Breathe with Me (With Me in Seattle, #7)(13)

Jesus, she’s f*cking gorgeous.

“You look amazing,” I say and rub a large circle over her slender back.

“So do you,” she murmurs and looks up and down at my plain black T-shirt and jeans. I threw a plaid button down over the T, but her eyes travel to my arms anyway.

She always did have a thing for my arms.

“Thanks for coming out with me tonight.”

“Thanks for inviting me,” she replies with a grin. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” I lead her out to my Jeep, help her in and jump in the driver’s side. Before pulling away, I look over at her and consider pulling her in for a quick kiss, but I know that once I start kissing her, I won’t want to stop, and there’s too much to say before we go there.

If she’s interested in going there.

“What’s wrong?” she asks as she clutches her black handbag tightly in her lap, as though she’s as nervous as I am.

“Nothing at all,” I reply with a shake of my head and pull out into traffic toward our old neighborhood. We drive in relative quiet, both lost in our own thoughts, and maybe a little nervous about what we should say. I have so many questions, but for now I’m content to have her next to me as I pull into our special place and cut the engine.

“Our pier,” she whispers softly.

“Yeah,” I reply and turn to her. “I brought dinner. I thought we could sit out here and talk, if that’s okay.”

“It’s going to get cold,” she begins, but I cut her off with a shake of my head.

“I brought extra blankets. We’ll be warm.”

She bites her lip, looks out at the water and the homes along the lake and then back at me with a watery smile. “I love it.”

I brush my knuckles down her cheek and then reluctantly pull away. Jesus, I just want to keep touching her. Everywhere.

I grab the cooler full of dinner from the back and lead her to the end of the dock that we sat on for hours on end more than ten years ago.

“God, how many hours did we spend out here?” she asks, mirroring my thoughts.

“Hundreds,” I reply and spread a thick quilt over the wooden pier, right at the edge and gesture for her to sit. It’s just starting to get dark and the lights around the lake are twinkling. A sailboat drifts by slowly and we wave at the captain. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” she says with a smile. “What did you bring me?”

“Salmon with salad and water and chocolate cupcakes for dessert.”

“Gimme.”

I chuckle and plate her meal, then my own and we eat in silence, watching the water.

“Still quiet out here,” she says.

“Mm.” I nod and watch her as she finishes her fish and salad and sets her plate back inside the cooler then takes my empty plate to join hers. “How are you, M?”

Her hands still for a moment, then she turns to me, pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around her legs. “I’m getting better. It’s been a rough few months.”

I nod and frown. “I miss her too. Did she ever tell you that I still came to see her over the years whenever I was in town?”

“No.” She shakes her head sadly. “She knew that talking about you hurt me, so she never brought it up.”

I blink and watch her beautiful face. “I saw her at least once a year. I’d make repairs on the house and help her out in any way I could.”

“Thank you for that,” she whispers. “Mark, I’m sorry for the way it ended—”

“Stop.” I take her hand in mine and kiss her knuckles. “There’s nothing to apologize for, M. It was a long time ago.”

She nods and bites her lip but then shakes her head and presses on. “No, I need to say this. It’s important to me.” She squares her shoulders and clears her throat and I just lean back on my hands and listen. “I know it’s been a long time, but we never talked after that day, M. I didn’t want to break it off. I knew that that’s what I was doing, but it killed me. I’d been in dance class one day, and I wasn’t concentrating, and the teacher called me out on it. She knew I was daydreaming, and explained that I needed to get my head in the game.” She frowns and shifts like she can’t get comfortable, then shrugs. “I just knew that we were so young, and that if dance was what I wanted, I had to go for it.”

“I get it, Mer.” I push a piece of hair that’s fallen out of her bun behind her ear. “We were young. Chances are we would have broken up eventually. It hurt like crazy at the time, but hindsight is 20/20, right?”

She nods and releases her legs, crossing them in front of her.

“Tell me about New York,” I say unexpectedly, surprising us both, but I realize, I want to know everything about our time apart. Every detail. “Start at the beginning and tell me everything.”

“Really? You want to know?”

“Absolutely.” I let her hand go and take a sip of my water as I watch her gather her thoughts.

“I didn’t want to get on that plane,” she begins softly, her eyes off in the distance, watching the lights of the boats on the water. I can’t look away from her. Fuck, I’m still pulled to her in a way I’ve never been able to explain. It was there when I was seventeen damn years old, and it’s just as strong now. “It was torture, knowing I was leaving you. The first week was scary and so much harder than I ever thought it would be.”