Page 26 of She's Like the Wind
He went on. “You’ve never looked at anyone the way you looked at her. Hell, I could feel the air change when you said her name. And when I flirted with her—yeah, that was petty. I was testing something. And you failed that test like a jealous twelve-year-old.”
I exhaled slowly, trying to keep my fists unclenched.
Ezra wasn’t wrong.
He was an asshole, but he wasn’t wrong.
“I can’t,” I said finally.
“Can’t what?”
“Can’t give her what she wants.”
“And what does she want?”
Isucked in a breath and let it out in frustration. “A commitment. She…said she loves me…loved me.”
He arched a brow, amusement flickering in his gaze. “And?”
I leaned against the bar counter, fingers idly tracing its surface. “I can’t commit, fall in love…whatever you want to call it.”
“Because it’s easier to pretend you’re heartless than admit you’re scared?”
I said nothing. The asshole knew me too well.
Ezra’s face softened. “Lia was a long time ago.”
I swallowed, my throat tightening. We’d danced around it before, but I’d always cut him off. “If it was so fucking long ago, why do I go into cardiac arrest when I even think about….”
I shook my head in frustration.
The bartender slid our drinks in front of us and asked if we wanted to open a tab.
Ezra dropped his card and said, “Yes, we absolutelyneedto do that.”
Lia was my firsteverything. My first love. My first girlfriend.
I met her when we were sixteen. I knew I was going to marry her.
I only had three years with her.
I ran a hand over my face as memories crashed through me.
The accident. The impact. The sound of glass. Metal crashing.
We’d been driving home from a concert in Baton Rouge. I’d had a couple of beers, so she was driving. It was raining. There was a curve, and she took it too fast; we hit the guardrail.
I walked away with a broken wrist and a few bruises.
She died instantly.
“If you were driving, it might have still happened,” Ezra reminded me as he always did when we talked about Lia.
I’d gotten past the guilt. It was an accident. Lia was a damn good driver—more careful and skilled than I used to be.
Sometimes, there was no one to blame.
It was just life. There was just one guarantee:death.
