Page 12 of It Happened Back Then (Nilsson Family #3)

I stayed down at Bean Lake until well after midnight, working through my warring feelings about my possible future.

I felt paralyzed, not knowing what to do, but by the time I finally left there, the decision felt made.

Or at least it had, until I walked into the house and smelled Blossom’s perfume all around.

Walking into my parents' house to find her scent everywhere, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, but when I enter my bedroom, I realize I’m not dreaming.

She’s here.

Her curvy legs in those short shorts lay across the top of my comforter. Her shirt rises slightly in the back, letting her skin peek out. One leg is bent in a way that accentuates her ass. I take in her beauty, wanting to keep this picture of her in my bed with me forever.

I glance at the window and see it’s open, and I smile. It’s how we used to see each other as kids, sneaking in through the windows. I stand next to my bed and trail my finger up her calf where goosebumps erupt even in her sleep.

I touch her hip, wanting to grasp it, but instead tap her awake.

“Bennett.” She mumbles my name incoherently as she comes awake, and I puff my chest that even in her sleep she calls for me. She sits up quickly, pushing at her hair and says it again. “Bennett.”

“Peach.”

Her nickname falls from my lips. Her eyes focus on me, a tiny smile forming on her delectable mouth.

“What are you doing here?” I ask as I sit on the edge of the bed.

She sits up, adjusting the pillows at her back. “I wanted to see you.”

“It’s one in the morning.”

Her eyes drop from mine, and she whispers, “I’m sorry. I must have fallen asleep. It was only eleven when I came looking for you.”

“How was your date?” I ask sharply. I don’t mean to come off as dickish, but the back-and-forth we’ve been doing had finally led me to a decision. A decision that I was already second-guessing now that I found her here.

She shrugs. “He was nice enough.”

“Are you going to see him again?”

She looks up with a challenge in her eye. “Why, jealous?”

“About as jealous as you are of Savannah,” I throw back, and she laughs. Despite Savannah’s name being tossed out there, a comfortable silence falls in the room.

“It’s been some time, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised to find you here.”

“Why not?” she asks.

I take a breath. “You always loved to crawl through my window.”

“Should I not have?”

“I love finding you in my bed,” I whisper.

“Is Savannah going to be mad that I'm here?” Her eyes search mine for an answer. She wants me to say no. She wants me to say she won’t know. She wants me to say that I left her in Seattle for good.

Instead, I respond, “Would you care if she is?”

She licks her bottom lip, her eyes dropping to mine before she shakes her head no, and I chuckle. “Oh, Blossom.”

She’s always been the good girl, always the one looking out for others’ feelings, everyone’s except her own.

I’ve wanted her in my bed since we were sixteen.

And she knows it. But she forced me aside.

Forced me to look elsewhere for a love stronger than this one, even though I knew I’d never find it.

“Why are you really here?” I lean on one arm beside her on the bed, hovering just above her. She shifts closer, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and gently playing with the hair at the nape of my neck.

“We always did this.” She nuzzles in close. “Remember when we were fourteen and you’d sneak into my room through the window?”

My lips turn up slightly and she laughs and crows, “Or even before that! Ten years old crawling through windows.”

“We’re not ten anymore.”

“No. We’re not.” She looks up, waiting for me to give the go ahead, clearly wanting me to make the first move, and when I don't, she leans in, pressing her lips to mine. I don’t kiss her back. I stay frozen, torturing myself as she lingers, my eyes closed, taking in her warmth, her scent.

She pulls back and runs her thumb along my bottom lip. “Why did you come back?”

“I had the interview–”

“No,” she interrupts. “It’s more than that, and you know it.”

I swallow, hard. She’s still so close, her hand resting on my thigh while I lean over her. It’s been eight long years since we were first together. And it’s all I’ve dreamed about.

Dating, sleeping with others, Savannah, hasn’t ever lived up to my nights with Blossom. But she pushed me away. She put me back in the friend zone, and I haven’t been able to work myself out of it.

The pact lingers in the back of my mind, but this isn’t fair to me anymore. It’s how all my thoughts ran together at Bean Lake. So many what ifs , so many what nows and so many what am I waiting fors?

“I needed to know, Blossom.”

“Know what?”

“If coming back here would change things.”

“Change what things?”

“Being with you always makes me feel different, but if you don’t feel the same way then you need to tell me.” She watches me with no emotion on her face, and frustration bubbles up inside me as I add, “You had to have known all these years that it’s always been you, Blossom.”

She shakes her head. “You've been dating Savannah.”

“You forced me to leave.”

“I did not!”

“You did, Blossom. You may not have realized but–”

“I wanted you to experience life, Bennett,” she interjects forcefully, as if she’s reminding herself almost as much as she’s explaining to me. “I can’t leave this town, but that doesn't mean you have to stay. You deserve to find a life out there.”

Again, with the same old rehearsed lines. “We talked about having a life here. What changed?”

She doesn’t answer and the quiet overtakes the room.

We still face each other, the small lamp illuminating our faces, and after a long pause I whisper, “This weird push and pull between us has confused me for years. But I miss my best friend. If I had known that us choosing to sleep together all those years ago would change our friendship, I don’t think I would have done it. ”

“Now it’s my fault our relationship is strained?”

“No, it’s not. Our friendship has always been easy.

I’ve loved you innocently from day one. But I’ve held on to every single minute from our nights together, and it's been hard to see you as just a friend again. Every day wanting to hold you like I did. Every night wanting to do it all over again. It’s my fault things are strained.

And it’s my own fault I’m confused. I did what you wanted, dated other people.

Found someone. I thought Savannah would change those feelings. ”

It hasn’t is the unspoken sentence lingering in the room.

She’s quiet, playing with the edge of the comforter. “Did the interview go well?

“It did.”

“Are you taking the job?”

“I don’t know,” I reply honestly. Forty-five minutes ago, I was not taking the job.

I was going back to Seattle and staying there without another thought of the pact we made.

Walking into my bedroom to find her here has me re-thinking every bit of that.

She could always change my mind with one glance.

“What if…” her voice fades to a whisper. “What if you take it and we try?”

I shake my head, my heart beginning to race as she dangles words of hope. “I can’t change my whole life just to try, Blossom. For a chance you may love me like that.”

Her expression is pained, like she can’t believe I may be saying no. “What if I do love you like that?”

“Then why did you push me away?”

“Is fear a reason?” She smiles sadly, her eyes glassy, obviously concerned she already knows my answer.

“No, it’s not,” I answer more sharply than I want to, but I can’t help it. Fear has never been a reason to keep us apart. “Not when you’ve known me forever.”

“Does this mean you’re over me?”

My jaw clenches. “I’ll never get over you, but I’ve made my mind up for my own sake. I need closure.”

Silence falls in the room. She stares at me in disbelief but with that same look of a thousand words running in her head that she just can’t get out. Like she has so much to tell me but just can’t bring herself to do it.

Finally, she whispers, “Can I change your mind?”

Five little words have just completely wrecked my decision. I want her to change my mind. I want her to show me everything I’ve been feeling for years, and I want to know she feels it, too.

“How are you going to do that?”

She gets up on her knees before moving closer and climbing into my lap. I sit back further in the middle of the bed and lean on my hands. I don't want to reach out and touch her. I’ve done the reaching too many times.

She straddles me, and I feel her hot pussy against my dick, those short shorts of hers hiding nothing. I do my best to keep my eyes focused on hers. She lays her hands on my shoulders before running them down to my biceps and squeezing.

“Do you remember when we were ten and we found Bean Lake on our own?”

I smile and nod. “You talked me into going that day. I was told to come right home from school. I had no plans to wander the woods.” I lay my hand on her thigh, unable to resist touching her .

Her fingers trail my chest. “You had the time of your life, don’t act like you didn’t.”

“We got in so much trouble for being there. ”

She laughs. “I think that’s when the sneaking through the windows began, right? We were grounded from seeing each other so we had to improvise.”

“Probably,” I tease. “Just one more thing you talked me into doing.”

She falls forward, giggling, and I wrap my arms around her back. She rocks her hips over me, and a low groan falls from my lips.

“Finding Bean Lake changed our life.”

“What do you mean? We would have found it in high school. Everyone always spent time down there when they cut class.”

“But we found it together, first.” She sits back. “I loved every first we ever had, didn’t you?”

I nod and lick my lips, squeezing her just a tiny bit tighter.

“And no one can ever take those firsts from us.”

She’s trying to seduce me, and though I want her to, sex can’t be a reason to uproot my life. “Nostalgia isn’t changing my mind, Peach.”