Page 80 of Beachside Kisses With My Enemy

Hot dang, her questions hurt. They’re ones I’ve asked myself but chose to ignore in favor of seeing where things went with Lucy. But is that fair to her? Maybe it’s not.

My head spins with the implications.

“Do you think you could ever be happy…” Lucy takes in a deep breath. “Staying here? Running the food truck?”

In this moment? I want to say yes. But I can’t be hasty. I have to analyze. To think, away from her and all the things she makes me feel.

She plows on. “It’s just, I’ve been wondering about…the future. And that’s probably really presumptuous of me, because what kind of girl acts like a few kisses means there’s a future there, right? But still, I don’t know where this is going, and it’s driving me a little bit crazy.” Her luminous eyes blink up at me. “Am I crazy, Blake?”

“Maybe.”

She smacks my chest, and that makes me chuckle.

Then I take her face gently between my hands. “But it’s not presumptuous at all. I see a future with you too. And I guess a question to ask you right back—do you think you could ever be happy living somewhere other than Hallmark Beach?”

Are we really having this conversation? My heart thuds in my chest.

She licks her lips. “I’m not sure. It’s been my refuge—my home—for a long time, even before I ever moved here. The idea of leaving it is kind of like a knife to my chest.” Sitting back, she takes my hands from her face and holds them in her lap instead. “Especially for someone who might end up being too busy for me. I…I don’t want to end up like my mom. Devastated by love.”

Love? Does she love me? No, that’s not what she’s saying. She’s saying if she came to love me…

Still, my neck heats with the thought. My stomach swirls.

“Sunshine, the very last thing I ever would want to do is devastate you. To hurt you.” And I can’t avoid it any longer. It’s time to tell her the thing about my conversation with Dale. “This is really hard, but there’s something I need to tell you.”

Lucy straightens ever so slightly. “That sounds ominous.” She’s trying to joke, but when I don’t joke back, she frowns. “Wait, what? What’s wrong?”

“Uh.” I swallow hard. Just spit it out, man. “Dale and I decided that…that is, I’m needed…he…well, I’m going back to Los Angeles in a week. The day after the festival.” I pause. “Not just for a quick trip this time. For good.”

She blinks at me several times in rapid succession. “What? No, you’re leaving at the end of July, not the beginning. In a month.” Her fingers pull away one at a time, and I feel their loss. She hugs herself, her shoulders sinking down. I want to pull her back to me, but I know we need to face this.

Sighing, I run a hand through my hair. “That was the original plan, but Dale needs me back sooner. One of the reasons I went down there was to film a cooking spot on a morning news show. They liked me and want me to keep doing it. Dale thinks it might lead to my own show down the line.”

“And that’s what you want? To be a celebrity chef?”

“Not necessarily. But it’ll be great exposure for the restaurant.”

“Oh.” And I see it—her withdrawing from me. Her eyes are shuttering, her lips becoming flat, her cheeks deflating. Like every bit of negative emotion she’s feeling is being wiped from her memory, from her core, and she’s becoming a robot. Hiding from me.

Then she flicks on a smile. “Well, that’s great. I’m proud of you.” She leaps up from her spot on the couch. “I guess you’re going to be really busy the rest of this week, then.” Her feet start to back up, like she’s going to run and race to her room. Away from me. “We should probably just?—”

“Lucy.” I hop up and catch her around the waist, pull her to me. But instead of snuggling into my arms, she pushes against my chest without a word. I release her. “Please don’t?—”

A flicker of despair. “I can’t do this, Blake.”

I stiffen. “Do what?”

“This.” She points between us. “A week? You know that’s not enough time to figure anything out. The pressure that puts on us…it’s just too much.”

“There doesn’t have to be pressure, Lucy. Not from me. We’ll spend the week together, continue to get to know ourselves in this context, and then I’ll go. We’ll call every night, text every day, and I’ll come back and visit when I can?—”

“And that’s the key phrase. When you can.” She sniffs and looks away. “What happens when the rest of the world becomes way more interesting than this one, or you just get too bogged down in the details of that life, there? You said yourself that opening a restaurant is a time-consuming business.”

“It is, but you’re important too, Lucy. You’re a priority to me, and I want to see what this could be.”

“You seem to have it all planned out, but the thing you’re not realizing is that it’ll happen slowly. You’ll get busy. And you won’t mean for it to, but our relationship will slowly become less of a priority.” She takes another step backward. “I’m just being realistic. Long distance doesn’t work—not when one person is determined to go off and live this big life and wants something so very opposite of the homebody who is just happy to have a quiet, simple one.”

The one who is left behind.

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