Second Chance Summer (Chance Series, #1) (11 page)

“Heard that,” he shoots back.

“Weren’t supposed to.”

“I gathered that by the damn mutter.”

“Are you planning on killing me and hiding my body in the middle of nowhere?” I question.

He snorts. “You watch way too much television.”

“Maybe.” I look at the thickness of the trees and the lack of sunlight. “Maybe not.”

“Just… Trust me. Okay?”

“Okay… I think.”

He shakes his head, glancing over his shoulder and smirking at me. I shrug a shoulder and let him pull me after him, making no effort to fight it.

“You do realize flowers are an acceptable surprise, right? Hell… Just turning up unannounced counts as a surprise. But then again, you should know that since you do it all the time…”

“Kia?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re here. Shut up.” He stops and turns. “Or we’ll turn around and go home.”

“You can’t take me home now!” I protest.

“Why not?” His eyebrows raise slightly.

“Because we’re here. That would be the cruelest of cruel!” My eyes skirt across the trees that look no different to the ones back at the truck. “But it’s exactly the same as it was five minutes ago.”

Reese’s lips twitch, and his free hand reaches up to push hair from my face, his fingers trailing down my cheek and neck. “Don’t you know, baby? The best things in life are the things you can’t always see. They’re the things that creep up on you when you least expect it, but that makes them even sweeter.”

“You’re bein’ real cryptic, Reese.”

“Stop talking, and just
listen
.”

I sigh but do as he says, staring at him and his expectant face. He swallows a little and his eye twitches the way it does when he’s nervous about something. The sound of running water reaches my ears as his eyes search mine.

“Is that…?” I tilt my head to the side.

Reese backs into a bush and pushes some leaves out of the way, pulling me with him without saying a word. I have no idea where we are, but faced with the sight before me, it doesn’t really matter.

Shadows cast over the area in front of us, falling easily across the pool of water and nudging at our feet. My eyes drink it in, the sunlight glaring through the break in the trees. It makes it easy to look across the surface of the still water to the rocky cliff behind it. But that’s not what makes this place so beautiful – the pure beauty is in the water falling over the lip of the rocks to the pool in front of us.

I look around. There’s nothing here apart from the water, the trees, and us. It seems unreal. It’s the kind of place reserved for overexaggerated love scenes in movies, for exuberant declarations of love and forever – the scenes you simultaneously swoon and scoff at.

But this? This isn’t a movie scene. This place is real and beautiful.

And I had no idea it even existed.

“How did you find this place?” I drag my wide eyes away from the waterfall and toward Reese.

He drops my hand, stuffing his in the pockets of his shorts and kicking at the ground. “I spent a lot of time thinkin’ after you went to New York, Kia. I dunno what I was thinking about half the time. Hell, I don’t even know if I
was
thinking half the time… But I ended up out here one night after Christmas. It was fucking freezing, but I just needed to be alone and away from all the gossip in the Grove.” His eyes meet mine. “I found this place completely by chance, but I knew instantly it was your kinda place.”

“It’s beautiful,” I say in a low voice.

“It’s my treehouse.”

I nod, looking away from him, and walk toward the water. It’s crystal clear and even with the shadows cast over it by the cliff, I can see there’s nothing there. No fish, no plant life, nothing. It’s pure in every sense.

I bend down and stare at my reflection in the water; my still-damp, dark brown hair hanging around my face and falling into my blue eyes.

I hate the fact Reese needed a sanctuary because of me. I hate the fact what I did hurt him so much. Even though he’s said it a hundred times since I got back, him bringing me here twists the knife he doesn’t know his words have stuck into me.

I dip my fingers into the water and make it ripple across my reflection, distorting it freakishly. His phone rings, breaking the silence, and he curses under his breath as he answers.

“What?… You’re kiddin’ me? I told ya, Pheobe, I’m not her damn pet. You can stop checking up on me for her.” Reese’s voice strengthens, and I try to keep a hold on my emotions.

Pheobe Kirk. My least favorite person, and the girl that has crushed on Reese since she was thirteen. The girl Hana has on his back.

I bet she doesn’t know about Pheobe’s little crush.

“Yeah? Is she worried
about
me, or worried I’m seeing someone else?... Well, you can tell her I’m just fine.” He snorts. “And you can remind her that she’s not my fuckin’ girlfriend, so it’s none of her damn business who I may or may not be seein’!” His accent strengthens with the annoyance threading through his voice. It’s one of my favorite things about him, and the very reason I used to wind him up so much. I’d do stupid little things we’d laugh about hours later, because his annoyance never lasted long.

He mutters under his breath but I don’t turn around, no matter how much I want to. He said Hana wasn’t his girlfriend, so it’s none of her business who he’s seeing. I’m not his girlfriend either, so it’s none of my business why Pheobe is calling him. Hell, the whole Hana thing isn’t really my business. Even if we are suspended in a fucked-up relationship which is all my fault. Again. 

I can feel his eyes on my back, burning into me, and I scratch the back of my neck as an unsettled feeling crawls across it.

“What?” I ask the water.

“Nothin’.”

“No, what?”

“Just you,” he replies cryptically.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I look at him over my shoulder, pulling my hand from the water.

“It doesn’t matter.”

I stand. “It does to me.”

He shrugs, his hard eyes meeting mine. “Like the fact you didn’t speak to me for two days matters to me?”

I flinch and whisper quietly, “Yeah; I deserve that. Just like I deserve you to be mad at me, but you ain’t.”

“I’m mad at you.”

I laugh. “Then you’re a damn calm mad. Nothin’ you’ve done today has shown you’re mad.”

“What’s the point in yelling at you? It ain’t gonna change anything.”

“What if I want you to?”

One side of his mouth pulls up. “You want me to yell at you?” he asks.

“Yeah – yeah, I do! I want you to be stinking mad at me and yell at me!”

He throws his arms out with a hollow laugh. “What’ve I gotta do, Kia? I’ve tried everything, but it’s never fuckin’ right. Shit, I can’t even be mad at you right.”

“I know.”

He takes a deep breath and drops his arms. “So what’s the excuse this time? For ignoring me?”

“I don’t have an excuse.”

“Good. I guess. I don’t want excuses. I want a damn reason.”

“I don’t have one of those either,” I admit.

“Great. Why did you even bother to come today?

“Despite Luce practically dragging me by my ears? Because I needed to see you. Even though I ignored you like a total shit for two days, day three broke me.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know!” I cry and rub my face. “This… This is so fucked up.
Everything
about this place is fucked up. Everything about how I feel is fucked up, so contradictory. I’ve wanted to do nothin’ but avoid you since the day I stepped back into town, and here you are asking me all sorts of crap. Well, there’s your answer. I don’t freakin’ know! I have no idea why I’m here, I have no idea why I came today, and I have even less of an idea why I’m tellin’ you all this.”

“How do you feel?”

“What?”

“How do you feel? Or should I start?”

“What is this? Twenty questions?”

“I’m sick of pussyfooting around the subject of us!” he half-yells. “Damn it, Kia! I don’t want stolen kisses against my truck or an emotional fuck in a treehouse! I want you to tell me how you feel!”

“I don’t get you. You just demanded to know why I came today and now you’re asking me to pour my heart out?”

“Okay. You know what? I’ll start.” He runs his fingers through his hair and steps closer to me. “I’ve got nothing to compare it with, no benchmark to hold it against, but I’m pretty damn sure I’m completely in love with you. I’m also pretty damn sure I’ve been in love with you since last summer. This whole thing is the biggest headfuck ever, but I still can’t let it go. I don’t even have a reason why. You disappear for a year, come back, then do the same thing for two days, and let me tell you, Kia, those two days felt longer than that goddamn year! I guess I can’t let it go because I love you, but I have no idea why I love you. You flit in and out of my life like a butterfly, and I’m still the poor flower sitting and waiting for you to come back every time.”

I press my hands against my stomach, nausea swirling as the reality of his words hit me and the truth of them swirl around me and suffocate me. What am I supposed to say back to that? There’s nothing that can change it, no matter how much I wish there was.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper lamely, unable to look at him.

“And d’ya know the worst thing?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“The worst thing is that I’m waiting for you to turn around and walk away right now. I’m standing here waiting for you to run, all because you’re so damn frightened of something that isn’t gonna happen.”

“You don’t –”

“Know you? You know that’s wrong. You know I do. Maybe that’s why you’re so frightened of hanging around. Is it? Is that why you have to run, Kia? Huh?”

My head snaps back up, my eyes drawn to his.

“You run because you’re scared of the fact I know every single bit of you. I know everything about you, and you can’t deal with that. That’s exactly it.”

I shake my head again; silent denial even in the face of a partial truth, unable to accept the fact we’re tarring this perfect place with our imperfections.

“Yeah, it is. That’s all it is. Nothin’ else,” Reese says simply.

“That’s not true,” I say quietly.

“You can’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Run then. If you’re not lying, run like you normally do!”

“Maybe I’m scared of giving you everything then having you walk away from me like I’ve done to you so many times!” The words burst out of me, and my hands tremble against my stomach. “Maybe it’s because I know I deserve that. I don’t deserve to have you stand here in front of me and tell me you love me when I’ve been nothing but a complete and utter asshole to you since the day I walked away. I don’t deserve any of that but for some reason I have it, and that scares the crap outta me. So yeah, you’re kinda right. I’m scared of the fact you know me better than I know myself, but that’s not all of it. That’s not everything.”

“What are you scared of, baby? What do you have to be scared of?” He walks across the grass to me; his eyes still fixed on mine.

“I’m scared of not being able to feel the way I do whenever I’m with you. I’m scared that one day you’ll walk away and I’ll never feel this way again.”

“What do you feel?” His voice is low, quiet, and a whisper away from me as he stops. His hands grip my arms gently, holding me still.

My hands wrap around my stomach, and I close my eyes, unable to look at him.

“Love.” The word is barely a breath as the ultimate admission falls from my lips. “I don’t want to feel it, but I do. And it’s not just any love. It’s the all-consuming, once in a lifetime kind of love. That’s all I feel whenever I’m around you.”

“What makes you think the way I feel is any different?”

“Fear.”

“Kia, as long as you feel the way I do you have nothing to be afraid of. Not now and not ever.”

I open my eyes slightly and look straight into his. “How do you know?”

Reese brings his hand up and cups my face, rubbing his thumb across my cheek gently, and his other moves from my arm to my side. “I know,” he says softly. “Because I’m afraid that one day you’ll walk away – for good this time – and I’ll never feel this way again, either.”

It takes a second for me to realize the wetness running down my cheeks isn’t spray from the waterfall – its tears. Because it’s true. I fight it because I’m too scared to take a risk. I’m too scared to throw my arms up in the air and jump in head first.

I’m too scared I love Reese the way Momma loved Daddy.

I feel like a toddler learning about the world for the first time, that time where so much is scary because it’s uncertain and unknown. I want to know what will happen the same way a toddler wants to know why they can’t jump over the furniture or why it’s so dark under their bed if there are no monsters living there.

I want someone to explain everything to me. To explain life, love, and even what it is about Reese I can’t seem to let go. I can’t resist him even though I wish I could. If I could, then I might not have to face up to the truth.

Because the truth is, no matter what I do or how I try to fight it, Reese Pembleton owns me. Heart, body and soul. It’s all his. He owns me so completely and entirely it petrifies me.

And the only thing that’s scarier than that is looking into his eyes and knowing I own him the exact same way.

~

I push the front door open, ignoring the constant buzzing of my phone in my pocket from Luce. The kitchen light is on, so I know Momma is home. Stupidly, a small part of me hope she’s not passed out somewhere even though I know she will be. After all… It is past midnight.

The body slumped over the table in the middle of the room tells me that my hope was indeed stupid. The half-empty vodka bottle and empty glass tell me the same thing. In fact, they don’t just tell it. They scream it, because she never hides it.

She doesn’t lie about what she drinks, how much she drinks or when she drinks it. She’s so casual it’s almost like she embraces the addiction.

“Momma?” I shake her shoulder gently, trying not to startle her. “Momma, wake up.”

She shrugs me off and sits up, rubbing at her eyes. Her dull eyes glare up at me surrounded by smeared make up. “What?” she spits.