“Especially if you’re asking about me,” I tease.
“I promise you, I haven’t asked anyone about you in years,” she says flatly. The air between us growsthick once more and she takes another pull of her coffee. “What do you want, Nick?”
I stare at her for a beat and know that if I’m going to say what I need to say, it’s now or never.
“I wanted to apologize.”
“You already did,” she says, lifting her cup of coffee up and shaking her head at me.
“No, not for last week. For, well, for how I left things…” I say, trailing off at the end. She sets her coffee down and wraps both hands around it like the paper cup is some sort of shield. Her eyes fall to her lap.
“Oh.”
I set my cup down in front of me and sit up a little straighter. “I meant to reach out, to check in, but after I made it to Boston and got settled, I don’t know, it just didn’t feel right. Especially after your grandmother told me you didn’t want to see me.”
The sting of having to leave Evergreen without saying goodbye is still fresh after so many years. I know I was the one who broke us up but I still wanted to be able to say goodbye before I left for school. Knowing that she was home and she told her grandma to send me away broke something in me that day.
“Why would I want to see you? After what you did, after what you said? What made you think I would want to see you again, Nick?” she asks, her eyes piercing straight through me like dual daggers. Behind the bite in her voice, though, is pain.
I chew my lower lip. “I don’t know. I guess when you’re hardly eighteen and your prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed it’s hard to make logical decisions, which is why I’m here now, to apologize. For what I said and…for what I did.”
She looks away and pins her eyes on the ceiling, blinking a few times. Her way of pushing back the tears that are threateningto spill over the edge. Clearing her throat, she grabs her coffee and takes another drink.
“Well, thank you. I didn’t need your apology but I guess it shows some sort of character growth which you’d hope to see in a man after nearly twelve years away.”
I chuckle at her statement. “I did try to do some growing up while I was gone. And I really am sorry, Noelle. For how I left things, for disappearing. For all of it. You never deserved that.”
As I speak, I realize that I needed to say these words almost as much as she seems to have needed to hear them. I was an ass for leaving her like I did and an even bigger ass for never trying to apologize sooner. We had something special, something magical, and I went and screwed it all up because I got scared. Now that I’m back in Evergreen, though, I want to try and make things right with us and this is the first step to making that happen.
“Well,” she says after an awkward silence. “I should get back to the inn. I’m sure Eve has cut off one of her fingers by now.”
She pushes up from the table and I reach to take her hand in mine. Her eyes fall to where we are connected but she doesn’t pull her hand away.
“I really am sorry, Noelle. I hope you know that.”
“I—I know.”
“And I hope you know that I’m here if you need anything. I mean that. Anything you need, I’m here for you. But I won’t bother you anymore while I’m home, unless you come to me first, of course. I just didn’t want things to be weird between us since I’m going to be here for the next couple of months. Small town and all that.”
She pulls her hand away finally and shoves it into her pocket. Her cheeks have a faint hint of pink to them as she looks at me.
“Thanks, Nick. For the coffee,” she clarifies before turning away and beelining for the door.
I watch her go through the front window and disappear down the sidewalk. When she’s gone, my eyes focus on a figure standing on the opposite side of the street. It’s looking directly back at me with its arms crossed in front of it and a signature scowl I’d recognize anywhere. Storming across the street, Chris comes and glares at me through the window having seen who I was just with.
Fuck me.
CHAPTER 8
Noelle
Ihaven’t seen him since leaving him sitting at the coffee shop alone. I guess he meant what he said about not bothering me while he’s in town. Another two weeks roll by in what feels like nothing more than a blink of an eye meaning my window to matrimony is getting smaller and smaller. I figured out the chef issue in a snap and managed to make amends with the man who shattered my heart into a million pieces well enough. Now my focus could be back on finding a husband in time for Christmas.
How in the world did I fall into some insane Hallmark movie where the girl is given an ultimatum that seems impossible until it isn’t?
But that’s what my current situation is.
Impossible.
