Giving him a thumbs up, I sat back in my chair and looked up into the night. Colton Patrick had gone all out. This had to have been one of the nicest shows I’d seen on the Fourth of July. Not that I’d seen many, but no matter how down I was feeling, I couldn’t help but enjoy watching color after color bloom across the night sky. The feel of the boom through my seat as each firework launched into the air and waiting to see what it produced was exhilarating.
After five minutes of nonstop explosions, it was over. The sky was heavy with smoke, and the night was filled with excited voices talking about their favorite firework.
Not feeling sociable, I left the front yard and headed to the back. Slipping off my shoes and socks, I sat on the edge of the pool and let my legs hang in the water as I looked out into the backyard. The trees were filled with lights that I knew Alex had hung herself and loved looking out at. The air was fragrant with flowers even over the smoke in the air. It was beautiful here with nothing to see but rolling hills and trees, even just their shadows in the dark. Still, I liked my view at home better. I loved looking out onto the city and seeing its lights twinkle at night.
“What are you doing back here all by yourself?” Abbi said from somewhere behind me.
Without looking over my shoulder at her, I moved my feet through the warm water. I wanted to jump up and go to her since I knew how difficult it was for her to get around on her crutches, but I stayed in place. “Enjoying nature. Why are you back here and not with everyone else?”
“They all went inside,” she said as she moved closer.
Jumping up, I helped her over to one of the chairs and then moved back to my spot. “And Luke talked to Alex?”
“He did. I thought it would be best if I approached you first.”
My hackles rose at her comment. Did she even want to be here, or was she here out of a sense of obligation? “I’m not some wild dog that will attack if provoked.”
“Of course, you’re not, Jenner. I misspoke.” I heard her curse under her breath even with the few feet separating us. “Approach was not the right word; more like I wanted to be the first to talk to you even though you’ve known Alex longer. I feel I have a right since we were sharing a bed.”
Pulling my legs out of the water, I turned to look at my wife, possibly my soon-to-be second ex-wife. “Past tense? Are you through with me? For something that happened before I ever knew you?”
Her face was shrouded in sadness. “I didn’t come back here to fight with you. I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Luke said that you confessed to him that you felt like drinking.”
Throwing my hands up in the air, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Of course, I feel like drinking. I want to do something to make the time more bearable since I’ve been ostracized on my own vacation.”
“Jenner,” she said my name so sadly and quietly that my heart stopped beating for a split second, “I never wanted you to feel that way. All I wanted was some time to wrap my head around what I learned.”
“And what now? How long is it going to take for you to process that a little over a year ago, I used coke and wrecked my life? I can promise you like I promised myself, I will never go down that road again no matter what happens.”
“You say that, but you never know what could happen. How bad could things get? Like tonight, you want to drink.”
She had a point. Abbi didn’t know if something down the line would cause me to slip just like she didn’t know how much conviction I had deep down in my gut. “I’ve never had a problem with alcohol.” At her raised brow, I held up a hand and continued. “But I vowed to myself I would never again use alcohol or drugs as a way to cope through any situation. Good or bad. If you want me to take a drug test every week for the rest of my life, I’ll do it, but I wish you could trust me.”
“I want to trust you, and it’s been killing me inside to have this distance between us, but—”
“You can trust me, I promise you,” I interrupted to implore her to forgive me. Normally I wasn’t one to beg, but I’d do anything for Abbi to believe in me again.
It should have been a testament that I’d been sober since she’d shut me out, and the amount my heart ached each second of the excruciating thirty-six hours we’d been here.
Did the pain I’d felt mean I was in love with Abbi?
It couldn’t be. It was too soon.
“We’re good together. You make me want to be a better man each and every day that I wake up with you in my life. Give me the opportunity to do the same for you.”
I watched as her eyes filled with tears, and she brushed her cheek with the back of her hand.
“I hate this damn broken leg. I can barely move around.” She held out her arms to me.
Not one to waste an opportunity, I shot to my feet and had Abbi in my arms. She let out a gasp before her arms wrapped around me. In that moment, I felt whole for the first time in forever.
Pressing my nose into her hair, I inhaled her apples and cinnamon scent. Fuck, I’d missed her smell. “I think I’m in love with you, Abbi.” I felt her stiffen in my arms, so I tried to explain. “I know it’s too soon. Everything between us has happened at warp speed, but deep inside,” I pulled back and brought her hand to my chest, “in here, I feel like I’ve known you forever and not nearly long enough at the same time.”
Abbi looked up at me, her eyes shimmering in the moonlight. “Don’t say those types of things unless you mean them. I don’t think I could take it if you didn’t mean it.”
Her words gave me hope.
Groaning, I pulled her closer until the side of her body meshed to mine. She was right. Having a broken leg was making what I wanted to do to her difficult. “I’m not going to fuck this up again. I’m going to sound like a girl here, but if you don’t feel that way about me, it’s fine. I understand, but I couldn’t hold it in any longer and had to tell you how I felt after you were willing to give me my thousandth chance.”
Resting her head on my chest, her arms tightened around me. “Sometimes I forget you’ve been in a relationship before. I know it wasn’t a good one and that you were away for a lot of it, not that I fault you for the demise of your marriage. She knew what she was getting into.”
I had a feeling she wanted to add ‘unlike me’ to what she was saying, but I kept that to myself.
“There are times when I still feel guilty, but then I remember she could have come with me on any one of my movies. It’s not like she had a job. Instead, she sat around the house I bought, spent my money, and then started cheating on me and doing drugs.”
Burrowing her head further into my chest, she spoke. It was muffled, but I still heard every word she said. “Are you sure you can promise me you’ll never do drugs again?”
It was times like now when I realized we hadn’t known each other forever. Abbi had every right to not trust me. “If I do, I’ll give you all my money and the house.”
Pulling back abruptly, Abbi’s eyes were as big as saucers. “Jenner,” my name on her lips was whisper quiet, “you don’t need to go to such drastic measures.”
“I feel like I do so that you’ll believe me. Trust me, if I had a problem, I would have been doing everything in my power to drink and find drugs these last couple of days.”