Page 13

After we’d eaten and we’d cleaned up, I poured some more wine into our glasses and leaned back on the blanket as we looked out over the water. Scarlett had grown quiet in the last little while. She’d been talking nonstop while we ate, but now, radio silence and I wondered what was on her mind.

“Care to tell me what you’re thinking?” I asked.

She looked out over the water, thinking, weighing her words carefully like she used to when we first hung out, then shrugged.

“I don’t know. It scares me how easy this is with you again.”

I nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. I’d felt it too; it seemed like no time had passed and that we’d never been apart. “I get that.”

“It’s like the other night when we were on the phone. Even before that, when we were texting. All this time had passed between us, and yet here we were, the same two people.”

“But yet, we aren’t the same two people.”

“I know.” She said, a far off look in her eyes.”

“Does that scare you?”

“A little. Honestly, I thought you hated me.”

I didn’t want to look at her for fear she saw the exact opposite in my eyes. I could never hate her. I figured that out for myself this morning when going back through our old photos.

“Why would you think that?”

“How could I not? You haven’t exactly been warm to me since I got here. Plus, I know you told Scottie you wanted to know nothing more about me.”

I fidgeted with the blanket as I watched a boat in the water.

“Scarlett, I have never hated you. How the hell could I. I was in love with you, and you were the only person I could see myself spending the rest of my life with. Honestly, I did that because I had to protect myself and shoving you out of my life was the way I had to do it.”

“So why were you so cold to me the day I spilled my coffee?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“What’s so funny?”

“Well, let’s see, I really was late, tugging around a six-year-old who has zero concept of time.

It isn’t always easy with her, then for that to happen, I guess I just lost my temper.

It had already been a trying day. Plus, to be honest, I felt frazzled.

You were the last person in the world I’d ever have expected to come to Vancouver, then to top that off, to move into my building, nonetheless. I guess I was in some kind of shock.”

“That makes sense.” She smiled, then glanced at me, her eyes immediately returning to the water.

I reached over and grabbed her hand, gently taking it in mine. “I never hated you. You broke my heart, and I still never hated you.”

“I don’t think I broke your heart, Levi.” She started laughing as she turned to look at me.

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t. We never really were anything to one another aside from friends.”

I watched as her eyes started to glaze over and she quickly wiped at them, then looked away from me. If she truly thought that she was going to be in for a surprise, because I’d always looked at her as more than that.

“Well, this guy here begs to differ. Do you remember the weekend you stayed with me right after graduation, the same weekend Mia arrived?”

She nodded her head and met my eyes.

“That weekend, you were going to see your mom and dad. Scottie was coming out for guys’ weekend. Remember?”

“Yes, my parents were so mad that he would not be around to celebrate my graduation that they actually gave him shit.”

“Well, he wasn’t coming out for guys’ weekend. He was coming to go with me to pick out an engagement ring. I’d planned on proposing the night you officially moved in.”

“What?” she asked, the words barely audible as she looked at me. “We’d never even slept together; we’d never even really dated, aside from that one month.”

“So what? I already knew in my heart you were the one I wanted to be with, and to be honest, I wanted to wait for our wedding night, before we slept together.”

“You’re fucking with me,” she said, a smile on her face, ready to burst into laughter.

“I’m not. Scottie came, my mom stayed with Mia, and we went out and I ordered the ring, figuring you’d be over everything by the time you returned from seeing your parents the following weekend.

Either that or you’d at least be calm enough to sit down with me and have a conversation.

I gave you the space you needed, excited to see you the following weekend, but you called me on the Friday night and announced you weren’t coming back, then said your goodbyes. ”

She studied me. I could tell she wanted to say something, but to be honest, I didn’t want her to say anything at all. She just had to know.

“Levi, I didn’t know…”

“Of course you didn’t know. How could you of? I’d have killed Scottie had he of said anything.”

“Why didn’t you stop me? Why didn’t you fight for me?”

“Well, for starters, I knew you well enough to know that once you’d decided, nothing I’d have said would have changed anything.

I could also tell because we’d barely spoken the entire week, and there hadn’t been a single time since I’d known you that we’d even go twelve hours before messaging, emailing or speaking to one another. ”

“Yeah, but why didn’t you tell me about the ring?”

“What was I going to say, Scarlett? Just come home. I want to marry you?”

“Something like that?”

“How romantic would that of been?”

“I wouldn’t have cared.”

I chuckled. “Yes, you would have. Believe me, you would have. I wanted to give you a proposal you’d remember forever. Instead, I moved on, life took over, I picked up, put my focus where it needed to be, just like you did.”

I saw her flinch at the last part.

“What happened between you two?” I questioned, wanting to know the truth.

She sat there, took a deep breath, and then shook her head.

“That is a story for another time. It’s been enough heavy talk for tonight.”

I nodded, somewhere deep inside of me agreeing with her. I’d never planned to tell her about the ring; however, somehow it had slipped out before I could stop myself.

“Fair enough,” I said, catching her shiver, then bring her hands up and rub her forearms.

“You cold?”

She nodded.

I shifted and rolled onto my side, moving over, resting my elbow on the mound of blankets I’d been leaning on.

“What are you doing?” she questioned.

“Come on over, I’ll keep you warm. Be just like old times.”

She softly smiled, then shivered again as another gust of cool wind came off the water, then moved in closer.

She leaned back against the rolled-up comforter behind us and lay back, her body sheltered from the wind by my body and looked up at me.

It had been forever since we were this close, and the scent of her perfume enveloped me.

“I’m so sorry I hurt you,” she whispered as she looked up at me.

I didn’t even need to second-guess what she said, I could already see the genuine look of regret in her eyes.

I could also see the want in her eyes and, without thinking, I lowered myself and pressed my lips against hers.

I didn’t need anyone to tell me that this wasn’t right; I felt it deep in my soul. I wanted it, and so did she.

The moment I was about to pull away was the same moment she brought her hand to the back of my head and snaked her fingers into my hair, kissing me back.