Page 55 of Home Town Advantage
We’re silent for several minutes until she eventually stops crying. She sits, staring at the fire, looking a million miles away.
Eventually, I stand and make my way to the front window. Sulley’s car is completely buried. There must be three or four feet of snow out there. I’ve never seen anything like it. And it’s still snowing.
Making my way to the kitchen, I open a few cabinets, but there’s not much in here. Four cans of soup and a few other things. I see an old can of hot chocolate powder mix.
She loved it when she was a kid. Maybe that will make her feel better. I boil water and mix the hot chocolate into a mug for her.
She’s still staring into the fire as I walk back toward her. Handing it to her, I again whisper, “I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. “It’s my fault. I let it happen.”
I sit down next to her. “We both got carried away.”
She turns her head to me. “Why? Why did you do it?”
“I’m sorry. I woke up with you nearly naked in my arms. I’ve wanted you for so long and?—”
“Notthat, Vance. Maddie. Why her? Tell me the truth for once.”
I’m silent for several long beats, letting only the silence and the crackling of the fire fill the air.
She blows out a breath of frustration before yelling, “Tell me something real, Vance. Something truthful. Anything!”
I swallow hard as I admit, “The day of Finn’s funeral, I carried you from the treehouse to your room and stayed with you.”
She nods. “I remember.”
“When you woke up, I told you that you had asked me to stay with you and then fell asleep on my arm.”
“What about that?” she asks with clear anticipation.
I nervously lick my lips. “You never woke up. You never asked me to stay. I stayed because I loved having you in my arms. I wanted you in my arms.”
Her brow furrows. “I don’t understand. You rejected my advances that night.”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t because I didn’t want you.” I nervously run my fingers through my hair. “Trust me, I wanted you. I stopped what was happening because you just had the worst day of your life. You were an emotional wreck. We both were. I didn’t want our first time together to be associated with that horrible day.”
Her face softens at my admission.
I can’t help but reach out and move a piece of hair from her face. I tuck it behind her ear before rubbing my thumb over her cheek and lips. “I wanted you then, and I want you now, Sullivan Aisling.”
I bring my lips within a hairsbreadth of hers, waiting for her to close the distance. But she doesn’t. We just sit there and breathe the same air.
FOURTEEN
SULLEY
Ilet out a laugh. “It was Stacey Rosegarten, trust me.”
Vance twists his lips. “Are you sure?”
“Vance, I followed you and Finn to the drive-in movie theater all the time. You were making out with Stacey when Ellen Gold dumped a bucket of water in the back of your truck. All over poor Stacey.”
He scratches his head. “Ellen’s fatal attraction to me was always over the top, but I thought it was Grace Dunger who she dumped water on in my truck.”
We’ve been stuck in the cabin all afternoon and evening. After he blew my mind with the best orgasm of my life and then I lost my mind with regret, we agreed to make the most of our time stranded in this cabin without drama. We’re going to be here for at least another full day. It would be pointless to make it miserable, so we’re burying the heavy and keeping it light.
We did the one puzzle we found in a cabinet, we’ve played a few games, and we’ve reminisced about old times. We’re now fully dressed, sipping on our soup late at night, discussing the many women who pined for Vance in his high school days andthe girl drama that often ensued from him being the hottest ticket in town.
