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“Riggins,” she says, and it sounds like a pained plea.
“A week, little star. I love you,” I whisper against her lips, leaning in and pressing hers to mine in a barely there touch. “Go inside, go back to sleep.”
Then I move down the stairs, to my truck and head back to my place, once more trying to force myself to try and remember that rainy day in Las Vegas.
It’s been two days of Stella brushing off my texts and calls. I’m over it. I gave her seven days before I reached out, and she asked me for more time.
I agreed. I thought she needed it after everything that happened with her mother, after the kiss in the field, after she slept in my bed. This is a lot of shit I’m throwing at her, a lot of confusing thoughts and feelings, and we’re raking up so much history that, for her, apparently, had settled beneath the silt of her new life.
She needed time to come to terms with the fact that I’m here, that I’m herefor her, and I’m here to be hers again.
But the next time I text her, she tells me some new bullshit excuse for why I can’t see her, and I’m over it.
“I’m going over there,” I tell Wes, grabbing my keys.
“You really think that’s a good idea, man?”
“No fucking clue, but it’s what my gut is telling me to do, so I am.”
“Riggins…” he says, his eyes looking concerned, but I know the look in mine is determined.
“Once, long ago, I ignored that feeling in my gut, ignored how it would tell me something wasn’t right, that Stella needed me, needed something. It told me something wasn’t right, but I was so stubborn and so fucked up I ignored it. I’ve lived in misery for seven years because of it.” My friend looks at me, sighs, and shakes his head.
“Alright, man. Just don’t make us lose her again, yeah? She’s your wife, but she’s all of ours. You know that.”
I do, and I fucking love that she has that, even if she doesn’t realize it. Stella might have lost her mother, but she has a whole family waiting to welcome her back home as soon as she’s ready.
“Got it, man.
I walk up her steps, testing the floorboard I nailed down last time I was here, and find myself pleased that it doesn’t move nor make any noise. But I also noticed a spot where the siding is loose and needs to be replaced, and the gutters probably need to be cleaned and inspected.
The place is a shithole, if I’m being honest, but it’s so totally Stella.
She always loved this house. When we were kids, we’d drive around Ashford on one of the few days she could get away during the day, just wandering and looking at houses, planning our future together. I may have hated this town and the way everyone in it knew my life history, the way they’d look at me with clear pity in their eyes, but she loved it here regardless and always wanted to settle down in our hometown.
She always made me drive down this dead-end road on the outskirts of town, passing it at least three times before we were allowed to move on.
That’s the one, she would whisper, eyes wide and filled with hope and desire. “That’s the one I want.”
“It looks like a heap, Stell,” I’d say, smiling because I knew what her response would be.
“We’ll fix it together. It’ll be a little project for us.”
And it seems like at the end of it all, she did just that. She got her house, I’m assuming, with royalties from Atlas Oaks or maybe from her ghostwriting since her mother definitely doesn’t pay enough for her to buy this, and she fixed it up.
Mostly.
Kind of.
Shaking my head to knock myself out of the past and the regrets I feel like I swim through every day, I reach for the doorbell and press it before pushing my hands into my pockets, waiting for her.
Nothing.
I wait a full minute before trying again, then another few moments before I realize there’s a chance the bell doesn’t work, considering the house is ancient and that would require wiring. While Stella’s handy, I don’t think she’s mastered that in the years since I’ve seen her.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I scroll and tap her name and lift it to my ear. I can hear it ringing in the house, so at the very least, the phone is in there, but after a handful of rings, I get her voicemail.
She’s ignoring me.
