Page 69 of Falling for Autumn Again

She swivels her neck to look at me. Her words are thick with emotion. “He did?”

“He did. A week and a half before we’d planned to leave. I came to pick you up for work and he took me aside. He told me he knew I was a good man. A man who’d been dealt a hard hand but had risen above. And he asked me to look out for you in New York.” I lift my eyes to hers. “I promised him I would.”

She nods, her amber eyes swimming behind unshed tears. “He never said anything.”

“I thought he’d changed his mind about me when you sent me away.” A tight ache constricts in my throat.

“I know,” she says, eyes dropping to the grassy floor. “I’m sorry for that.”

“You’d made up your mind. I could see that.” I look at her, remembering her face all those years ago—only this time, I see her that night with new eyes and new information.

“I’ve always been stubborn. When my parents asked—” She blinks over to me. “Whenheasked, I just told him I’d made up my mind. I wanted to stay.”

I nod. “And we all know that when Autumn Green makes up her mind, there’s no changing it.”

“Only Dad didn’t understand that he was the one who had changed my mind.”

I wait and pray for more. Dr. Appleby would tell me to ask for it.If you want it, ask for it.But I can’t. Not with this. This is tender and difficult, an open wound for Autumn. She’s the only one who can give herself permission to speak.

“I couldn’t leave him. Not when I knew how much he and Mom would need me. I couldn’t leave Summer. That little girl deserved some semblance of a normal childhood. I was determined to see that she got it.”

“Little girl? She’s three years younger than you. You were kind of a little girl yourself.”

“I grew up the day I overheard that conversation,” she says, eyes on mine. “But Summer didn’t have to. And Mom couldn’t handle it.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” I tell her.

She turns to face her father’s stone. And though it’s small and difficult to hear over the rustling leaves, I hear her. “Me too.”

"Autumn," I say, small and quiet. But it has the desired effect. I want her attention. I want her to face me.

I lean a little closer and the tears brimming in her eyes spill onto her cheeks. I press my lips to hers, needing to comfort her in this moment, for all the times I couldn’t. At the same time, finding my own comfort within the connection of our lips, breaths, and hearts. She cups my cheek, holding me there, her warm breath mingling with mine.

And I kiss her—not the girl that I loved and left all those years ago, but the woman who has lost, endured, and risen above. And somehow, all of that makes this kiss sweeter than any other before.

Chapter Thirty

Autumn

“It was an accident,”I say on this FaceTime call to Meg. “I didn’t mean to kiss Ezra—again.”

Meg doesn’t look defeated or disappointed in me though. “Yeah, you did.”

My brows pinch. “No.” I just explained all this. “I didn’t.”

“Autumn, you don’t accidentally mold your lips to another human’s. That is something cheaters say. You aren’t a cheater.”

“No.” I wrench my shoulders back. I amnota cheater. But the determined look on my face falters. “But I still didn’t mean to.”

“Sweetie, it’s going to be okay.” She’s folding clothes, which feels like something you shouldn’t have to do in Hawaii. All my daydreams of never leaving the beach or my swimsuit are being smashed with my bestie actually living there.

“No, it isn’t,” I tell her. The fact that she just called me “sweetie” again is proof that nothing is okay.

“All right, let’s pretend that your face fell on his face. Then, both of your lips grew brains that neither of you could control and those lips just decided to make out with one another even though your real brain, not your lip brain, said,No, I’d rather not do that.” She huffs out a breath after that very long, very ridiculousexplanation. “Even if that’s what happened, I promise, it’s still going to be okay.”

“I never said my lips grew their own brain,Meghan.”

"Ooo," she sings as if she were a ghost in a Disney Halloween special. "Full-naming me.Yikes.”

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