“A busy one,” I answered.
“Nooo,” she replied, letting the word drag until she was giggling senseless. “One with cold feet. So, maybe this is a good thing. Maybe he’s doing me a favor—sending me back into the dating pool. I mean, I’m a hot commodity around here. I know you’ve been gone a long time, but I can get another guy like that,” she said, snapping her fingers to prove her point.
Dear Lord, she was hammered.
“I don’t doubt that for a second,” I replied honestly.
“It could have been you,” she said. “But you left. And then so did Dean and my sister and everyone else. You remember Millie, don’t you? The younger, hotter version of me? Millie and Molly…good God, what were my parents thinking?”
“Silly Millie. Of course I remember her. She caught us doing it in your room one time, and I had to pay her ten bucks every week for the rest of the year to keep her quiet.”
She snorted, laughing loudly. “You’re kidding!”
Shaking my head, I joined in. “Nope. Quite the entrepreneur, your sister.”
“Probably suits her well in Florida, the traitor.”
Her words were spoken in jest, but I could see the subtle hurt in her eyes.
“She never was cut out for the simple life. Kind of like you.”
“I don’t know about that,” I replied. “I did a pretty good job of it for a while.”
She rolled her eyes, clearly annoyed. “And do you love your new life? Was it worth it all?”
I looked around the grand old house, memories hidden in every floorboard and piece of furniture. The couple shots of whiskey I’d helped myself to were starting to kick in, and I felt the truth rising to the surface.
“Sometimes, I’m not sure,” I answered. “There are days when I truly feel like I made the right choice.”
“And the other days?”
“Those are the days when I step out into the waiting room and deliver the good news my patient’s family has been waiting for. I watch as they all huddle together, crying tears of joy in each other’s arms. They shake my hand and thank me for my hard work, and then I walk away. I go back home to an empty apartment, filled with things I don’t want or need, and I remember what it was like to have a family. A best friend. A soul mate.”
Her breath caught as she heard my words, and in that moment, I felt it.
The connection.
The need.
The ache I’d had for twelve long years without her.
I didn’t know who’d lunged first. Her or me. But, the moment our eyes met, she was in my arms, and I was in hers. Our lips connected in a frenzy of lust and desperation.
“You taste like whiskey,” I groaned as her fingers wove through my thick brown hair.
Her teeth tugged at my bottom lip as all thoughts vacated my brain, and I acted on impulse. My hands found the hem of her shirt. Her legs straddled my hips.
And, suddenly…like a runaway train hitting a brick wall, I came to my senses.
Not like this.
Never like this.
“Molly,” I said, my breath heavy. “Mols, we can’t do this. You don’t want this, believe me.”
She pulled back, heat and ire written across her face, as her chest heaved.
“Don’t you dare tell me what I don’t want, Jake. You are not in charge of me. You don’t own me.”
