Page 42 of Wasted

She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe, the time you asked me to go down to the swimming hole with you."

I smiled, remembering. "Our first full moon swim." She nodded. "Our first kiss." I couldn't believe I'd forgotten about that. "I guess that was our first date, wasn't it?"

"How old were we?"

"We were in the sixth grade, so twelve, maybe."

"We almost got busted sneaking back in that night because you tripped and fell."

I laughed. "My head hit the window." I eased the truck to a stop in front of the lake and put it in park before killing the engine. "Truthfully, my original plan was to take you dancing at that new bar in the city, but I realized that wouldn't give us much alone time."

"Fans?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for all my fans, but sometimes I miss my privacy."

"Can I ask you something?" She shifted in the seat, turning toward me. My gaze met hers, and I nodded. "Do you love it? I mean, was reaching your dream everything you thought it would be?"

I sighed. That was such a loaded question that I didn't really have one simple answer. "Do you regret your decision to marry Caleb?"

Clearing her throat, she averted her gaze like she was avoiding eye contact. "You answer first."

"Okay." I nodded. "Yes, I love being on that stage. I love making music, and I love that rush I get right before I walk on stage. I love the adrenaline pumping through me when my fans are screaming. Your turn."

"No." She smiled. "I don't regret it. I don't regret choosing you over myself."

"But..." I said, drawing her attention to finish answering the rest of her question. "This industry is lonely. You never know who you can trust and who you can't. You never know who your real friends are, and women, they're a dime a dozen. Everyone hoping to be Mrs. Cole Montgomery. Not because they love me but because of what I can offer them."

"I guess everything has its positives and negatives," Taylor mused, her pragmatic nature shining through. While I'd always been the dreamer, she was the practical one, but looking back, I realized that was because she had to be. Her life didn't leave a lot of room for dreams.

My gaze dropped. "I'm going to say this one last time because I feel like I need you to really hear me." My heart twisted in my chest. "I don't agree with what you and Caleb did, but I understand why you did it. But Taylor," my gaze flicked up, meeting hers, "I would have traded everything I had to be with you. None of that mattered without you. I love what I do, and I love being on that stage, but I loved you more."

"I thought you would move on and forget me."

"What?" I scowled. "How? How do you forget what we had?"

"I don't know." She shrugged. "I haven't been able to."

Sucking in a deep breath, I exhaled slowly. "Let's try to let that part of our past go and see if we have a future together." Disappointment tightened my chest because I felt like I'd ruined the night, but I also felt like we needed to clear the air to move forward.

I'd set up two Adirondack chairs on the floating dock with a small fire pit with food and her favorite whiskey, but as romantic as it was under the quarter-crescent moon, it wasn't enough to salvage the night.

Sitting in an awkward silence, I stared off into the dark distance, trying to find something to discuss that didn't involve the past. Trying to find a topic that would just make the conversation flow, but I couldn't. We'd never had this much silence between us when we were younger. Even when I thought she'd cheated on me with my brother.

"This isn't working, is it?" I asked, pushing out of the chair and moving to stand at the edge of the dock. I shook my head. "I don't understand why this is so hard this time. It feels like we have nothing but our past in common anymore."

She sighed, and I twisted to face her. "I think we're trying too hard to get back what we had all those years again." She smiled. "To feel what we felt then, but..." She shook her head. "We aren't the same people we were then, and as much as I want to, we can't go back in time."

"Everything was so easy today."

"We weren't trying so hard today. We were just two friends hanging out. There was no pressure."

I nodded. She was right. I was fighting to get back what we had, but that was never going to happen because so much had changed over the last two years.

"Maybe we need to stop focusing on the past and start over."

Sucking in a deep breath, I exhaled slowly. Every part of my plan for tonight included recreating a special moment between us when really I should have been creating new memories. "Do you wanna get out of here?" I smirked. "Take a ride down the backroads."

"Yeah." She smiled.

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