Page 23 of Almost Yours
This is everything I ever let myself want and never thought I could have. A single, stolen piece of a life I used to dream about and buried deep just to survive.
I’ve never held anything more precious.
“Okay,” she whispers, and it’s more than I could have hoped for.
I can’t help the way my heart stutters. “Fresh start?”
She nods, just a little. “Fresh start.”
And just like that, I’m falling for her all over again—falling for the girl I knew, who lit up every room without even trying, and for the woman she’s become, rooted and fierce, who’s built a life that doesn’t include me.
Until now.
nine
. . .
Violet
All these years, I told myself I wasn’t wild or bold enough for him. I spent so long convincing myself that whatever I felt for him wasn’t real, that I was just some girl with a crush who’d never stand a chance.
I recall a memory from one Saturday night in high school when I was on the tailgate of his truck after that bonfire in October. My clothes smelled like smoke, and my cheeks were sore from laughing. It was one of those perfect nights, until it wasn’t. He stood in front of me, looking at me with that crooked smirk of his, that lazy charm that made me believe, even for just a second, that maybe I was more than just the girl in the background of his life.
But then he glanced over his shoulder, saw some other girl waving at him from the firepit, and told me he’d be right back.
I waited. I sat there, my toes going numb, the fire burning down to embers, and someone else had to offer me a ride home.
The memory aches, but it’s different now. Because I remember that when he told me he’d be right back, his face had that crooked half smile that didn’t reach his eyes. His jaw was tight, his shoulders a little too stiff. I didn’t know it then, but hewas already trying to push me away, trying to protect me, even if that protection came wrapped in naivety.
Now his hand is wrapped around mine, and I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know how to reconcile the boy who walked away with the man who’s holding on. I should remind myself that one soft touch doesn’t erase the years he spent pretending I didn’t exist. That the simple press of his thumb against my wrist doesn’t undo all the times he looked right through me when I needed him to see me the most.
But I can’t seem to make my hand let go, because somewhere in this ridiculous, aching body of mine, I’m still that girl on the tailgate, hoping he’ll choose me.
He clears his throat, and when I lift my gaze, his eyes are fixed on me, unblinking, tracing the lines of my face. “Tell me something about you I don’t know.”
My gaze drops back to where his hand is wrapped around mine, his calloused fingers warm against my skin.
Goodness…his hands. They look like they’ve done things. Built things. Broken some things too, probably.
I swallow, trying to force the flutter in my chest to settle. “Okay,” I murmur. “Something you don’t know.”
My mind scrambles for something light, something that won’t make my heart race even faster than it already is.
“I, uh, worked part-time at this little campus bakery during college that might as well have paid me in crumbs and sore feet. They let me take home broken pastries at the end of the day, though. I swear I survived three years of college on day-old croissants and stale cinnamon rolls.”
“That sounds exactly like you,” he says, eyes crinkling at the corners when he smiles.
I grin, but it falters when I meet his gaze again. He’s looking at me like I’m telling him something sacred. Like he’s hungry for all the little pieces he missed.
“Three years of frosting-stained aprons and 4 a.m. wakeups,” I add, more to fill the silence than anything else. “My car alwayssmelled like burnt espresso and cinnamon. And I had this habit of naming all the broken cookies before I ate them.”
He tilts his head, the way he does when something piques his interest. “You named them?”
“Well, yeah,” I say with a shrug. “If I was gonna eat them, it felt rude not to.”
He lets out a laugh, a real one. “You’re kind of killing me right now, you know that?”
I blink. “What?”
