She paused. “We’ll cross that roadifwe get there.”
I smirked. “You saidwe.”
“You won’t leave me alone, so I might as well give in and let you feel like you’re helping me.” A bolt of lightning illuminated the sky and split it into pieces. Thunder followed, the loud snap echoing in the air. “Would it be too much to go inside during the severe thunderstorm?”
I glanced at her while she watched the fast-approaching storm. She was luminous. Even in the dark, she was stunning. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun. She wore loose-fitting, but still sexy-as-fuck pink fleece shorts and a white hoodie over a thin T-shirt. Instead of gym shoes, she had on a pair of white Crocs.
“You’re so beautiful,” I whispered.
Her eyes flashed to mine. “What?”
Absently, I registered the song playing on the speaker. An Isley Brothers joint. The words fit the moment. She was like an angel. “When we were kids, you were like my own personal angel.”
“Wes,” she whispered.
“Even after I left. We weren’t together, but you were always with me. At my worst moments, when I was so low I could barely think straight, I thought about you. Your eyes, your voice, your smile.”
“I don’t know if we should …”
She was right. Every instinct I had to protect myself was screaming at me to shut the hell up. But I couldn’t leave this roof without telling her my truth. “Can I finish?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“No, for real. It doesn’t. I’m glad that you have good memories, that I could help you when you needed to conjure up a vision of me, but I’m not that girl anymore. I’m not an angel. I’m definitely notyourangel.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I don’t want to be in this space with you. I don’t want to travel down memory lane. It’s bad enough we’re sitting here right now having a beer like I didn’t spend years trying to hate you.”
“You saidtrying. Does that mean you don’t hate me?”
“I could never hate you, Wes. Not really. But it did take me a long time to get over you, to be able to think about you without feeling like I did something wrong.”
“You didn’t.”
“It doesn’t change how I felt then. Or how that feeling shaped me into the woman I am now.”
“What can I do?”
Her shoulders fell, then she peered at me. “You can accept that we can’t pick up where we left off.”
“Then where does that leave us?”
“What do you want from me, Wes? I’m trying here. It’s taking a lot for me to even have this discussion with you.”
“Tell me why you kissed me.”
“I wanted to,” she revealed. “I just needed to see if …”
Her confession was the sliver of hope that I wanted to hold on to. I studied her, noticed the way her gaze dropped to my mouth, the way her hooded eyes assessed me. Even if she didn’t like me, she wanted me. And I would give her what she wanted.
“What else do you want?” I slid off my chair onto my knees. Grabbing her chair, I turned it to face me. “Tell me.”
Albany’s eyes fluttered closed. “Stop.”
“Is that what you really want?”
