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He sprints away to the other side of the parking lot, and I erase the distance between Lauren and me.
“You okay?” I ask, running my hand down her face, checking for any marks.
“Just peachy.” She slaps my hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
I step away at her request, and she takes a deep breath before letting it out.
“Sorry for snapping,” she says, her voice level. “He had me all hyped up.”
“No need to apologize.” I tip my head toward my truck a few spaces away. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride home.”
“I’m fine. I only had one drink.”
“I’m not concerned about you being drunk. I’m worried about your safety.”
“I’ll be okay.” She fishes through her purse for her keys with shaking hands. “I’ll be fine. You scared him away.”
“I’ll follow you home then.”
I do a once-over of the parking lot before lowering my voice and dipping down to Lauren’s level. “Landlord didn’t go back into the bar. He walked to his car and hasn’t left. My guess is, he’s waiting for you to leave, so he can do something stupid. I’ll be damned if I let that happen.”
Understanding dawns on her face.
“You don’t think …” she mutters, stopping mid-sentence.
“Who knows how big his balls are? Regardless, I won’t risk it.” I hold two fingers up. “That gives you two options. One is I’ll follow you home. Then tomorrow, we’ll file a restraining order against the punk.” I put down a finger. “The second option is you let me give you a ride, and we’ll still file a restraining order.”
It’s her turn to do a nervous scan of the parking lot. “I’ll ride with you.”
I keep my hand on her back as we walk to my truck, and I help her in.
She slides her sandals off and rests her feet on the dash as soon as we pull out of the parking lot. “God, I remember these days. Your truck was older back then. Ripped seats. Smelled like your dad’s old cologne.”
“Ah, yes, his rusted beater,” I say with a laugh, happy she’s no longer shaking. “That front seat saw plenty of action.”
“Plenty of awkward, first-time action.”
“I won’t deny that.” I tap my hand against the steering wheel and curse myself for what I’m about to do. It’ll ruin the comfortableness of our ride, but the question has been haunting me for years. “Why’d you do it?”
Her feet drop from the dash. “Huh?”
“Why’d you leave me?”
“Gage … I told you why.”
“No, you gave me a bullshit excuse.”
“And you’ll receive the same one tonight. It was for the best.”
I scoff, “Maybe it was for you, but it sure as fuck wasn’t for me. You were my fucking life, Lauren. The reason I bled. Hell, I loved you more than my own life, my own breath, and you knew that. We had plans, and then one day, you changed your mind, out of nowhere.”
She scrubs her hands over her face. “That was the problem, Gage. You can’t make someone your entire life. We didn’t know anything, except for each other. We never had the chance to find ourselves.”
“I knew myself. Knew I wanted you. Knew who I loved.”
It isn’t until we pull into her parents’ drive that I realize why she’s kept her hands over her face. It’s to mask the tears falling down her cheeks. The urge to reach out and comfort her rips through me, but I can’t.
“Can we not do this? It’s in the past. Let it be.” Her voice breaks.
