Page 112 of The Truth About Love

He reaches for me then, taking my hand and settling it in his lap where he rubs his thumb over my knuckles in small soothing circles.

“Because they were your parents,” he says simply. “And even though you didn’t like them, you still loved them.”

“They didn’t deserve for me to love them.”

“Probably not, but you did anyway.”

For just a moment, I let myself forget that he’s married to someone else. Sucking in a long breath, I rest my head on his shoulder and use the woodsy smell of him to calm myself down.

Our hands are still clasped together, resting on his legs. It takes everything in me not to splay my fingers out across his thigh like I own it, like he’s mine and I can touch him whenever and however I want. He must feel me twitch because he turns over my hand and traces the lines on my palm with his fingertips.

“Where are you staying tonight?” I ask so quietly it’s almost impossible to hear over the gentle rustling of leaves as the breeze blows through them.

“I’m not. I’m driving back home tonight.”

“What?” I sit up and gape at him. The drive between Islamorada and Tallahassee takes eight hours. If he left tonight, he wouldn’t make it home by tomorrow morning and that’s not even factoring in breaks. “You can’t do that.”

“It’s fine.” He shrugs. “I’ve got nowhere to stay anyway.”

“Stay at the house.” The words are out before I’ve really considered them.

“Yeah?” The smile he gives me is small and shy.

“Yeah. You drove all the way out here just to make sure I’m okay, giving you a place to lay your head tonight is the least I can do.”

He worries his bottom lip between his teeth as he thinks it over.

“Winter and the boys will be there too,” I say, sensing that the reason he hasn’t immediately agreed is because he’s concerned about it being just the two of us. “So, there’ll be a buffer between us.” I try a laugh, but it falls flat.

He finally nods, though his eyes are sad. “Yeah, okay. That’ll be great, thanks.”

Later, when he’s gone to bed in one of the guest rooms that I had made up for him, I try my hardest not to knock on his door and beg for him to sleep with me instead. To let me bury my face in his neck and fall asleep to the sound of his breathing like I did the last time he spent the night in this house.

Instead, I take a seat in the wicker chair on my balcony where we used to sit curled up to watch the sunset together. And with tears in my eyes, I watch the sky bleed on my own.

Chapter Thirty

Auden

Don’t go to her.

I say it to myself over and over again as I lay on the bed in Summer-Raine’s guest room and stare at the ceiling. But no matter how many times I repeat the words, the urge to make the walk down the hall to her bedroom is too much to bear.

Though we’re on opposite sides of the house, I’m sure I can smell her peachy sweetness from here. It entices me, taunts me. The scent is so damn irresistible to me, I’m like a dog with a bone.

Don’t go to her.

I say it again, out loud this time, as if hearing it will make it easier to resist her pull. But it doesn’t. It does nothing.

I just want to make sure she’s okay, I tell myself as I swing my legs out of bed and pad down the hallway to her door. She buried her parents today. It would be wrong of me not to check on her.

But there’s no answer when I knock. So, I knock again, but still nothing.

Maybe this is where I should turn around and go back to my room, take the silence as a sign that she’s sleeping and try and ignore the irrepressible citrus scent of her as it drifts to me as if caught in the breeze.

But I don’t. I crack open the door and step inside.

Summer-Raine’s bedroom is just as I remember. Literary postcards still cover every square inch of the walls and the sheets on her bed are still the same pastel shade of blue that they were seven years ago.

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