Page 31 of Redemption
MJ sits beside me, pouting out the window like she did when I was seventeen and pulled her away from kissing Eric under the bleachers. She hasn’t said a word to me the entire way here, and I’m trying not to take it personally.
Who am I kidding?
This is MJ we are talking about, and everything between us is personal.
There’s no escaping our history.
It’s been almost two weeks since she pulled back into town, breaking my nose in the process, and I’d convinced myself that I would let our little game from that day go. It’s not my place to force her to be here, but then I remembered all the things I owe Langston.
So here I am, pulling up to the place I visit every week with a girl who can’t stand to be near me.
She doesn’t know it, but I watched her sit outside the coffee shop last week, waiting for me to leave. I dragged out my talk with Lily just to mess with her. And that right there is theproblem—neither one of us can resist poking the bear when we are around each other.
There’s something about how her eyes light up with fire every time I poke that has me losing my mind and pushing further.
Turning the key to cut the ignition, I square my shoulders toward her.
“Are you ready?” I ask.
Her gaze slowly slips towards me, and when her eyes are on mine, I have to bite back a smile. Her hair is tied back in a ponytail, letting me see every emotion flickering across her face. To others, that face is a stone mask of indifference, but I’ve always had the unique ability to read her like a book—and she hates that. That fire, the one that nearly drives me wild, is back in her eyes, and it makes me want to start a fight so that I can watch it flame higher.
Get it together, Hayes. This is not the time—or the woman—to feel this with.
Right now, I need to worry about keeping that temper of hers under control, not egging it on. Once we step out of this truck, things have to be different. Langston deserves our respect, and that’s what we will give him.
“I guess I have no choice,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.
I see it for what it is, though—a defense mechanism. She’s avoided this moment for six years, and I can’t blame her. But she’s back now, and there’s no avoiding it any longer.
Reaching out, I gently squeeze her arm, keeping my touch brief. But it doesn’t matter if I’m touching her for a second or a hundred seconds—either way, it sends a spark of electricity from my fingertips up to my elbow and a jolt of pain to my chest.
I pull my hand back to my side of the truck and shove open my door, careful not to slam it behind me when I’m out. It’s always been like this. Whenever I’m around MJ, I get so keyedup that I don’t know which way is up. It’s something I have to figure out, though, because in a town this small, there’s no way we will be able to avoid each other—ignore maybe, but not avoid.
Rounding the truck, I start to reach for the door handle on the passenger side, but MJ is slinging it open and ramming it into my knuckles at the same time.
“Would you stop trying to injure me,” I say, shaking my hand. It didn’t actually hurt, but if MJ can focus on fighting with me, maybe she won’t be so scared of what we are about to do.
“Oh, be quiet, you big baby,” she says, shoving at my chest and walking past me.
“Takes one to know one,” I mumble to myself as I follow her.
She takes the path to where we are going like she’s done it a thousand times, leading me as she walks with her head held tall. It confuses me because, as far as I know, she’s only ever been here once, but her steps are confident, even when every other part of her isn’t.
I watch from behind her, only getting glimpses of her side profile as she walks, but it’s telling enough.
Her hands are trembling despite the heat as each step brings us closer to our destination, and when we are finally there, her voice trembles as she whispers, “Hi, L. It’s nice to see you again.”
Then she sinks to her knees in front of Langston’s grave.
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I pride myself on knowing everything that’s happening in this little town—after all, it is my job to know—but as MJ talks to Langston’s headstone with ease, like she’s done it a hundred times before, I realize there are two things that have caught me off guard in the last week—and they both involve the woman in front of me right now.
The first thing was MJ’s arrival back in town. I didn’t think anything would ever top that surprise, seeing as how I ended upwith a broken nose because of it, but now I’m realizing that this isn’t the first time she’s returned to town.
Since she moved away six years ago, I was under the impression that she stayed away because surely I would have seen her if she had come back, but apparently that’s not true. I’m either very bad at my job—or she’s sneakier than I remember.
A pinch shoots across the left side of my chest, and I rub it with the heel of my palm as I keep my eyes on MJ. I have to tell myself that the sharp pain in my chest has nothing to do with the fact that she snuck around right under my nose without seeking me out and everything to do with the grave I’m standing in front of.
