Page 41 of Claiming Ours
“You’ll drive yourself crazy with all the what-ifs. We all could. You know Dean. He wouldn’t have messed with your dream ofbecoming a veterinarian even if you had asked him to move to Texas. You both did what you needed to do separately for your future.” He searched my face. “Dean really never told you we had a falling-out?” I slowly shook my head. “That’s… surprising.”
“Why? What was it all about anyway?”
Memphis dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it beneath the heel of his black boot. “That’s a conversation for another time, Bay. Right now, I want to remember all the good times we had with him, not the one moment I wish like fuck I could take back.”
Despite my curiosity begging me to push him on the topic, I smiled and gave his hand a slight squeeze.
“Remember that time he wanted to see if he could outrun a bull?” Memphis’s lips curled upward, and a spark shone in his green eyes. “And found out real quick that he couldn’t.”
His deep rumbled laughter had my heart swelling with joy and hope.
This.
This was exactly what I needed. To remember Dean and all the good times we had without immediately falling into mourning for him in the same breath.
As Memphis recalled another idiotic idea Dean had in high school, I tipped my face up to the low gray clouds and said a silent thank-you. I’d asked Dean for a sign that it was okay to move on, to let go of a future that would never happen the way I’d imagined.
The man from my past who’d walked into my present was just the sign I needed.
It was officially time to move on.
14
LIAM
My content grin hadn’t dropped since the sounds of her laughter and the scent of something delicious cooking met me when I opened her cabin door. Baylee had turned to me when I walked in, joy radiating off her, and beckoned me over, pulling me into her arms to kiss me like she hadn’t seen me all day. While I sipped on a glass of water, wishing like hell it was a cold beer, she and Memphis traded crazy memories from high school while he cooked, and she watched from her perch on the island counter.
The whole fucking thing was homey, warm, and damn amazing after working my ass off all day. Dinner was fresh, healthy, and fucking delicious, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Baylee ate more in one sitting than I’d seen her eat before, maybe ever.
Drying my hands on a towel after finishing the dishes, I headed for the couch to join the other two. Heat radiated from the fireplace, flames casting a relaxed glow over the living room from the small fire I started before dinner to chase away the damp chill brought in by the storm raging outside. Rain hadbeen battering on the metal roof and pelting the windows for the last hour, adding to the cozy evening.
The cushion dipped beneath me, the motion causing Baylee to press against my side. At her content sigh, I glanced at Memphis in the single armchair and inclined my head in silent thanks for his part in making my girl so damn happy and relaxed. The serene smile tugging at his lips as he watched her contradicted the tatted hardass his outward appearance made you want to assume he was.
“I need to get cleaned up,” Baylee announced while pushing off the couch to stand. She stretched both arms high into the air, making the scrub top lift, exposing a sliver of soft porcelain skin. “I won’t be long.”
Both our gazes followed her out of the room until she disappeared into the bedroom and we heard the click of the bathroom door. I studied him out of the corner of my eye, still unsure of his real reason for being in Anchor Bay. Memphis stared into the fire, tatted fingers loosely interlaced and dangling between his spread knees, as if lost in thought.
“Shoot me straight, Memphis. Why are you really here?” I asked, my deep voice cutting through the fire’s peaceful crackle.
His eyes didn’t leave the dancing flames. “I wish I could tell you, but I honestly don’t know myself. I saw her picture, and I knew I needed to see her. There was this insistent pull to this place that I couldn’t ignore.” The leather groaned when he leaned back in the chair and rested his ankle over the opposite knee. “Baylee is the woman no one else could live up to in my mind. I guess I’m here for some closure regarding Dean and to see if she’d want me in her life again. I miss my best friend, but after today, I realized maybe I missed her more.”
I hummed in agreement and shifted on the couch to get comfortable. “I can see that. Now that I’ve known her, had herin my life, I’d miss her too. Do anything, including fly across the country, to see her again.”
He nodded, running a hand through his hair, disheveling the styled dirty-blond strands. “I wasn’t sure how she’d react. It’d been so long since we last saw each other, but I’d hoped that she’d remember me the way I remembered her, want that connection again. Fuck, I don’t know.”
“Were you hoping for more than a friendship with her?” I asked carefully. I didn’t want to push either of them, but it was clear they each still had unresolved feelings for the other. Now they were both in a position to explore that connection—with me directing it all, of course.
Fuck, just thinking about that had my cock twitching.
His odd, light green eyes met mine. “I hoped for anything that she would give me. If that was just friends, then that was what I’d be. But yeah, a part of me wished that the spark we had back then, even with Dean in the mix, would still be there.”
“Is that what the fallout between you and him was about?” I leaned forward, not dropping his intense gaze. “You told Dean how you felt about her?”
He bit his lip and shifted his stare back to the flames. “No. Though he threw that in my face, saying I was trying to break them up so I could have her for myself.”
“Were you?”
“Fuck no. I wanted to be a part of the relationship, not the rift between them.” He shook his head and dropped it back to regard the ceiling. “I wanted what they had so fucking much, wanted them to want me even if that was crazy talk. Dean liked to fuck with me since he knew I liked her, would start shit on the couch with Baylee while I sat right there. And hell yes, I’d watch. She knew I was, too, which made it all so fucking hot.”
