My hand twitched to move up and push her hair out of the way ... guiding my lips to hers.
“Drew! Drew, stop.”
Looks like my hand more than twitched.
“I’m sorry.” I breathed into her hair, unable to take my fingers out of it. Placing my lips on her forehead, I bared my soul. “I’m so confused, Jules. I spent the last seven years trying to put you in some sort of storage bin in my brain. I worked, worked out, ate, and drank, but I didn’t live.”
Her hand came to rest on my elbow, her fingers lightly grazing my skin.
“Now, here you are. Alive and well, looking amazing ... and you had my daughter. And all of that is messing with my head. I want you. Need you. I never stopped loving you.”
She squeezed my elbow. “We can’t. I can’t. Our past is our past and it has to stay there, Drew. I’m not going to keep Darla from you, but that’s all that you get out of this deal. Darla. On my terms.”
“Please.” The word was mangled, coming from somewhere deep in my gut.
“Come on, I’m going to drive you home. Besides being drunk, you’re talking nonsense.”
She moved away, opened the driver’s side door and got in her sedan, and I slithered into the passenger’s side like the snake I was.
I might have been drunk, but a thousand and one scenarios ran through my mind ... how to get Jules in my bed and my daughter under my roof.
What the fuck? What the hell happened to me?
The big dick-swinging bachelor, the hard-ass coach who fell into lust with his collegiate player?
He fell in love and never forgot it.
Jules
My car idled outside his place, not your typical Floridian Spanish stucco monstrosity, or one of those big mega-mansions with the hideous Roman columns.
No, it was worse.
Much, much worse.
Perfectly worse.
Modern white clapboard siding lit by the moonlight outlined the two-story house situated on the coastal highway. I rolled down the window and listened to the ocean slap against the shore as I took in the modern take on a Craftsman in front of me. It was like the 1970sBrady Bunchhouse impregnated one of those ridiculous industrial-modern places, and they created the most stunning place known to man.
Drew swayed a bit as he made his way down a narrow walkway and up a few steps toward the front door. I couldn’t help but silently pray he fell into his perfectly trimmed bushes.
The air smelled like salt and money. I took in the private staircase down to the beach as the light popped on inside Drew’s house. It was a dream and a nightmare. This could have been mine ... but it wasn’t.
Needing to get back to where I belonged, I started to reverse out of the driveway, needing to leave this fantasy in my rearview.
“Jules,” he called out, and I stopped until he caught up to me. “I meant it. I’ve always loved you. Please give me a chance.”
“Good night, Drew.”
It was time to return to reality, I scolded myself, to my small two-bedroom apartment, far away from the water. I needed to stay in my lane and away from Drew.
After dropping Darla off at school the next day, I sat slumped over my morning coffee, visions of his gorgeous house tormenting me. It was a fantasy.
Drew was then and this is now. Me, Darla, the apartment situated in a decent school district, and the promise of Bryce moving on and me taking over his job.
The Southern chain had been good to me ever since Bryce had taken a chance on me. I’d been given stacked benefits and the opportunity to build a life for my daughter and me. As the company expanded, they promoted from within, and seniority counted. Perhaps soon, I’d be a manager.
My mom had wanted me to give up the baby and finish my degree, but I couldn’t do it. The tiny life in my belly had become my entire purpose as soon as I learned about it—about her.
