Rekindling the Flame (Smoky Heights #1)

Chapter 5

FIVE

AURORA

This tiny bathroom is even quieter than the bar was. My thoughts are pounding in my head, pummeling me, out of control with nothing to distract me from the onslaught.

My eyes seek out every inch of the room, breaths coming quickly, looking for some diversion, something to interrupt the pattern, that will quiet the noise that only I can hear.

But there’s no reprieve in here. The only reprieve I found is six states away. I suppose I could always try taking home a random guy and seeing if that buys me a few minutes of distraction, but there’s only one guy in the Heights I’ve ever been interested in. So much for not running into him for the whole eight months I’ll be here.

Why I’m here is the million-dollar question. Why, indeed. Because I’ve lost the last twelve years with my mom, and when you find out she’s only got nine months left, at most, it puts shit into perspective? Forces you to make the hard decision?

I know she hasn’t wanted to break the news, but people are going to know sooner or later. And this is Wyatt. He’s not everyone else. He deserves the truth from me at this point. Not hearing it in bar talk from Ernie, if he’s still alive, or some old lady on the side of the street, spreading gossip.

I take a deep breath, command my eyes to focus, stop fluttering around and zero in on his. Green. Pines. Autumn grass. Fast cars. Adrenaline. Heavy breathing. Racing hearts.

His jaw’s gotten stronger with time. The planes of his deeply tanned face are all angles and hardness, with a thick scruff along his jaw and chin. Like he should’ve shaved a couple days ago and was just too lazy. Not quite a beard, but more than a five o’clock shadow. Dark brown hair that’s pushed back but looks like it might have a mind of its own from time to time, maybe it’ll fall in his face later if it wants to. I can see the years on him, and it looks like they’ve been about as kind to him as they have to me. We both know who’s to blame for that.

You know how they say it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile? I think his face has had a lot of workouts in its time. Maybe that’s how his jawline got so defined. All in all, Wyatt’s got a face that would be just as easy to get lost in now as it was when I was sixteen and falling for him instead of paying attention in history class. I push the memories away as best I can to answer him.

“My mom is … sick.” It’s harder to say those words aloud to someone who knows her. It felt much more detached turning in my resignation, telling the partners I report to and HR about the situation. But watching the only man I’ve ever loved as I tell him, watching his face fall, his expression crumple as my words settle in, I know he’s pieced together what it means. How sick she must be for me to be here. His eyes dart to the door as it sinks in, and then they bounce back to mine.

“Fuck, Ro—Aurora.”

“Yeah.” What else is there to say?

“You said you’re just here for the night?” he presses.

My eyes find the wall above the toilet. The sign there with a classy drawing of a stick figure taking aim. Better than watching his face as I give him the answer.

“I’m here until she’s gone.”

I feel more than see what that does to him. His eyes closing, body rocking just a bit with the bomb.

Silence presses into all the gaps between us, the years elapsed without a word and the voids those gouged in him and me both, until I break it, like I broke us.

“I’m just trying to find somewhere to stay for tonight until I can find somewhere more permanent tomorrow.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“The doctors can’t. Guessing that means you can’t either.” He ignores the impolite words, doesn’t even acknowledge how I’m far from full of Southern hospitality anymore.

“But you’re back?” he presses for more. I’d want to know what to expect from me too. Can’t blame him.

I shrug at him, eyes flicking back up to his. “Didn’t want to regret not getting to spend this time with her. Not sure what I’ll be able to do, but I’m gonna try for whatever she’ll let me.”

He whistles out a breath. “Brave of you.”

I fold my lips in over my teeth and nod once. There’s no sugarcoating how uncomfortable this already is, and it’s not like it’s going to get easier as my stay continues.

“I miss New York already,” I mutter under my breath, lifting the paper towel off my finger to check on the status of the cut. It doesn’t instantly fill back up with blood, so that seems good.

“It probably misses you already too,” he says without thinking, and fuck me if that doesn’t cut me deeper than that damn door did.

Just then there’s an abrupt double knock on the bathroom door and it flies open, straight into my back, shoving me forward. Right into my ex’s chest. I let out some sort of squeal as I fly into him, but he catches me without a struggle, bracing me easily. Chills break out along my torso where ours are connected, and he wastes no time peeling me off of him, using impressively minimal contact with that arm that’s all tattooed now. I try not to look.

Getting his scent out of my nostrils, that’ll be a bit harder. Masculine. A scent he didn’t buy, like the guys back home, but one he earned through a hard day’s work. A lifetime of days like it. It lights something up within me, and I’m back to hiding from the assault of my own thoughts, though of a completely different nature this time.

“Sorry,” comes a gruff voice that sounds out of practice. I look over to the source of it, and the bartender I don’t know doesn’t look or sound sorry at all. Black hair, close cut on the sides, longer on the top, slicked back. Gorgeous face with just a couple days’ of growth. His whole look is artfully styled, like he’s straight out of Williamsburg. Eyes dark enough to scare me, something dangerous stirring in them I want no part of. He drops a white metal box on the counter and leaves again, the door slamming shut behind him.

Wyatt beats me to the counter, opening the grungy looking first aid kit and pulling out a Band-Aid, an alcohol wipe, and a single-use packet of ointment.

“Come on, then. Let’s get you cleaned up and I’ll help you find Duke. You could probably use some sleep.”

I nod my head and swallow heavily as he hands me the alcohol and the ointment, letting me treat my own wound, which is only fair, I guess. I left him to lick his.

The wipe stings, but I can take it. I deserve worse. When the wound is covered in goop, he hands me the Band-Aid and I wrap it a little clumsily with just my left hand, but he doesn’t offer to touch me again and I’m not going to ask him to.

This is all a little similar to another time he helped me clean up a cut—a day that led to a great night, one where I earned a new nickname—and I need to get off of memory lane before it’s too late. I toss out the trash and yank the door in toward me, desperate to get out of this room, the space he consumes. Suck in a deep breath the second the bathroom door is open—that thick and heavy, suffocating tension hopefully remaining in the small room behind me—and I gulp down the air in the hallway, hoping to clear my senses, my entire system, of his proximity, the lingering effects he still has on me after all this time apart.

Wyatt’s body, even bigger now than I remember it being then, pushes past me in the tight space and he ambles back into the main room of the bar, a dark Henley hugging his muscled frame, sleeves pushed up to the elbows, paired with Dickies and work boots. My eyes, and the rest of me, follow.

It doesn’t take him long to track down Duke, the owner of Suds for as far back as I can remember. The look of understanding on his weathered, smooth-shaven face as I summarize my request takes me by surprise, but I’m in business mode, and no emotion flickers past the surface.

“I tell you what,” he says when I’m done with my short (nondescript) spiel about being here to help my mom. Rather vague tale I told him, but he seems receptive. His husky voice tells me that if he never smoked, he spent decades inside a bar with patrons who did. “You can stay tonight on one condition.”

My brows rise ever so slightly, encouraging him to go on.

“You don’t look for somewhere else to stay.”

Those tinted, threaded brows try to take residence in my hairline—as much as the occasional few units of Botox will allow—and I wait for more.

“You and I both know you’re gonna end up a half an hour away, at best. Sounds like you’re here for a good cause. She needs you. You don’t need to commute an hour or more a day on top of everything else you’re going to be going through.” His pensive eyes flash to Wyatt’s and back to mine again, earnest and almost glistening. “Stay here for as long as you need it. As long as she needs you.”

I nod in acceptance of his kind offer. “Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”

“It’s still got some of my stuff in it, but I haven’t really been staying here for a while, so I can make some room for your bags and stuff.” He leads me upstairs, gives me a quick tour, and wastes no time moving the remainder of his belongings from one dresser into the other, freeing up some space for me. It’s a small room, it’s dated, but clean, which I appreciate. Not much to it, just a bed on the right-hand side, a nightstand, and two dressers framing the entrance to a small bathroom off the left wall. A small kitchenette with a mini fridge nestled in the corner. I’ll have to figure out where to do my work from, but this will be fine otherwise. In most areas of Manhattan this would cost at least a few grand a month.

I make my way downstairs and am surprised to find Wyatt still waiting by the bar, beer in hand, which he puts down to follow me outside to help me with my bags.

“You don’t have to do this,” I tell him quietly, next to the junker I bought for less than a half of a month’s rent back home.

“But you’re gonna let me anyway,” he says simply, tilting his head down at me knowingly.

“I mean … If you wanna carry my heavy bags up a flight of stairs, be my gue—” My words are cut off sharply by him heaving not one but both of my giant bags over his shoulders in one move, barely a grunt leaving his mouth as he does, and I scramble after him to close the trunk and hustle to get the door for him.

“Use the?—”

“Left-hand door, I know now,” I mutter at him, rolling my eyes.

“Atta girl. You always were a quick learner.” He winks at me, somehow the rest of his face stays stoic as he passes through the doors and I can only stare as he goes, through the tables and chairs, to about three-quarters down the side wall, where the stairwell is, and I follow in his wake the entire way up, pretending like my heart is only beating double time from the stairs.

He plops the bags down next to the bed and I do my best not to gawk at him, where this evening has led. From being kicked out of my mom’s house when I’m here only to help her, to running into the person I hoped to avoid for the longest, only to end up next to my bed with him by the end of the night.

This evening certainly could have gone more awkwardly than it did, but this is still a far cry from how I planned for it to go. Me, invisible, hidden deep inside my mom’s house, never to have to see anyone else from the town I left behind, least of all, him . But here we fucking are.

I just wanna turn on some cityscape sounds on my iPad and hope to hell I can fall asleep tonight. Tomorrow is promising to be stressful enough, and I need any advantage I can get.

“Listen,” he starts off, just as I say, “So …”

I let out an awkward laugh and wave my hand at him to continue.

“I know shit’s weird between us. But I want you to know that I admire the hell out of you and what you’re here doing. Regardless of anything else. That took a lot of balls.”

I dip my head down to the floor, then focus on the far wall. “I appreciate that,” I say quietly.

“If you need a break from it all … We still do bonfires most weekends down at the McKay property. Come by tomorrow, or whenever. Let your hair down a little.”

My stomach drops into the vicinity of my freshly pedicured toenails at the thought of running into more than just him. Our old friends. Their spouses, partners, lives now. Like it isn’t bad enough seeing him , facing everyone? All together? This trip is bad enough as is, thanks.

“I’ll think about it,” I tell him diplomatically, gathering my unruly, wavy (and probably frizzy) ponytail in one hand and redoing it more securely as I start to flit about the room, getting my bearings.

He rolls his eyes at me. “No, you fucking won’t.”

I stop in place and turn to face him again. “Well, what do you want me to say?” My voice rises on its own, annoyance clearly leaking into my words. Great. The two of us are already at each other’s throats and all we’ve done so far is small talk. Can’t wait to be trapped in the same tiny-ass shitty town as him for the foreseeable future.

“How about you try the truth and go from there?” His forest-green eyes narrow on mine, fuming.

“The truth isn’t often pretty.”

“I’d rather be blindsided by your ugly truths than your pretty fucking lies. At least I’d know what to goddamn expect.”

I reel back at his harsh words before leaning forward, punctuating my words with flailing hands so he knows he’s not the only one being wronged here. “You want my truth, Wyatt? Fine. Here it is. You were the last person I wanted to see coming here, and you’re the first one I run into. I came back to help my mom, not to make things right between us.” One of my hands flings back and forth in the air between us, gesturing. “And I thought maybe we’ve both grown up since then, maybe we can be civil, friendly, neighborly if we ran into one another. If I couldn’t manage to avoid you the whole time I was here. But clearly I still get under your skin and you still get under mine. So, no, I don’t want to go to a fucking bonfire where I can stare at everyone from my past, how their lives are still the same while there’s nothing about me that’s still the same as the last time I saw any one of you. I want to help keep my mom comfortable and make the most of however many months she has left, and the second she’s dead and gone, so the fuck am I.”

His nostrils flare, hands on his hips as he watches me silently until my rant is over.

He opens his mouth to reply, and his acidic words fill the room with disdain. “Thanks for warning me now. Would’ve been nice to know the first time, but I guess late is better than never. I won’t expect you to stay when shit gets tough this time.”

He turns on a booted foot and leaves, closing the door harder than necessary on his way out, and I hear his heavy footsteps clunking down the stairs.

Great.

I fall back onto the bed, hands covering my face as I replay my words to him. His to me.

I don’t know what he wants from me. What he expects. It’s been almost half our lives since we last saw each other. Surely he realizes we’re different people now than we were then, that I’d hoped to never have to face our mutual history in the light of who we’ve both become.

Can’t we just continue to pretend one another don’t exist, live our happy fucking lives until I’m gone again?

What’s the point of all the years, all the distance I worked so hard to put between us if he’s just going to show back up in my life again, being kind and thoughtful and trying to help me adjust to being back in the Heights? What a raging dick.

I puff out a huge breath and sit back up to look around the room and spot my bags. Find the one that houses my iPad and MacBook packed in and amongst the clothes and toiletries and anything else I could fit in there.

I guess it was nice of him to bring my bags up. My hand plays with the bandage on my finger absentmindedly. And help me clean up my finger.

And it’s not like word hasn’t probably already spread through this entire damn town like wildfire. I’m going to end up seeing everyone sooner or later. They’ll start seeking me out like I’m some rare bird up for a sighting if I try to stay cooped up and to myself once word is out.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for the reunions to happen in a controlled setting, one designed for a good time, rather than a more stressful one, or even worse, an unanticipated one. At least I could plan for the evening, how I want to present myself, what I might say to everyone I left behind.

And it’s with a heavy sigh that I realize once again, I’m the asshole here.

Maybe not that much has changed after all.

I quickly locate the necessities in my bags, use them to get ready for bed and tuck myself in, blasting the noises of the city as loud as my iPad will go. But nothing drowns out the voice in my head telling me I’m still the villain in this story.