Sweet Cheeks(79)

Her body startles at my question before she slowly turns and faces me, expression guarded in the darkness.

But you walked out.

“What?” Her voice is surprised. Or is that irritation?

The thunder growls around us.

“Do you still love him, Saylor?”

The first drop of rain lands on my cheek.

You walked out.

“No. I don’t love him, Hayes.”

Don’t twirl your hair, Saylor. Don’t show me you’re lying. I watch her hands. Wait for them to move. To give her tell.

Rain echoes around us. Drops on plants. On sidewalks. On dirt. It’s subtle but there.

It’s washing off the dirt.

Her hands don’t move.

“You don’t?”

It’s stripping away the past.

She laughs. Shakes her head. “You’re being ridiculous, you know that?” There’s a spark of temper. A flash of disbelief.

It’s cleansing. A fresh start.

“Then what is it, Saylor?” I take a step toward her, need to know what’s going on. “Why are you so upset?”

Thunder vibrates the rain and air. Electrifies it.

Our eyes hold. My lips open and close to push her for the answer, but I hold it back. Take another step closer and put my hand on her cheek. I feel the rain on her skin, smell it all around us.

“Because I don’t want this to end.”

“What to end?”

Thunder and lightning within seconds of each other. A perfect description of what I feel right now as I wait. Of how she makes me feel inside.

“This.” Quiet. Self-assured. Lashes fluttering from the drops of rain as she looks up to meet my eyes.

And I’m sucker-punched. The lightning and thunder collide.

“This?”

My thumb brushes over her lips as the rain falls harder.

“You. Me. This weekend.” Each word is slow. Intentional. Fearful I’ll disagree. She steps away from me, paces a few feet while shaking her head and then turns around to face me.

“Saylor.” Thunder roars the same time I speak and drowns out my voice.

“Goddammit. I love you.” Every emotion within me—hope, love, fear, acceptance, humility, want, need—surges and swells at her words. She throws her arms out, dress soaked and sticking to her body. “I’ve always loved you, Hayes Whitley. When I was ten years old with skinned knees and braces. And when I was fourteen, sitting in the tree house jealous of all the high school girls bragging about your kissing skills. Then we did kiss and I hated them all for knowing that, but you, you could do no wrong in my eyes. And even after you walked away . . . I still loved you.” Her voice breaks. The emotion in her tone raw and real and tugging on every part of me she hasn’t touched yet when I was sure as shit she’d touched everywhere over our lifetime.

I’m standing before her stunned. There’s a veil of rain between us and yet a connection stronger than I’ve ever felt before. I start to speak, but she shakes her head, puts her hand up for me to stop.

Lightning flashes over the water and it lights up the wild in her eyes.

“No. I have to finish. I need to say everything I want to say. Mitch said you were the ghost between us. The reason we didn’t work out. Always there. I told him that was bullshit. That he was lying. But you know what? He’s right. You’ve always been there, Hayes. In my dreams. On my mind. In my hopes. Tattooed permanently on my heart.”





Hayes stares at me with the muscle pulsing in his jaw, his only show of emotion. His head tilts slightly like he’s trying to make sure what I’m saying and what he thinks I’m saying are one in the same. I see relief. Hope. Desire. Love. His hair is plastered to his head, shirt soaked through, and eyes searching when he steps toward me. I’ve never thought him more handsome.

He places a hand on the side of my face, our connection rekindled. “Saylor.” It’s only one word said in that deep timbre of his and yet it’s packed with so much emotion.

I came out here needing a breather. Mitch’s words hit too close to home to the fears I had and to the doubts still milling inside. Then Hayes arrived and his face looked like a reflection of the turmoil I was feeling inside. Like exactly what he is to me: The storm that can bring me down.

Now’s my chance to lay all my cards on the table because if I don’t and he walks away, I’ll always question, always wonder, if I fought hard enough to keep him.

“I’ve loved you, Hayes. Then. Now. I always have. And I’m scared to death of what’s going to happen when we leave here. How, when we walk away to our separate flights, our separate worlds, that I’ll never see you again.”

He doesn’t respond with words. His body is too tense. Emotion is strung too tight. And so he reacts the only way I think he can to express how he’s feeling, to show how my confession makes him feel.