Page 35 of Salvation (Clover-Hills #1)

Wesley

F riends.

That word makes me want to punch something.

To throw her over my shoulder and show her just how much I don’t want to be friends with her.

But I don’t do that. I sit at the bar like a loser as I watch her dance with the other girls.

How she breaks away to check on Elain or pulls her into the crowd to dance with them.

She’s had a few drinks here and there, but not enough to be wasted.

She looks gorgeous. Carefree. Relaxed. Happy.

Everything that makes her who she is. That’s the Blake I knew growing up.

It makes me happy to know she’s made new friends and rekindled old friendships.

That she’s moving on and healing from the prick who left her so broken in the first place.

She may think she doesn’t belong here anymore, but she was quick to make this town as much hers as it was the day she was born.

The way she takes change in stride has never failed to impress me.

I can’t understand how Marshall, or any man, could fumble a woman like that.

And that skirt? That fucking skirt.

It’s a miracle I didn’t throw her over my shoulder and haul her out of this damn bar.

I was so angry when she came home. Confused.

But the longer she’s here, the more she pops up in my everyday life, it’s easier and easier to forget why I was so upset to begin with.

Easier to get excited when I get an excuse to see her next door or when she pops up at my door and asks to hang out.

Just as I take a swig of my beer, Harper drags Blake over to the Karaoke station.

I can tell she’s a bit nervous by the way her eyes dart around and her cheeks turn pink, but she must have just enough liquid courage because she doesn’t bolt away.

Just as they start to sing some old country song I don’t recognize right away, an older guy I’ve never seen before takes up the seat beside me. “This was my wife’s favorite song.”

“How did you meet her?”

Was. The look on his face is sorrowful but so full of love that it cracks my heart just a little.

No one should go through life without the one person they want to spend it with.

It’s the same way my mom looks when she talks about my dad.

“Childhood sweethearts. I let her go once, and never made that mistake again once I got her back.”

I nod. But my eyes drift back toward Blake at his words. I don’t know why. The old man clocks it because he leans in and lays a hand on my shoulder before pointing in her direction, “Don’t let that one go.”

“Oh, we’re not –" I go to protest, but he smiles like he knows something I don’t, and the look has me slamming my mouth shut.

He just tips his cowboy hat at me and saunters out of view without another word.

I just look back towards the blonde singing her heart out, back-to-back with Harper, and that sentence echoes in my head. Don’t let that one go.

But I already did. Didn’t I?