Page 72 of Never Really Over

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I haven’t been around kids much so I didn’t think about that.”

“You’ll be around plenty now that you’re back.” I let her know.

She gives me a soft smile. I’m tempted to reach over and touch her, but I have a feeling once I start, I won’t want to stop.

“I like knowing that. I missed so much.”

“You did, but you really want to keep revisiting that?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Definitely not. One day we probably do, but not tonight.”

One day might never come, so I decide rather than leave it at that… “Maybe Monday night? Come over for dinner? We can revisit for the last time and then it’s done, you hear me? Time to move on. I’m dwelling too much and I know that.”

“You want me to come over Monday night?”

“I do.”

Even with the sky dark and the stars in the sky, only a sliver of moon showing, and the dim glow of the fire, I can see tears in her eyes.

I reach over and cup her cheek, thumbing away a tear that escaped. “Hey now, none of that.”

“It’s probably just ‘cause I’m drunk.”

I’ll let her have that excuse. For now.

Smiling a little, I allow myself a few more moments touching her soft skin. Only, my hand isn’t catching up to my brain and instead of removing it completely, instead, I let it slide down her neck. Her pulse is beating wildly and her sharp inhale of breath only spurs me on.

Contrary to her, I’m not the least bit drunk so I can’t excuse this away. These feelings aren’t manufactured or caused by a bottle. They’re real and scary as fuck.

Beneath my hand, I can feel Layla’s shoulders rising and falling with her deep breaths. My eyes stray to her lips and the memory of how they feel is so sharp that I lick my own, wondering if I somehow kissed her and didn’t realize it. I know they’re always soft and I’d bet anything they taste like a hint of vanilla from her lip balm.

I remember kissing her softly at first, sliding my tongue across the seam of her lips and her taste. Fuck, her taste. I’ve kissed women since Layla, but none that I enjoyed as much as her. The first woman? I almost recoiled away. It felt so wrong, and not because of some moral hang-up. I knew we weren’t together, it had been a full year after she left.

It felt wrong because… well, because it was wrong. No other woman felt right.

Conversation continues around us, but all I see is Layla. For the first time in over a dozen years, I wish my friends weren’t around.

I could pull her out of her chair and onto my lap. She’d feel my hardening erection and I wouldn’t care because she’s the one who did it to me. I’d reach up and thread my fingers through her hair, keeping it away from her beautiful face, and pull her lips to mine.

From that moment on, we would simply exist as one.

“Colt,” she whispers, her voice a lustful combination of turned on and scared. I know the feeling.

“Yeah, baby?”

She makes a noise in the back of her throat. “Oh, shit, you called me baby. I can’t handle this.”

“Sorry. Am I overstepping?” I ask, reluctantly removing my hand from her.

“No! It’s just,” she drops her head, shaking it back and forth, “I never thought…”

“Never thought what?”

Layla’s eyes never leave mine as if she’s hoping she can still read right through me. She probably can, and maybe I should be worried about that but I’m really not. If Natalie’s death taught me anything, it’s that life is short. Yeah, I was hurt. Tim pulled me aside earlier and said point blank that I had only two choices. Either get over it because life isn’t meant to be lived holding a grudge, or live alone the rest of my life and likely have to watch her eventually with another man. He’d understood the hurt, hell, he was the first one here after she left so he saw the destruction from the beginning. The other man part isn’t what changed my mind. It was the holding a grudge part.

Natalie would have kicked my ass if she’d still been here when Layla came back. She always told me we’d find our way back, our path just didn’t look like I’d originally thought it would. And maybe that’s part of why I was holding onto that hurt. Because my plan was changed.

“I never thought we’d be able to even consider getting back to this.”

---