Sweet Cheeks(20)

“I wanted to call you when I found out, to come to the service, but I was on location in Indonesia . . .” My words fade off. The excuse sounds lame. She had just lost both parents—her whole damn world—and I couldn’t make the time to be there?

“. . . And I didn’t know what to say to you.” Just like I don’t now.

“It’s okay. Really.” She sniffles softly and reaches out to squeeze my forearm as if I’m the one who needs comforting. “There’s not much you could have said anyway.”

“I could have been there for you.”

The look she gives me—ice mixed in a sea of pain—stops me from saying anything more. Because she’s right. I had no right to offer comfort to her, and yet a part of me hates knowing I never tried.

“I haven’t been up there in years,” she says as she breaks our stare and looks up at the tree house above and then back to me. I can tell she’s desperately trying to change the topic. Can see her push the sadness from her eyes and replace it with the mischief I used to love seeing there, giving me a glimpse of the strong girl I know is hiding somewhere beneath.

I ask myself again what in the hell I’m doing here. With her. In the middle of the night. Wonder what possessed me to stop by here on a trip down memory lane when I’m supposed to be driving her home. Dropping her off. Then giving Tessa a call back.

“C’mon,” she part whispers, part giggles and while it sounds forced, it’s much better than the look in her eyes, so I let the topic go. Use the moment to allow her to shift her mental arrow on the do-I-like-Hayes scale from hate over to like. And before I can stop her, her high-heeled feet are making their way up the slat-board steps. She looks back at me and gives me a full-fledged smile—heavy topic overshadowed by nostalgia—and fuck if it doesn’t make me think thoughts about that wild child of a girl, who owned my heart.

I’m not gonna lie and say I don’t enjoy the view of her ass as she climbs her way up. Shit, she’s been shaking it all night for everyone except me, and I have a feeling even to spite me. It’s about damn time I get a chance to admire it without others watching my every move. And without others watching her every move.

So I stare for no other reason than because Saylor always did have a mighty fine ass. Way back when and most definitely now. It’d be a shame not to appreciate it. In tight black pants that cling perfectly to her curves as she makes her way, rung by rung, in shoes that have no business climbing up a tree, but fuck does it not add to the appeal.

I work my way up the rungs behind her, telling myself I’m just following her because she’s a tad drunk and it’s my obligation to make sure after all this time the old structure is safe. It has nothing to do with the fact that when I’m near her, especially in this backyard where we spent hours upon hours together, that I would follow her anywhere.

So now I’m climbing up a rickety ladder to chase memories down at two o’clock in the morning with my first love. I should be steering clear of everything I feel when I look at her: complicated, nostalgic, curious, turned-on, amused.

There’s the familiar creak of the door opening and then Saylor disappears into the darkness. When I boost myself up into the area a few seconds later, she’s on that very fine ass of hers with her back leaning against the trunk of the tree that serves as the center of the structure.

And I swear, when I see her sitting there looking around at the faded paint on the walls with a goofy grin—like she’s so proud she made it up the ladder with her shoes on—I feel like I’ve been transported back to our youth. To those stolen kisses and innocent hopes. To sneaking out on summer nights and having sex down by the lake in the bed of my truck.

And I wonder for the second time, what in the hell I’m doing here. How is Saylor sitting across from me with her wild eyes and a few leaves stuck in her hair that she doesn’t care are there and a flush on her cheeks? How this girl—definitely now a woman—who used to be my world, is making me question everything in my current life: the people, their sincerity, the chaos.

The answer’s simple: I owed Ryder big time.

But hell if I expected to show up to help Saylor, only to get that knocked in the gut feeling the minute I saw her in her bakery. Thinking your old flame will still look the same with her straight lines and tomboy demeanor, then seeing her . . . Curves, filled out, and sexy as sin was something I definitely didn’t expect.

“What’s your problem?” And her eyes are back on me, grin replaced by a sneer, as her question pulls me from thoughts I shouldn’t even be thinking. Brings me back to the present. To the lines I should be memorizing back in the hotel, and the shit I’ve got to do to help my mom tomorrow. To the life I have to get back to. But when I look at Saylor, all I think about is the here and now. And her.