Page 23 of Against All Odds

Ember Falls also has him.

No, no, no, we are not going there. Uh-uh. Nope. This is dinner to thank him for literally saving me from the cold.

“Are you okay?” Everett asks.

I push out a deep breath and smile. “Of course. Are you hungry?”

“Famished.”

Everett helps me carry the bowls out to the dining room. I take the seat across from him, and we pass the plates back and forth, adding different food items on it. We laugh and catch up on small things, like how Hazel decided to open the store andhow Miles ended up becoming the principal. For some reason, everything feels easy.

Maybe it’s the food. Maybe it’s the glass of wine, but the awkwardness is easing somewhat.

Everything is very surface level, and it’s been nice to just catch up.

Everett leans back, his arm resting on the chair next to him. “Can I ask some personal questions now?”

And my previous thought about how nice this was just went for a nosedive.

As much as I’d like to have avoided this, it really can’t go on forever. “If you must.”

“I can keep reading the tabloids if you’d rather.”

I groan and take a sip of wine. “No. Ask away, but for every question you ask, I get one back.”

“Fair enough. You met your husband in college?”

This is at least an easy one.

“I did. We met my senior year of college.”

“I see.”

God, maybe it wasn’t so easy. We had plans for when I was going to college, and I abandoned them and Everett. He deserves to know what happened and how I feel about it.

As much as tonight was a way to thank him for helping me with the fact that I didn’t have heat, it was also a way to open up the lines of communication and hopefully get some of this behind us.

Everett was an amazing guy, and I’ve always hated myself for what I did to him.

I lean forward, resting my hand on his. “I need to say this to you, and I want you to know that I’m sorry, Everett. I mean that. I was young and stupid and unable to communicate. I didn’t know how to tell you that I was terrified that I would follow you and then you’d get your shot at the major leagues, leavingme behind. So I just didn’t say anything at all. I thought about reaching out a bunch of times, but then I was afraid I wouldn’t say the right things, or that you didn’t even want to hear from me.”

He rests his other hand on mine. “You were seventeen, Vi. I was asking you to follow me to college, and it wasn’t fair.”

“That doesn’t excuse how I handled it.”

“Or the way I did.”

That rocks me back. I stare at him, waiting, but he doesn’t say anything. “How did you handle it poorly?”

He scoffs. “Well, you told me that you didn’t want to go to Florida a few times. Then you finally said that you’d go, but you really wanted to go to school elsewhere, and I didn’t care.”

No, he didn’t.

I remember when we’d talk and I would beg him to consider another option that had the school I wanted. He’d shut me down, saying this was his best chance for the major leagues.

“Again, we were young. So young, Everett. We didn’t know anything, and we were so stupid to think it would just magically work out because we loved each other. Still, I should’ve talked to you. I wanted to, but I was scared. Then there was the fact that my parents kept saying you were going to be some big star and I was going to lose who I was. I was stupid. I was also one hundred percent sure if I did tell you, and I explained what I wanted and why I wanted to go to California instead, you’d convince me to go to Florida. You could convince me to do just about anything.”

Everett smiles. “I don’t know aboutanything.”

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