Second Chance Summer (Chance Series, #1) (24 page)

I get out of the car and walk inside before anything else can be said. Its damn crazy how half an hour ago I was completely satisfied, playing the guitar, and now I feel like a ticking time bomb ready to explode with anger. I boil the kettle as Mom comes in after me and trots up the stairs. She has to be back at the bar for her shift in three measly hours, and I have no idea how she plans on accomplishing that.

I make my coffee and take a seat at the kitchen table, hearing the shower start up. And I sigh, because there are so many questions now buzzing in my head. There are so many things I need and want to ask her, but I already know the answer to the biggest one; why the drink?

Because it’s how she escapes from reality. We all need an escape. I play guitar, and she drinks.

I just wish, more than anything, that she could find another escape.

~

A throat clearing in the doorway draws my attention from the grain on the wooden table. My finger stops its tracing, and my eyes go to Momma’s much cleaner person.

“I’m sorry.”

I blink at her. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats.

“I know what you said. I’m just wondering exactly what you’re apologizin’ for.”

She wanders over to the kettle and boils it. “For you havin’ to come out to Denny’s and get me. I know you hate it there.”

I nod in response, turning my attention back to the table. I run my finger back along the grain, my nail digging into the wood slightly. One of the chairs scrapes along the floor, and Momma sits opposite me.

I glance up. Her damp blonde hair is hanging over one of her slumped shoulders and her hands are wrapped tightly around her mug. For a moment, I feel bad about the way I just spoke to her. For a moment, she reminds me of the woman she used to be.

But the empty bottle in the corner of the kitchen brings me back to now.

I breathe in deeply and tap my fingers against the table. “Why did you do it? To Daddy?”

“I don’t have an answer for you, Kia,” she replies quietly. “I wish I did, but I don’t. I don’t know why I did what I did.”

“Figures,” I mumble.

“But I regret it.” She looks up suddenly, her eyes focused on me. “I wish I never did it. Whether you believe it or not, that’s the truth.”

I want to believe it. I want to believe she wishes she could turn back time and not do whatever it was with whoever it was. I want to believe she wishes she could go back and drive home alone instead of leaving work with someone else.

And the shadow dulling what was once a pair of vividly colored eyes makes me believe her just a little.

“Do you still love him?”

She snorts, but it’s not derogatory or scoffing. It’s sad. “I’m always gonna love your Daddy, girl. He gave me you, and I know I ain’t the best mom in the world, but together, we had it all. Me, you, and him. We had the world, and I threw it all away. Now don’t you sit there thinkin’ I’m tryna guilt trip you, ‘cause I ain’t. Both me and your Daddy handled things wrong, and we wrecked what was already the hardest time of your life. I don’t expect you to sit there and forgive me for what I did. I’m not blind – I see I don’t deserve that forgiveness. I don’t deserve anythin’ from you, Kia, and I don’t expect anythin’, either. I wouldn’t be surprised if when you leave for school this year you decide not to come back at all. I’m surprised you came back this time.”

“Harlan Grove is my home. I might not like it much, but it is. I’ll always have to come back at some point.”

“No, you ain’t. You ain’t gotta come back at all.” She stands, pushing her chair back and reaching round to dump her mug in the sink. “I ain’t been about for you much but I’ve seen you and heard the way people talk about you. When they get past their gossipin’ and their storytellin’, they couldn’t be more in awe of you. “Little Kia James, all grown up at college in New York,” they say. The girl with the broken family and the dead-end Daddy, the girl who was never supposed to amount to anythin’ has turned around and told them all where the fuck they can stick their nosin’.

“So if you don’t wanna come back here, you don’t. You go and live wherever the hell you wanna live, girl, because you’re more than this dead-end little town. I didn’t leave when I got the chance, and look at me. Don’t make the same mistake I did and stay for love. Love does nothin’ but hurt you.”

She walks away, leaving me staring at her back. That’s the longest conversation we’ve had since I got home that wasn’t arguing. It’s the most honest conversation we’ve had since the day Daddy left… But honest doesn’t always mean true.

“You’re wrong about love,” I whisper, closing my eyes and holding in tears. “I know you’re wrong.”

Staying somewhere for love isn’t the mistake. What you choose to do after you have that love is, because doesn’t always have to hurt.

Sometimes love is the very thing that heals the hurt.

CHAPTER 17

“It’s ready, and I’m ready for you to get your ass back to New York,” Jay says before I can greet him.

“My room is ready?” I tilt my head to the side and trap my cell between my shoulder and my ear as I sort through my endless piles of clothes.

“What else do I have that’s ready for you?”

“I don’t know if I should answer that.”

His low chuckle down the line tells me I’ve made the right choice.

“Probably shouldn’t,” he agrees. “But it’s ready for whenever you’re ready.”

I sigh, my hand hovering over my college sweater. “I was planning on coming back next weekend, but I was waiting for you to call before I made any plans. I guess I can now.”

Heaviness settles in the pit of my stomach at the thought of making real plans to leave. Without Reese.

“No need to sound so sad, babe. Sure, you’ll be leaving behind your cowboy, but look what you get to come back to!”

I laugh. “And you wonder why you’re single. Honest, Jay, your head is bigger than anyone’s I know.”

“No, Kia. I’m single because I have a hard and fast rule of, “Fuck feelings and just fuck.””

“Don’t I know it?” I throw my school sweater on the bed to pack in my suitcase.

“So, is your cowboy not coming then?”

“Not when I do. I’m comin’ back without him, and hoping he comes in a few weeks or something. I dunno, Jay. This is why I left in the first place – the distance. I just don’t know if we can make it work.”

“Fuck yes you’re going to make it work!” he cries down the phone. “I’ve listened to your mopey ass for a damn year. I don’t get all that feelings shit, you know that, but there’s no way you’re walking away now. If you come back here and stroll into my apartment without the intention of making your relationship with the cowboy work, I’ll be hauling your pretty little butt back on a fucking plane and sending you back to Ranch County to sort out your crap.”

My lips twitch. “You know, for someone who has a fuck feelings rule, you’re a pretty good advocate for making a relationship work.”

“Because it’s you. I haven’t fucked you, unfortunately, so that means I care about you and I want you to be happy. It’s a pain in my ass, but I think I’m stuck with it.” He sighs dramatically, but I know he’s grinning.

“I love you, too, Jay.” I laugh, throwing some more clothes in the general direction of my bed. “I’ll call you when I know exactly when I’m leavin’, okay? You know, so you can make sure I don’t innocently wander into a Playboy bunny inspired fuckfest or something.”

“Hey, that’s not-”

“Bye, Jay.” I hang up and shake my head. My life is truly dysfunctional right now, when I think about it.

My mother is a raging alcoholic. My father has been living possibly only minutes away from me for a year with a new fiancée and baby, and I never knew a thing about it. My best friend here is in an am-I-aren’t-I pregnancy situation, and my best friend in New York is gonna cause the dictionary definition of “whore” to be rewritten – in his honor.

And my boyfriend, the guy who was never supposed to love me after I left him, does. More than anything I ever believed possible. He loves me in the fairytale way my daddy loved my momma – and he makes me believe in true love. More than that, he was always right. Age doesn’t mean a thing when it comes to love. Age doesn’t dictate how, when, or how much you love someone. All that dictates that is the heart, because as crazy and impulsive as the heart is, it’s never wrong.

Which is why I’m still leaving for New York. My heart is telling me I have to.

And that’s all there is to it.

I lay my suitcase flat on the floor and unzip it, flipping the top open. I take my books from the side, putting them in first, followed by my school sweats. My wardrobe beckons me, and I crawl across the floor to get there. I pull the doors open, and the first thing I see is the shoebox of photos I stuffed in there on the day I arrived home.

The photos from last summer.

My hands hover over the box for a minute before my fingers curl around it and slide it out. I move back from the wardrobe and tip it upside down, emptying the images all over my floor. Apart from one or two fleeting thoughts over the last few weeks, I’ve barely thought about these. But now… Now I want to see them.

The first I pick up are the graduation photos. There’s a whole stack of pictures from the day – both the ceremony and after-party – and most of them are held together by an elastic band. I slip it off and onto my wrist and flick through the pictures. Reese, Adam, Luce, me… There are pictures of all four of us receiving our diplomas. There are group shots, couple shots, individual shots… They’re all endless. I smile as I look at them all, remembering. But none of them makes me smile as much as the last image in the pile.

It’s of me and Reese at the after-party. We’re standing to the side, the bonfire’s light illuminating us. His arm is slung around my shoulders, and his face turned into mine.

“High school is over then,” he had said casually.

“Yep. Took long enough.” I glanced up at him, and we both grinned.

“And now it’s the summer.”

“You’re on the ball tonight,” I teased him.

“Hey.” He laughed and pulled me closer to him, sending happy tingles through my body. “I feel like I should tell you somethin’ about this summer, though.”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

“Mhmm.” His lips brushed the hair covering my ear, and his warm breath fluttered across my skin. “You should know, Kia, this summer is gonna be the best damn summer you’re ever gonna have.”

My skin tingles even now at the memory. It was a promise and a threat mixed into one, but it was a perfect threat. It was the threat I wanted him to carry through with, and he absolutely did.

The pictures show me what I didn’t realize back then. Everything he did, every word he said, everywhere he took me, it was all
for
me. He pursued the idea of us relentlessly.

Just like this summer. He wanted me back, despite everything, and he pursued it just as relentlessly as he did last summer. And I realize, now, he always knew he was gonna win. Because you don’t have a charm like Reese Pembleton’s and not get what you want. Every time.

I flick through the rest of the images. Beach pictures, at the bowling alley, all-nighters in the diner, at the bowling alley, and just casually hanging out. There’s a whole stack of selfies of me and Luce and I set some aside to take to New York with me. And then I grab a picture of me and Reese in the lake, me on his back and his lips against my cheek.

I tuck the rest of them back into the box and put it back into the wardrobe.

“You’re packin’?”

I shriek, jumping backward and knocking my head on the wardrobe door. Luce laughs, moving forward to help me up.

“Jesus, Luce. Don’t you ever knock?”

“You know I don’t.” She jumps onto my bed, narrowly missing a pile of my clothes.

“Careful.” I grab them and dump them carelessly in the suitcase. She raises her eyebrows as I sit in front of her. “What?”

“Careful, she says, and then she throws the dang things.” She sighs. “I came by to tell you I’m leaving early.”

“As in going to Vegas early?”

“Yep.”

“When are you going?”

“Tomorrow.”

My mouth drops open, and I can do nothing but stare at her for a second. She picks at her nails, then glances up at me and shrugs a shoulder.

“But why?” I choke out.

“I want to go back.”

“It’s because of Adam.”

“No, it’s not.”

“That wasn’t a question. That was me statin’ the obvious.”

She sighs, grabbing my pillow and burying her face into it. “Yes. No. I don’t know, Kia. This whole thing is getting to me, and then we turn up to Rocks and he’s with Stacy. I mean, what the heavenly fuck? He sleeps with me, and then he’s suddenly Mr. Fucking Monogamous with her?”

I can see the heartbreak in her eyes when she glances up at me over the pillow. “He’s an ass, Luce. We always knew that. I know it doesn’t make it better, but I can always put some itching powder in his work overalls or something.”

“That’s immature, Kia.” Her lips twitch.

“I’m not above high school pranks when it’s for you.” I grin. “In fact, I’m totally on par with them.”

“I guess I can’t control what you decide to do.” She cracks a proper smile. It’s small, but there’s a hint of my Luce in there.

“And you? What are you gonna do?”

Her smile drops, and she looks out of my window. “I guess I’m gonna go to Vegas, pray to Mother Nature – complete with endless apologies over any insults that may or may not have been thrown her way – and hope like hell my period shows up when it’s supposed to.”

~

Watching Luce drive away with her car full of her stuff leaves a hollow feeling in my chest. I kick at the wall outside her house and grip my keys in my palm, the metal cutting into my skin.

Impulsively, I climb into my car and head to Adam’s dad’s garage. I know him and Reese will be there, but for once I’m not going to see Reese. I don’t even know what I can say to Adam, but I need to say something. Anything.

Failing that, maybe I do just need a cuddle from Reese.