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“God, I missed this.” He let out a breath against my perspiration-dampened hair.
Thinking the same thing, I laid my cheek against his warm, chiseled chest.
“You smell good.” My fingers curling into the back of his tank, I inhaled deeply. “Intense green. Woodsy, some leather and a little spice.”
“Thank you.” He inhaled, his mouth near my ear. “You smell sweet, sexy, and sultry, like night-blooming jasmine.”
Whoa.I liked that he thought so. I liked that a lot.
“Where did you go, Barry?” I eased back to gaze up at him. He wasn’t only larger. He was taller now too. “Why did you stay away so long? Was it because of me?”
Because I was so broken, I thought, but didn’t say it out loud.
“Yes, it was because of you.” He captured and tucked a strand behind my ear that had escaped my ponytail. “I told you. I called.”
He had. Though that phone call was long ago, I needed to accept that his departure and long absence were my fault, like so many things.
I stepped back, putting some needed distance between us. Something like pain tightened his features as he watched me. His strong arms fell to his sides, arms that weren’t for me anymore.
“Are you back in town now to stay?” I asked, trying to keep my question casual, but casual was never how I felt about him.
“Yes.” He searched my gaze again, his intensity unnerving. “I thought that was obvious. I have the restaurant. My son is enrolled at Southside High. If I didn’t intend to stay, I wouldn’t have contacted you. I couldn’t do that to myself or you.”
I tilted my head. “Why not?”
It seemed like he was talking in riddles. Our history was familiar, but the man he was now wasn’t. The things he shared casually were like a driving rain, washing away the previous image I’d kept locked inside my memory for safekeeping.
“We’re too connected to tear apart again.”
He reached up and withdrew the elastic band from his hair. Loosened, it spilled like a shiny black-and-copper cape around his massive shoulders.
No, not a cape. A curtain on the past. On the way we were.
“I wasn’t sure it would be the same now as it was back then,” he said low, “but it is.”
Addy
“It’s not the same,” I whispered. I wished it were, but it wasn’t. Neither of us was as we once were. “You have a son.”
“Yes.” A mask seemed to lower over Barry’s features, shadowing the familiar. “His name is Tommy.”
“That’s a nice name.”
“He’s a good kid.” Barry puffed out his chest. “I’m proud to be his father.”
I nodded. I could see that. It was all there. The depth of his love shone like a beacon from his eyes. “You’re his father. Of course he’s a good kid.”
“That wouldn’t follow for most people.”
“Why not?” I asked.
He shrugged. “My father being in jail didn’t exactly make a shining example for me.”
“He loved you.”
“He did, but look where that love got him.”
I tilted my head. I’d never really considered his father going to jail from that perspective, but it was obviously Barry’s. “You’re not responsible.”
