Page 19 of Need You To Choose Me

“Sure thing.” He tilts his head toward the barn. “Let’s go inside.”

Not waiting for an answer, he starts walking toward the building, and I follow after him to the small office attached to the barn.

While I might have been friends with Miguel first, since we played two seasons together in the NFL, Aaron and I clicked the moment we met last year when Miguel invited the boys and me to spend Thanksgiving with his family. I’m not sure if it was the fact that we were closer in age or that we were both single dads. Either way, I was glad that I had somebody I could talk to and who could understand things I was dealing with.

Not that Aaron would ever get a girl he barely knew pregnant. No, he was too serious, too stoic, too responsible for something like that. Unlike me.

“Want a drink?” Aaron crouches in front of the little fridge that’s sitting in the corner of the room. “I have water, Coke…”

“Do you have something stronger?”

Aaron’s brows shoot up, but he doesn’t say anything as he closes the fridge and walks to the shelf. Turning two glasses around, he grabs one of the bottles standing there. Jack. Theamber liquid gleams in the sun that peeks through the window, and the memories of that night emerge in my head.

The way those lush honey curls swayed as Blondie tilted her head back to down her drink. The smell of Jack on her breath as we were mere inches apart.

One night. No names. No kissing.

A glassclinksagainst the desk when Aaron places it in front of me, snapping me out of my thoughts. I wrap my fingers around it and down it in one go, letting the alcohol burn on its way down to my stomach.

“Will you finally tell me what happened that drew you to drink before noon?” Aaron asks as he slides into the chair opposite me.

“What do you know about Miss Parker?”

Fuck, I still don’t know her name.

Aaron’s brows furrow in confusion. “Miss Parker? You mean Savannah Parker?”

“Savannah Parker,” I whisper, testing the sound of it on my tongue.My fingers curl around the glass as her name echoes in my head, in tune with the wild beat of my heart.

Sa-va-nnah. Sa-va-nnah. Sa-va-nnah.

“Is she Levi’s teacher?”

“Yes. What do you know about her?”

Aaron shrugs. “Not much. She teaches first grade. Gage was in her class last year, and he liked her. She also runs a reading group for kids at Reading Nook. Cheryl usually takes—” Aaron’s words trail off. He runs his hand through his hair, a dark expression passing over his face. “She used to take Gage there.”

I feel a pang of guilt at stirring the painful memories. Aaron’s wife died last year in a car accident. I didn’t know the details, but Miguel said that Aaron hasn’t been the same ever since.

While taking a pull of his drink, Aaron’s dark eyes fix on mine. “Why are you asking about Savannah? Did something happen today?”

“No, nothing happened, I just…” I rub my hand over my jaw. “Do you know if she’s seeing anybody?”

“If you wanted to get some town gossip, you should have gone to the café or something.” If possible, that scowl deepens even more. “But seriously, what’s with the twenty questions about Savannah Parker?”

I run my fingers through my hair, letting out a long breath. “You remember when I came here back in March?”

Aaron nods. “What about it?”

“Well after I left the ranch, I didn’t go home.”

My friend’s brows pull together. “You didn’t?”

I shake my head, the memories of that day coming back. “I got on the road and started toward Austin, but everything that had been going on got the better of me, so I decided to make a pit stop. I just needed a moment to breathe, and since I knew Mrs. Maxwell would stay the night with the boys… Anyway, that’s where I met her.”

The image of Blondie—Savannah—from that day flashes in my mind.

So beautiful she took my breath away.

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