“I can relate.” I went back to my meal, the two of us eating without much conversation.
When my plate was clear, I leaned deeper into my chair, making no move to leave. There wasn’t anywhere else I wanted to be at the moment. The only thing waiting for me at home was the television and a massive pile of laundry. And Gemma’s company was addictive.
“Want to know the real reason I left Boston?” she asked.
She’d told me it was because she’d sold her company and had wanted a change of scenery, but I’d wondered lately if that was only a half-truth. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t feel anything about my life.” She lifted a shoulder, like she was just as confused as I was why she was telling me these things. Then she dropped her gaze, hiding the emotion in her eyes by toying with the uneaten spaghetti on her plate.
I didn’t blink. I didn’t breathe. I didn’t move for fear that she’d stop talking.
“I don’t know when I went numb. I used to feel things.” She looked up and forced a too-bright smile. “Anger or annoyance or excitement. On the day I was approached about selling Gemma Lane, that idea hadn’t even crossed my mind. I don’t even know why I entertained it, but I was eating lunch with an old colleague and she asked me if I was sick.”
“Were you?”
“I don’t get sick.” She shook her head. “It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. But then I realized she thought I was tired. And I wasn’t. I really wasn’t. I was just . . . empty.”
“Maybe you were ready for a career change.”
She shook her head. “A life change. It wasn’t just work. I was dating this guy and he’d asked me to marry him.”
A flare of jealousy raced through my veins, but I set it aside.
“Obviously, I said no.” She wiggled the bare fingers on her left hand. “So I had this friend who thought I was sick. A man who wanted to share his life with me, but instead I broke his heart. And it all came together and made me pause. I looked over the past year and realized that I was going day after day and I didn’t feel . . . anything.”
Her eyes turned glassy, but she held tight, not letting a tear fall.
I stretched my hand across the table and covered hers. “Gem.”
“I don’t want to live like that.” She flipped her hand over so our palms were pressed together and stared at them, my wide hand nearly covering her long fingers.
“And since you got here? Feel anything?”
Her eyes flashed to mine. “Some days.”
“Besides frustration with me?”
A smile spread across her stunning face. “Maybe.”
“Good.” A surge of pride swelled in my chest because I’d done that. Me. I’d put that smile there and it was mine. “Glad I could piss you off.”
“Among other things.” She laughed and slipped her hand free, then collected our plates and took them to the sink.
“Want some help washing up?”
“I’ve got it. Want another beer?”
“Better not.”
If I stayed, I wouldn’t leave. We’d put the fighting aside tonight, and we both knew this was heading toward dangerous territory. She was in a strange emotional place and I knew nothing would change.
Gemma would stay until Christmas, mostly because I’d dared her. Partly because she wanted to. Then she’d head to California, leaving me behind.
I’d spend another eleven years wondering what had become of Gemma.
I stood from the table. “Thanks for dinner.”
“Thanks for staying. And for the firewood.”
“See ya.” I went to the door to tug on my boots. Then I opened the door before I decided kissing her was worth another eleven-year wait.
Chapter Nine
Gemma
The moment he opened the door, I chased after him. “Easton, wait.”
“Yeah?”
I crossed the room, not caring that the cold night air was chasing away the fire’s warmth and stepped into his space.
Standing before him in my bare feet, his tall, strong body shrouded mine. He made me feel small—safe and protected. He made me feel free to be myself.
Easton made me feel. Period.
I wasn’t ready for him to go and take the feeling with him. Not yet. Not when I’d been numb for so long and with him here, I was alive.
“I’m sorry.”
His forehead furrowed. “For what?”
“For leaving like I did. After that night, I shouldn’t have snuck away without a goodbye.”
“It’s fine.” His gaze was unreadable. “We were young. It was just a hookup.”
Except it hadn’t been a hookup.
Easton had been my first.
Not that I’d been a virgin, but he’d been the one I’d chosen. Me.
When I was fourteen and still living at home, I’d lost my virginity to a guy who’d worked as a clerk at the gas station close to my neighborhood. I’d ridden my bike over to get away from my mother for a few hours. I’d gone in to use the bathroom and he’d stopped me on the way out. He’d asked if I wanted a case of beer, offering to sell it to me even though he’d known I hadn’t been twenty-one.
I’d picked wine instead because my mother served her boyfriends beer. And they were trash. I was going to be classy and that meant drinking wine—or it had to my fourteen-year-old brain. The boy had sold it to me, and I’d stayed at the gas station drinking while he’d finished his Saturday shift.
Then, in a dark alley that had smelled like garbage, I’d let him take my virginity in the backseat of his car.
That boy hadn’t been my choice. Yes, I’d picked him, but not because I’d been attracted to him or liked him or could remember his name. I’d picked him simply so I could give my virginity, not have it taken. I’d been terrified that eventually one of the men Mom had brought around would take me against my will.
I knew that eventually, one of them wouldn’t be satisfied when she made me watch or when she made me touch.
But Easton, he’d been mine.
He’d been the first man I’d desired.
There’d been countless nights since when I’d remember the feel of being in his arms and how he’d held me. How he’d kissed me with tenderness and how he’d cherished my body.
The morning I’d left his bed, before the sun had risen, my footsteps had never been heavier.
Easton had been so good to me. He’d set the standard for future men in my life and not one had measured up.
No, it hadn’t been a hookup.
That night had been my everything.
“Hookup or not, thank you.” I placed a hand over his heart. “That night meant a lot to me.”
Easton studied me, trying to figure out where this was coming from. Maybe he’d eventually figure me out, as it seemed like he was trying.
Maybe if he did, he could clue me in because I was as fucked up now as I’d been at sixteen.
My hand rose and fell with the rise of his chest. My fingers looked tiny compared to the breadth of his shoulders. Through the cotton of his shirt, his heart pulsed in steady beats and the heat of his skin warmed mine. I let the spark between us sink deep into my veins.