“And after that, you just…” she prodded.
“I dove into my schoolwork, trying to forget it all. I laid low, and after a month or two of moping, I tried dating again, but every woman looked like Valerie to me. And I got…bitter. So, I decided if I wasn’t marriage material, fine. Being on my own sounded easier anyway. Girls became a Saturday night. If anybody began acting serious, I would cut ‘em loose.”
“Yikes.”
“It sounds meaner than it was. I wasn’t making a habit out of dating girls who would want much more from me.”
“What happens when you turn fifty and you can’t get the hot young things anymore?”
“I’ve been working on my golf game.”
A laugh bubbled out of her throat. The birds in the trees began to combine with the crickets to create a soft melody around us.
“So, the past couple of months must have been torture for you.” She turned to look at me. “Unless you’ve been seeing other girls on the side, I guess.”
“With all the tackling exes, and fixing porches, and making out in ditches, I haven’t had time for anything else.”
She laughed softly, and my heart rate spiked, remembering the ditch. “Me neither.”
“I’ve just…” I began, wondering why I was still talking but not being able to stop—just like I feared. “I’ve been this guy for so long…I don’t know. It’s hard to let go of that.”
“Do you want to be different?”
I tensed, feeling myself close inward. Here we go. It wasn’t what Valdidas much as how it affected me. I had never known rejection like that. By someone who had claimed to love me. My rose-colored glass had shattered. Which was probably a good thing. I had been too naïve. Too stupid. And yet…my shoulder was now pressed up against Tessa Robbins. Thinking things about her that I had no business thinking. Telling her things I had no business telling her. We weren’t really dating. But that statement was starting to sound hollow.
“I didn’t come here thinking I did. But lately…yeah. I’ve been thinking about it.” I nudged her with my arm. She drew in a breath and then didn’t move a muscle. My arm still rested against hers—she hadn’t moved it away. I was a broken water faucet. I couldn’t turn it off, and I needed to turn this thing off. Do something else. I was either going to kiss her or tell her more things I shouldn’t say, and I couldn’t afford to do that. I couldn’t make sense of my thoughts when we were lying together like this. So…I made a flash decision to change the course of the night.
I stood up abruptly. “Stay here. I’ll be back.” I took off running toward my truck.
26
Tessa
“I’ll be back.” The exact words Tyler had uttered when he stumbled down the aisle and headed toward my house on our wedding day. He never came back. I was working through that emotion when Logan’s truck fired up and his headlights beamed into the orchard, illuminating the trees before me with a harsh circle of light. When had it become so dark? I waited for the truck to back up. For Logan to leave. I had pushed too hard. I had asked too much of him.
The sprinklers in the grass beside me gurgled loudly before popping up and out of the ground. I gasped as a stream of cold water blasted my body. Squealing, I jumped up and made to run toward the house when I smashed into Logan, his hands holding my arms.
“Did you do that?” I asked, trying to move past him, but he held me firm.
“Yeah.”
He took a step closer, our bodies touching, and he began to walk me slowly backward to the orchard. The maneuver wasnothot at all.
“Fun fact about me: I hate being cold, so…” I began.
The water hit us in waves from all sides, a shock to the system with each spray. My hands pushed against his wet shirt while he held me tight. It brought back a memory from three years earlier. He and Cade had heard about Kelsey’s and my summer ritual of sleeping out on the trampoline and had completely drenched us with buckets of water. A water fight had ensued, and since Cade was there for Kelsey, it was kind of like Logan was there for me. The memory was now a kaleidoscope of moments bleeding into each other, where I couldn’t tell the first from the last. His arms lifting me on his shoulder like a sack of flour, laughing together, me on his back. Both of us dripping wet. Much like now. Outwardly, I had to protest, but whatever plan he had, I was all in.
I complained loudly the entire way, but he paid me little heed beyond an occasional grin. He stopped in the middle of two rows of apple trees, the cold water blasting us on a rhythm now.
“Wow, that is cold,” he said.
“Right? You butt. Let me go.” There was no heat to my words, and my mouth was shivering. He stepped closer, wrapping his arms around me fully, our chests pressed together.
“Your problem is that you’re stuck on the last memories you had here. You need different ones. Better ones to override the bad.”
“I’m concerned about your definition of better.”
“Shhh. Listen.”
