“Are you tired?” he finally asked.
“No. I napped a little on the flight. I haven’t had a whole lot to do other than nap for the past week. I feel like I caught up on a year’s worth of sleep.”
He didn’t want to touch that subject since he was the reason she had so much time off.
“It’s weird,” she said a few minutes later.
“What’s weird?” They were weird? He was weird? This whole messed up situation was weird?
“Seeing so many familiar things, but at the same time a lot has changed.”
He chanced a look at her. “Have you been back since you moved to Colorado?”
She shook her head. “No. I—I’ve only been back to Flat Holler.”
What had she been about to say before she changed her mind? “You didn’t keep in touch with anyone?”
She looked at him long and hard. “I didn’t have anyone else to keep in touch with.”
Breaking eye contact, he let the implication of that set it. He’d been her world and when they’d broken up, she’d had nothing to keep her there.
He took the exit that would take them to his house.
“You live in Belle Meade?”
Heat crept up the back of his neck. He’d thought about this moment in a vague I-wonder-what-Rowan-would-think kind of way, never in a real what-is-Rowan-going-to-say-when-she-sees-the-house kind of way.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Do they still do the parade of homes?”
“I think so. I honestly haven’t thought about that in years.”
“Do you remember that one house that looked like it had a tower?”
“Vaguely,” he said.
“I wonder if I can remember where it is,” she said. “See if it’s still as charming as I remember.”
He snuck another peek out of the corner of his eye. “I think I can probably find it.”
Rowan hunched over to peer out the window at the large houses they passed. Most of the houses in Belle Meade were too ostentatious for him. He’d only bought his house because it meant something.
He turned onto the wide, tree-lined street and checked the speedometer. The Belle Meade police were brutal when it came to speeding. Pulling into the drive, he held his breath.
“Oh my god! This is it!” She looked at him with a wide smile. “It’s still beautiful. Classic without being overbearing like some of the other houses we passed.”
She leaned back in the seat. “It beats a one-bedroom apartment, that’s for sure.”
“You must make decent money as a dentist,” he said.
“I do, but I double up on my student loan payments so I can pay them off faster. I’d rather be debt free than living in a place that’s honestly too big for me.”
“Makes sense.” She’d always been the more practical of the two of them. He hadn’t needed to buy a house—the two-bedroom house he’d rented after moving down from Clarksville had been more than enough for him.
“We should probably go before the owner calls the cops on a couple of weirdos sitting in front of his house,” she said.
“I don’t think he’ll mind.” He pressed the button on the overhead console.
