were eight years old.
There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret how I left things between us.
How I left without a word. Those weeks with you were everything I’d ever wanted.
But as much as it hurt, I had a one-way ticket to L.A.
and a dream I’d been chasing since I was a kid.
I was torn between staying with you and going after what I’d worked so hard for. ”
He starts to pace. “If I’d stayed, I would’ve ended up resenting you. Even then I loved you too much to let that happen.”
I stand frozen in place, processing his words as he continues.
“That last night, when we were together, I couldn’t sleep.
I just kept looking at you sleeping peacefully beside me, knowing that if I was still there when you woke up, I’d never get on that plane.
” He looks down at his hands. “I was a coward. I convinced myself a clean break would be easier for both of us.”
“Easier?” I repeat incredulously. “Do you have any idea what that did to me? Waking up alone, only to find out, from my mother no less, that you’d already left?”
“I know,” he says quietly. “And I’ve regretted it every day since. I thought about calling so many times. Then my career took off, and I just...” he trails off, shaking his head.
“Just what? Forgot about me?” The words come out sharper than I mean them to.
“Fuck, no. Never.” He walks around the island, and I have to fight the urge to back away when he comes to stand in front of me. “I tried to move on. But I couldn’t. Why do you think I’m making this movie?”
My breath catches. “What do you mean? What does the movie have to do with us?”
“It’s called The Treehouse. It’s about my life. My friendship with you and Logan. Everything that happened between us. It’s all there.”
I stare at him in shock. “You wrote a movie about us?”
“Yeah,” he admits, gaze searching my face. “It started out as a way for me to continue the healing process. I still go to therapy once a month. But it turned into something much more.”
The revelation hits me hard. All this time, I thought I was just a footnote in his past, someone he’d left behind without a second thought. Instead, he’d been carrying our story inside him all along.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I’ve wanted to. But you haven’t given me the time of day. And I don’t blame you.”
He’s standing so close now, I can feel the heat radiating from his smooth skin. Our eyes lock, and the world instantly falls away.
“I’m so sorry, Sunshine…”
Big hands firmly cup my face, and my gaze drops to his mouth. “Ro…”
When his nickname falls from my lips, his eyes darken right before his mouth crashes down on mine. Hot. Claiming. Devouring.
My hands move on instinct, sliding up his chest to wrap around his neck as he pulls me flush against him. His taste is mind-altering. His tongue slips between my lips, and I groan into his mouth, my body instantly remembering what it’s like to feel his touch.
Backing me up against the counter, his hands are everywhere—tangling in my hair, caressing my face, sliding down to grip my hips.
Arching against him, I can feel how hard he is, how much he wants me. The knowledge makes me dizzy with need.
Years of longing and hurt and want pour into our kiss as it deepens. My heart feels like it might explode. This is everything I’ve been dreaming of and afraid of.
Then a voice in my head starts screaming.
This is moving too fast.
We haven’t resolved anything. Not really.
There’s nothing stopping him from leaving you again.
With every ounce of willpower I possess, I break away, pushing gently against his chest.
“Wait,” I gasp, trying to catch my breath. “I can’t… do this with you right now.”
Rowan’s eyes are dark and hooded, his breath coming in short pants. “Lizzy...”
“I need time,” I whisper, stepping back to put additional space between us. My lips are swollen and tingling, my body humming, but my mind is a battlefield of conflicting emotions. “This is... it’s too much, too fast.”
He scrubs a hand over his face, looking as wrecked as I feel. “I understand.”
“Do you?” I wrap my arms around myself, feeling exposed. “Because I’m not sure I do. You can’t just walk back into my life after all this time, tell me you wrote a movie about us, kiss me senseless, and expect everything to go back to the way it was before.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” he says, voice gentle. “I just... I’ve missed you. So damn much.”
Those words pierce straight through to my soul. I’ve missed him too—every single day—but admitting that would be like surrendering to something I’m not ready to give into yet.
“I need time to process all of this,” I say, taking another step back. “You’ve had years to come to terms with what you did. I’ve just been hit with all of it at once.”
He nods slowly, respecting the distance I’ve put between us. “Take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere. Not this time. I promise.”
I can’t help the small, bitter laugh that escapes me. “Until you’re done filming. Then you’ll be gone again.”
“Actually, that’s not true,” he says with a serious look in his eyes. “I plan on splitting my time between here and L.A. If things go well with this movie and…”
The look on his face makes the hairs on my arms stand on end. I know that sheepish look.
“And what, Rowan?”
“I want to branch off. Write and direct. But the studio won’t work with me unless I clean up my image.”
My mind starts running a million miles an hour. Searching his face, I suddenly remember what Logan told me.
“They want Rowan to be in a stable relationship. Something along the lines of not being a liability.”
“You need a serious girlfriend.”
All he gives me is a shrug of a shoulder and a slow nod.
Mother. Fucker.