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“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
“Do you think we would have been happy? If that night never happened—if I’d just gone home after the lake and broken up with Kate—do you ever think about where we’d be right now?”
“I would have lost my family.”
“You would have had me.” When I looked up at him, there were already tears in his eyes. I reached up, brushing them away with my thumb. “Please don’t cry. I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“I know you’re not. I know.” He bit his bottom lip and looked up at the sky.
I was dredging up memories he’d buried years ago. Excavating trauma like an archeologist on the hunt for long-forgotten artifacts chronicling our love. It would have been best for me to stand up and walk away. It would have been the honorable thing to do. He could still leave the lake with his dignity intact. The hurt on his face, the resignation radiating out of him— I’d done that. I was the reason, and I hated myself for it. I tried to stand up, but his hand slid around my wrist, holding me in place.
“I would have had you.” He looked up at me, his grip growing tighter. “After you left, I couldn’t even talk about you. Not around Trevor. Momma and Daddy knew something was off with me, but they didn’t press. I almost wish they had. That they’d made me tell them why we weren’t talking anymore. You were the biggest part of my life—the best part of my life—and then you were just gone. It was like you never existed. When I was on the road doing my shows, every night I hoped that you’d be out there. That you’d heard I was in town, and you’d come to …” he sighed, easing the grip he had on my wrist.
He was right there. Right on the brink of breaking. I wanted to scoop him into my arms and take all of that hurt away from him. To transfer it into me. Because I’d known hurt. I’d known it for twenty years. I didn’t want that for him. Gray was just about the purest soul I’d ever met. He deserved more than this.
“Come to what?”
“That you’d come to take me home. I missed you, Kent. More than I’ve ever missed anything, that’s how much I missed you.” His fingernails dug into my shoulders as he pulled me in for a hug. “Did—” his voice cracked. “Did you miss me, Half-pint?”
I pressed my lips against the crook of his neck, risking a kiss. His fingers dug in deeper as if it was his only way of returning what I’d just given him.
“I did,” I admitted, letting the last of my resistance fall like a stage curtain, closing out a portion of our life that we could never get back. “I do. I miss you deep down inside my bones.”
“Can I ask you something about that night?” Gray said.
Taking his lead from earlier, I repeated, “Anything.”
“Before he took you—after he pulled us apart—why didn’t you just say it? All you had to do was say you didn’t love me anymore. That I was a mistake. He said he’d let you go.”
“Do you really think he was going to let me walk out of there after what he saw us doing?”
He shook his head. “You could have at least tried, though.”
I reached for his face and cupped his cheek. “Never,” I said, meaning it more than I’d meant anything in my life. “Never, Two-liter.”
We were quiet for a while. At one point, he pulled me closer, sitting on my lap, chest to chest, leaving no space between us. His legs tangled around my waist, holding on to me like he was scared I might disappear. We stayed that way, wrapped up in each other until the sun disappeared over the trees.
Gray pulled away first. As he dried his eyes, he said, “We can’t go back, Half-pint.”
“I know. And that’s okay.” I wasn’t sure which of us I was trying to convince. It wasn’t okay. Nothing about this was okay. Even if every moment of our past had been stripped from my memory, I think I still would have felt it at that moment. The familiar feeling of connection. Two souls adrift, making their way to each other, seeking comfort in an endless sea of loneliness. Maybe he felt it too. Maybe it was just easier being lonely together than lonely alone.
“It is?”
“Yeah. Hey, look at me. It’s okay. I won’t lie to you and say that I don’t wish things would have turned out differently. Because there’s history there.”
“Terrible history.” He wiped away a tear with his sleeve, but another one took its place. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“It wasn’t all bad, though,” I said. “It wasn’t all gasoline and matches. It was Sundays in this lake. White chocolate macadamia nut cookies without the nuts—”
“You just bite into them expecting chocolate. They’re just little white liars,” he said with a sniffle.
“Yeah, I remember. That’s why I want to fix this. Youknowme. Probably better than anyone ever has. I miss having that connection with you.” He let go of my wrist and reached down, weaving our fingers together. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore. I don’t want you to think that I’m out to lure you back. I’m not trying to seduce you. This is hurting you. It’s been hurting you. I can see it.”
“Is it hurting you?”
“Of course, it’s hurting me. I have to watch you every day knowing I can’t—” I stopped myself, refusing to sabotage what I was trying to regain. I wanted my friend back. That was what mattered. “I don’t want it to, though. I’m so sick of being sad and mad at you all the time. Can we just be friends again? Can we try?”
“I want that.” He stared out at the water. “I didn’t just lose you. When you left, I lost myself. My future. Everything I was hoping for. After you left, things got really dark for me. It took me a long time to find myself again.”
