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All the shame that I heaped on myself and fearing that I would be just like Jess, it all could have been avoided.
The feeling in my chest is sharp and painful. Everything could have been different.
“That’s why you would turn and walk the other way whenever you saw me.”
It’s not a question, just a confirmation, and I nod.
Casey licks his lips, his hands flexing and clenching like he doesn’t quite know what to do with them. “So if I’d just taken the condom off with my right hand instead of my left one, and avoided that fucking bush entirely, we might have stayed together? And kept…doing that?”
I can’t imagine that we wouldn’t have. That night was too beautiful, and the times we hung out before that had been great. We grew up together, next-door neighbors, and he was always just “the boy next door.”. Until one day Casey walked into school and I noticed him in a different way. A way I’d never even thought about. And the same thing happened to him. The night under the fireworks seemed inevitable after that.
I nod.
“That’s—” he cuts himself off and looks into the distance. “Huh.”
I know exactly what he’s feeling. I’m still spinning from the thought of that too. But I’ve already made the choices in my life. And neither Casey nor I are time travelers.
“I’m glad I left,” I say softly. “Elgin. I needed to see the world. To experience a life that was bigger than fifty miles wide. And I did. I don’t regret that part.”
He looks back at me then, and I can’t decipher the look on his face. “You got married.”
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t. I got engaged.”
Casey opens his mouth, and then shuts it. He really believed that I was married. “What did they really tell you?” I ask, not needing to specify that I mean the sixteen people that told him that I was home.
“The lawyer thing was real,” he says with a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Those eyes are still as blue as I remember them, and they still stare into my soul the way only he managed to. Effortlessly.
“Casey.”
He looks at the ground. “They told me that you came back alone, without your husband—fiancé I guess. The rest were variations on the theme.”
I huff a laugh. “Well, for once they got it right.” Am I imagining that his eyes sharpen with interest?
“You’re here alone?”
I sigh. “Yep. I was engaged, and I’m very recently un-engaged. So now I’m here.”
“Why?”
“Why am I here?”
He nods.
I shrug. “I wanted to visit. And to see the fireworks. I missed them.”
“They don’t have fireworks in Chicago?” He smirks.
“Not like these.”
I’m thrown back to that night together, now seeing it in a brand-new light. Before I spiraled down into panic, it had truly been perfect. Sex with Tyler was good—even great sometimes. But nothing ever really compared to that first time with Casey. The adrenaline and excitement, the way our bodies were in sync. We weren’t even naked and it was still amazing.
If we had been naked…I wonder if it would have been anything like what I walked in on in the barn a few minutes ago. Because seeing Casey like that blew my mind. He is hard in all the right places, and I stopped in shock, watching the way his muscles bunched and stretched as he shoveled hay into each stall. His skin was shining with sweat and hard work, and the sudden heat in the barn was not the only reason that I was warm.
Casey is bigger than he was in high school—and that is saying something, given the fact that he was the linebacker for our football team. He was almost a man then, and he is fully a man now, and I can’t get that shirtless image of him out of my mind.
One more memory from that night comes rushing back. Casey, coming inside me with a low groan that was nearly a growl. The sound shocked me, drawing brand new arousal into my skin. So much that I nearly rolled us over and rode him to a second climax. Does he still make that noise when he comes?
I will ever admit to anyone just how much I want to find out.
“How long are you in town?” Casey asks, drawing me out of my wholly inappropriate thoughts.
“Well, when I planned the trip it was only supposed to be a couple days after the fireworks. Now I’m not completely sure.”
He clears his throat. “Yeah…I’m sorry about your engagement.”
“Don’t be,” I say. “Please.”
Casey nods but he doesn’t say anything else which I’m grateful for.
“I don’t have the benefit of town gossip. What have you Bowmans been up to since I left?”
Pain enters his eyes. “Well, Dad passed a few years ago. And…Mom earlier this year.”
