Page 13 of Buried Dreams

“Ignore him,” Autumn advises, putting down a coaster in front of me. “I told him not to come but”—she shakes her head—“he came instead of staying home with our child.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I slap the bar, and two things happen. One, her face pales, and two, Charlie about jumps out of his chair to step in front of her. I lift my hand right away. “No, no, I don’t.” I start to think of words. “It’s just a—” I put my hand on my head. “You two have a baby?” My eyes shuffle back from Autumn to Charlie, who looks at Autumn with a look of love I’ve never seen on his face before. A look that is returned by Autumn. “Landon is his?”

“He’s mine.” Charlie sits back down on his stool. “All twenty pounds of him,” he states proudly, picking up his bottle of beer and putting it to his lips, taking a pull.

“I just, I had no idea you two were together,” I reply, shocked.

“We got married two years ago,” Autumn explains, putting a glass in front of me with light amber liquid inside.

“This is wild.” My head is spinning. “I had no idea.”

“I thought for sure your mother would have mentioned something to you,” Charlie adds, and I just shake my head, looking down at the glass in front of me.

I turn the glass around in my hand before picking it up. “I didn’t really want to know what was going on in town.” I leave it open-ended, hoping they both get what I’m saying. My stomach aches from admitting it, but I push it aside and put a smile on my face. “To catching up”—I hold the glass up—“and healing old wounds.” I bring the glass to my lips as the stool beside me is pulled out, and someone sits down next to me. I feel his heat beside me as my heart catches in my throat. I look to the side, seeing him there. Brock. The man who shattered my heart and single-handedly buried all of my dreams in one single move. Holding the shovel in his own hands as he picked up the dirt and piled it on. His face covered with a little beard, like he hasn’t shaved in over a week, something he did all the time back then. His hair is even longer than it was the last time I saw him. A memory that I buried and refused to think about, until fucking now.

“Hey, Autumn,” he says, and I can hear Autumn gasp as I ignore him beside me. Which is really fucking hard when all I want to do is turn and look at him. I want to see if he looks the same. I want to see if you can see the small golden specks in his right eye if he’s looking into the light. I want to see if, in one look, he can calm all my fears. But I’m not taking what I want. I’m doing what I need to do, and that is ignoring the fuck out of him. “Charlie.” He looks right past me, or at least I think he does because I’m staring straight ahead. “Can I get a shot of the new blend?”

“Brock,” she replies to him as she walks to the end of the bar, grabs a glass, and fills it with the same liquid that is in my glass. He doesn’t say a word to anyone as he takes his glass and brings it to his lips, downing it all. My body feels like my skin is going to crawl off my bones. My heart is soaring through my chest, and I’m pretty sure if they stopped the music, you would be able to hear it beating quickly. My breathing is coming in short bursts as I try not to have a full-blown panic attack in front of him. I close my eyes as I hear him put the glass back down and then his heat moves away from me as he gets off the stool, and then tucks it back in as if he was never there. He puts money on the bar before turning and walking out.

I close my eyes, the scent of him lingering in the air. “Are you okay?” Autumn asks softly, and I open my eyes, trying to play it off. “Drink that.” She motions with her chin to my glass, as my hand brings it to my lips, and I take a deep pull. I hiss at the burn when it goes down my throat. “That was intense,” she declares, her eyes about to bulge out of her head.

“That was something,” I state, my heart beating back in a normal way. “It was something, all right.” I look at Charlie. “I take it you two aren’t as close as you were?”

“You can say that,” he responds, his jaw tight. “He’s not close to anyone. Stays mainly to himself.” The statement shocks me even more because Brock had friends everywhere he went. He was always friends with someone, and that was because he had different friend groups and would be active in each of them.

“That makes no sense.” I finally give in to his statement.

“A lot has happened over the years,” Charlie notes. “People change. Some for the better, some for the worse.”

I nod, picking up my glass again and putting it to my lips. “Some we just don’t even care about,” I reply right before I finish the whiskey in my glass, ignoring all the questions now screaming at me. “Some we just need to walk away from and never look back.”

Chapter Seven

BROCK

I walk out of the bar; my whole body feels like it’s being lit on fire. The back of my neck feels like you’ve stuck a million needles in it and have drained all of the blood out. I walk toward the shop, forcing my feet to go one in front of the other instead of turning around and going back into the bar.

When I walked out of the shop ten minutes ago, I was on my way to the truck when I decided to go and get a quick drink. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would find her sitting on a stool next to Charlie. I ignored her like she didn’t even exist. Like she wasn’t sitting two feet away, and I could smell her perfume wafting through the air. My cock woke up as if he’s been in hibernation for the winter, while my heart feels like it started working again after being stuck on pause. I hate that she has this effect on me. I hate that I still let her get to me. In the past eight years, I haven’t allowed myself to admit how much I missed her because I knew if I did, it would be so overwhelming that I would be buried in the feeling, and I had Saige to think about. It wasn’t just me anymore. I had to be strong for my daughter. But now I admit how much I fucking miss her. The ache is so sharp it’s like a knife slicing into my heart and slowly being pulled out.

Slamming the truck door behind me harder than I should, the anger from letting her get to me pours over. I pull out, my eyes going to the road in front of me until the end of the street. Instead of turning right and going home, I make a left twice and then park my truck off to the side before getting out.

As I walk toward the creek, I can hear the water trickling down to the rocks toward the stream. The sound is supposed to be relaxing, but it makes me even angrier after what just happened. Why I even came here is beyond me, I wonder as I walk down to the small clearing hidden behind dense trees.

The minute I do, the memory comes back as if it’s finally being let out of the vault.

“The water is cold, baby,” I said from the blanket where I was lying down on my side, my feet crossed at the ankles as I watched her roll up her jeans and step into the little stream, “and some of the rocks might be slimy.”

“I’ll be fine,” she replied, looking over her shoulder as she stepped into it. The moonlight bounced off the top of the water as I watched her. “Fuck, it’s like ice,” she hissed as she took another step.

“Baby.” I finally sat up with my feet on the cover, the picnic basket beside me. I placed my elbows on my knees, watching her round ass take another step. “You are going to be cold for the rest of the night.”

She turned around with her ankles in the water. “Would you stop bothering me?” she retorted. With a twinkle in her eye, she lifted one leg and flicked water on me. The drops landed on me like big drops of rain. “See, it’s not that cold.”

“Don’t you dare,” I told her. She lifted her foot and splashed me again. “Someone is looking for a fight.”

“Who, me?” she asked innocently, yet there was nothing innocent about Everleigh. We had been dating for about a year, and I knew her inside and out. I knew her better than she probably knew herself. She had consumed me, body and fucking soul.

“Yeah, you.” I nodded my head and got up to stand on the blanket before I took two steps toward her. “Only you, Everleigh,” I said softly, watching her walk in the water for a bit before she finally gave up and walked out toward me.

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