Page 70 of Wanting You

A nod was her only response.

Slowly, Tanner got to his feet, but instead of walking to the door, he walked over to her and gently kissed the top of her head. “I’m willing to give you the space that you need, but I’m not giving up on us.” He straightened and waited to see if she’d look up at him, but she didn’t. “I’ll always be there if you need me. For anything.”

And when she still didn’t look up, he turned and walked out the door.

Out of her life.

The cold air hit him like a slap in the face and yet…he was numb.

How had this night gone so wrong? Six hours ago, he couldn’t wait to introduce Chloe to the athlete part of his life. Now he wished he’d never done it.

Hindsight and all…

With nothing left to do, he trudged over to his SUV and climbed in. He wished he lived farther away so he could let the drive clear his head. Two blocks simply wasn’t far enough, but he also wasn’t interested in driving just for the sake of driving.

So he went home and walked into his quiet house.

Normally it didn’t bother him, but tonight it felt like a weight on him.

An awful, heavy weight.

“Better get used to it,” he mumbled as he hung up his coat. “This is going to be your life for the next long while.”

Having Chloe come over had been like a breath of fresh air. He’d lived alone before and was fine with it, but there was something to be said for having a person in your home who meant something to you and who cared for you in return. Before moving to Sweetbriar Ridge, he’d spent so much time traveling that the apartments he’d rented and townhomes were merely places to sleep. It wasn’t until he moved here that he realized what it was like to have a home.

And now he’d lost it.

Kicking off his shoes, he made his way through the house, shutting off the lights on his way to the bedroom. Tomorrow was a school day and he had to be up early.

He just had no idea how he was going to handle working so closely with Chloe and knowing they were over.

“And I don’t want to know,” he whispered as he undressed and crawled into bed.

But sadly, he was going to find out.

Sooner rather than later.

Chapter Twelve

The following weekend, she walked into Books & Beans to meet Ashlynn for coffee and ended up facing her entire family.

“Um…what’s going on?”

Ashlynn stepped forward first. “We’ve all given you space because we didn’t want to upset you, but it’s obvious that that was a mistake. You’ve had excuses for not going over to Mom’s, you blew off our last two coffee dates…”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” she interrupted.

“And this is a small town and news travels fast whether you like it or not,” her sister said. “You and Tanner broke up and we’re all worried about you, okay? If you didn’t show up here today, we were all going to your house.” Then she leaned in close and whispered, “Be very glad it didn’t come to that. We’ll all have to behave here in the coffee shop.”

That made her chuckle a bit. “Okay, fine. Let’s get this over with.”

And while she wasn’t really in the mood to have such a public intervention—for lack of a better word—she was also seriously impressed that they had given her this much time to herself.

Ashlynn took her hand and led her to a cluster of tables that were already set up with food and pointed her to the corner chair.

Harder to get up and escape that way, she assumed.

Chloe took her seat and then looked up. They were all there—Ash, Billie, Reid, Levi, Jade, and…her parents. Inwardly, she shuddered and just forced herself not to focus on them being there together.

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