Summer (Four Seasons #2) (26 page)

“Then why aren’t we naked?” I ask. I sound ridiculous, but then I guess that’s how I’m feeling right now. It was working. It was actually
working
. Being with him, kissing him, having his hands on my body, was actually having the desired affect I hoped it would. I wasn’t thinking about Luke, and that in itself was a minor miracle.
 

Noah leans down and presses his lips against my forehead, and then he sighs heavily. “We’re not naked because I’m protecting myself. See, when everything blew up last year and I lost you, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever fucking experienced in the past. I was besotted with you back then. And now…fuck, now I’m completely in love with you and it’ll tear my heart out to lose you again. If you sleep with me now because you’re acting out and you’re hurting over something, you’re going to regret it. It would be this huge mistake that you made, and every time you looked at me in the future, you wouldn’t see me. You’d only see how you felt earlier this morning and then the mistake you made right after it, and that will be it for us. I won’t even have you in my life as a friend, Avery, and I couldn’t fucking bear it. I couldn’t. It would tear me apart. And Neve…
Jesus
.” He shakes his head. He looks like he’s struggling for the right words to say next, but he’s already said everything he needs to.
 

I’ve never wished that I didn’t love Luke before. I guess there’s a first time for everything though, because right now I
do
wish that. I wish I was free of the painful feelings I just can’t seem to escape, because Noah is the sweetest, kindest, most wonderful person in my life right now and I desperately want to love
him
the same way he loves
me
. I cry even harder, and Noah holds me to him again and rocks me in his arms.
 

“I’m sorry,” I gasp. “I’m so sorry. I’m so selfish.”

“You’re not selfish, Patterson,” he says into my hair. “You’re hurting. That’s different.”

“It doesn’t feel different. It feels awful.
I
feel awful.”

Laughing, he strokes his hand over my hair. “Don’t. One of these days, the both of us are going to find people to love endlessly, who will love us back, and when that day comes the pain we’re both experiencing right now will be a distant memory. We’ll look back on this year of our lives, and we’ll give each other a hug and laugh and say, ‘how stupid were we back then? We thought that our lives were over, and now look. Now, we can see that they were only just beginning.”

TWENTY-FOUR

AVERY

THREE WEEKS LATER

Brandon meets me at Jackson Hole airport. I managed to convince Noah, despite his protestations, that it was a bad idea for him to come, and so I was alone as I made the journey across country. Better that way. I have this lump of burning bile in the back of my throat that I can’t seem to shift no matter how much
Pepto Bismal
I chug straight from the bottle. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get the airline’s in-flight safety card illustrations out of my head—the ones of the plane crashing into the ocean with flames pouring out of the windows. I suppose a part of me was just waiting for it to go down as I made the journey from New York back to Wyoming. Today feels like doomsday, so it makes sense that something horrific like that would happen.
 

“Any particular reason why you chose to fly into
this
airport?” Brandon asks as he relieves me of my bags. “Geez, girl, you’ve packed light. Where’s the rest of your things?”

Again, I’ve barely brought anything with me in the vain hope that the universe will read me loud and clear and have me back in New York before I know it. Two pairs of jeans, two shirts, one dress and some underwear. Hopefully that should cover me long enough for the district attorney to decide that Chloe Mathers is exactly where she needs to be—behind bars.

“I like the drive from here back down to Breakwater. I like the mountains,” I tell him. “Sorry, I probably should have asked you first since you’re the one doing the driving. My bad.”

Brandon cuffs me on the shoulder. “I’m just giving you a hard time, kiddo. I love the drive, too. Come on, let’s get you home.”

It takes close to three hours to make the journey back to Breakwater, but the scenery is spectacular. My father used to do this drive with me on the weekends sometimes when Mom was working from home on something important and needed the place quiet. Three hours there and three hours back. Most parents would balk at the idea of being trapped in a car with a kid for so long, but not my dad. He loved driving me anywhere. We’d sing songs and count birds. Play games and tell each other stories. He loved telling me about Greek myths and legends; he could talk about that endlessly and we’d run out of road before we ran out of time.
 

A shiver runs through me, goose bumps forming over my arms, down the backs of my legs beneath my jeans. It’s so strange. Dad’s been gone for so long, but in some ways it feels like he left on a trip only yesterday and I’m patiently waiting for him to come back. It’s never really occurred to me that I’m with a one hundred percent certainty never going to see him again, and yet I don’t necessarily believe in an after life. I’m not religious in any way. I don’t prescribe to the ideas of heaven and hell, or anything in between. Perhaps it simply feels as though he’s never really left me. Not in a forever kind of way. I catch myself wondering how he would respond to a situation sometimes, what he would say or do, or what he would think, and I always know immediately. His voice is a constant whisper in my ear, guiding me, helping me, comforting me.
 

I fall asleep, the gentle rocking motion of the car and the rhythmic thrumming of the tires on the blacktop lulling me into unconsciousness. I don’t wake up until I sense the car slowing, and then gradually coming to a stop, the high pitched complaining of the brake pads jarring me fully back into reality. Brandon laughs softly as he picks a couple of strands of my hair from my cheek and tucks them behind my ear.
 

“Since when did you start snoring?” he asks.
 

“I don’t snore!” It’s an outrageous lie. I’d know if I snored. Brandon shrugs his shoulders, clearly wanting to laugh again, badly, but doing a fine job of holding back.
 

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

I can feel a smile itching at the corners of my mouth, and I almost allow it to take shape. Almost. I look out of the windshield of Brand’s beater truck first, though, and as soon as I see where we are, any desire I may have had to grin vanishes in a puff of smoke. “Jerry’s?” I ask. “We’re at Jerry’s because…?”

“Because it’s dinner time and the cupboards are bare at home, kiddo. The shop’s been crazy busy. I haven’t exactly had time to get groceries. Besides, you love this place. You used to come here with your dad all the time.”

“The milkshakes,” I say numbly. “He used to bring me here for the milkshakes.”

“Then we’ll get you one now, too. Come on. My stomach’s complaining so loud, it thinks my throat’s been cut.”

Brandon unfastens his seatbelt and heaves himself out of the truck, groaning as he goes, and I remain in my seat, staring out the windshield at the building in front of me. Last time I was in Breakwater, Mom spent her day working here at Jerry’s, figuring out a way to free Brandon when he was under suspicion of participating in the warehouse killings. We dropped her off here, but I didn’t go inside. I haven’t been inside for so many years. The girls from school, the ones who would put chewing gum in my hair and push me down stairs if I wasn’t paying attention…this was their stomping ground. It was understood that I’d never step foot inside the place while they drew breath. To do so would be suicide.
 

Brandon raps his knuckles on my window, making me jump. Opening my door, he bends down and jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “I can bring something out to you, but that’s just a little ridiculous, don’t you think?”

Just a little ridiculous
. Yes, I do think that. I take a deep breath and get out of the car. I’m not fourteen anymore. I’m a grown woman, and my father was cleared of any and all involvement in the killings that took place here. I shouldn’t still be cowing down to a group of bullies. I shouldn’t have cowed down then, either, but finding the courage to stand tall back then was impossible. If I could have, I would, but at the time it felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders.
 

The girls who made my life a living hell are probably long gone from here, anyway. They were the kinds of girls who planned on fleeing Breakwater’s borders as soon as the first opportunity arose.
 

Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine.
I repeat this in my head as I walk toward the diner, each step bringing me closer and closer toward the entrance and an unknown sea of people inside. Brandon pulls open the door, the bell set above it jangles, and I hold my breath, waiting for the people seated in the booths and at the counter to all stop talking and start staring at the oddity that’s entering their private little haven. It doesn’t happen, though. No one stops talking. A few curious glances are cast our way, but conversations continue, a woman I don’t recognize behind the counter laughs as she talks to a customer wearing a thick plaid shirt, hands covered in white paint, and Brandon guides me to the only empty booth at the back of the diner and herds me into it.
 

“Chocolate?” he says.
 

“Chocolate?”

“Your milkshake. Do you want a chocolate milkshake?”
 

“Oh. Half chocolate, half vanilla.”
 

“Okay, kiddo. I’ll be right back.”

He leaves me sitting at the table, alone, and I suddenly feel very vulnerable. Very nervous. A few years ago I would have grabbed my purse and bolted, but I can’t allow myself that luxury anymore. Running is easy. Staying and fighting, standing strong, is that much harder, sure, but it’s also a million times more rewarding. I stare down at my phone, cheeks burning, until Brandon comes back with a smile on his face. “You gotta order your drinks at the counter when they’re busy like this. Be waiting forever, otherwise. You figured out what you want to eat?”

I pick out a quesadilla and some curly fries and Brandon makes a smart-ass comment about how it’s shocking that I didn’t order some fancy frou frou salad since I’m a big city girl now. I flip him the bird. Our food arrives long after our milkshakes are gone, and the check takes a solid twenty minutes to show up after that. In the end, the wait doesn’t matter, though. I kept expecting someone to do a double take when they saw me, nudging their neighbor into action so they could grab me and rip me from my seat, screaming, ‘Burn the witch!’ as they dragged me outside. When that didn’t happen, I began to relax, my heart rate slowing to manageable levels so that my hands stopped shaking. After that, it was plain sailing. The food was great. Chatting with Brandon was great.
 

It’s only when we get up to leave that things take a turn for the worst. Brandon sees him before I do. My uncle loops his arm through mine and begins to pull me a little faster toward the exit, which is what initially triggers my curiosity.

“I’ll have to go grocery shopping tomorrow, I guess. Hey, do you want to drive back to the house? I know how much you love driving the truck. And I moved some of your stuff from the old house over to mine the other day as well. There are some boxes on your bed. Maybe you could go through them when we get back. Or not. Maybe you’re tired.” He shifts to the right as I slow down, trying to free my arm from his grasp. “We should probably hurry. You have to be at the court house early tomorrow, and it’s gonna take a while to get home.”

“Brandon, quit fidgeting. Your place is
five minutes
away. What’s wrong with you? You’re, ouch! You’re standing on my foot!”

I jerk back, thankful when he lets me go, but then it feels like I’ve inhaled a lungful of mustard gas and my body is shutting down, because there, on the other side of the diner by the window, is Emma Reid. And next to her is her brother.
 

Luke.
 

I knew I was probably going to see him tomorrow. This whole time I’ve been prepping for that eventuality. What I’m going to be wearing. How my hair will look. What make up I’ll be wearing. What I’ll say to him. The answer to that last was easy to figure out at least. I intended to say nothing to him whatsoever, but now that he’s appeared out of nowhere and he’s sitting less than fifteen feet away from me I suddenly find I have so much I want to say to him. All of it involves shouting.
 

He looks incredible. It doesn’t seem right that he’s just sitting there at a booth in a small town diner, looking like something off the front cover of GQ, while everyone else around him looks so ordinary. That’s probably not a fair comment to make. Truth be old, Johnny Depp could be sitting at the counter right now and I wouldn’t see him. I would only see Luke, with his beautiful dark hair—long, the same way it was in the music video—and his soulful brown eyes. The way his t-shirt looks like it was tailored specifically to fit his body, a body I know intimately well. I know every single damn line of him as he sits talking with his sister, his face creasing as he laughs at something she’s just said to him.
 

He would always press the fingertips of his left hand into the edge of the table whenever we went out for food. I started noticing it more and more as time went by, and when I asked him why he did it, he said he didn’t know. That he supposed he did it because his fingertips on that hand were so calloused from playing guitar that he couldn’t really feel things with them the same way he could with his right, and it felt good to apply pressure to them. He’s doing it right now as he listens to his sister. He does it while he thanks the waitress as she stops at his table and places a huge mug of coffee in front of him. He’s doing it when he looks up and finally sees me, the color draining out of his face. And then he stops.