Her lips brush against my own as she says, “Everyone already knows I’m yours, Grey.”
Everything inside of me goes taut at the words, a bow ready to fire, and I quit holding myself back. I flip her onto the mattress and kiss her like I’ve wanted to since she woke up and gave me that smile that’s all mine.
And then there’s nothing between us, just heat and skin and her kiss and mine. My hands slide up the smooth skin of her thighs. They’re so soft. I’ve never been a poetic kind of man, but I think I could write sonnets about them. Her ass, her hips, the way she feels beneath my palms.
Like a dream I never want to wake up from.
When she pulls back, we’re both breathing heavily, desperate, impatient.
I watch her through hooded eyes, cataloging her features. The blond hair dripping like wildflower honey across her shoulders. The pale pink kiss-bruised lips, the bottom one tucked between her teeth. The hazel eyes, like sunshine and whiskey.
As I look, my vision goes fuzzy at the edges. Panic sets in, because I know what this means. What it always means.
Her eyes catch on mine, concerned. “What’s wrong?”
There’s an ache spreading through my chest and seeping into my muscles. “I don’t want this to end.”
She’s there again, at my lips, in my ear. I try to hold on, to cling to her, rubbing my palms up and down every inch of her skin, breathing in her springtime scent.
“Then don’t let it,” she says, her breath hot on my neck. “Stay with me. Don’t wake up, Grey.”
Then she fades away, just like always, and I’m left alone in my bed, morning sunshine slanting through my curtains.
A heavy breath heaves out of me as I stare at my ceiling. She isn’t here, obviously. She never has been. I only ever have her in my dreams.
Today is going to suck, just like every day after I wake up with the phantom taste of Finley on my lips. I know it the minute I step into the local coffee shop, Smokey the Beans, and see my aunt, Melissa, sitting at her usual table. I knew she’d be here—she’s always here with her best friend, Myra—but I was hoping she wouldn’t see me. I’m grumpy and unsatisfied, and I don’t have nearly enough caffeine in my system to deal with the meddling pair today.
“Grey,” Melissa yells the moment I walk in the door.
Briefly, I consider pretending I didn’t hear her. I imagine holding my phone up to my ear, pretending I’m in the middle of a conversation. Even turning around and heading right back out. But every single one of those options would only make her more curious. And it would make my life literal hell when she finally catches up to me later. So I let out a deep breath, ignoring the headache forming at the base of my skull, and head toward her table.
My fake smile comes easily. “Morning, Aunt Missy.” I bend to press a kiss to her cheek.
She secures a hand around my bicep, pulling me down into the chair next to her. “Hi, honey, how you been?” Her brow wrinkles as she looks at me, like maybe she can see the dream I woke up from playing like a movie on my forehead. “You look like you didn’t sleep much.”
I know what she means. When I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, there were bruises under my eyes, and my face looked gaunt, hollow. Lifeless. I don’t know when things got this bad, when I started dreaming about leaving in the middle of the night and never returning to this town. To her.
Actually, I do. It was seven months ago. When Finley asked me to stay with her, when I held her all night like I’d wanted to for over a decade. When we woke up the next morning, and nothing at had changed. That’s not true. One important thing had changed. I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. Be around her, watch her fall in love with another deadbeat and never even consider me. Me, the playboy. Me, the one who has two parents who don’t even talk, who has no idea how to love her the way she deserves. Me, who has inappropriate dreams about my best friend’s little sister when, most of the time, she barely tolerates my presence.
Yes, it was seven months ago that I realized once and for all that nothing would ever happen between us. It was seven months ago that I returned to my quiet, lonely house in the woods and started looking for jobs, ones that would take me far away from here, where I could make a new life for myself. Where I could finally find someone who’d love me back, the way I’d been trying for years. Then, at the end of my dates, at least I wouldn’t run into Finley and realize no one compares. Maybe if I get far away from here, I’ll forget what she smells like, how her laugh sounds, the way she makes me smile just by bickering with me.
I’m lying to myself and can’t stop.
I know there will be no forgetting her, but I have to try.
Clearing my throat and my head, I say, “No, I didn’t sleep well last night.”
Melissa’s eyes soften, like she sees all the things I’m not saying. My parents have never been the most hands-on, but Melissa has always been there for me. Growing up, I spent almost as many nights at her house as my own. She never married or had kids, so I was the object of all her spoiling. It was my only taste of it, really.
My parents love me, I know that, but sometimes I think their apathy for each other bled into apathy for me. They were young and on the verge of breaking up when they got pregnant with me. So they got married out of some misplaced duty to raise me in a two-parent household. I think I would have preferred they never married. At least then they would have beenhappy. Our house was always too quiet, and I always felt like I was walking on eggshells. They never really fought, but when they got angry, they’d go days or weeks without talking to each other, and I was the buffer. Mom would need her oil changed, and I would have to be the one to let Dad know. Dad’s work shirt needed mending, but he hadn’t even looked at Mom in fourteen days, so could I be the one to ask her?
Melissa’s house was my only safe place growing up, until I met Holden, and his mom, Jodi, adopted me as one of her own. But now, even being at Jodi’s makes me ache. Becausesheis always there too. There’s no place in this town that Finley hasn’t touched, that she hasn’t made bloom in that way that only she can.
Which is why I have to leave. As soon as I can find a job, somewhere far, far away.
“How about you come over for dinner one night this week?” Melissa says, patting my hand with her wrinkled one. It makes my heart hurt a little to see the evidence of her age there, to know that if I leave, I’ll be getting away from Finley, but also leaving my aunt behind.
I nod, swallowing against the lump in my throat, and try to force another smile. I know she sees right through it. “Sure, Aunt Missy. Let’s do it.”
