Page 7 of On One Condition

Why did you leave without a word?

Why did I give you so much power to break my heart?

“Christ.” He runs a hand through his hair, and it falls back perfectly into place as he stares at me, with his head shaking ever so slightly and his jaw lax. “Never in a million years did I think that you’d still . . .”

“What? That I’d still be here?” I ask. The chuckle that follows is self-deprecating. And just like that, I’m transported back to that night. To those life-altering events and the scars they left behind. To the shattering of my heart. My guard is up. “Yeah, you know us simple folk. We never leave.” My smile is strained despite my racing heart. Even after all these years, the humiliation exists, the embarrassment over what I felt is still real, as I try to process the fact that Ledger Sharpe is in front of me.

It’s what I prayed for night after night—for him to come back. But that was fifteen years ago.

Life has changed.

I’ve changed.

“You know what? I’m going to go.” He abruptly stands up from the seat he just sat in, the scrape of the stool drawing even more glances our way. He’s angry? What the hell? And yet for some odd reason, panic I shouldn’t feel sparks to life.

“Ledger. Wait. Don’t go . . .” There’s misplaced desperation in my voice that I hate the sound of.

I hate feeling it even more.

His brow furrows as if he’s confused by my request—as am I—but with his eyes locked on mine, he slowly lowers himself back onto the stool. The low hum of chatter throughout the bar begins anew as customers go back to their own business, bored already with whatever is going on between us.

But I’m not.

I’m rapt with attention, struggling with seeing him again after all this time, while attempting to process the tumult of emotions storming through me. For a few unspoken moments, we study each other, and I can only assume he’s remembering everything about our past too.

His expression begins to soften despite the tension remaining in his shoulders. “It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?” he finally says, but there’s an edge to his tone, an uneasiness about him. It’s almost as if he’s uncertain how to act when I know he entered this bar moments ago, an extremely confident man.

“It sure has,” I murmur.

Images flash through my mind. First kisses. First loves. First everything in that final summer that was filled with laughter and living, laden with promises and predictions for our future. A summer where I felt like I was someone’s everything for the first time in my life.

There’s unsettled silence between us. The kind that years apart and lives lived causes—when you know the person that was, but not the person in front of you now.

Those amber eyes of his always won me over. The same eyes staring at me now, asking questions I don’t think I know the answer to even if he were able to put words to them.

I clear my throat. “What can I get you to drink?” I ask as if he were some random customer. I need to stop my thoughts from tumbling too far into a past we cannot change. A past that hurt for way too long.

“What craft beers do you have on draft?” he asks.

“We only have domestic. I’m sure that’s not up to your standards—”

“Meaning?” His brows furrow.

“Meaning guys like you, ones with pedigree, prefer the expensive shit,” I say with a bite to my tone. That one word will be forever burned into my memory.

“Pedigree?”

I grab a glass and dry it again, needing something—anything—to do with my trembling hands. The anger that riots through me burns its way into hurt. “Yep. Nothing average or run-of-the-mill will do for you.”

His chuckle is low, but his eyes are curious as he leans back, head angled to the side, and crosses his arms over his chest. I can assume he’s a smart man. Does he think time would fully erase the hurt after what happened? After what was said and the insecurities and humiliation it caused?

He may not have been the one to say it, but he went along with it.

Does that matter, though? It’s been, what? Fifteen years? What’s done is done, Asher. Let it go.

Our gazes hold for a beat until he gives the subtlest of nods that seems to indicate he’s going to play along with whatever attitude I’m giving him.

“You imply that I think I’m too good for a Coors Light and in turn too good for this place in general.” It’s a statement. Not a question. And the look he gives me says he wants whatever fight is brewing here. “That wasn’t the case before, was it? And it sure as hell isn’t the case now.”