Then, he had come back and told me he wished he had never returned. He never wanted to come back here to this town for so many reasons. Those reasons he never elaborated on were all starting to make sense now.
The signs were all there.
I chuckled, though it wasn’t a pleasant sound.
“You’re not mad?” he asked.
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure why, but I wasn’t. “No.”
Certainly not as much as I’d thought I’d be about him keeping another thing from me. He had come back to Barnett. He had come home when everything was falling apart and he needed air.
I wanted to be what he needed like air, even through all the bad.
“I really just don’t understand why you didn’t say that.”
Was this the big secret I felt lurking beneath the surface, waiting to come out? Was this what he had been hiding from me all this time?
“I was never really a part of this town. I grew up here, but the moment after the funeral, I left and never came back. When I did, it felt like I barely even knew Barnett anymore. And with you showing me around, for a short while, it felt like a new place. This Barnett that you showed me last summer was a fresh start somewhere old until the rest of my life caught up with me,” he said.
“You really are a Barnett boy,” I whispered.
“You’re really shocked?”
“Surprised. Kind of worried,” I admitted.
“Why?”
“This place brought you so much pain.”
Jaw clenching, he nodded. “I kept telling myself that for years. But recently, I’ve also been trying this new thing where I remember all the amazing things that somehow happened here too.”
“Like what?”
“Like Bar serving a good drink, learning how to do pottery …” His lips quirked with humor. “Being here on a beautiful spring day, talking to someone who’s fishing for compliments.”
I rolled my eyes and snorted.
“Hearing that adorable sound.”
“Stop.”
“You asked.” Dom reached out for my hands and gave a light smile. “Last summer, for a little while, I also realized there were some really good things about this place. Some good people.”
I licked my lips. “You already got into my pants, Dom. Now, what else do you want from me?”
His grin turned wicked as he leaned in to kiss me. “How you do know I’m talking about you?”
“You better be talking about me.” I giggled with a new lightness in my chest. “Here I thought, you were about to tell me you were married or you were going to leave again all of a sudden.”
Dom paused, then shook his head. He took a deep breath in, clearing whatever other thoughts must’ve been running through his head of how this could’ve gone. “Definitely not.”
I laughed again, and he kissed it right off me.
This was all too good to be true.
Meant to besort of too good to be true.
Maybe it was, but right now, I wasn’t going to question it. I couldn’t.
