“You remember?”
“I remember everything.” A hint of sadness weighed down his words.
Oh boy.
“You like the sugar stirred in while it’s heating—on the stove and not in the microwave—then a sprinkle of cinnamon on top if you’ve had a bad day.”
The detail to her drink preference brought unexpected tears to her eyes. She cleared her throat to keep any emotion fromclinging to her voice. “You don’t have to make it. Go back to finding your midnight snack and I’ll do it.”
“Nah, I got it. I wasn’t really hungry anyway. Sit.” He turned the burner on low then slowly poured the milk into the pan. As he stirred with one hand, he plucked a small bottle of cinnamon from the spice rack. “If it were me, I’d top this off with something a little stronger, but we all have our vices.”
The weight on her chest grew heavier by the second. She settled at the island and watched him, the tension between them dissipating like the steam floating into the air.
But as the tension dissolved, her need to discuss their argument grew. Better to get it over with now and wake up with a fresh start.
“About earlier,” she said, tracing the tip of her fingernail over the smooth granite.
Lane faced her with raised hands. “I shouldn’t have pressed you. You have every right to discuss things on your terms, in your time. Or hell, not at all. I can’t swoop in and fix everything because I feel guilty.”
“And what do you feel guilty about?”
His face fell along with his hands. “About the way I left you.”
“Which time?”
He winced. “Both. I have no excuse. I was an ass and I’m sorry.”
Twisting her lips to the side, she considered his apology. It might be long overdue, and he was right, there was no excuse. But if she was going to move on, she needed more.
“I need a reason. Just one. I need to know what made you change your mind and leave this town without me.” She sat straight, her spine stiff and chin lifted. The truth might land like a hard slap, but she’d be ready.
Lane lifted the handle of the pot and poured the warm milk into a mug. He added a few dashes of cinnamon then slid the drink her way. “I couldn’t risk hurting you.”
She couldn’t stop the burst of laughter that poured from her mouth. A soul-deep, gut-busting laugh doubled her over the surface of the island. When she got herself under control and straightened on her stool, she stared at Lane and every ounce of amusement left her system.
He watched her with wounded eyes. His mouth pressed in a straight line and the rigid set of his shoulders broadcasting his vulnerability.
“Oh,” she said. “You were serious?”
Nodding, he scrubbed a palm over his face. “I don’t know how else to explain it.”
Her jaw dropped and a flash of irritation climbed the back of her neck. “Well you better think of something because that’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”
Lane blinkedat the harshness of her tone. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, come on,” Celine said and rolled her eyes. “You didn’t want to hurt me, so you broke my heart and left me crying on your porch? That doesn’t make an ounce of sense.”
He cringed then rounded the side of the island to take the stool beside her. He’d wanted to have this conversation. Maybe he should have put more thought into how to explain himself. If he and Celine were going to completely rehash this stuff, it wasn’t just about listening to her feelings. He had to give her closure.
Which meant answering whatever questions she threw at him a lot better than how he just did.
“I needed to get the hell out of this town. Away from my dad and everything he represented. I didn’t know if I’d make it out on the road, but I knew I had to try my hardest to make something of myself. I couldn’t focus all of me on that goal if I was worried about you.”
The flash of hurt in her eyes would have brought him to his knees if he’d been standing.
“I didn’t need you to worry about me,” she said. “I needed you to love me. But apparently you didn’t, or at least not enough to give me a chance. We’d been through so much together. You were my best friend, my first love. And you dropped me like I was some clingy nuisance threatening to destroy your future.”
“You wanted things I couldn’t give you. A home. A family. A picture-perfect life wrapped up in a shiny bow. I couldn’t give you any of that.”
