Page 51 of Just One Chance
He looked up, and Avery’s heart lurched in her chest.
He looked exhausted. His eyes were bloodshot and surrounded by dark circles, and he wore several days’ worth of beard growth.
“Are you okay?”
He didn’t say anything, just turned his gaze back to the water. Something was wrong. She sensed it in the air around him, could see it in the set of his shoulders and the way his head hung forward.
Even though she hadn’t talked to him in weeks, she moved to his side and sat down, leaning her shoulder lightly against his. She didn’t know what had happened, something at work, probably, but her gut told her he might benefit from a little bit of human company. She didn’t say anything—what could she possibly say?—instead hoping her presence might be comfort enough.
In truth, she wished shecouldtalk to David. She’d done more than her fair share of thinking about him over the past month. Not at first. At first, she’d spent a solid two weeks nursing her bruised ego and feeling nothing but anger. At Tucker, at David, at everybody. But as her anger started to fade, she’d realized how much she missed having David to talk to. More and more frequently, she thought about the times they’d spent together and all the ways he’d made her smile and laugh. She'd read the letter he’d given her so many times, she could almost quote the thing word for word.
But figuring out what to say to him was a different thing altogether. She’d picked up her phone to text him a dozen different times but could never get anything to sound right.Hey. Thanks for loving me. I think you’re cool. Want to come over for pizza?The longer she waited, the harder it felt to reach out. What if she’d waited too long? What if his feelings had started to change?
David cleared his throat beside her, pulling Avery fully into the present.
“I, uh . . .” David sniffed and cleared his throat again. “I lost a patient last night,” he finally managed, his gaze still trained on the horizon. "I've lost patients before. That part isn't new. But this time, it . . ."
Avery didn’t say anything, instead lifting a hand to his arm, giving it a gentle squeeze.
He shook his head. “You try really hard to keep things clinical, to keep your emotions out of it. But sometimes, it . . .”
“Sometimes it really sucks?” Avery said.
“Sometimes it really sucks,” he repeated.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Avery wasn’t sure she was ready to hear it if he did. She could only imagine the kinds of things he dealt with at work every day. But she was determined to be what he needed. If that meant listening to hard stories, she’d listen all day.
He closed his hand over hers and squeezed her fingers. “I don’t, really. I’ve been thinking about it all night, and now I think I need to let it go. But thank you for being here.”
“You’ve been out here all night?” Avery said, wishing there was something, anything she could do to make him feel better.
“Mostly,” he said.
Avery leaned her head against his shoulder and offered up a silent prayer of gratitude for people like David who sacrificed so much to take care of other people.
They sat together in silence another few minutes, watching the birds as they swooped up and down over the water.
“I don’t want to wait anymore, Avery,” David finally said, giving her hand another quick squeeze.
She sat up and looked at him, meeting his steady gaze. There was a certainty in his eye that surprised her. “You don’t want to wait for what?” she asked.
Before she even realized what was happening, David’s hand was on her face and he was kissing her, his lips warm and soft against hers. Surprise kept her from responding at first, but then something inside her ignited and she kissed him back, her hands sliding over the planes of his chest, then moving up and over his shoulders. Clearly encouraged by her response, David’s kisses turned from gentle and searching to hungry and intense. Hewantedher, and Avery realized with desperate certainty, she wanted him, too.
Finally breaking the kiss, David leaned back just slightly, his hands still cradling her face. “It's now or never, Avery. Life is too short, and I can’t wait anymore. You either want me or you don’t.” He kissed her one more time, this one quick and a little more hesitant, more like a question, then pushed himself off the sand and walked toward home, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
Avery sat for a long time, long enough to watch the sun rise into the sky, to see the tide roll slowly toward her. She couldn’t stop thinking about David’s touch against her skin, about the feel of his lips on hers.
The last person she’d kissed before David was Tucker. She almost felt sick at the thought.
To think that she could have had David all along. She couldn’t believe how blind she’d been, how hard she must have worked to ignore how perfect David was for her.
But now she knew. And she had the power to do something about it. Happiness surged in her chest.
She had to find him. She had to find him and tell him that between now or never, her answer was irrefutablynow.
Melba was on the back porch when Avery made it back to her house. She hardly acknowledged her on her way in, leaving Melba to follow her inside, Jasper in tow.
“What’s got you all worked up this morning?” Melba asked.
