She gives me a knowing smile. There will definitely be questions to answer the next time I run into her or any of her in-laws or family.
Sometimes, this town truly is too damn small.
As soon as we’re back in the car, Emily dives into her new books, and Sophie takes her coffee and bun without a word. No one is in the mood to distract me from my encounter with Levi,and my thoughts immediately go back to last fall when I saw him again for the first time in a year.
“Hello there,” a deep voice drawled behind me. I recognized it right away. I’d probably memorized it during my nearly decade-long crush on Levi Sullivan. And this version of the voice was Levi on the prowl.
I swallowed my emotions. I would never again let Levi Sullivan know how much he affected me.
After I’d finished arranging the men’s cologne in the drugstore where I was working, I turned and faced the man.
I steeled myself, but I felt as though I’d been hit with a bolt of lightning as soon as my eyes met his. It’d been a few years since I’d seen Levi, and he was even better looking than I remembered. His jaw had sharpened, his shoulders had broadened, but those eyes were exactly the same. Still honey brown and deep enough to drown in. And the way I was drawn to him… It made my mouth go dry and my heart pick up its pace.
My body was a traitor when it came to Levi.
For one glorious moment, he drank me in like I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, then his eyes widened in shock and something that looked an awful lot like revulsion took over his expression. “Gentry? Gentry Lendew?”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I spoke in a joking tone, but the sinking sensation in my chest was very real. I’d hoped I’d be beyond his ability to hurt me, but I was wrong. Again.
He held up his hands, his smile nervous. “I’m not disappointed. Not at all. It’s great to see you.”
“Always the charmer,” I said, shaking my head. “Even when you’re not getting what you want.”
He dropped his gaze to the floor, his smile falling with it. When he looked up, I saw the mask sliding back into place. He was once again trying to use charm to wriggle out of anuncomfortable situation. So predictable. “We should get dinner. I’d love to catch up.”
It was just one blow too many in a long line of them lately. “Catch up about what? We were never friends.” It was rude, but it was true. He was my older brother’s best friend, he didn’t know me other than to tease me along with my brother.
Last year, when I was nineteen, and he was twenty-two, I thought he’d finally seen me as more than that.
He’d come by to see Brodie while I was home on summer break from college, but my brother had been out and I’d been on my way to meet friends at the lake. Levi had joined me, and we’d spent a fun afternoon together. My friends loved him, and the way he looked at me, his eyes dropping to my lips every time I laughed… I just knew everything was about to change.
He drove me home, walked me to my door, and gave me the sweetest chaste kiss. It felt like it meant something. It felt like the start of something real.
He asked me to meet him the next day for a real date, just the two of us, but he never showed up. That evening, I asked Brodie if he’d heard from Levi. My brother was in a terrible mood, and he said Levi had hooked up with some girl the night before and was probably still with her. He told me I needed to get over my stupid crush on Levi.
Two days later, Dad left and didn’t come back.
Levi never texted or called, and I didn’t see him again until now, when he randomly bumped into me at a chain drugstore where I was working because it’s the only job an art school dropout can get.
His smile curved back up. “Maybe we could get to be friends. I’m back in Catalpa Creek permanently. I could use a friend.”
“Too bad,” I said. “I don’t need friends like you.”
He sighed, his smile falling. “I’m sorry, Gentry.”
Years of hurt and anger boiled out of the box I’d so carefully kept them stuffed in. “What are you sorry for, Levi? For kissing me or for standing me up and never calling to explain? Or maybe you’re sorry for hooking up with another girl the same night you kissed me.”
He stared at me, clearly confused. “What? I never—”
I huffed out a sigh of disbelief. “Don’t bother lying, Levi. Brodie told me you were with another girl that night.”
He tilted his head back and breathed out one word, “fuck.”
“Gentry, you have no reason to believe me, but I didn’t hook up with any other girl that night.”
“Why would my brother lie to me, Levi?”
He looks away, lips pressed tight, his jaw working. “I can’t…” He turned back to me, sadness in every line of his expression. “Brodie and I argued. I told him I wanted to date you, and he got pissed. Angrier than I’ve ever seen him. He’d… He’d had a terrible night, Gentry. I got a ride home from a friend at the bar who happened to be a woman, but I didn’t hook up with her, Gentry. I swear.”
