The Way Back to Us Read online

  Chapter 12: Dani

  I cracked my wallet open to thumb through the wrinkled bills inside. Ten, fifteen, seventeen, eighteen . . . and a quarter. I sighed. Tips at The Blackbird were pretty decent, but after rent, utilities, restocking my fridge, and buying a new shirt for tonight’s dinner, I was practically broke. I couldn’t even stretch my budget far enough to buy a semi-decent set of colored pencils.

  I was used to making do, getting by on a minimal amount of cash flow. I’d survived entire weeks on nothing more than Cup Noodles, a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was manageable. And, to be honest, I never expected anything more.

  This thing with Gavin, though, was throwing a giant wrench into everything. I couldn’t bankroll fancy dinners out. Shit, I probably couldn’t even afford a salad at the places he was used to eating. And I didn’t even like salad. Never mind the tiny problem of the crowds he drew just with his pretty face. There was no way I could risk being seen out in public with him.

  Which was why I was hunkered down in a faded orange booth, in a tiny closet of a restaurant that was so out of the way it’d be a wonder if Gavin even made it here. With flickering fluorescent lights; cracked, plastic menus; and a questionably dirty linoleum floor, I’d suspect a likely dose of food poisoning if I hadn’t had a quick bite to eat here with my dad just a few days before.

  There were only two other booths and two additional tables in the entire place. One waitress handled them all—a nametag sticker proclaimed her name: Stacy, no older than twenty-five, bottle-blond hair with five-inch brown roots. The farthest table from mine was the only other one that was occupied. My lone companion was a man in his early thirties engrossed in a newspaper, red-orange unkempt hair with an unfortunate case of crotch face—the lovely descriptor I’d coined for those men who seemed to grow pubes on their chins—and an inability to stop bouncing his foot.

  I glanced at the clock hanging cockeyed on the wall. Ten minutes late. Nothing surprising there. The Gavin I knew was rarely ever on time. He was practically a human rain delay. I’d give it another ten before I sincerely started worrying that he might have gotten mugged on the way to this hole-in-the-wall.

  It was another four before the door swung open, injecting the room with a burst of much-needed fresh air. Gavin glanced hesitantly around the room—I couldn’t blame him, the place didn’t even have a sign out front—and didn’t relax until his gaze connected with mine. A smile broke across his face that sent a whole flock of butterflies swirling through my stomach.

  He looked good. Damn good. His hair was just a tad damp at the temples, like he was fresh out of the shower, and his blue Henley hugged his leanly muscled biceps and trim waist. For a minute I completely forgot why we were there, the only thing circling around my mind was how eager I was to get that shirt off him.

  “Christ,” he said as he slid into the booth across from me. “Could you have found a more secluded place?”

  “Not if I tried.” Which was the truth. Dad had found this place and designated it as one of our meeting spots. Something he only would have done if it was completely off the map, had multiple, accessible exits, and wasn’t monitored by security cameras.

  “This place is very . . .” He flicked his fingers through the air like he was trying to pluck the right word out of thin air. “Unique.”

  “That’s a kind way of describing it.” I took a sip of my Pepsi.

  He laughed. “I’m guessing there was a reason behind you picking this place.”

  “Two, actually.” I folded my hands on the table. “First, because it’s off the grid. It’s probably better if we’re not seen in public together.” I sunk my teeth into my lower lip, making myself pause and letting him absorb that.

  “Huh.” He blew out a breath. “Well, that could be a bit difficult. But we might be able to manage it with some effort.”

  “And second, I picked this place because they make an amazing bacon cheeseburger. Even better than that little place we used to go to when we were studying for finals.” I grinned. With Gavin it had always been a game to find the best eating spots, the best food. Nothing made him happier than a superior dinner. “What was the name of it? It had something to do with baseball.”

  “Bottom of the Ninth.” He ran a finger down his menu. “I’m surprised you remember that place.”

  I took the subtle dig he tossed my way. It was no more than I deserved. “You’d be surprised at what I remember.”

  Luckily, the waitress appeared at the end of our table before he had the chance to ask me which memories I’d been hanging onto all these years. It wouldn’t be fair to him to admit that I guarded every single memory of us like tiny pieces of treasure. That I hoarded them, replayed them, relished in them, whenever the loneliness threatened to be too much.

  “Can I get you something, sweetheart?” She lifted a brow at him, pen tapping against a tiny notepad.

  He flipped the menu over, found the back blank, and flipped it back. “A Sprite would be good.”

  “Mhmm.” A quick scribble. “You know what you want to eat?”

  He glanced at me and I nodded. “Two bacon cheeseburgers, loaded, and two side orders of fries.”

  “That it?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously at him, like she wasn’t quite used to her customers being so pleasant. “You’re welcome. Sir.”

  “Sir?” He asked once she’d disappeared into the kitchen.

  I tapped the side of my plastic cup. “It’s the outfit.”

  “My outfit?” He tugged the fabric away from his body and stared down at it. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  To him it probably looked like an everyday shirt and pair of jeans. For someone like me, who frequented the Salvation Army more often than not, it looked expensive—high quality fabric, name brands, distressed jeans that were clearly styled that way and not from age. Underneath the table my palm skimmed over the small hole near that pocket in my jeans. That one was definitely there from wear and not fashion.

  “It’s fine,” I said.

  “Really?”

  I expertly redirected the subject. “Are you fishing for compliments?”

  The corner of his mouth tilted up. “Are you handing them out?”

  I leaned a little closer and watched his breath catch. “No.”

  He laughed, the sound of it echoing off the close walls. It was too big and bright for a place like this, for a person like me. Regardless, it warmed me from the inside out like nothing else had in a long time.

  “You’re still such a ball buster.” He shook his head.

  “Some things never change.” The other half of that thought, some things do, hung in the air between us like a dark cloud, sneaking in front of the sun and casting shadows on everything that’d been beaming just a second before. My good mood sunk a bit, and I couldn’t help wondering just how different I really seemed to him. Could he tell my hair was darker? Did he notice that I’d traded my natural thinness for a bit of definition? Was that brokenness inside me as easy for him to see as it was when I glanced in the mirror?

  He leaned back into the booth, his legs stretching out beneath the table. His foot bumped mine. “So, what’ve you been up to all these years? You ever finish your art degree?”

  A pang stabbed me right in the chest. “No, I never got around to it.” I fiddled with my napkin. “There didn’t really seem to be a point.”

  His mouth opened, hesitated, then closed again. “But you still draw, right?”

  My cheeks flushed. Other than the haphazard portrait I’d drawn of him and then discarded, I hadn’t worked on anything else. “I don’t really keep any of it.”

  “You just . . . throw it away?” His forehead creased as his eyebrows drew together.

  “With how much I . . . travel . . . it’s difficult to bring things with me.” I offered him a half-hearted smile. “I’ve still got that I Love Tacos T-shirt I stole from you,
though.”

  “And the necklace.” He reached forward and slipped a fingertip underneath the thin black cord that hung around my neck. I’d been wearing it so long I’d almost forgotten I was wearing it at all. With a little tug, he pulled the whole thing out from where it was resting against my breastbone. He ran a fingertip over the penny, the dull copper glinting in the light. “You kept it.” He said it like a question, his gaze bouncing up to mine for an answer.

  Hesitantly, I reached up to take his hand in mine, afraid that he’d repeat his earlier response and jerk away. But he didn’t. He let me trace over the bumpy path of his knuckles, roam across the grooves of his palm. “I never take it off.”

  I felt his reaction in his skin—the slight shiver, the infinitesimal tense of anticipation. “Is it just as lucky for you as it was for me?”

  For a second I flashed back to the moment we met—him stopping to pick up this damn penny from the sidewalk, and me, head down and in such a rush I didn’t even see him until he was face down on the ground, blood gushing from his nose.

  I let my eyes scan his face. “I’m not sure it could ever be that lucky again.”

  Chapter 13: Gavin

  Stars peeked through the night sky when we finally finished up dinner. Dani hadn’t been wrong; this shithole of a restaurant made a fan-freaking-tastic bacon cheeseburger. So much so that I ordered an extra one to take home for a rainy day. But beyond the food, the night had been filled with more ups and downs than a damn yo-yo. One minute I was flying high, reminiscing about the past, the next, I was desperately fighting to remind myself why I needed to keep my emotions firmly shut the hell down.

  It’d only been one night and I was already teetering on the edge of feelings I’d long ago thought banished, exiled to the wastelands. But Dani had a way of coaxing them out of me against my better judgment. She had a way of making me forget. I knew the definition of insanity, I knew the end result would be exactly the same, and yet, like a dumbass, there I was staring down the very same path again.

  I wasn’t sure I minded all that much.

  I had loved this girl with the ferociousness of first love, the all-consuming, can’t eat, can’t sleep love that feeds teeny bopper boy bands lyrics ad nauseam. When she left, I tried to deny I ever let myself fall that deep and believe so wholly that we belonged together. Heartbreak had a way of casting a very long shadow. But seeing her again, I realized I really could keep my promise to her—I wasn’t going to fall in love with her again.

  Not again because I never stopped in the first place.

  I sighed. Fuck me seven ways to Sunday, I was a dumb bastard. But not stupid enough to spend whatever time we had together denying the truth to myself. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t deny my feelings with my last dying breath to the entire planet. I had to save a little bit of face after all.

  Dani bumped me with her shoulder. “Earth to Gavin, is anyone there?”

  I glanced down at her, and her carefree smile unraveled me a bit. A part of me hated the way she stirred things up, working me up so it felt like a tornado was rampaging inside me, so that it felt like my heart was trying to climb up my throat and find a better, safer place to hide.

  Just because I knew what I was feeling didn’t mean I wasn’t already tensing for the fallout.

  “Gav?” She blinked up at me, no doubt taking in the change in my expression.

  She was standing in front of me like she’d been plucked straight out of my dreams. I had no idea how long I’d have her for. It could be months if I was lucky, hours if I wasn’t. I could feel time slipping through my fingers like fine grains of sand, falling, falling, and disappearing into the night.

  An entire night was gone and I hadn’t even kissed her. It was time to remedy that.

  I stepped toward her, and her hand immediately found my chest. Her gaze darted down the street around us, left then right. “Not here.”

  I checked our surroundings. “The sidewalk is nearly empty.”

  “It’s not.” Her lips pinched together. “There’re two people on this side alone.”

  I narrowed the gap between us. “They’re not looking.”

  She hesitated a second before her gaze finally snapped back to mine. “To hell with it.”

  At first touch a jolt shot through me, completely cliché in the electrical spark that traveled from my lips to my toes to my fingertips. Her lips played against mine and the feeling of it, her against me, felt like coming home. It felt like my entire world was a scattered set of puzzle pieces that had suddenly drifted into place.

  My thumb skimmed the line of her jaw while I tasted her, tilted her head back and let my tongue explore all the places I used to know so well—the corner of her mouth, her chin, the hollow of her neck. Her hips rocked forward to meet mine, an involuntary sigh escaping her mouth at the delicious contact.

  I kissed her again, all passion and heat and longing. I took my time with it, savoring the moment, letting myself fall into the feeling of having her in my arms again. My nose brushed hers and I broke away from her lips just long enough to whisper her name. “Dani.”

  She froze, her hand immediately pushing me away. Her eyes narrowed as she glanced around us again. “We need to go.”

  I tried to see what she was seeing, but it was nothing other than a quiet city street. Less crowded than the ones I normally frequented, patches of the sidewalk highlighted by flickering streetlights, an ambling stream of cars rolling down the street. There was the sound of tires on pavement, the crisp smell of spring air. “You know we’re fine here, right? No one’s watching us.”

  She stepped back. “I’m leaving. The only question is if you’re coming with me.” The end of her ponytail snapped through the air as she turned on a heel and started walking.

  “Whoa, whoa.” I hurried to catch up with her. “I’m sorry, alright?” I slipped my fingers through hers. “We’ll get out of here. Wherever you wanna go.”

  Her hand wriggled free of mine. “I told you, Gav, I can’t do this with you like this.” She gestured around us. “If you can’t get that, if you’re not okay—”

  “I got it.” I nudged her chin up with my knuckle. “Scout’s honor.” I held up three fingers, just to make my promise that much more official.

  The corner of her mouth quivered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Anywhere you want to go.”

  * * *

  A lamp crashed to the floor, the shade going askew as it landed on the hardwood floor. I felt the shudder through the floor boards as a chair followed in its wake. Somewhere in the back corner from his dog bed, Elvis gave an indignant huff and turned his back to us. Dani and I careened off the couch as we tore through my condo, leaving a path of destruction behind us.

  On the ride over I’d pictured a nice glace of wine, seduction, and wooing, but Dani was having none of it. No sooner had the door closed than she’d pounced.

  Not that I was complaining.

  By the time we actually made it to the bedroom, there was a trail of shoes, pants, and shirts scattered in every direction. We reached the bed and between my knees hitting the edge of the mattress and Dani’s insistent shove, we toppled over. The mattress squealed as our bodies hit, bouncing slightly.

  Dani’s hands gripped my shoulders as she pinned me down and straddled me, her mouth never leaving mine. She sucked my lower lip between hers, biting down. Then we were back at it again—tongue, teeth, mouths—ravishing each other like the world was ending and our time was running out.

  Although, honestly, it really was.

  My hands skimmed up her back, tracing her soft skin, following the path of her spine until my fingers found the clasp of her bra. One flick and it was undone and tumbling from her shoulders. She gasped when I levered myself up, keeping her seated comfortably in my lap while I traced kisses across her chest. Down, down until I could draw her nipple into my mouth—sucking, biting, teasing.

  Her fingers gripped my hair, tugging me closer while her hips ground down
against mine. I was hard as a rock, my dick practically pulsing inside my boxer briefs. Two incredibly thin layers of fabric were all that separated us, but it wasn’t nearly enough to keep me from feeling her heat.

  She rolled her hips and my eyes nearly rolled back in my head. “Fuck, Dani.”

  Her hot breath skated across my neck. “More, I need more.”

  So I gave her more.

  While our mouths tangled together, my hand skimmed down her stomach. Goosebumps followed in its wake, all the way to where I slipped my fingers inside her panties. She was so wet for me I nearly groaned. I teased her, tracing tiny circles around her clit, giving her just enough that she was writhing against me, panting out uneven breaths.

  Her fingers gripped my shoulders so hard I was sure there’d be bruises in the morning. Well-earned bruises, and I’d savor every single one.

  She rocked against me again, all pent-up energy and need. “Gavin.”

  Of all the music I’d made in my entire life, nothing sounded sweeter than her moaning my name.

  I wrapped her hair around my hand and tugged, exposing her throat, the erratic pulse of her heartbeat right below her skin. “Tell me what you need.”

  Even with her head tipped back I could still see her tongue sweep across her lips. “You.”

  I slipped one finger inside of her. “Like this?”

  She shook her head, gaze coming back to mine. Her pupils were blown wide, cheeks flushed, hair a beautiful mess. “No.” Her fingers tightened their grip on my neck, dragging me closer so she could sink her teeth in my earlobe. “Condom. Now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I grinned at her, taking a second to tweak her nose before I slipped out from underneath her to do her bidding. My boxer briefs met the floor, and I turned around, condom in place, to find Dani stretched across my bed, one leg bent at the knee. Fuck, she was beautiful.

  Creamy skin stretched as far as I could see, her deep red hair a startling contrast to the white fluffy pillow beneath her head. Her fingers traced the curve of her breast, the small globes dusted pink from the attention I’d paid them.