Page 140 of Sweet Surrender

I. Love. Her.

As I pull into the airport, I feel steadier than I have in hours.

I’m going to fix this. I’m going to make this right.

Hendrix is mine.

And I’m going to make damn sure she knows it.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Hendrix

“Momma, the sun tea is done.”

“That’s not possible. It should have an hour more yet,” she calls from inside the kitchen. But the liquid in the container looks dark brown from where I stand so I move toward the front wall of her postage stamp-sized yard to check it.

She’s always liked it to steep until it’s ridiculously strong. I prefer mine on the lighter side.

“It’s awfully dark already,” I say, and then freeze when I look up to see Jase standing there.

I do a double take.

He’s in dark jeans and a white V-neck shirt. A hat is pulled low over his face, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, and his expression is one of pure misery mixed with hope.

Jesus.

I’m sucker-punched, seeing him standing in front of me, in a place that’s the complete opposite of him. The man who exists in a world of flashing lights and roaring stadiums is here, on the cracked and crabgrass-dotted sidewalk of my childhood home. He doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t fit here.

And yet, my heart thrums at the sight of him.

“Hey,” he says, his voice rough around the edges.

“What are you doing here?”

Here. In my little space of life that he hasn’t touched. Where there are no memories of him woven into every inch of fabric or foot of yard. Not a kitchen island where we made love. Not a frosting bowl we played with. Not a couch where we laughed until we cried. Not a studio in fucking sight.

“I needed to see you.” Those words and the broken way he says them gut me.

But he doesn’t get to show up here expecting that to erase his mistakes.

“So you tracked me down? Wouldn’t a phone call have been easier?” I ask, forcing my voice to stay even and unaffected.

“Yes.” He takes a hesitant step closer. “But then again, nothing is easy when it matters, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He swallows hard. “I screwed up, Hendrix.”

Oh God. He slept with one of the women. I think I’m going to be sick.

“Yeah, well, so did I in taking the deal.” It’s partly to myself, but I’m just so fucking hurt. Devastated.

“I disagree.”

Yeah well, it’s not your heart that has been trodden on, destroyed once again. But I refuse to show him how much he’s hurt me. He’s already shown me by his actions that he doesn’t want me, so why the fuck is he here?

I exhale sharply and cross my arms over my chest. “What did you come here to say, Jase?”