Page 190 of Steamy Ever After

“How about a tour?”

“Sure.”

He showed her the house, which was simple and small. The living room shelves were filled with old DVD cases that wore about ten years of dust and the furniture was made for comfort more than style. Little glass figurines decorated a table in the hall, mostly posed in prayer and dressed like saints.

A wooden cross hung on the living room wall with a brass crucifix. She also spotted rosaries hanging off some picture frame corners. She hadn’t realized his family was so religious.

“This is my old room.”

He opened the door and waited for her to enter. The bed was small and the furniture handmade. Finn had a similar set and she couldn’t stop the memory from invading.

There were no adult touches to the décor. “How long ago did you move out?”

“After two years of community college, I left.”

His yearbook sat on a shelf next to a copy of The Grapes of Wrath. She brushed a finger along the spine. “I never got a yearbook.”

“No?”

Her father had refused to pay for any of the extra stuff not covered by their tax dollars.

He pulled it off the shelf and the spine creaked when he opened the stiff, laminated cover. “You can look at it if you want.”

Signatures scattered around the cover page. If she had gotten a yearbook, would anyone have signed hers?

She recognized the names and skimmed through the pictures. The sight of familiar halls and gymnasiums made her smile.

“I used to love school,” she admitted. “My teachers were so nice to me.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on her shoulder as she turned the pages. She laughed when they got to the M’s.

There was Finn, followed by Luke, both looking incredibly handsome and baby-faced. On the next page, she found Giovanni.

He whistled. “Ain’t he a looker?”

“You look like such a player.”

“How about this beauty?” He dragged his finger over to her picture. “Erin Montgomery. I’ll be sure to write.” he read the quote and looked at her in question.

She flushed, feeling foolish and unsuccessful where any dreams were concerned. She was supposed to leave after graduation but something always kept her and her plans never worked out.

The smile she wore in the photo sat like glass on her face, fragile and transparent. She recalled how much she dreaded the end of senior year, never sure what would happen to her after graduation.

“I was so scared,” she whispered, remembering the heavy weightlessness of that moment, the thought that she could simply drift away and never return, anchored by the fear that she might never leave due to the sense of obligation she felt to stay.

“Why?”

Her father refused to help her with college and she needed to find a job if she wanted to move out, but she had no real training. For years, she made pathetic wages, which was why she never made it out of Jasper Falls. “I was supposed to leave.”

“Where did you want to go?”

“It didn’t matter. I just wanted to go away.”

That was when her life started spiraling. Finn decided he was going to take over the lumberyard, which meant he was never going to move out of Jasper Falls. If she left, they would have no future. It was the beginning of their end.

Summers had always been awful, because she spent more time at home. When school ended, her life became an endless summer.

“What are you thinking about?”

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