Tumble (Dogwood Lane #1)(72)

“I promise to do better.”

“You better or this country boy is coming to the big city. Yeehaw!”

I laugh. “You’re such a dork.”

“Yeah, I know.” He takes his thumb and rubs a small circle on my forehead. “Be safe.”

“I will. Be good.”

“I’ll try.” With a simple smile, he starts across the parking lot.

“Goodbye, Matt,” I call after him.

“See ya, Neely.”

As I climb in my car and start the ignition, I watch Matt pull away. The farther he gets from sight, the worse the pain gets in my chest.

It didn’t hurt this bad the last time I left. Why can’t I shake it off?

Cranking the air conditioner and the radio, I step on the gas and make my way to the airport. I look back only once.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

DANE

She’s gone. She’s really, truly, actually fucking gone.

I think I’m going crazy. I actually believe I know the minute she left town. I couldn’t breathe, and I had this insane need to get in my truck and barrel to the freeway, but I didn’t. Because people who do stuff like that are lunatics, and I’m not.

Not really.

I was grateful for Mia’s extralong practice tonight. It just gave me a bigger window without having to talk to Mia about why we aren’t seeing Neely again. Then Susan offered to let her stay the night, and while she didn’t say why, the sad look in her eyes told me she knows Neely’s gone.

I hoped she’d change her mind. I hoped she’d start to leave and realize that Mia and I were worth it, that we were worth staying for.

She didn’t.

Meandering through my house, the night as dark as coal outside the windows, I feel like I’m coming out of my skin. There was a time not long ago I loved a quiet house. I loved an evening free with nothing to do. That’s exactly what I have, and I think I’m losing my damn mind.

I got used to her too fast. I became dependent on her laugh, her stories, her body against mine. Now I’m all fucked up, not knowing what to do with myself, and I have no one to blame but me.

There’s a knock at the door, but I don’t even get excited. It’s not Neely’s knock. It’s Haley’s. I don’t tell her to come in either, because I know she will whether she’s invited or not.

Sure enough, within a few minutes, she comes walking around the corner in the kitchen. She stops when she sees me.

“You look bad,” she says. “Good grief, Dane.”

“I’ve seen better days.”

“I believe that just by looking at you.” She hops up on a barstool at the island and watches me. “So, she left.”

“Yeah.”

I can’t even get riled up about it anymore. The anger is gone. It’s just disappointment and loneliness I can’t put into words.

I want to tell Haley this is a broken heart. This is what devastation feels like. But I don’t have the energy to even try.

“I will say,” Haley says, swinging her feet back and forth, “I’m surprised she left.”

“That makes two of us.”

“But I kind of like it.” She grins wildly.

My eyes close, then reopen slowly. “I’m sorry. I think I misheard you.”

“You didn’t. This will make for an epic romantic finale.”

My head falls to my hands. “She left me, Haley. There is no epic finale. It’s done. Kaput.”

“This is why you can’t call yourself a romantic.”

I pick up an orange and toss it from hand to hand. “Good thing I don’t see myself as a romantic then, huh?”

She snatches the orange out of the air. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan for what?”

“I don’t know. The plan to get her back? To forget her? To pull a Penn and screw so many women you forget who’s who?”

“Not that.” I hop on the counter, the cold marble kissing my ass. “I knew better than to screw that one, and I went against my rules.”

“So why did you?”

I look at her with a blank face. “Is that a serious question, Haley?”

“Yes. Why did you sleep with her if you knew, without a doubt, that it was wrong?” She hops off the chair and rounds the island. Her hands on the counter across from me, she leaps up and takes a seat. “Was she hot? Sexy? Did she come on to you?”

Blowing out a breath, I remember the way Neely felt against my body. The way she looked into my eyes and everything just felt right. Nothing mattered because I had her.

Except I didn’t.

“You want to know the truth?” I ask. I grip the corner of the counter and feel a sense of calm run across my skin. “I loved her, Hay. I really did.”

“You do love her then.”

“I guess I do.” I pick up another orange and throw it at her. She catches it with ease. “There. You happy now?”

“No. I won’t be happy until you’re happy. Well, I’ll be a lot happier in six months when I can go looking for my Prince Charming again.”

I consider something. “Maybe there are no happy endings. Maybe we’re all searching for this fairy tale because mass-market media shoves it in our faces, but maybe it’s all a made-up thing that we will never get.”