Page 26 of My First Mistake
“The old Cooper Place on Hope Street. You know the one with the wraparound porch and the swing. It’s been up for sale for almost a year now and I can’t believe nobody has snapped it up.”
“I remember the place. Brax and I used to steal the peaches from their trees out back.”
“You have real light fingers when it comes to fruit, don’t you?” I tease him.
He shrugs. “There are worse flaws to have than being a fruit thief, I guess.”
Yeah, like stealing hearts. I don’t say that though, and he didn’t exactly steal my heart, or my virginity. I gave them both willingly.
“So, you don’t plan on leaving Juniper Ridge again?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I feel right there, you know? Like it’s where I’m supposed to be. Not extraordinary. Just me.”
“I think you’re pretty extraordinary, Addison Kinsella.” He pours a little more bourbon into his tea.
Is he just saying that to make me feel better, or does he mean it? “I think you’re pretty extraordinary too, Chase Hunter,” I admit, and then immediately feel vulnerable for having done so. “But then you always were. Star athlete. Homecoming King. Hotshot, award-winning architect.”
He takes a swig of his tea, which is now probably just bourbon and not tea at all. “They’re just things I’ve done. I don’t think they’re the kinds of things that make people extraordinary.”
“Then what does?” I ask, aware of the tremor in my voice.
“The ability to make the people around you feel something, I guess. Loved. Happy. Cared for. Protected. Kindness is underrated, especially in LA.” He clears his throat. “So, tell me more about this new dream of yours.”
“When I was younger, I always thought marriage and kids were the easy choice, you know? The thing I could do if my fantasies of traveling the world didn’t work out. But now sometimes it feels like that’s the dream that’s farthest away. I look at my mom and dad and see how happy they are, and Iguess I always assumed that I’d find that one day too. But, I don’t know, I think I’m running out of options.”
He rolls his eyes. Maybe I should threaten to spank his ass. “You’re twenty-seven.”
“I said options, not time, dumbass.” I throw a cushion at his head, but he catches it with ease.
He sticks the cushion behind his back. “Why on earth do you think that?”
I sigh. “I love my store. I love my family and my friends and…” I search for the right words. “Our town is so small, I feel like everyone has already found their someone, you know? And all the people who are left are left for a reason…like me.” I force out a laugh, so I don’t cry and sink the last of my ginger-bourbon tea. “Or are passing through, like Jasper.”
He stares at me, like he’s going to speak, but he doesn’t.
I voice the fear I haven’t wanted to admit to myself for a while now. “I sometimes wonder if there’s only one person for everyone, then how will I find mine in Juniper Ridge?”
Chapter 13
Chase
# Never confuse your Bart Simpson with your Götz von Berlichingen
Istare at the ceiling, listening to the soft crackling of the fire and replaying her words over and over.I sometimes wonder if there’s only one person for everyone, then how will I find mine in Juniper Ridge?
It took everything in me not to ask her what if she’d already found them?
Because I did leave Juniper Ridge, and I’ve still never found anyone who even comes close to her. Not a single person who challenges me the way that she does, or who makes me want to be a better man. No one with a kinder heart or a purer soul, who looks at me like I’m the person they’ve been waiting for their whole life. Nobody who moans my name quite the same way that she does.
And as wrong as it is, I can’t stop wondering what might happen if I went into her room and reminded her how good we could be together. Surely, she remembers too. I close my eyesand I can still taste her sweet skin and her cum on my fingers. I can still recall the scent of her and the soft, sexy sounds she made when I took her first time. And then the desperate, needy little moans when she wanted more.
I imagine going into her room right now, peeling back the covers and spreading her legs wide for me before I run my palms up the smooth skin of her legs, and then getting my mouth on her pussy. I’d eat her until she came on my face, drinking up every drop of her release. My cock is painfully hard and I find my hand wrapped around the base, squeezing the shaft tightly, but it’s not even nearly enough relief. No, the only relief for me would come from burying myself inside Addison Kinsella.
With a grunt of frustration, I roll onto my side and stare at the flames instead, trying to clear all the filthy thoughts of my best friend’s sister from my head.
“Did you eat my trail mix?”She holds up the almost-empty packet. I distinctly remember being woken at 5 a.m. by one of the busted springs in that asshole couch and then feeling hungry. And her trail mix was right there on the counter. I was almost the entire way through the bag when I realized I should probably leave some for her.
“I’m sorry. I was hungry and…I thought all snacks were fair game.”
