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“What?” Ashleigh leaps out of her chair and hugs me, crushing my windpipe. “Sorry.” She moves back and does a little dance around the kitchen. “You’re serious about moving back.”
“I am.” I let out a relieved breath at one more step completed. “I’m ready to be back home.”
“You know Coach Matthews is retiring this year,” Mom says. “You should see if they would take you on as a coach.”
“I’ll look into that.” I haven’t thought that far into moving home. Clover needs to know I’m serious and accepting a job here can only help prove my point. Coach Matthews coached me in high school, so as long as they don’t require a teaching degree, I can take the job.
Once we finish our coffee, I take Dad to his physical therapy appointment. The receptionist that checks us in asks me about buying the O’Keefe place, so the rumor mill is doing its job. As I wait, I answer emails from my agent and my coach, both wanting to know my sudden decision to come back home. To them it may be sudden, but the thought has been in the back of my mind for a while.
Being home is already filling the hollowness inside me. They probably won’t understand the sentiment, both single and okay with being far from home. I don’t need them to understand, just accept it though. I text the team members I’m closest to so they aren’t blindsided by the announcement sure to come soon.
Dad comes into the waiting room, a frown on his face and pain etched into his features. We walk to the car and I don’t speak, knowing he isn’t going to want to talk with the pain he’s in. I drop him off at the house to my Mom before driving back into town. Clover’s store tugs at me, a magnet I have to follow. I pull into the parking space in front of the store and from there I can see inside. Clover is organizing candles by the register, her profile to me. My gaze rests on her face and something inside my chest unfurls and the ache I’ve been caring around relaxes.
This is what coming home feels like.
I get out and enter the store. She turns at the bell and freezes when she sees me, her meadow green eyes widening.
“Sutton.”
“Hey, Clover.” I smile when she clears her throat and turns back around to continue stacking the candles. It shouldn’t make me happy that I still affect her, but it does. Last night she’d been nervous as we picked up after the party, skittish and angry. That passion was what attracted me to her in the first place. That and her compassion for others. She’s still as beautiful as she was then, if not more so now as we’ve both matured.
“What do you want?” She asks me the same question she did last night.
“You,” I answer honestly.
Her entire body tenses. I can practically hear her thoughts churning. “That’s not fair.” Her voice cracks on the last word and I move closer. She holds a hand up, still not turning to face me, to face the fact that I’m back. “You can’t do this, Sutton. You can’t come back and think I’m just going to fall back into your arms. You left, I stayed. That’s the way it was.”
I move closer, my chest almost touching her back, and smooth the riot of curls off of her neck. She shivers. “That’s not the way it is now.” She’s so close, I can almost taste her skin. I lean in and press a soft kiss to the back of her neck. She lets out a breath.
“Please, Sutton. Don’t do this.”
Closing my eyes against the pain in her voice, against the pain it causes me to hear it, I step away from her. She finally turns to me and the unshed tears in her eyes punches me in the gut, sucking the air from me. “Come to dinner with me.”
She shakes her head. “No.”
I reach to tuck the curls behind her ear and she moves behind the counter, putting distance between us. My hand drops back to my side slowly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know.” She swallows and her gaze is miserable. “Just like I didn’t mean to hurt you and I did. We’re not the same people we were then, Sutton. We’ve grown and we’ve moved on and I can’t do this again. I can’t put myself through that hurt again.”
“It won’t end the same way.” I need her to understand that.
“You can’t know that.” She shakes her head again as the bell rings behind me. “I have customers now, so please leave.”
I have no choice but to leave. I can’t keep pushing her and expect her to change her mind. She needs to see that I’ve chosen to stay. If I just tell her it won’t make a difference. I give her one last long look before I move past the customer and out the door. When I get in the car, I head to the high school to talk to Coach Matthews.
Chapter Five
Clover
I take a long sip of my wine and close my eyes, trying to block the memory of Sutton’s kiss to the back of my neck. It had been more of a sweet gesture but the desire it woke in me is dangerous.
“Omg.” Azalea sets her wine glass down on the coffee table and shakes her phone’s screen at me. “Omg. Clover.”
“What?” Lily snatches the phone from her and then glances up at me, eyes wide. “Ohmygod.”
“Why are you two being so weird? A celebrity announce a divorce? Cute dog pic on Instagram?” I roll my eyes at them and take another sip of my wine.
“Sutton bought the O’Keefe place.”
