Shaken to the point of tingling, I felt my tongue dry and moisture pool behind my eyes.
His mind-clearing voice, accompanied by the smile he sent my way as he let the last notes echo into the mostly silent bar, had heat unfurling in my stomach.
And staring at those soul-infused green eyes, I forced myself to accept that no matter my resolve, or his own to better himself, nothing had really changed. Like the sun and the moon, we’d always revolve around one another, doomed to dance on opposing sides of fate.
After chatting with a guy who looked to be playing next, he joined me at the bar again but didn’t order anything.
“So, good enough for you to see my new digs?”
I laughed, nodding, then he helped me down from the stool. My hand stayed clasped with his as he led me behind the bar and up a flight of steep wooden stairs.
We passed what looked to be a staff room, a storeroom, and a bathroom before reaching the end of the narrow hall.
Pulling out a set of keys, he unlocked the door. It squeaked as it swung open, and Everett gestured for me to go in.
Moving carefully over the scuffed, creaking wood floor, I peered around the tiny room, taking note of how little there was inside. Not that you could fit much. It was almost as small as my bedroom back home.
A twin bed sat pressed into the corner. A window with dirt-laced sheer curtains alongside it gave a view of the main street that cut through town below. A dusty set of shelves leaned by the far wall with a small TV, guitar picks, and various notebooks and pens atop it.
On the wall near the door was a small sink and a countertop that housed a tea kettle and white microwave. “Do you use the staff bathroom?”
Everett placed his guitar by the nightstand, then grabbed the cigarettes that’d been lying next to a framed photo and dug one out of the pack. “Yeah, it’s not so bad. Has a lock.”
I nodded, watching him sandwich one end of the smoke between those pillowed lips, then cast the other aflame.
He tossed the lighter down onto the scratched wood, the floor groaning as he walked to the end of the bed to open the window.
The photo frame pulled and stole my attention, and I moved closer to the bed, my butt bouncing on the unexpectedly springy mattress when I sat down and caught sight of whose picture was tucked behind the sheet of glass.
Mine.
I was seventeen, and judging by the creases that lined the image of my face, he’d clearly stolen it from a yearbook and had it folded up. “Sneaky.”
“I had to,” he said, so casual. “It’s lived in my wallet the whole time we were away.” Smoke encased his tentative question. “That freak you out?”
Did it? It surprised me, sure, but… “No.”
Quiet settled, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. At least, it wasn’t for a minute. “You still think about him?”
Instantly knowing who he was referring to, I thought about how to answer that. Everett had been here, doting, waiting. As much as I no longer wanted to cut him open with words the way he’d done me, I still had to be honest. “I do.”
Everett said nothing, the crackling sound of him inhaling tobacco filling the room.
“But I don’t think he’s coming back.”
He made a low sound in his throat, then dropped the cigarette into an empty Coke bottle by the window. “Well, I didn’t think I would either.”
My smile was grim, my tattered heart beating faster at the thought of Aiden showing up, telling me he was sorry for running, and making it all better. As only he could do. It’d been over two months since I’d watched him snap that ring box closed, then drive out of my life.