“I know that.” Alex’s voice came faintly over Sam’s shoulder. “And I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” Sam whirled around so quickly that Alex flinched. “You’re sorry?” Her voice rose slightly.
“Yes, Sam, I…” Alex’s voice trailed off when she saw the look on Sam’s face.
“No.” Sam’s voice was firm. She held up her hand in a stop motion. “Just don’t. Just because two people happen to be in the same place again doesn’t mean they can pick back up where they left off.” Sam paused and regarded her for a long moment before laughing harshly. “Because if I’m being honest, where we left off was pretty fucking terrible.”
“Iknowthat, Sam.” Alex pushed herself off her stool and put both hands on the counter before her. “Do you think this all was easyon me? That I just left you and went about my business? That my heart didn’t break in half that day, too?” Her voice caught slightly. “If you only knew…”
“Knew what?” Sam’s voice was much higher than she could control. She threw up her hands. “All Iknowis that you let your mother say those things to me. You let her throw me out of her house. And then you never spoke to me again.” Her voice grew quiet. “Until now.”
Alex’s chin trembled slightly and her eyes filled with unshed tears. Despite the tension between them, Sam found that the only thing she wanted to do was to comfort her. She hated seeing Alex cry. Instead, she planted her hands on the counter before her, mimicking Alex’s defensive pose. Whatever was going to come next, it was not up to her. Alex took several minutes to compose herself, breathing deeply as she formed the words in her head. Finally, in a soft voice, she began to speak.
“When my mother asked you to leave that night, a part of me broke and died.” She didn’t look at Sam as she spoke. “The things she said to you. Those names she called you. She didn’t direct them only at you. She meant them for me, too.” She shrugged helplessly. “I couldn’t live with her knowing that that was how she felt about me. That, in her eyes, I was dirty, irredeemable, and a sinner. My mother thought those things ofme, her daughter.”
Tears were flowing freely now, wetting her cheeks and making her eyes more impossibly blue. At that moment, Sam’s heart ached for her. But she couldn’t—no,wouldn’tback down.
“After that, I had no choice.” Alex scoffed and shrugged helplessly. “I left, too.”
Sam looked sharply up. “But…”
Alex just shook her head. “No, I didn’t follow you. I couldn’t. I know now it wasn’t the right thing to do. I’ve known that for a while. But I wasyoung, Sam. You’d had a glimpse of what life was like beyond Hicksville, but this place was all I knew. My whole life was here. I wasn’t strong like you.”
Sam felt herself softening. She had been so wrapped up in her hurt that she had never stopped to think about what Alex was going through. She felt ashamed of her younger self. But, as usual, herstubbornness won out. Her face burned with shame even as she heard herself say the words. She still couldn’t let it go. “Did you even try?” she whispered. “I would have done anything for you.”
“I think that deep down, I knew that, Sam. I do.” Alex came around the counter and sat next to her. She reached an arm out toward Sam, seemed to think better of it, and pulled it back again. “But I couldn’t let you. Don’t you get it? I watched my mother say what she said to you. I saw how it hurt you, and I thought that the best thing I could do was to save you from that…from her, from me, and what she made me believe about myself. And the only way I could do that was to let you go.”
“No.” Sam vigorously shook her head. “That’s not how it works. Did you ever stop to think that I didn’t want you to let me go, that I wanted you to fight for us?” She got up and walked across the room again to put some distance between the two of them. When Alex was close to her, she just couldn’t think straight. She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to protect herself. “You don’t get it. You don’t get to decide that. We should have decided together.”
“I know, Sam. But I was young. What the hell did I know back then? For that matter, what didyouknow?” Alex was visibly frustrated. “All I knew was that I needed them to pay for college. But that didn’t mean I had to live with them. After that night, I only returned to get a few of my things. I spent the rest of the summer with my grandparents in Maryland. In the fall, I went to school down there.” She shrugged and laughed bitterly. “In the end, I didn’t take a cent from them. I decided that I didn’t want their money.”
Sam turned away from Alex and looked out the window to the backyard. She wasn’t sure what to do with any of the words she was hearing. Over a decade had passed, and she had believed one story: that Alex had just turned her back on her when she needed her most. However, it seemed they had both been trying to do what was best for the other. “Well,” she said finally, spinning around. “Where do we go from here?”
In the span of a few seconds, Alex’s facial expression went from sad to surprise to absolutely radiant. Sam felt her heart tug slightly as she watched the emotions play out. Alex turned a mild shade of pink before timidly asking, “How about dinner?”
Sam regarded her for a long moment, biting her lip. She quickly stopped herself when Alex’s eyes glanced down at them. Sam felt her face heat again. No, she definitely could not survive a whole dinner with Alex. “How about a drink?” she asked instead.
Chapter Five
Sam wasn’t willing to commit to dinner—that felt too much like a date, and potentially dating her ex, who was also her first love, was something she definitely wasn’t ready for. After the flashes of feelings she was having, she didn’t think she was even prepared to be alone again with Alex yet. Seeing her again had brought back memories and emotions, and after years of strong negative feelings, Sam now found herself softening toward the other woman. They had fallen into such an easy rhythm with each other, so much so that it was almost like no time had passed between them. Talking with Alex had felt too familiar, like old times, like…home. Sam found herself slowly starting to let go of how things had ended, and the details of how she had felt in the years since were becoming slightly foggy. But at the same time, she wasn’t ready to let go completely.
Instead, she agreed to meet Alex for drinks at Easton’s Bar in town. Against her better judgment, she suggested meeting at eight p.m. on a Saturday. She knew Easton’s would be at its busiest, which meant it was highly likely she would run into multiple people she had avoided since leaving for college years ago. Tongues would start to wag, and the fact that she and Alex were spending any time together would be all over town by noon the next day. But she also knew the increased likelihood of seeing people who wanted to catch up on old times could mean less time for any semblance of alone time with Alex. Maybe she was relying on that busyness to distractfrom whatever was happening between them, even if she didn’t know yet what that was, or what she wanted it to be.
To say that Alex being in town had been unexpected was an understatement. Sam hadn’t been prepared for yet another blow to stir up even more old wounds. But their interactions so far had been mostly positive. Alex had been her genuinely warm and supportive self. She seemed deeply sorry for the things that had happened before, though Sam was still waiting for a more detailed explanation. Perhaps they could truly put the past behind them and develop a genuine friendship. After all, they had been friends first.
Jordan had gotten her thinking about whether it could be more than friendship. And did she want that? Did Alex want that? Seeing Alex stirred up more than old wounds. It stirred something else inside her in an entirely different way. And that was the part she was afraid of.
She arrived at Easton’s a little after eight p.m. Her time living in the city had trained her to be fashionably late. As she expected, the bar was packed. Much to her chagrin, she recognized nearly everyone. She scanned the crowd, looking for Alex, and noticed her sitting at the far corner of the bar, talking to Brad Thorne and another guy, whom Sam recognized as having been several years behind her in school. Sam scowled. Before anything had happened between them, Brad had briefly dated Alex in high school. Even though Sam knew it had been to appease Alex’s parents, she was still annoyed to see him.
Brad was leaning close to Alex to say something in her ear, and who could blame him? Even from across the room, Sam could see that Alex looked stunning. Her honey-blond hair was loose and wavy around her shoulders. She wore a fitted, light-blue sweater that highlighted her subtle curves and slimmer figure. Sam knew the sweater would accentuate the icy blue of Alex’s eyes once she got closer, and felt her heart skip a beat. She was even wearing a touch of makeup, perhaps mascara and a hint of lip gloss, or something that made her full lips look shiny. Those lips were parted in a smile at something Brad was saying, but Sam knew it wasn’t a genuine smile because there was no hint of the trademark corner dimple. Sam hated that she knew Alex that well, even after all these years.
As if she sensed her presence, Alex looked over Brad’s shoulder and saw Sam standing in the doorway. Her eyes locked onto Sam’s, and those perfect lips slowly widened into a broad smile—this time with the dimple. There was no mistaking the genuineness of the gesture. Sam immediately felt that smile in places she wasn’t expecting. She gulped in air and knew then that she was in trouble. Alex rose to her feet and whispered something back to Brad. He turned and saw Sam standing in the doorway. A look of surprise flashed briefly across his face. After a second, he nodded slightly and tipped his beer bottle in Sam’s direction before returning to his younger friend.
Sam appreciated the gesture but wanted to tell him that she had no claim on Alex after all this time and everything that had happened. By then, however, Alex was standing before her, and all rational thought left her mind. Up close, she was struck by how beautiful Alex still was. Even though she knew she shouldn’t, Sam couldn’t stop her eyes as they swept down the other woman’s length. Alex was wearing dark jeans that fit her figure like a glove—gone was the bagginess of the other day. Sam could see strong, defined legs, and she wondered how she had gotten them. Sam’s mouth went dry as she took in the curves of her breasts just under the sweater. As Sam’s eyes finally came to rest on Alex’s face, she realized that Alex was watching her. Her head was tilted to the side, faint lines around her eyes crinkled, and her dimple was prominent. Sam blushed furiously at having been caught.
Alex reached out and gently took Sam’s hand in greeting. Sam looked down at their hands. Their fingers twining together felt more natural and familiar than breathing. For a moment, Sam thought about throwing caution to the wind that night, playing the game and seeing where it might lead. But she knew that her time in Hicksville was temporary, and she wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of girl, especially not with Alex.
Alex tugged on Sam’s hand. “Come on. I’ll buy you a drink.”
