Page 86 of Burning For You

There had always been something about her. Something that reached past logic and dug its fingers into him, holding tight and clouding his thoughts.

When he was younger, he hadn’t understood it. He’d written it off as lust. Attraction. A want that needed to be satisfied and then forgotten.

But it had never faded.

She would never be forgotten.

Now, older and painfully more aware, he knew better.

It wasn’t desire alone. It was need.

Skye filled a space in him he hadn’t even known was empty until she’d been gone. And the hole she’d left behind had never quite closed.

When she left right after high school, something in him had gone silent.

At first, he told himself it was nothing. Just the absence of someone who’d been around long enough to feel permanent. People left all the time. He stayed. That was how life worked.

Except the silence never faded. Neither did her memory.

He noticed it in stupid, everyday ways. A laugh that didn’t carry down the hall anymore when he was in Corbin’s room and she retreated to hers.

How there was one less plate set at the table when he stayed for dinner last minute.

He didn’t talk about her. Didn’t ask outright. Pride and fear of being caught still dreaming of her kept his lips sealed.

But he listened.

Every scrap of information that drifted out of Corbin, he latched onto like it mattered. Where she’d gone. Whether she’d sounded happy on the phone. If she’d come home for Christmas, even for a day. Whether she was working, writing, surviving.

He stored it all away. Quietly. Carefully. Like proof she still existed somewhere beyond his memory. That maybe she found happiness when he was still trying to figure out what happiness even meant for him.

He told himself it was concern. That he’d always felt responsible for her in some way. That it made sense, given everything she’d lost and how much he wanted to help.

But concern didn’t explain the hollow ache that settled in his chest when Corbin mentioned her name. Or the irrational flare of relief when he heard she was okay, followed immediately by disappointment that okay didn’t include here, where he could see her. Or talk to her himself.

Where he could try for something with her and hope for a future that she never saw.

But he stayed where he was. Built a life that made sense. Took the job that demanded everything from him so he wouldn’t have time to think about the one person who had left without meaning to take a piece of him with her.

Who didn’t even know that she had.

Hell, he didn’t realize the full extent of it until he saw her again and knew she was here.

And now that she was back, standing in front of him, talking about dreams she didn’t think would ever come true, he understood the truth he’d avoided for years.

He hadn’t just missed her. He’d been waiting.

But he couldn’t say that to her. And he sure the hell couldn’t say it now.

“You did it all on your own, Skye. Don’t let anyone think otherwise, least of all yourself. No matter where you landed, you still would have made something out of yourself.”

“I don’t know about that,” she mumbled. “And it’s beside the point. I shouldn’t have said it.”

Seemed they both had the same problem wishing they could take words back.

“So tell me then what is going through your mind.”

She turned and leaned on the counter, her hands braced behind her. “I don’t like boundaries. You’re right there. I had enough of them in my past life. But I know there isn’t much I can do about it. I came back home not for a fresh start. Not really. Just for a change. I don’t know if I was looking for something or not, but it seems it found me.”