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“I think so,” I said, shrugging. “I love my job. Love helping the community I grew up in.” She nodded, and I pressed on. “What about you. What did you get up to right after high school?”
She huffed out a laugh. “Like you don’t already know,” she said, scanning the room. “Everyone in Sweet Water has been privy to the life I’ve lived.”
“They may know what the social sites reported on, but they don’t know the truth.”
“And you want to know the truth?”
“Always,” I said. “You know that.”
She worried her bottom lip between her teeth, and I couldn’t help but track the move. There would be no pushing her, I knew that and I never would, so I waited, patient and tuned in on whatever she wanted to give me.
“The truth is…nothing,” she finally said. “I’ve done absolutely nothing of note in the last ten years.” She shook her head. “You went to the academy and forged a life for yourself, and I lost myself while traveling and leaving a string of mistakes behind in my wake.”
“I don’t buy that,” I said. She gaped at me. “I buy the travel part, but not the nothing part. Whatever your past is, it brought you to where you are now, so it’s not nothing.”
“Yes, where I am now. Having dinner with my ex who is now kind of my boss in between waiting tables, living in a studio apartment, and practically dancing through hoops to satisfy my family’s requirements to be accepted into the family again.” She slapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes widening with shock like she didn’t mean to say any of that out loud. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was an uncalled-for outburst.”
“That wasn’t an outburst,” I said leaning closer over the table. “That’s called venting, and I’m here for it.”
“I’ve never been able to hold back with you, have I?” she asked, nothing but raw, open vulnerability in her eyes.
I shook my head. “Never been a need to.”
“Thanks, Jim,” she said, sighing.
“For what?”
“For the other night,” she said then shrugged. “For back then. For now. All of it.”
I swallowed around the sudden tension in my throat. Our waitress chose the perfect time to bring us our meals, saving me from opening my mouth to say something I’d regret—like how happy I was to see her or how much I enjoyed talking to her or how much I’d missed her.
None of those things would do either of us any good. If I knew anything, I knew that we may be older, but nothing had changed. Our circumstances were still the same—she was a VanDoren and I was a Harlowe. She was social royalty and I was blue collar all the way. And as much as I might’ve wished it, she was very clearly still doing whatever it took to appease her parents’ sometimes impossible expectations.
“I have no recollection of that,” Anne said after we finished dinner and lingered outside of the restaurant. Night had fully taken over, leaving the quiet space covered in a dark indigo with only the glow surrounding Lyla’s sign illuminating the area around us.
“Seriously?” I laughed. “You don’t remember talking me into stealing the headmaster’s car and parking it on the football field?
“Not an inkling,” she teased, but there was laughter in her eyes.
“I suppose you don’t remember me kissing you senseless for an hour after that either?” The question was out of my mouth before I could stop it, the memory playing out in full force in my mind.
“Senseless?” she asked. “I don’t recall you being that good of a kisser to make mesenselessenough to let you steal a car. You were a soon-to-be police officer for heaven’s sake!”
I narrowed my gaze on her. “Don’t you dare,” I teased. “You know I’m a phenomenal kisser.”
“If I can’t remember then how good could you really be?” she fired right back.
The blood turned hot in my veins, my head spinning from the game we played. The night had been perfection—laughing and reminiscing over amazing food. It was like no time had passed at all.
“Maybe I should remind you.” I stepped closer, and she retreated until her spine pressed against the building, the shadows of the night coating us in near darkness.
“You think so?” she asked, her voice slightly breathless.
“All you have to do is say the word,” I said, my pulse skyrocketing. This was a dangerous game, but I fucking lived for it.
A wild smile shaped her lips. “Remind me.”
My mouth was on hers in an instant, spanning the distance between us until nothing separated us but clothes. I shifted my thigh between her legs, cupping her face in my hands. Her lips were soft and insistent as we crashed together, a decade’s worth of tension unraveling and ramping up again in the span of a breath.
