AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I knew I had to do something. I knew that the longer I stayed around Savannah—at work, at the apartment complex, at holiday dinners—the more I wanted to take that night back.
No, not take it back.
Redo the morning after.
But I couldn’t go back and change how everything went down. Instead, I was left with the feeling that I loved a woman who would never allow me to love her in the way she most deserved.
So, when my buddy and roommate Mitch signed me up for The Rose as a joke, and I actually was casted, I took it as a sign.
A sign that it was time to move on.
I couldn’t keep hanging around Savannah, hoping she’d see that we could be more than friends—and be good at being more than friends.
Couldn’t keep hoping for another night like July, twenty-sixteen.
Couldn’t keep hoping for more.
Dating and casual hook ups weren’t working for me, and I’d tried. Instead, removing myself from San Diego seemed like the best option.
Clearly, it hadn’t been.
Shaking my head, I tiredly watched the road turn from asphalt to gravel, and the rumble below the tires nearly lulled me into peace.
Nearly.
Thoughts of Savannah never let me have full, true peace.
The trip down the gravel road seemed shorter and shorter each time I took it, and once I was at the old hunter’s cabin, I shut off the engine and grabbed my bag of food from the seat, as well as the five-pound bag of ice from the passenger floorboard.
I tried to make the trip into town only once a week, but for a guy who lived a fairly high-in-produce life, I was getting sick of the carbs. Lettuce wouldn’t keep in the ice chest, so outside of pasta and soup, I was pretty limited to what I could eat. This week, I had apples and bananas. Maybe next week, I’d grab oranges.
Or, maybe I’d get apples and bananas again.
...I’d probably get apples and bananas again, I thought with a sigh.
I walked up the three wooden steps to the front door, and turned the knob.
It was locked.
Frowning, I rearranged my bags to get my keys out. I thought I’d left the door unlocked when I left, but at this point, who the hell knew?
My days all ran together, and I was waiting impatiently for the call that gave me flight instructions for the reunion finale show. It was originally scheduled for the upcoming week, but the producers were being slow on when to bring me back to Los Angeles. My last communication with them was that, at the latest, I’d fly into LAX on Monday morning.
There were a lot of fears in the world right now, with the emerging coronavirus, and there was even talk about doing the show remotely.
As long as I could be back at my house in San Diego before anything serious went down in the country, I’d be happy.
Inside the cabin, I immediately went to the kitchen area with my bags and started to unpack the groceries. Once everything was where I wanted it, I brought the bag of ice to the large cooler I’d been using, and, after pulling out the egg carton, added the ice on top of the remaining contents.
Block cheese, eggs, water.
The eggs and lid back in place, I stood and turned around—and stared at the bed.
What in the...?
Where the hell did the linens go?
Frowning, my long gait carried me to the other side of the cabin as my eyes scanned the four hundred square feet surrounding me for any type of clue.
