Because this matters. Because when I take Eva again, all the way, I want her to be begging for it. No going back. She’s the reason I’m here, after all.
Kyle was right. I swore I’d never come home again. I didn’t think there was anything, or anyone, worth coming back to. Eva would be long gone the minute she hit graduation, off to drama school in New York, or Chicago, maybe. One of those big-city schools she would talk about with such excitement, those nights I held her in my arms and listened as she painted a picture of the future. Me, I had a different path in store. I spent my first couple of years after leaving town drifting around, working bartender gigs and construction in Austin, and Oakland, and Kansas City. I didn’t know where I was heading. I just knew I needed to put as much distance between me and Oak Harbor as possible – far enough to keep me from turning around those dozen times I hit rock bottom and driving back home for her.
It wasn’t easy, staying away. I tried drinking myself into oblivion, and screwing every last girl who looked my way. I was desperate to forget the laughter in Eva’s eyes, or the way she’d curl her body around me. Looking back, it’s a miracle I didn’t drink myself into an early grave – or get pushed in there by some vengeful guy whose woman spent the night in my bed. But even then, I knew it couldn’t last. I would hear my old man’s voice in my head, taunting me, saying I was a loser, just like him. I was proving him right, every time I rolled home drunk, and none of it came close to filling the aching space where my heart used to be. Hell, nothing made me feel a damn thing at all, until one night I put the bottle aside and picked up my guitar instead, and managed to pour all my hurt and guilt and damn self-loathing into a song.
That was the moment it all turned around. That was when I saw a light at the end of the tunnel – and maybe even a way to earn Eva back, one day. I gigged solidly around town, playing any dive bar or coffee shop that’d have me, until finally Kyle happened to stop by a show one night – and the rest is history. But Eva was never far from my mind. After the record started building, and I’d play a show in a new city every other night, I would wonder if she was out there. Maybe just a few blocks away, or even standing in the crowd. Was she living her dreams, becoming a great actress the way she’d always wanted? Did she still hate me for leaving her without that goodbye, or did she understand I’d had no choice, and that giving her a future on her own was the only noble thing I could do? I swear I thought I saw her a hundred times over, a thousand-volt shock to my heart every time. It was worth it just to imagine she was out there, experiencing everything she wanted from the world.
Until I ran into a guy from school in a bar one night, and heard Eva was right back where we started in Oak Harbor. No big acting plans, no wild adventures. She was here, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. I booked my ticket that same night, despite the darkness I left behind in this town. Nothing could have kept me away from her, but now that I’m back, I have more questions than ever before – and a bad feeling about those shadows in her clear, hopeful eyes.
So what happened? Because this isn’t the girl I used to know. The girl I remember is sharp and wild and breathless and hungry, that shy exterior hiding a heart so deep and true it could renew even my tired and lonely bones. She drove me crazy with desire and awe, made me want to be a better man, enough to turn my back and put her first, even when it broke my heart to go. Leaving didn’t make a damn bit of difference: that girl has haunted me every night since I left this town. In the crowd of every show, living in the lyrics of every last song I write. I’ve kept her with me in my mind and heart, waiting for the day I could catch even a glimpse of her again.
But now I’m back, everything’s changed.
I didn’t see it that first afternoon. I was too busy trying not to drag her into my arms and kiss her until the years and leaving didn’t matter anymore. She’s still more beautiful than any girl has a right to be, still shy and smart-tongued and generous to a fault. But now I’m through the first glance shock of having her right here in real life again, something doesn’t add up. She was so cool and contained last night at Dixie’s, like she was weighing every word before it left her lips, watching me steadily with those heartbreaker eyes. Maybe this ice queen act is just for me. Hell, I know I deserve it after the way I left things last time around. But then I see it again; the spark in her eyes, the teasing edge to her perfect lips, hints that the old Eva isn’t gone forever. It’s the only thing that gives me hope, and the reason I had to kiss her again. I had to break through those careful defenses and know for sure the passionate, wild girl I knew is still beneath the surface.
That, and the fact that all I’ve wanted in the world for five long years is a chance to taste her sweet mouth again, to feel her undone and panting in my arms.