AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Logan’s nostrils flare, no doubt as he connects my face with my name ... and reputation.
“Thank you.” Tanya interlaces her fingers with Logan’s.
He glances at their clasped hands, confusion smoothing out the lines in his forehead. “What are you doing here?” he asks, directing the question to Hope.
“I—Will’s helping me look for Brandon’s locket, so I’m helping him with ... poaching ... staffing.” She shakes her head. “With stuff at the Inn.”
Logan’s expression hardens.
“You mean the locket Brandon gave you?” The urge to protect Hope from the sharpness in his voice makes my shoulders tense.
Tanya tugs Logan back, shows him her phone. “We should get going. We just stopped in before dinner with my parents to see IanSummers’s band. But, looks like we have to go. Hope, we’ll see you back at home?”
She nods, but the gesture is little more than a head bob, as if all the strength has vanished from her body.
As soon as they disappear, I turn to Hope. “Talk to me.”
“I should go,” she says and shoves her drink into my hand, pushes through the crowd.
More than a few glares and angry words chase me as I follow after Hope. She’s halfway down the sidewalk, nearly swallowed by the pitch-black night.
“Hope, stop.” Night air blows across the back of my neck, cooling the heat that collected there. “Please. What can I do?”
She turns to face me, and the relief I feel is blotted out by the way her broken expression guts me.
Hope is off limits. She’s not the kind of woman you can have a casual fling with. Despite that sparking temper and the fact that she would hate being called fragile, there’s something vulnerable about her, something I can’t help wanting to protect. Even from myself.
“Hope, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
“Don’t say ‘I’m sorry.’”
Something nameless ignites inside me. “Why? Why can’t I say ‘I’m sorry’? You owe me that explanation.”
“I owe it to you?” She scoffs, but the sound is layered with a swallowed sob.
“Yes, Hope. You do.”
She stares at me, unblinking. People heading into the bar stare and give us a wide berth. Music and laughter flow into the space between us—that last friend who doesn’t realize the party’s over.
“Tell me,” I say, my voice softening.
Seconds pass. A minute. Our gazes remain locked on each other’s.
She sighs. “Because I don’t deserve anyone’s ‘sorry’ until I can say ‘sorry’ to Brandon.”
“To Brandon? What would you need to say ‘I’m sorry’ to him for?” Brandon died in a car accident. A drunk driver ran through a red light, and Brandon died at the scene. Hope was in the passenger seat. She spent three weeks in the ICU and defied a thousand odds to walk away. At least that’s the story I’ve heard a few times since I’ve been in Kingsette.
“Brandon and I were fighting in the car that day.” Hope’s gaze drops to the sidewalk. “We’d been fighting since the night before.”
“What were you fighting about?” It’s a struggle to keep my voice gentle and keep true to the space she put between us.
“Everything. We were ... not on the same page anymore. Brandon was ready to start trying for a baby, and I wasn’t.” Her eyes are heavy with guilt as she lifts them to me and shakes her head. “He and I had gotten so stuck here. We’d had so many more plans, and I just wasn’t ready. I didn’t understand why Brandon was being so pushy. He didn’t understand why I wouldn’t just consider it.”
Her chest rises as if she’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“People get mad at each other. Even people who love each other. It doesn’t matter that you were fighting.”
“It’s more than that. Brandon was angry and already not paying attention to the road. Then I said to him—” Her voice cracks. Tears stream down her cheeks. “I said maybe we should take a break from each other. Maybe we want different things.”
