27. Hard Truths and Hard Countertops #2
“Oh my gosh.” My voice went all soft and wonderstruck.
“Just like we talked about.” The porch swing was exactly where we said we’d put it.
I could see us clear as day like déjà vu, two teenagers with hands intertwined and heads on each other’s shoulders, rocking back and forth under the big indifferent sky.
“Yep,” he concurred. No smile, but his eyes flicked to me and then away, and I could feel the pulse of a memory pass between us.
The sound of the screen door hitting the side of the house falling was so ordinary, so domestic, that for a second I thought I might pass out.
He put the key in the lock and turned it, then opened the front door.
I’d been gone from this town for nearly a decade, and yet here was a piece of my old life, not just preserved but waiting, like something out of a time capsule.
The door swung open on a draft of cool, slightly salty air.
I stepped inside, and the first thing I noticed was how much bigger it looked than I remembered from the time we broke in to look around.
The ceilings were low, but the rooms opened up in a surprising way, a trick of design, or maybe just the absence of all the clutter that used to fill them.
The walls were painted a calm, neutral off white, and the baseboards gleamed as if they’d just been installed.
There were no photos on the side tables, no muddy shoes by the door, no evidence of who might live here.
The only art was a pair of watercolor prints above the mantel: one of the Valentine Bay pier at sunset, the other of the lighthouse that stood at the north end of the harbor.
Both places were very sentimental to us.
I drifted through the living room, trailing my fingers over the arm of a caramel-colored leather couch.
The furniture was all top-tier—Pottery Barn, maybe Crate & Barrel—but so generic it could have belonged to anyone.
I peered into the open-concept kitchen, where a single bowl of fruit sat in the center of the marble island.
The fridge was stainless steel, the stove a six-burner gas range, the kind of thing you’d see on a cooking show.
The place was spotless, almost suspiciously so.
There was no sign of personal life: no dishes in the sink, no magnets on the fridge, not even a coffee mug left on the counter.
“So is this an Airbnb?” I called over my shoulder, trying to keep my tone light, as if it wasn’t the most crucial question I’d ever asked.
“No.” Dawson’s voice was closer than I thought, he’d followed behind me.
I pivoted toward him, arms crossed. “Then who owns it?” I demanded, but I already knew.
“I do,” he said, and it was so unadorned, so completely unfussy, that for a moment I wondered if I’d misheard him.
“You bought it,” I said, willing the words to make sense.
He nodded.
“When?” The question sounded almost accusatory, but I couldn’t help it. For years I’d scrolled the online real estate listings every few months, checking to see if the place had sold, and never come up with any answers, although it had been a while.
“About five years ago.” Dawson’s jaw flexed, the old tic of discomfort that came out when he had to talk about himself for more than eight seconds at a time.
“Five years?!” I repeated, and it came out shrill and bright. Five years ago I was in New York, working eighty-hour weeks and sleepwalking through a relationship that, like Peter’s, I already knew was doomed.
I walked around trying not to read too much into the fact that he’d bought the home we’d always talked about living in.
He probably just wanted to live here because it was an amazing house.
It most likely had nothing to do with me or our relationship.
As that thought drifted through my mind, I saw the view out of the window over the sink of the ocean.
Anyone would want to live here.
“It was the only thing I had of you,” he said behind me.
“What?” I turned around and found Dawson standing less than a foot in front of me.
He lifted his hand and brushed a stray strand of hair off my face. “You were my future. When you left, you took that future with you. This was a little part of the life we’d planned together I could still have. Maybe that wasn’t the healthiest way to look at things, but that was the truth.”
Hearing him say that, knowing that he’d thought of me all these years, just like I’d thought of him, erased any lingering doubts that his feelings weren’t real. What we had was real.
I felt tears forming in my eyes and one slid down my cheek.
He noticed and instantly tensed as he lifted his hand, cupped my face, and wiped it. “I’m sorry, don’t cry.”
Dawson had never done well with me crying. In fairness to him, I’d done a lot of it when we were first together since I was grieving the loss of my mom. I could always see how helpless it made him feel.
“They’re not sad tears.” I sniffed.
“They’re not?” he questioned.
“No,” I assured him as I tilted my head, pressing my cheek into the warmth of his palm before kissing the heel of his hand.
His eyes closed as my lips brushed his skin and his jaw tensed. He must have taken my nuzzle and peck as a green light because in the next breath his fingers speared into my hair as he lowered his head and claimed me in an all-consuming kiss.
I melted against him as his tongue explored my mouth. His lips were the perfect combination of firm and soft as one hand held my head in place and the other wrapped around my body.
He tightened his hold and I felt my feet being lifted off the floor before I was, set down on the counter.
He stepped between my open legs and continued kissing down my neck, then he pulled my shirt up and began to feast on my breasts through the lace cups covering them.
My hands fisted in his hair as he sucked and nipped my nipples.
The roughness of his tongue licking me through the material sent shocks of bliss exploding between my legs.