Page 7 of One Night Entanglement

"Some things don't change," I say, cutting the engine and nodding toward the tree.

She follows my gaze and her breath catches. "I'm surprised you didn't come up here and take them off after what happened."

"Never had a reason to get rid of them. When I'd come home from deployment, which I purposely kept quiet from you, I'd come up here and look at them. I'd drink a few beers and wonder what the fuck went wrong."

The silence stretches between us, filled with the sound of crickets and the distant lowing of cattle. Miranda Lambert comes on the radio now, singing about small towns and memories that won't let go. Goddamn, these songs are hitting hard tonight. Cecily reaches over and turns the volume down, not off, just low enough that we can talk without shouting over it.

"Quinn," she starts, then stops, like she's not sure what she wants to say.

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever wonder what would've happened if you hadn't enlisted? If we'd stuck to the plan?"

The question hits me like a punch to the gut. It's one I've asked myself a thousand times, lying awake in my bunk overseas or staring at the ceiling of my apartment after we split up. "Every damn day, but then again, I didn't feel like I had a choice. How were we supposed to live? But I regret the way it ended every damn day."

"Really?"

I turn in my seat to face her fully. "You think I don't? You think I don't wonder if I made the biggest mistake of my life walking away from you? Lettin' you walk away from me?"

Her eyes are wide, vulnerable in a way I haven't seen since we were kids. "You said you had to do it. That it was the only way we'd have a future."

"I believed that then." My hand moves almost without my permission, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "Maybe I was wrong."

She leans into my touch, just slightly, and it's like a dam breaking inside me. "We were so sure we'd love each other forever."

"I never stopped," I admit, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. It makes things so much more difficult. "Even when I hated you for leavin', even when I was so angry I couldn'tsee straight, I never stopped loving you, Cec. You probably don't know it, but you were my beneficiary."

Her breath hitches, tears come to her eyes, and before I know what's happening, she's moving across the bench seat toward me. Not all the way, but close enough that I can smell that coconut scent that's driven me crazy since we were fifteen.

"This is dangerous," she whispers.

"Probably."

"We're not the same people we were back then," she reminds me.

"No," I agree, my thumb tracing the line of her jaw. "But this"—I gesture between us, at the invisible thread that's always connected us—"this feels exactly the same."

She closes her eyes, leaning into my touch. "What are we doing, Quinn?"

"I don't know." It's the truth. I have no idea what we're doing or where this is headed, but I know I can't stop. "All I know is that kiss before... it felt like coming home."

When she opens her eyes, they're dark with want and something else—fear, maybe. "We can't just pick up where we left off. Too much has happened."

"I'm not asking to." I slide my hand around to cup the back of her neck, the way I did when I last kissed her, the way I used to when we were kids. "I'm just asking for right now."

The radio plays softly in the background, some slow song about second chances and roads not taken. Cecily looks at me for a long moment, like she's trying to read my mind, trying to figure out if I'm going to break her heart again.

"Just right now," she repeats.

"Just right now."

She moves the rest of the way across the seat then, until she's pressed against my side. I can feel the heat of her body throughher thin T-shirt, can hear the slight hitch in her breathing that means she wants this as much as I do.

"We used to make out in this truck for hours," she says, her voice barely above a whisper, her legs coming over my hips and straddling my body.

"Still could," I reply, and then her mouth is on mine.

It's different from before. Less desperate, more exploratory, like we're trying to remember each other. Her lips are soft and familiar, and when I deepen the kiss, she makes that little sound in the back of her throat that used to drive me absolutely wild. Still does, apparently, if the way my cock is reacting is any indication.

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