“Tell me friendship is all you ever want from me.” His eyes bored into hers. “If you can say that with all honesty, then I’ll let it go and never speak on it again.”
Evie let her eyes fall shut. She wanted to pull her hand away but couldn’t.
“It took me a long time to get over the way you left,” Evie whispered. “Who knows if it would have been any better if you’d stuck around long enough to explain why you were leaving. I just know that the way it went down really hurt.” She looked down at their clasped hands and then back up at him. “I don’t want to ever hurt that way again, Bryson.”
“I promise not to hurt you,” he said.
Her heart constricted in her chest.
Could she believe him? How difficult would it be to pick up the pieces of her heart if he reneged on his promise?
Bryson cupped her chin in his palm. “We can start over.” The words were soft and filled with a tenderness she didn’t have the fortitude to fight.
She wanted to back away as he leaned forward, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. She’d dreamed of their mouths coming together more times than she would ever admit to over the years. She was powerless against the memories of his kiss. She needed to experience it again.
At the first brush of his lips, Evie’s insides turned to mush. He was slow and gentle, not rushing the way they did when they were kids, afraid they would get caught.
This kiss was so much better. This kiss was between two adults who now understood just how meaningful it was to connect with a person in this simple, yet powerful way.
He applied the slightest bit of pressure, and she instantly caved, opening her mouth and letting him inside. His tongue swept across hers as his lips crashed into her. Desire burst to life within her, evolving from a slow burn deep in her belly into an inferno that engulfed every nerve ending.
It was her own desperate moan that knocked her out of the spell she’d fallen under. She pulled away and regretted it immediately.
But it was the right thing. This was moving too fast.
“Shit,” Bryson whispered through a shaky breath. He rested his forehead on hers. “That went further than I intended. I told myself I wasn’t going to push you.”
“This is going to make working together very difficult,” she said.
“It doesn’t have to, Ev. I will respect whatever choice you make. This time, the decision is solely up to you.”
“I just… I don’t know, Bryson.”
The disappointment that flashed across his face matched what she was feeling inside, but she had to be honest with him, and with herself.
“I need time to think about this,” Evie said.
The mouth that had sent her to heaven a few minutes ago quirked up in a wry smile. “Take the time you need. Like I said, the decision is yours. And I’m not going anywhere.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The breeze blowing in from the lake managed to cut through the thick humidity that had settled over the city today. The meteorologists on every news station had spent their afternoon forecast discussing how the unseasonably warm air was something they should start to expect as climate change continued to wreak havoc on the area. It was a good thing he liked the heat over the cold.
Bryson followed Bella’s lead, running at a slightly less than easy pace as they made their way along the jogging trail that looped around West End Park. The fourteen-acre strip of green space that sat between the marina and Lake Pontchartrain had been an unexpected but welcome find as he began touring his new neighborhood this week. He’d been prepared to drive out to City Park for his afternoon runs. Instead, within five minutes of hooking Bella to thehands-free jogging leash that wrapped around his waist, they were at the park.
Today’s run was about more than the physical exertion his body had demanded since his days as a student athlete. He was in desperate need of the mental clarity that always came with a good jog. Based on the thoughts that continued to permeate his brain, he would probably bring Bella back to the house after a half hour and then return to the park so he could go hard on the pavement. Maybe if he depleted himself physically, he could do the same for his mind.
That way he would be too mentally exhausted to do something stupid, like tell Evie that he would take her any way he could get her.
He could not stop reliving that coffee-flavored kiss they shared last night. It played over and over again, up until the moment Evie pulled away.
In twenty years, when he looked back on this era of his life, there were only two things he expected to find. Either this was the period in which he found lifelong happiness, or the one in which he began his downward spiral into becoming a lonely curmudgeon who scared kids who passed him in the park. He had a great-uncle who’d been that way. He wondered if unrequited love was the source of Uncle Butch’s crabbiness.
Bryson tugged on Bella’s leash as they neared the stone bridge that spanned the small lagoon on the eastern edge of the park. On a previous jog, they’d nearly had a head-on collision with a double stroller. He didn’t want that kind of near miss ever again.
“Come here, girl,” Bryson said, scooping Bella up andholding her against his chest. He slowed to a walk and unsnapped the phone band from around his arm. He glanced over the few texts that had come through, but it was the voicemail from a number he didn’t recognize with a 985 area code that snagged his attention.
The only 985 numbers he recognized were his own and his family’s. No one else from that area code ever called his phone.
