“Pretty much.” Her shoulders sag, and she blows out a long breath.
I squeeze her hand then stand and make my way across the bar to see Ellie. She’s dressed in jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt, her hair pulled into a high ponytail. Ellie always preferred heels to tennis shoes and skirts to pants. It helped me pretend the attraction I felt toward her was superficial. She was a beautiful woman who took care of herself. Who wouldn’t be drawn to her? I survived through compartmentalization—my fantasies about my best friend’s girl were locked away in this little section of my brain, and my affection for her as a friend was over there in that other section. As long as the two didn’t intertwine, it was fine.
Except it wasn’t. By the time my true feelings were even remotely acceptable—and that’s stretching it—I was already in love with her. Not lust. Not infatuation. I had two and a half years of seeing her nearly every day and knew she was so much more than the long legs and great tits I’d been ready to seduce the night we met. She was everything, and I lost her.
“You look a little like you’ve seen a ghost,” I say, taking the spot next to her at the bar.
Her eyes widen as she turns to me. “Hey.” Her smile is sincere—less guarded and confused than it was in Dyer. “I’m not lost. Just soaking it all in.”
“What brings you to town?” I try to sound casual, as if seeing her here isn’t the best thing that’s happened to me all week.
“I’m moving back.” She tries to smile, but it wavers. “At least, that’s the plan.”
I tilt my head to the side. “Wow. Honestly, I didn’t see that coming.”
She stares at me for a long beat. “I remember Colton,” she says softly. “He wouldn’t hurt me. I don’t need to be afraid of him.”
“How much do you remember?” Do you remember me? Do you remember why you walked away? “Is it all back, or . . .”
She shakes her head. “No. There’s still a lot missing—at least a year, but it’s not precise.” She hesitates a beat then smirks. “I remember the night you and I met. Tall, dark, and bad for me.”
I’ve never forgotten that night—how one more minute might have changed everything. Or maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Maybe she would have declined my offer and continued to wait for Colton to show. Maybe, for her, it was always Colton. For me, it was always Ellie. “So are you here for a drink?” Say you’re here for me.
“I was headed to my house.” She scans the bar again. “Then I decided I wasn’t quite ready.”
“I’ll take you.” I look out the big windows toward the street. “I mean, if you want. I can drive, and you can follow me in your car.”
“No, you can totally go back to your date. I’ve already kept you away long enough.”
“My date?”
She frowns and turns to the booth where Molly’s still nursing her beer and pretending not to watch us. “Your . . . friend?”
“That’s Molly.”
“You mentioned her before,” she says. She gives a little wave in Molly’s direction, and Molly waves back awkwardly. “You said something about her kid? Who is she?”
I study Ellie, waiting for a flash of recognition, but her face remains blank. “Colton’s stepsister?”
She snaps her fingers. “Right. I remember him telling me about her. She never comes home, right? And he used to have a crazy crush on her.” She hesitates a beat, as if she’s waiting for more to come to her. “I didn’t put it together. So you’re dating her? She’s beautiful.”
Not as beautiful as you. Not even close. “We were just having a beer. I was about to leave.”
She worries her bottom lip between her teeth. “I don’t want to impose. I can go home alone.”
“You need me or Ava there anyway.” I’m already pulling my keys from my pocket. “We installed a new security system while you were in the hospital. I’ll meet you at the house and show you how to disable it so you don’t bring the cops running when you open the door.”
Ellie
I’m grateful Levi is going to the house with me. I felt so brave when I left my mom’s this morning, but now, faced with the immediate task of walking into the place where I almost died, my bravery has abandoned me.
I watch Levi climb into a truck—not the Mustang he was driving in Dyer. When he starts the engine, I turn the key in my ignition. The truth is that I want him to ride with me, but it doesn’t make sense for us to drive together when he still needs to get home. I feel safer when Levi’s close, but I’m not sure what to do with the other feelings I have for him. I loved Colton completely. When did I fall in love with Levi? How could I do that to Colton?
I follow him the few short blocks to a quiet residential area. Levi parks in the street, and I pull into the driveway. I could have found the house myself. When I left the gallery and stopped working for Nelson, I started selling real estate. This little house was one of my first listings. I fell in love with it. Two small bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen, all in less than nine hundred square feet. I was determined to walk away from what Nelson was offering me, to prove I didn’t need the luxuries his kind of “opportunities” provided, and this house was the perfect symbol of that. Everything I needed instead of everything I wanted. I cut coupons and lived lean so I could help my mom. It wasn’t as much as I’d dreamed of giving her, but Mom, Brittany, and Phoebe had everything they needed. Just like me. We were all okay.
As I climb out of the car, I see flashes of Colton in this driveway. I remember him shirtless and washing an old Corvette in the summer sun. I came out to help him, and he sprayed me with the hose, then pressed me against the car and kissed me.
We did have good times. Maybe I fell in love with him too fast. Maybe I spent those first months with him bracing myself for the moment he’d walk away. But when Nelson came into my house and pushed himself on me, something shifted between Colton and me. It wasn’t just love. We were partners. Colton and Ellie against the world. Against addiction. Against our pasts. I was so damn sure we were only getting started. We were going to spend our lives together. Isn’t that what people do when they love each other and become a team?
“When did Colton move in with me?” I ask Levi as he walks up the driveway.
“After rehab. Those programs are expensive as hell, and you offered to let him stay with you to save some money.” He shrugs, his discomfort evident in the low evening light. “Then he never moved out. Not that you wanted him to.”
“Did it work? The rehab? Did he ever get clean?” My voice breaks on the question. Sometimes I can accept these missing pieces. Other times, it hurts to know my mind is failing me. Did the man I love get sober? seems a question far too important to miss.
Levi grimaces, looking away. “Yes. Sort of. He stopped with the street shit after that. That was a victory in itself, but he never stopped being an addict.” He hesitates before continuing. “He broke a few ribs in a race about a year ago. He legitimately needed painkillers. But I think the line between need and want got fuzzy, and . . .” He shrugs. “It was never easy for him.”
“Right.” I study a patch of weeds sprouting from a crack in the concrete.
“Don’t say anything to Ava about all that,” Levi says. “She never knew about Colton’s drug problems. You and I always handled it ourselves.”
“Yeah, that would be a crappy thing for her to learn while she’s trying to prepare for her wedding day.” I release a dry laugh. “I feel like I’m going to do something like that. Reveal some secret I don’t know is a secret, or accidentally break someone’s heart because I can only see part of the picture.”
He studies me for a long beat, and I’m sucked back into the memory of him above me, his hands cupping my face. “No regrets.” Again, I wonder how we got there.
A car honks down the block, breaking the silence and tension between us.