Page 58 of Chasing After You
“Oh, hey, wasn’t expecting to see you two still here,” I say when I nearly collide with Knox in the hall on the way to my room.
“We had a little time between shows. Came back to facetime Sloan,” Knox says, stepping to the side to let me pass.
“Plus, Knox had to buy out a local bakery and the sweets were too many to eat or carry,” Kenley calls out from their room a few doors down.
Knox grins. “That too.”
“Since when do you have a sweet tooth?” I ask, slowly moving by him.
“I don’t.” His grin gets dopier. “She does. And I like how she pretends I’m totally ridiculous buying every little treat for her to try only to come home and try every single one, like I knew she would.” His voice drops a little lower as if he’s worried she might hear him. “She’s not good at thinking about what she likes. Even worse when it comes to asking for it. So, I go over the top with it all. Because I want her to be good at it.”
“You know what you’re good at?” I reach my door and pause. “This. Being with her. Being this man.” I smile. “Good for you, brother. I’m proud of you.”
He smiles back. “I’m proud of you.” He pats my chest. “Horses and your woman back all in one afternoon. That’s quite the feat.”
“Man, I was being serious.” I turn away and start to head inside. “Now you’re just fucking with me.”
“I wasn’t.” He laughs, following me in. “Okay, maybe a little. But I meant the part about Nessa. Takes guts coming out here after her, putting your heart out on the line like that after everything that happened between you two. Some people might have chosen to leave things be, not risk a second heartbreak, but you went for it. And you were right to.”
I nod. “I hope so.”
He frowns. “What do you mean, you hope so? Something happen since I saw you last?”
“Nah.” I squat down to reach my bag and start digging through it. I don’t have much in here to wear at a dude ranch, but I can definitely dress for a luau with what I brought. “It’s just...” I don’t even know if I have words for what’s bothering me. And if I do, I’m not sure I want to dare saying them out loud.
“It’s just what?” Knox won’t let it go though.
“She’s not sure about us anymore.” Yeah. Saying it out loud sucks as bad as I figured it would. “I know she’s acting like everything is back to normal, and I think maybe she wants it to be just as badly as I do. But...” my words trail off a second time. I hate saying these things. Hate feeling them even more.
“But what?” Knox isn’t even prying. I think he’s just trying to help me sort things out. Kind of like he did the last time we talked about me and Ness.
“But we’ve had so many moments since I showed up here, moments where we danced on the verge of letting the truth slipout between us, and we didn’t. We held back. We lied to each other. And even when I thought the time was right to say things out loud, to just put it all out in the open, she stopped me. Like she didn’t want to hear it.” I stare down at the two t-shirts in my hands then throw one back in the back and toss the other over my shoulder to free my hands for another search. This time for shorts. “Even Vale told me to hold off telling her why I was really here. Said she wasn’t ready.”
“I’m sure it was scary for both of you.” Knox crosses the few feet left between him and the bunk bed and has a seat on the bottom mattress. “I don’t think you can blame her for being afraid to jump back in on a moment’s notice.”
“I know.” I find a pair of shorts that’ll do the trick and stand again. “And I’d say the same thing to anyone else if they were in my situation. But it’s Nessa. She never lets fear stop her. Not when we were fourteen and had no business falling head over heels for each other. Not when we were nineteen and I told her I wanted to chase music with you. Not when she decided to divorce me. Or when she got it in her head to open up her own yoga studio. The woman has no fear of falling. She just...leaps.”
“So, what are you saying?”
I bounce my shoulders helplessly. “I’m saying she didn’t want to leap this time. I had to coax her over the edge. And even though she’s here with me now, I can’t help feeling that something isn’t right. Something we’re trying to hurry past and bury along with the time we spent apart, is going to come rushing back and bite us in the ass. And whatever it is, I’m scared the reason we’re trying to outrun it is because it’s something we can’t fight.” I exhale but it feels like all the air going out is replaced with lead coming in, weighing me down and making it hard to take in another breath. “And if we lose, I lose her. For good.”
Knox opens his mouth, probably to tell me how crazy I am to be worried, but I can’t be sure.
Just then, Jason pops his head in through the open doorway. “You all seen Cass?”
I frown. “I thought she was with you.”
“She was.” He takes another odd look down the hall before stepping all the way inside.
“Don’t tell me you two are fighting again.” Knox shakes his head, trying not to laugh. Those two do have that love and hate thing down pat.
“Nope.” Jason grins. “Not fighting.” He leans his head back toward the door like he’s listening for sounds in the rest of the cabin. “You two sure she’s not back yet? We split after we got back from our ride because she wanted to go browse the gift shop for souvenirs. And I...I just didn’t. That’s not my thing.”
I’m not sure of anything. “I just walked in; I didn’t get any further than this room.”
“We’ve been back a while. And she’s definitely not here. We checked the place for other people when we got back,” Knox offers.
“You checked every room?” Jason apparently continues to have his doubts.
