But no. She’d been kind instead.
He closed his eyes and gave a short laugh. He didn’t know what to call that feeling that had been growing in his chest since he’d seen her, like something in him was expanding, the way the universe was said to during the Big Bang. He might have called it happiness except that he’d thought he was pretty happy already. Or, all he’d needed to get all the way to happy was the house.
She’d been tough and dazzling and hilarious back then, but even all of that was fed by a compassion he’d wanted to wade into like a warm sea. It was the lens through which she saw the world.
But he still wasn’t going to let her overrun this property with corporate schmucks.
If he’d been brave enough, if he’d really wanted to throw her off her game a few minutes ago, he could have said: I remember exactly what it felt like to pull that soft, soft lower lip of yours between mine, very gently. How we turned kissing into an art form, because it was all we had or, more accurately, all we dared, and like a couple of maestros we found infinite little variations and pleasures in it. But mainly it was pleasurable because we were kissing each other, because the yearning had been like nothing I’ve ever known since. And Ilikedyou so much. And how you smelled a little like strawberries, and laughed so easily, and cried without shame when your squirrel, Trixie, died but never any other time, and never backed down from an opinion when it was something you cared about. And how badly, badly I wanted to have sex with you, so badly I spent a lot of summer nights staring at my ceiling tortured by my imagination, because those were the days long before internet porn. And how I didn’t dare press you or me, because I guess I knew all along how easily you gave your heart away to things bound to crush it. Like a squirrel. Or like me.
Because I didn’t believe in anything.
And I thought back then that, in the end, I couldn’t have you.
He couldn’t have pulled that off with any bravado. He wasn’t the sort who said that kind of thing out loud. Avalon was the only person who had crept past every single one of his defenses, and judging from how he was indulging in hand-trembling navel-contemplation right now, apparently she still could.
There was also the fact that she was just so damnpretty.
So maybe the free and funny and kind Avalon he knew was still in there, layered over with corporate bullshit the way the walls in his parents’ bedroom had been layered over with that hideous black-and-gold wallpaper.
It might actually be kind offunto find out.
That was the thing about Avalon: competing with her back then was some of the most fun he’d ever had in his life.
It was pretty clear he couldn’t win this particular round through financial means.
But being a Coltranedidcome with a certain genetic degree of cunning.
He leaned back in the chair in front of his cottage, latched his hands behind his head, and mentally sifted through his conversation with her until he lighted on one critical piece of information.
Didn’t she say she had a potential buyer coming tomorrow?
A slow smile spread all over his face. He pulled out his phone.
First, he checked the weather report.
Excellent. Couldn’t be more perfect.
He flicked through his contacts and pressed Morton Horton’s number.
“Game on, Harwood,” he murmured.
