He rolled his eyes. “So I guess you did me a favor after all. Made it clear we’ve all moved on.”
I rubbed my hands together. “See? My instincts were completely right! Summer to the rescue.”
That made him laugh, and the ease of it gave me a fizz in my veins to rival this bubbled lemon water in my hand. Something he had said struck me, so I circled back to it.
“You were at a low point when you met her.”
He appeared to be choosing his words carefully. “Yeah, I had a thing for someone, and it had just become clear that it wasn’t going to happen.”
“Oh. And Ava was a way for you to forget.”
He nodded. “Not fair to her, but sometimes that’s what you need. An escape from what’s weighing you down.”
True. We were all looking for ways to escape our pain. Our pasts. Often they were one and the same.
Look at me: fleeing my problems, the cliché of a runaway bride, fantasizing about the hot hunk who saved the day. As much as I wanted to, I wouldn’t use sex to escape, not even with the god posed like a sunbathing lion before me. Neither would I judge anyone who did.
“Sometimes we can think only of the moment. Of getting through it. My momma was a big fan of numbing the pain with anything that made her feel good. Alcohol, drugs, sex. She let every guy run roughshod over her, treat her like dirt, steal every penny and cheat her. She thought those were the prices we pay for the small sliver of pleasure a man could give you.”
“Is that what Carter was to you? A way to escape?”
I’d never looked at it that way, but there might be some truth in it.
“I thought this girl who grew up poor with no prospects and no one to encourage her to do better had finally made it to the pinnacle. Hot, rich athlete, who doesn’t beat me or treat me terribly, and if I wasn’t a hundred percent in love with him … well, life is a compromise. To be honest, up until he asked me to marry him, I didn’t even think we were going in that direction. We didn’t live together. We’d broken up several times over stupid things. I was sure he cheated on me, but I could never prove it. And he had to convince me to marry him. I didn’t say ‘yes’ the first time. Or the second. The third time, he asked me in public because he assumed I wouldn’t embarrass him in front of his friends. Shows what he knew.”
A tear escaped the corner of my eye. There would be no more compromises. No more subjugating my life to a man and his career.
Hatch leaned forward. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t owe me any explanations.”
“No, I-I don’t. But saying it aloud helps me get it straight in my head.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Your momma, huh?”
I blinked. “What?”
“You said ‘your momma’ and it’s not the first time that Southern twang has crept into your speech. Where are you from, Summer? Really?”
Chapter Sixteen
Hatch
* * *
For a moment, I wondered if I’d gone too far.
Summer had been honest about her relationship with Carter. I understood all too well how you could get caught up in circumstances beyond your control. How a rush of feeling, positive or negative, could override your common sense. She had given hints about her childhood—poverty, neglect, hopelessness, all things she had overcome. Meeting someone rich and successful might look like she’d made it out of the trap of her past.
But there was more. With Summer, I was learning there usually was.
“You’re not from California, are you?”
For a moment, I thought she’d make a joke and repel my intrusiveness. But instead she gave a small, relenting sigh. “No, I’m not.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Mississippi. A town that’s barely a town, more like a dot in the woods. Thunder Creek, it’s called. I ran away when I was fifteen. Then again when I was sixteen. That second time, I managed to stay away, and I sort of reinvented myself.”
Not what I expected at all. “In what way?”
