“Really? Now that is new. What are you hiding, sweetheart?” he half asks, half suggests with a cocky smile that grates on my last nerve.
Yeah, I’m hiding something alright. I’m lying to myself right now in fact, sitting here pretending he still doesn’t get to me after all these years. I lie to myself every day when I try to convince my heart that I won’t fall for him again when Lord knows I already fell hard that night in the hotel room. The waitress sets down Rex’s beer, yet we never break eye contact. Never even acknowledge her presence.
Changing the topic, Rex eventually says, “Do you remember that night we stayed out and watched the sun come up from the lookout spot near our houses?”
My face softens, and I smile, remembering precisely the night he’s talking about. It was the night I found out my sister’s chemo might actually be working the second time around. I felt like the whole world was finally turning for the better. We sat, watched the sun rise, and talked all night about anything and everything.
For the first time, Rex wholeheartedly let me in that night. I saw our future and felt sure it would have my sister and Rex in it. Boy, was I wrong. But the memory is sweet, and so I don’t let the sour way things turned out jade it.
“I do,” I smile. “Those were good times. I remember we talked for hours until we fell asleep in the bed of your truck.”
“We did more than talk,” he winks at me, and I advert my eyes and busy myself with picking up my glass. Before I can rebuttal, he says, “Gwen, I haven’t always told you what you wanted to hear. I’ve tried running for years from the way we ended and the things I never got the chance to say. Shit, I tried running from it all when we were together, too. I’m just glad life handed me another chance. This time, I’m not going to screw this up.”
“Is that a promise, Roberts?” I half tease, not expecting him to accept the challenge.
“You can bet your fine ass it is, sweetheart,” he grins as the waitress begins bringing over our plates of food. When she leaves, I go to take a bite and am stunned to silence when I hear him confess, “Losing you is a mistake I don’t plan on making twice, Gwen.”
10
Gwen
My stomach is full, and my buzz is light from the wine as Rex walks me back to my little apartment. I smile over at him as we stroll along the cobblestone streets of New Orleans. My heart beats faster when he returns the smile. Winking at me, he picks up my hand and holds it in his. It’s an all too familiar gesture from our past. It feels so natural.
For a brief moment, I let myself accept what's building between us.
The sound of the busy street surrounds us, but its deafening noise is silent compared to the beating of my heart and the knowledge that I’m falling. That I’ve been falling. Hard.
Reminiscing over dinner was a bad idea because all it did was stir up all the feelings from our past. Walking down memory lane held promises of a future as I stared into Rex’s eyes and wondered what our life could have been like given another chance to make it right.
Sure, we were young. Of course, we may have broken apart throughout the years by a million other things that could have potentially pulled us in separate directions anyway. Perhaps the knowledge of what could have been is the only thing that is making us both wonder now. Maybe that is all there is between us anymore. Just the memory of how great we made each other feel when we allowed ourselves the pleasure. That doesn’t mean that we should take a chance on what we once had now, does it?
I know we can’t repeat the past, but the more the night wears on, and the tighter Rex holds my hand, it makes me want to try.
Coming to a stop at the foot of my apartment building, Rex looks up at the dimly lit windows.
“Well, this is me.” I let the cliché slip from my lips, having nothing better to say. “Thank you for the dinner. You really didn’t need to walk me home.”
“I told you the other night, it is not safe for a beautiful girl like you to walk these streets at night alone, regardless of how badass you think you are, sweetheart,” he teases. I laugh. “Besides, it just meant I have you to myself a little longer.”
I search his eyes to see if he’s playing with me. He has been pouring it on thick since arriving in New Orleans. I can’t fall for him again if this is just some sort of sick game to land his old flame and get me out of his system before he moves on to something better. He always was good with the one-liners. With me, and every other girl. But, as I hold his eyes, they reflect his heart, our past, and everything he wishes he can say, even though he still holds back.
“You’re not winning yourself an invitation up with that line, Rex,” I tease.
“I wasn’t trying to,” he insists. “I’m being honest. All I want is to be around you, Gwen. To try at this thing between us once again. To show you how much our past meant to me.”
My phone rings, startling both of us. Reluctantly, I pull it from my purse and see it is Eric. Looking back up at Rex, I notice as he also reads the screen and his body stiffens. Dropping my hand, he stuffs his in his pockets and steps back from me.
“You going to take that?” he asks angrily.
I hit ignore and keep my eyes trained on his. His face softens. The knowledge that we don’t want to be anywhere else, with anyone else, is new territory for us, given how we have tried fighting it for ten years. He smiles as the call stops and goes to voicemail.
Holding my stare, he insists, “Kiss me.”
God knows I want to. God knows there is nothing in this world I need more than to feel his lips on mine. But I’m not ready yet to let him back in.
So, instead, I playfully say, “Not today, Roberts.”
He grins and takes a step closer. Removing his hands from his pants pockets, he grabs both sides of my face and slowly leans in. Right as I think he’s about to kiss me anyway, say to hell with my stubbornness, and take what he wants, he lightly kisses each cheek then backs away. With a panty-melting wink, he releases me and starts to walk off into the night.
