“I made it impossible for anyone to follow. I thought it was the only way to protect myself from getting hurt again. I knew if you asked me to come back I would, but I didn’t think we’d ever really be together.”
“I’m sorry for making you lose faith in me.” He kissed my chest. “I promise to spend the rest of our lives making it up to you.”
It was a good thing we’d ditched the condoms because we might’ve gone through the entire box by the time the sun started to rise. Our blankets had gone cold. Batteries flattened after a night of fighting the chill. I was stiff and sore when we climbed out of the truck bed.
I loved him more in the morning light. Danny pulled into the drive of my family cabin and leaned over to kiss me.
“Want me to come in?”
“Ellie will be up soon. I’ll see you later today?”
“Sure.” He nodded and took the hint. I wasn’t exactly avoiding him meeting her, but I didn’t know what was right so soon after the divorce.
I took another kiss before opening the door.
“I think you should stay.” Danny’s statement stopped me in my tracks.
“What do you mean? Like longer? Because you know I can’t. Ellie goes back to school next week.”
“No, I mean to move back here.”
“How can you even ask me to do that?” My tone hitched, betraying all the hurt closing off my throat. “I have a kid. I can’t just think about myself anymore.”
“I’m not her father, and I won’t ever be, but like you, what does she have to go back there for? You have your family here. You have me. If she’s going to start a new school, it might as well be in Arrowood. You have the support you need here.” Danny had a lot of good points, yet that just wasn’t the way things worked. I couldn’t just pick up and move.
“I can’t.” I got out of his truck, lingering with the door open. “Thank you for the wonderful night, but I think we both know what’s coming.”
My knees were weak. My stomach flipped. I swallowed back bile as I slammed the truck door and turned heavily toward the house. I can’t believe I had to do this again.
Much like the last time, I’d be leaving my heart in Arrowood.
Ten
AVERY
I made up excuses not to see Danny the day after. It was the coward's way, but I needed time to think. I should have been working, but after opening my computer and staring at the code I should be fixing, I kept returning to his face time and time again. How Danny’d looked at me with my response to his asking me to move back here permanently. I’d told him no.
“Daddy?”
I looked up to find Ellie had snuck out of the living room where she’d been watching Trolls for the three hundredth time with my parents. I could only hope it would be out of her system by the time we left.
“Why did you leave Arrowood? Adam and Avery live here, and so do Grandpa and Grandma.”
I leaned over, looking in the living room to see if my parents had put her up to this. They were asleep. I snorted. I couldn’t exactly tell her I’d been in love with someone who didn’t love me enough back. Not an eight-year-old appropriate conversation when all she knew was me loving her mother. But I tried not to lie to her.
“It didn’t feel like home anymore. So I went to college and met mommy.”
“Does it feel like home now?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because it feels like home to me,” she said way louder than she should have.
“You think so?”
Ellie’s nod held the type of certainty adults rarely had. “But not the motel. I do not want to go back there.”
“We won’t.”
She started muttering about seamen and I pinched the bridge of my nose. She was never going to drop this.
“I will buy you a whole submarine full of seamen and sea monsters to go with it if we never speak of this again.”
She narrowed her eyes at me then held out her hand. “Deal.”
I shook it, and she skipped off content.
“Do I want to know?”
Adam stood in the doorway. I hadn’t heard him come in.
“You don’t.” I said tentatively, using my best father's voice because Adam was like a toddler who’d be back to throwing a tantrum at the drop of a hat.
“Hi Kiddo,” Adam addressed Ellie as she ran through the room again, this time wearing fairy wings.
“I’m not a kid. I’m a kitty.”
“Who flies?” he asked.
“Duh,” she said and flitted away.
“She’s cute.”
“Thank you.” I still didn’t know what to do with Adam talking to me. He’d stormed out on Christmas, telling Aiden off for talking to me. I figured he’d want nothing to do with me.
It felt like a trap.
“I didn’t expect you to be here,” Adam said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“You don’t have to speak to me. I get it.”
He wet his lips with his tongue. “I’m not not-speaking to you.”
“You did say when I showed up for Christmas Eve dinner, and I’m paraphrasing, ‘remember he walked out on all of us fourteen years ago, he wants us to pretend it never happened,’ or something like that.”
Adam considered. He thought about what he said way more than the rest of us. Since he was a baby. It was both good and bad. There were times I wanted him to just spit out whatever he was trying to say. “Are you going to cut them off again?” He nodded towards where Mom and Dad chatted with Ellie, clearly up from their nap.
“No, I made a huge mistake the first time.” I started to explain but Adam held up a hand.
“I don’t need the details. I’m not sure I care or want to care.” Cold, but Adam was the no-bullshit type.
“Understood.” I thought about asking him if I could visit the bar again, then thought Danny wouldn’t be down for it anyway. “Still avoiding Aiden?”
“Yes.” He turned to leave for his room, but paused. “You've been spending a lot of time with Danny again.”
I searched his face, trying to suss out how much he knew. “Yes.”
“Sleeping with him again?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Mom and Dad weren’t listening.
My eyes bulged as I choked on the coffee I was drinking. “How…” Surely it couldn’t be the gossip, but he said again. “Did you know?” I whispered.
“Of course I knew. The way you two look at each other is obvious. Only a moron would miss it.” He pushed his hand into his dark hair. “But I don’t think they know.” He tipped his head in our parents’ direction, “Or the rumor mill. I had the room next to you and saw you together. I knew what it was.”
“Are you going to tell them?”
“How dare you even accuse me of that.” He pointed a finger at me. “I didn’t tell them then, I didn’t tell them after you skipped off either.”
Nodding, a sheepish, “Thank you,” managed its way out of my mouth.
“Why do that again if you’re leaving?”