Home > Lost Love (Arrowood #1.5)(6)

Lost Love (Arrowood #1.5)(6)
Author: J.R. Gray

I ran out of the coffee shop and drove all the way home before I realized I’d forgotten coffee. And Ellie’s donut.

“I do not want to talk about it,” I announced walking in the door.

They stared.

“I’m serious.” I headed for the guest room.

“Do you think he’s prostituting?” my mother said.

“Maybe there is an app like Uber. When he gets a call he’s got to go,” my father said.

Aiden sighed. “And I thought you two were a problem in my life.”

“You watch yourself,” my mother said. “You’ve been shady too.”

“There is no winning with you,” Aiden said as a chair scraped against the floor.

“Insufferable aren’t they?” I said when he came around the corner.

“You haven’t had to deal with it in years, you should be taking the brunt of it!” Aiden said with a laugh. “I don’t even have any coffee to digest with all the snark.”

Guiltily, I offered him my half drunk cold brew.

He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “I’ll go to Jensen’s.”

“We are taking Ellie for donuts,” my parents called from the kitchen.

“Okay,” I called back. At least it would get them out of my hair.

I laid back in bed, abandoning my coffee on the nightstand. I hadn’t slept in for eight years. Maybe I’d take a nap.

I stretched out as the door slammed, my eyes closed and I sighed happily. I could do this. I could avoid Danny by not going to another single place the rest of the time I was here.

A tick sounded.

Another.

Cling.

Bang.

I sat up.

Cling.

The sound came from the window. I crossed the room to investigate.

The glass shattered and I leapt back, shielding my face. Had a hunter gotten too close to the place? It was an old family cabin further up the mountainside than most of the rest of town. When nothing else came I pushed my feet into my shoes and neared the window with caution in case more of whatever it was came through.

Danny stood below my window looking a little sheepish.

 

 

Five

 

 

AVERY


“What are you doing?”

“I didn’t mean to. I was trying to get your attention without ringing the bell,” Danny said sounding unimpressed with himself.

“Stalking me in town wasn’t enough?” I asked.

“Not when you keep bolting out of every place we see each other.”

“How’d you know what room I’d be in?”

“Course you’d be in your old one. No one's done nothing with it since you left.” His cheeks pulled.

“I don’t want to know how you know that.”

“Adam told me.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I’m tired of manufacturing reasons to run into you. Will you kiss me?”

I looked at the ceiling. God help me. Romeo and Juliet we weren’t. “Come up before someone sees you yelling out there.”

“Up?” he asked.

“Might as well. I can’t escape you. Door’s unlocked.” My parents never bothered to lock any doors. Drove me nuts.

He sat on my bed a few moments later. “Will you sit down?”

“Nooooooo.” I didn’t dare join him. The two of us in one bed. Nothing good would come out of that.

“Your pacing is giving me a headache.”

I stopped and leaned against my desk trying to act normal, whatever that was.

“You’re acting like a trapped cat or somethin’.”

I was trying hard. And the glassy mess! I puffed out my cheeks and counted backward from ten. “Why were you throwing rocks at my window?”

“Why do you run away anytime I get close to you?” he asked.

“I asked you a question.”

“I asked you one too,” he countered.

“I asked first,” I said.

“I wanted to talk to you.” He adjusted his seat, rocking the whole bed which of course just put more images in my head.

I turned around. “Because I can’t be around you.”

“Are you still that mad at me?”

Was I? “Yes and no.”

“Why won’t you give me a chance? Talk to me some.”

“Can’t we just avoid one another? I’ll be gone in a few days.” I looked anywhere but at him.

“Then what, another fourteen years before you come back?” he asked, his voice low and gruff.

“Are you mad at me?” I asked, turning on him.

“Not mad exactly.”

“What right do you have to be mad at me?” I could not believe the audacity.

“You just left. You were my best friend and you changed your number, moved halfway across the country and cut me off. Then you show back up here and expect me to feel nothing.” The sadness behind his eyes cut through my chest.

“You told me you couldn’t be with a man.”

“I was scared.” His voice shook.

“Me too, but I didn’t throw you away.”

“You were my best friend, Av. I had no one after you left.” He rubbed his forehead. “I didn’t understand how you could just drop me like that.”

“Well, I didn’t understand how you could fuck me for two years and just tell me you didn’t see a future in us.”

“My dad would have kicked the shit out of me, had he found out.”

“And so you decided to break up with me? We could have left together.” I set my mouth, jaw tight, fighting the avalanche of feelings. “You expected me to what? Be your best friend while you dated women? To talk to you about getting married? To live here and watch you have a family while I still loved you? I watched you chase women and it made me sick. You shattered me.”

He scoffed. “So you went and did what you thought I was going to? Well, you won. I couldn’t. I couldn’t date anyone seriously and it killed me when I saw you’d moved on.” The truth was all over his face. It broke me more than I ever thought it would. He carried the same pain I had.

It broke my heart all over again. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“I can’t blame you, you did what I told ya I was gonna.” He swallowed.

I tore myself away, pressing my forehead into the wall, holding back the tidal wave of pain threatening to break me. It was too much. After Fiona and the weight of Ellie’s happiness, I couldn’t bear this as well.

“Now you see why I wanted to talk to you.”

“Sure Danny, but it doesn’t change anything.”

“I think it changes everything,” he whispered. “Kissing you felt like the best thing in my life returned to me.”

“We can’t. I don’t live here.”

Coming to me because I’d refused to sit, his breath blew over my neck, making the fine hairs rise. “I don’t care if I have to follow you to the ends of the earth this time. I can’t let you leave again, I’ll chase you.”

“Danny I can’t.”

“Why not?” He pressed closer, trapping me between his body and the wall.

I’d never been so turned on in my life, but also on the edge of losing it. What the hell was wrong with me? “Because I’m scared. I’m scared I’m going to open a Pandora's box of feelings and spill all over you, possibly send you running for the hills again.”

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