I swallow thickly. “Sure.” I scoot farther down the bench so I’m at one end, leaving plenty of space for Avi to take the other.
She does and it’s just another reminder of our last summer together. That was the year Grandad replaced the old tire swing. We spent a lot of time on this swing that summer. It was also the place where everything between us shattered. I feel that moment hanging here as we sit, in the same places nearly eleven years later.
“What are you working on?” she asks, holding up the bound letters. “New book?” She arches one perfect eyebrow and flips to the first page without asking.
“Nosy much?” I quip, and slide a few inches toward the middle of the bench, slipping my arm onto the backrest, trying to see which letter she’s reading, but I don’t reach to take them away.
She glances up with a smile that hits me square in the chest. “Sorry,” she says, though she doesn’t sound it. “What are these? Love letters?”
“Between Gran and Grandad.” Another inch closer and I could graze her shoulder with my fingertips if I wanted—and god I want to.
“Truly?” she asks, rotating so instead of facing me she’s facing forward with them in her lap. My bare forearm presses against herback and that small amount of contact is euphoric, like a drug. She doesn’t notice it though, or if she does, she doesn’t acknowledge it.
Her fingers trail over their words as she flips the pages, but also over mine scrawled in the margins. I can almost feel it like a caress against my own skin.
“I’m thinking of writing a book based on their story. But it’s a bit of a different style to what I usually write.”
She looks up and leans fully into the backrest where my hand finds her shoulder, my fingers brushing against the worn fabric of her sweatshirt. Her inhale is sharp, brown eyes locking on mine before saying quietly, “Finally going to write that love story I asked for all those years ago?” The tension between us crackles and a buzz begins beneath my skin. Between my inching closer, my arm placement, and her position change, we’re closer than we’ve been in over a decade—if you don’t count when I pulled her into my arms on the street last week.
“I don’t know that I’m qualified, but I’m sure as hell going to try,” I say, my voice thick like the air between us. I can smell her perfume and shampoo, floral and light. It’s intoxicating, maddening. Just enough to make me do something stupid.
Something like leaning closer until my shin presses against her thigh, my chest nearly brushing her shoulder.
Her irises blow wide, the dark brown engulfed by her widening pupils, and her cheeks flush crimson. My hand slips more fully onto her shoulder without a second thought and I revel in the feeling of touching her, no matter how minuscule the contact may be.
I want to press my free hand to her cheek so I can feel that warmth beneath my palm. I want to press my lips to hers tosee if she tastes the same as I remember. I want what I haven’t allowed myself to want for too long.Her.
She goes still like she’s holding her breath, but there’s a fire blazing in the depths of her eyes. A fire I wish only ever burned for me, and when her eyelashes flutter closed, hiding that fire from me, I instantly want it back.
There’s no gentle lean in, no questioning, no second-guessing. I close the distance and press my mouth to hers. It’s hunger. It’s breathing for the first time. It’s finding you’ve been touch-starved for too long because every other touch was never the right one.
Fuck. I’ve missed her.
My lips move against hers and she melts into me—our chests pressed together as her hand finds my arm that’s reaching for her waist. I want to tug her close, but her grip tightens and, instead of pulling me toward her, she pushes it back.
Then… she’s gone, ripped away as if by force, leaving my hand stinging and empty. She stumbles toward the inn, eyes downcast and hand reaching for the door at her back. When she finds it, relief washes over her features before she turns and escapes into the safety of her kitchen with only a soft “I’m sorry, Jamie.”
I’m left sitting on the bench, entirely alone, and the poetic justice of this moment isn’t lost on me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Avonlea – Now
Shit. Bollocks. Fuck. Shit.
Jamie kissed me.Kissed me. And I let him. The second he leaned in, my body knew exactly what it wanted.
Him. Always him. Only him.
But that’s not possible.
For that moment though, I let myself pretend it was. I sank into the scent of his woodsy soap, or aftershave, or whatever the fuck he uses to make him smell so damn alluring, and the feel of his lips pulled me under.
But then my brain whirred back to life and I fled before I could fall so deep into him I’d never be able to get back out.
He’s Lennox’s father. I can’t get involved with him while a secret like that stands between us. I shouldn’t get involved with him period. It’s too complicated. Too messy. Too much.
He doesn’t live here—not really. And if that kiss is any indication, I’ll end up exactly where I was at seventeen: in love with a boy—a man—who won’t stay for me.
