Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(110)

God, but she was beautiful. Still.

Her hair was shorter, still thick and wavy and swung down her back from the clip at the base of her scalp. She wore a red, fitted dress that accentuated her tiny waist and made her ass look like a plump, tempting apple. Even better was that beautiful smile, those thick, supple lips as she spoke into the microphone.

I didn’t listen to that low, quiet voice, not really. It barely registered when she thanked the parents, when she explained how hard her dancers had worked preparing for the recital.

“I thought for sure Aly wouldn’t make it,” Mom tried and I rolled my eyes, sending her a frown I knew she’d take as disapproval. “Leann said she was in New York this week and that her instructors would have to run the recital.” The lie was stupid and I guessed my mother knew it. She at least tried to hide her grin.

“Mom, in five years Aly has never missed a recital,” I said, leaning toward my mother as I fixed my eyes onto the stage.

“And you came anyway?”

There was a little too much confidence in my mother’s voice and I shook my head when Kona laughed as though getting me to New Orleans had been some devious plot my parents were proud had been successful.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” I told them, crossing my arms as Aly bowed and accepted several bouquets of flowers from her dancers.

“It’s been a long time,” Mom said, sliding Koa out of the way to stand next to me. That hard, intruding glance at me felt like fire. Keira was always meddling. “She looks beautiful, right?”

“Mom…”

“Ransom, you’re going to miss your chance if you keep away from her.”

I thought I had. Well, I thought it wasn’t time. Not yet and I didn’t appreciate my mother’s intrusion or how she’d spent the past four years nagging me about Aly. I knew she meant well. I knew my mother was just concerned that Aly and I had dragged our feet about our relationship. Well, our lack of a relationship with each other.

“I’m not missing anything,” I told her, almost believing that I could convince my mother I didn’t ache from missing Aly.

Four years was a long time to be without the person you knew in your gut you wanted more than anything. Four years was too long, but then, hadn’t we always said we knew we were end game?

“No matter where I go, Ransom, my heart will stay with you,” Aly had told me the night she left our condo. Miami was too hot for her. I was too busy and she missed New Orleans. She missed the work she did with the kids at the Y and wanted to settle down. She wanted to plant roots.

“Aly, I’ll never love anything like I love you.” I hadn’t lied. Not once and it wasn’t as though she’d left bitter. It wasn’t like separating was something either of us wanted to do. But it had taken us six years to finish college, to figure out how to work things out between her work choreographing recitals and routines in New Orleans and me settling with the Dolphins right out of the Draft.

She hadn’t left with the intention of staying gone. I hadn’t let her leave without a plan to follow. But two weeks became a month. Then a month became six, and before either of us knew what was happening, phone calls and texts went unanswered and we were barely even responding to emails. Life just happened when we weren’t paying attention. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t missed her. It didn’t mean we hadn’t tried. We had. But each time we got back together again, those responsibilities we’d created for ourselves, the pressures both of us had, got in the way of us being together. We’d let it. We continued to let it.

“You’re here for the weekend. Why don’t you at least spend some time with her?” That came from my father and when I glanced at him, jaw clenched, he didn’t bother looking shame-faced. He nagged me as much as my mother about Aly.

“Why don’t you two mind your own business?” I forced a smile at them, hoping to conceal my irritation.

“Ransom, you should know,” Mom started, ignoring my grin. “Aly’s been…”

“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen…” Whatever Mom was going to tell me abruptly ended when a tall guy in an Armani suit I’d never seen took the mic from Aly on the stage. Around them, the crowd of dancers whispered behind their hands, nodded toward the man as though they were looking at a rock star, not some prick who held his hand at the small of Aly’s back. Except Mack who only glared at the guy like he was an idiot.

That’s my girl, I thought.

“Who is that?” I asked Mom with my gaze glued to the stage.

“That’s Ethan. He…”

“I wanted everyone’s attention and Aly’s before the craziness of the after party begins.”

“Ethan?” I asked, not able to keep my attention off that *’s hand or the smile on Aly’s face. But I knew her. She’d been mine for six years. There wasn’t a flinch or break in her composure that I didn’t catch. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t seen each other in a while. It didn’t even matter that it had been four damn lonely years since I’d touched her. Looking at her wide, worried eyes and that forced, fake smile, I knew Aly was nervous, maybe a little wary.

“He’s a lawyer. His offices are in the same building as her studio.” Mom stepped a little closer and I stopped leaning down toward her to hear over the crowd. “He and Aly…”