He’d meant every word he said to her when he’d held her in his arms. He was in love with her. And if she hadn’t said it back yet? Well he could wait. He’d been waiting for ten years, after all.
Ten years of being without her and he could barely remember how that even worked. How had he woken up without her being the first thought in his mind? How had he slept without her curling her warm body against his?
The opening credits had started. Production companies’ logos flashed on the screen, one after another. He’d parked the Camaro in the front row, around thirty feet from the screen. To the right was the playground that kids could use whenever they got bored of what was being shown that night. To the left was the refreshment stand, though it hadn’t been completed yet. When it was, it would have state-of-the-art equipment to make popcorn, burgers, hot dogs, and fries.
Pulling the car door open, he lifted the box of food and slid inside.
“Is this the movie I think it is?” Van asked, as a big globe came on the screen, along with a little satellite orbiting around it.
“Almost certainly.”
“Jerry Maguire?” She looked at him, smiling. “What made you choose it?”
“It reminds me of Cam.” He shrugged. “And we watched it back when we were kids, remember?”
“The Tom Cruise summer series. I can’t tell you how many people complained that year.” Van sighed. “He’s a love-hate kind of actor.”
“He’s made some good movies though.”
“Yeah, he has.” She leaned forward to lift his baseball cap off, raking her fingers through his hair. Sitting back, she jammed the cap onto her own hair, her golden waves spilling out beneath it.
He looked at her and his stomach clenched. It was stupid and infantile, but he loved that she was wearing something of his. And of course, his girl rocked it.
His girl. Was that what she was?
He pulled up the Chaplin Drive-In Theater app on his phone, opening it up and linking it to the Bluetooth speaker he’d stashed in the glove compartment. The sound came on, synced perfectly to the screen.
He’d had to pay for the app to be designed, thanks to the contract he’d signed when he’d sold his business. It had rankled him to fork out for something he could have coded himself in less than a day, but those were the terms he’d agreed to.
Sometimes it sucked to be a grown up.
“Are there still only six billion people on the planet?” Van asked, as Tom’s opening monologue blasted out of the speakers.
“Around seven and a half billion now,” Tanner told her. “This was made almost twenty-five-years ago.”
“We were three-years-old.” She grinned. “Hadn’t even met yet.”
“We probably had and didn’t know it. Hartson’s Creek is so small we had to have passed each other in our strollers.”
“I’d have known it,” she said, her voice sure.
He opened a can of Coke and passed it to her. “How?”
“Because when I look at you, you turn my world upside down. You always have. Especially the first time we met.”
“When I knocked you over?” He grinned.
“Yeah. That time was literal.”
“Do you think there was always something between us?” he asked, tipping his head to his side as he looked at her intently. Tom was still talking, though neither of them were paying attention to him.
“You mean something something?” she asked, her eyes dancing. “Because I don’t know if I was thinking about something when I was six. I just knew my life didn’t work unless you were in it.”
“How about the last ten years?” he asked, wondering if she’d come to the same conclusion as him. “Did they work?”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, her gaze moving to the screen. Jerry was walking into a sports bar, his hair slicked back, his suit expensive and perfectly cut. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I mean I thought they did. I thought I was doing okay. And then I came back here and saw you and everything I believed in was a lie.”
“How about guys?” he asked softly. “There must have been some.”
“A few.”
His stomach tightened.
“But nothing serious.”
The band around his gut loosened a little. “Did you live with anybody?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
“Nope. You?”
He shook his head. “No. I was too busy working to think about relationships.”
“I don’t believe you were a monk for ten years.”
“I didn’t say I was. I had… needs.” He winced. “God, that makes me sound like a dirty old man.”
“There’s nothing old about you,” she said, leaning forward to cup his cheek. “Though you are kinda dirty.”
He laughed, and knocked the cap up from her brow, pulling her closer until their lips met. Kissing her made his heart hammer in his chest. God, she was perfect.
“Ow.” Van winced and rubbed her side. “Damn gear shift.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Just remembering why making out in cars is uncomfortable.”
He leaned over to the backseat and grabbed a blanket and the speaker. “Let’s go sit on the grass. It’ll give us some more space.”
She joined him at the front of the car, watching as he laid the blanket out, then offered her his hand. She was still holding her Coke can, and she took a sip, smiling at him as Tom visited his concussed client in the hospital.
“How many concussions has Cam had?” she asked Tanner as the camera panned out to show a football player in a neck brace.
“Too many. Five, I think.”
“Ouch. I saw the one he got against Chicago. It looked awful.”
“Yeah, I flew up to see him that time. He was unconscious for more than twenty-four hours.” Tanner sighed. “I’m hoping he thinks about retiring soon.”
“He’s too young for that, isn’t he?”
“I guess so.”
“Does he have plans after he stops playing?” Van asked. “Maybe he could become an agent like Jerry Maguire.”
“Ha! That would involve having to actually talk to people.”
“It’s funny how often people got him and Logan mixed up at school,” Van mused, smiling at him over the rim of her can. “And yet you could tell the difference as soon as they opened their mouths. He’d mumble a few words…”
“And Logan would never shut up.” Tanner laughed. “I guess they’ve always been that way. A bit like you and me.”
“As in you’re the talkative one, and I’m the strong silent type?” Van asked, her brow arching.
A bolt of pleasure shot down his gut. He loved her like this, all smart mouthed and strong. “As in, you never shut up,” he said, grinning.
“You’re cruising for a bruising, Hartson,” she murmured, biting down a grin at her own pun.
He mock-winced. “Maybe I am.”
She put down her can and rose to her knees, then launched herself at him, pushing his back to the wool blanket. She landed on him, her thighs on either side of his, her hands grabbing his wrists and putting them over his head.