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Shit, I fumbled that one, huh? Something about August throws me off in the most disorienting way. It’s as if I get around her and become this awkward teenage boy who has a crush on the prettiest girl in school.
Except we both agreed that we have no time for a relationship. And clearly, it would be awkward if we hook up and it went south while we were still living together.
So why, with everything in me, do I want to try to be with her anyway?
12
AUGUST
Evan Ashton almost kissed me.
He was going to kiss me.
I could feel his breath on my lips and the pulse of his wrist beneath my hand.
And then, I stopped him. Like a complete, utter idiot, I told the boy I’ve crushed on forever that I didn’t want his mouth on mine. I don’t know what the hell got the best of me at that moment, but it was like I knew I couldn’t handle him kissing me today. Not with all of the other junk floating around in my head.
I would have let Evan kiss me and let it go further because he was feeling bad for me. Or I was feeling bad for myself. Since I’ve come back, I’ve felt like this victim that he’s pandered to because of my situation, and I don’t want him to kiss me just to make me feel better.
He all but confirmed that any physical intimacy between us would be just that—no emotions tied to it. A hookup is what he’s looking for; the only thing he’s looking for.
Okay, maybe he didn’t say exactly that, and I’m the one who suggested I couldn’t handle a relationship in my life right now. But I only said that because of all the complications surrounding me at the moment and because when it comes to him, I have to guard my heart a bit.
For him to readily agree that he also wasn’t looking for any kind of long-term thing? Well, that kind of stings. He fired off those words like he didn’t ever want me to get the idea that something between us could get serious.
That alone makes me sag with relief that I didn’t let him kiss me. I don’t know if my heart and my huge, harbored crush could have survived if he had used me for sex and then tried to make excuses about why we couldn’t be more to each other.
I’ve gone years waiting for him to notice me, and now that he finally has, maybe that can be enough. Isn’t the satisfaction of knowing he was about to kiss me enough?
At least I can tell myself that. Because I can’t risk another letdown, and Evan would surely be one if we got close. History has shown me that all my fantasies about him will probably never come true.
Pacing the small foyer of Alana’s house, where I’ll be staying for the foreseeable future, I try to calm my mind and refocus on what matters right now.
I spend the rest of the day trying to come up with a plan for how to come up with fifty thousand dollars before I turn sixty years old. As of yet, I haven’t found a positive way to spin this. I’m going to be strapped with my mother’s debt for years to come, and the idea is absolutely depressing. It’s a bill I hadn’t anticipated, and I’d already been weary of being in the world all alone while starting my career.
Either I stay in Hope Crest and work three jobs, trying to dig myself somewhat out of the hole before accepting an actual hospitality position, or I leave for a new job and pay rent on an apartment in some other city while paying off the mortgage here as well. Both options don’t seem good, and not for the first time in my life, I wish I was born to a mother who cared a smidgen about her child.
That type of thinking won’t get me anywhere, though. I know that. So it’s best to shoulder past it and keep moving because no one is going to pick me up by my bootstraps except myself.
Warren’s offer echoes in my head. And wouldn’t it be so easy to let him handle it? If this debt was wiped off my plate, I could start the life I’ve been anticipating. It’s so tempting to just let someone take care of me for once.
But no. I’ve gotten this far in my life by doing it all on my own. And there is an immense sort of pride that comes from that, one I don’t want cheapened by taking the easy way out this time.
The door opening has me jumping near the bottom of the stairs. “Oh my gosh.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Evan’s hand whips out in apology, like he might touch me to comfort me, but then pulls back.
“I just didn’t expect you home so early. You’re usually at the restaurant pretty late. Like I’m asleep before you even come home,” I explain, still spooked from his early appearance.
More than that, I’m not sure if we’re tiptoeing around each other because of what happened in the kitchen this morning.
“My mom and dad wanted to have a quiet meal in the dining room for their dating anniversary, so they said they’d clean up. I thought I’d come home and be a human being who had a life for once.”
“You call coming home to your platonic roommate in this small town a life?” I quip.
“Well, it’s not New York City at two a.m., but I’ll take it.” He grins.
What I thought would be extremely awkward is only mildly so, and my lungs take their first full, deep breath, knowing that he isn’t going to make this weird.
