Page 20 of Summer Redemption

But that can’t be right.

After taking a moment to really think about it, I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah,” I say, a little surprised that it’s true, “I do feel better.”

“Good.” He presses a kiss to my forehead, but it’s so quick I’m not entirely sure whether it really happened or not. When I look up at him with wide eyes, his grin widens. “Go out with me.”

I squeak out, “What?”

“Go out with me,” he says it again, but this time with a little more force. “On a date.”

“You want to take me on a date?” I know I sound more than a little confused. Because I am.

“I would love nothing more than to take you out on a date,” he admits with sincerity in his eyes and a yearning earnestness written all over his face.

No. It’s such an easy word to say. No.

It’s what I should say after the guy who used to make fun of me and bullied me for no reason askes me out on a date.

“Okay,” slips past my lips instead.

He doesn’t give me the chance to back out. He simply kisses my forehead again and releases me before running toward Macklin and August while yelling that he’s going to get them.

What the hell just happened?

CHAPTER 8

HUXLEY

Maybe I shouldn’t feel as good as I do about taking Sunshine out since I caught her at a weak moment when I asked her out. I’m not even sorry about it. Why should I be when I’ll be going out with the girl that I used to have a crush on and treated badly because of it?

This is my chance, and I’m not going to let it slip past me. Not this time. The last time I drove her away and refused to confront my own feelings and fears. There is now way I’ll be making the same mistake twice.

For the first time in a long damn time, I’m nervous. Not just about the date but about seeing Sunshine without any pretenses for why we’re spending time together. She could have easily written off our last few interactions because she was working.

But she won’t have that luxury this time.

She agreed to go out with me. Fine, it’s not like I really asked,more demanded, but she could have turned me down all the same.

Even if she had, it’s not like I would have given up.

I learned a long time ago that I have to always keep trying and never give up. It was a lesson borne out of being the youngest with older brothers who always looked like heroes in my eyes. It wasn’t just in my eyes either; the town has always loved Fletcher and Noel for different reasons.

Carson had a special place in the family, and the town, because she was the only girl surrounded by roughened horse ranchers. She was treated with kid gloves, even if she hated it most of the time.

If I had to hazard a guess, it was a big reason why she left Wintervale and never really looked back. Sure, she was chasing her dreams, which she did end up achieving, but I’m positive she left to find herself and figure out how she fit into the world. Not the world of this small town where she was always the Burns family only girl, but the big wide world where she could be anything she wanted to be, and could be herself when others tried to mold her into what they thought she should be.

There were times when I envied her for getting out.

But then I would look around Limitless and get a feeling in the pit of my stomach with how right it was to be on my family’s land while taking care of the animals who needed someone to watch out for them.

I can’t remember the last time I planned a date and I’m not sure this one will go over well, but time will tell. All I can hope is that I don’t lose all the progress I made with Sunshine while she was pelting me with water balloons and laughing like the universe had finally gotten it right.

One thing Sunshine said while she was laying into me, before she admitted she had a crush on me back in school, was how much she missed out on because of my actions and words. It hasn’t been sitting well with me at all, and I aim to change it a little bit tonight. I’m going to give her something she missed out on all those years ago.

Hopefully, she doesn’t see it as cruelty and, instead, sees it as hope wrapped up in a memory she never had but should have. I can only hope she doesn’t slap me when she realizes where we are.

I’ve never tried to make something right like I am with Sunshine. She never earned my ire and my irrationality. That’s all on me, but I’m trying; maybe it’ll be enough.

Because after feeling her in my arms, the water soaking my clothes seeping into hers, the need to make Sunshine Holloway happy and see a future with me has been impossible to ignore. Whenever I start to think about the years we missed, all because of me, I have to push those feelings aside. She needed to leave Wintervale to chase her dreams. I needed to grow the fuck up.

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