Avery
"You're joking!" My nostrils flare as I storm up to him. I can't believe he's doing this right now, and I can't believe he's doing thisto me. After all these years! "Whythiscabin? Why now?"
That stupid smile is still on his face. "Whythiscabin? Because it carries my favorite memories." He steps closer to me. "Why now? Because I'm finally at a point in my life where I know what I want." He shifts even closer, crowding my space. "I came back to the Falls to take it for myself."
Raising an eyebrow, I take a cautious step backward. "And what you want is a broken-down cabin?"
"Among other things," he says in a low breath, his green eyes gazing into my brown ones as he closes the distance between us again.
I gulp, my body reacting to his nearness. We're barely five inches apart, and I can feel the heat radiating off his body. The hunger in his eyes starts a fire in my belly, my body fighting with my mind, a whirlpool of emotions and feelings bubbling up to the surface uncontrollably.I never stopped loving you.
Turning away, I back further away from him, feeling immensely uncomfortable with our closeness as the sadness of the gulf between us threatens to overwhelm me. My heart wants to sing from his return, but the rest of me remembers the hurt, the years, thesilence.Howdarehe just waltz back here and do this to me? After all these years, keeping me in a holding pattern, unable to move on because Iwaitedfor him, thinking—hoping—that he would come back… Now it’s been eleven years of loneliness andhurt.It would be so much easier if he just stayed gone.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, collecting my emotions and putting them back in their mental box.I can’t do this again.I can’t let myself get caught up in him, to trust him, to bare myself to him. I barely pulled myself together the last time, and I don’t think I’ll survive trusting him with my heart a second time. No. Tyler and I are a moment in the past. I’m here to show him this cabin and then I’m going to move on with my life. It’s the way it has to be. My heart simply can’t trust the way it used to. He made sure of that when he left me.
Opening my eyes, I turn the lock on the box and tuck it away in a deep, dark compartment of my mind, never to be looked at again. Then I plaster a smile on my face and slip into ‘professional mode’. Tyler is just like any other client, no more, no less. I need to remember that.
"So, as you can see, Mr. Channing, the cabin is a single-story building,” I start, moving toward as I fish the key out of my purse. “It has two bedrooms and a bathroom, but the land size is big enough that you could easily add to that if you wanted during renovations."
“Mr. Channing?”Tyler mutters under his breath as Islip the key into the cabin door. “That’s what you’re calling me now?”
I smirk to myself as I ignore his question and push on the old door. It creaks slightly as it opens into the entryway, as if the house needed to call out and remind us of its current crumbling state. As we step inside, the scent of dust, damp and dirt touches my nose. The wooden frames are rotting, and I spot a vine creeping in through the living room window.Delightful."You have an open-plan kitchen and living area, with a fireplace in the center for heating,” I continue, gesturing to the different features as we move along.
"You don’t need to tell me about the place, Avery. You know how many hours we spent hanging out here as kids. I could draw this place from memory. In fact, I have a whole art book dedicated to it—memories, plans to rebuild. I could so you if you want.”
His words cause flashes of the past to penetrate my mind. Sleeping bags on the dirty floor, a fire in the hearth while we made grilled cheese on a wire rack. He was living here alone for months before we realized he’d been kicked out of home. His home life was always awful, so coming here was a way to get away. It wasn’t until my Oliver found his duffle back hidden in the rafters that the truth came out. And that’s when Tyler came to live with us…
“How's Ollie?” he asks suddenly, like he somehow knew exactly what I was thinking. “We stayed in touch for a while. But I haven’t seen him for years. I heard he was working on some billionaire’s ranch. The brother of that pitcher for the Nationals?”
I pause for a moment, the information about my brother on the tip of my tongue. But I didn’t come here to reminisce. If Tyler wants to know about Oliver, he can ask him himself. “The bathroom will need the most work,” I say instead, heading toward the half-broken door and shoving it open. It produces a cloud of dust and gets stuck on a broken tile. “You’re not connected to the grid here, so I’d want to get the septic tank looked at in case there are any leaks.”
“What about you, Avery?” he tries, following close behind me. “Are you still in touch with Ali? I remember you two were so close that people thought you were sisters.”
“The water comes direct from the river,” I continue, glancing out the brown and broken window to the blue sky outside. “You’ll need to boil it for cooking or drinking, or buy bottled, and there’s a generator out back for electric.”
“OK. So you don’t want to answer personal questions. How about work then? I can see you're working with Mark now. What's it like being in real estate?"
He’s persistent. I’ll give him that.I move to the living area and continue my rambling sales pitch. "We say 'single story' but the cabin does have an attic for storage," I say, pointing to the trapdoor in the ceiling above my head. It's bowed slightly and seems like it's barely hanging on at the hinges. I actually think the whole cabin is on a slope now. It was falling apart when we were kids. And over the years, it's become more and more structurally unsound.
I hate to have to say it, but it'll probably have to be torn all the way down now. I can’t imagine any part of this is salvageable, let alone liveable.You'd have to spend afortuneto even attempt to restore it.Well, he could afford it, I guess, with his millions of followers, and his world-famous tattoo studio in fancy, schmancy New York.
“No? We’re not talking about work either?” Tyler asks, placing his hands on his hips as I eye the roof above us with suspicion, wondering if we should be wearing hard hats in here. “Well, what about this place? Do you even want to know what I plan to do with it?”
He looks at me pointedly, but I can’t even hear him anymore. Sure, I was ignoring him before, but now I’m focused on the way the floor is creaking quite suspiciously beneath me.Oh shit.
“Tyler,” I say, my entire focus on every creak and groan the old cabin seems to be complaining with. Dust and dirt seems to fall like leaves off a dying tree. “I think we should go outside.”
“I’ve seen outside!” I jolt in surprise when Tyler grabs my arm and turns me around, his brows furrowed in frustration. "Jesus, Avery! Will you juststopfor a minute andtalkto me?"
Snatching my arm from his grip, I turn around completely, preparing to give him a piece of my mind. How dare he come back here thinking he can just waltz back into my life—my place of work—and expect me to act like I’m happy to see him. He’s the one who left me behind. He’s the one who ran the moment I offered him a reason to stay. If I wasn’t good enough back then, then what makes him think I could trust him again now? No. The door has well and truly closed, and now I just need him to leave.
Before I can get any of those words out, the creak of the floor turns into a deep, long groan.
My eyes find Tyler’s, my heart sinking to the pits of my stomach as the boards buckle beneath my feet.Oh god, no. Please, no...
His hands fly out like he thinks he can catch me, but it’s too late; we’re already falling. “Tyler!”
