by Soraya Lane
Cody shot her a surprised look. “Really? It’s just a ruse. Inside I’m slowly driving myself insane wishing I could dive back into work. It’s almost impossible to keep my laptop shut.”
“So tell me about your life in New York. Is it everything you ever wanted it to be?”
She couldn’t read his expression this time, and he didn’t answer straightaway, but when he did he let out a breath and a slow smile spread across his lips. “You know, it is and it isn’t. I mean, I love New York and I love the work, but sometimes I feel like I’m running from something still.”
“Running?” she asked, surprised by his choice of words.
She sat quietly, the only response she received from him a nod, and she wasn’t brave enough to ask more. Or maybe she just didn’t want to know.
The rest of the drive passed in silence, until Cody slowed and pulled into a parking spot outside the restaurant. She cleared her throat and tugged her jacket tighter around herself before reaching for her bag. But as the engine stopped, Cody’s hand curled around her wrist. She froze, before slowly looking up.
“That was really insensitive, what I said before,” he said, his thumb rubbing lightly against her skin, making her heart beat way too fast. “About running.”
Settle down, girl. You’re not a teenager anymore.
“It’s fine,” she said, staying still and hoping he’d take his hand off. She didn’t want the contact—it was much easier not to like him when he wasn’t touching her.
“For the record, it wasn’t you I was running from. I should have made that clearer.”
She nodded and slowly extracted her arm, needing to put some space between them. She looked out the window, using her palm to clear the fogged-up glass. “Have you been here before?” she asked.
“We can go somewhere else if you’d prefer?”
Lexi just smiled, looking at the lights of the restaurant and feeling all her worries start to slowly melt away. It had been a long, long time since she’d been out somewhere nice. First, it had been because of Harry, then because of finances—and she hadn’t exactly been dating during all the in-between parts.
“This is perfect.”
He chuckled. “I was actually wondering if we should have gone for burgers or something more low key, but I figure I have a lot to make up for. The least I can do is find somewhere nice to take you.”
Lexi turned to reply, but he’d already stepped out, the click of his door telling her she had about five seconds to take a deep breath before he appeared and opened her door for her. Like clockwork, Cody appeared and swung her door open, offering her his hand as she stepped out.
“It’s slippery out here,” he said. “As opposed to me thinking you can’t walk on your own.”
“Most men around here are so chivalrous I think they actually do think women can’t open doors or walk on their own.”
Cody laughed but she happily kept hold of his hand.
“How does the Texas charm work for you in New York? I bet the girls lap it up, having a man open doors and bend over backward to be polite.”
“You know, not so great actually. I had one woman slap me for daring to open her car door, and another give me a stare so cold I may have actually turned to ice. But when you’ve been brought up around these parts, they’re hard habits to forget.”
Cody grinned, holding up his jacket to shield her from the snow as they walked quickly to the restaurant. He nudged the door open and waited for her to walk through, and the warmth inside hit her as quickly as the aroma of delicious food.
“You sure you don’t want to go for burgers?” he asked, leaning in and whispering in her ear. “We can make a run for it and be gone before they even know we’ve arrived.”
She shook her head and bravely met his gaze, deciding that tonight was on her terms, that she was in charge and she was damn well going to enjoy herself. “Not a chance. You were right, you do have a lot of making up to do.”
Cody didn’t say a word, he just stared back at her a heartbeat too long until the maître d’ came over and took their names before ushering them to a table.
They sat and she fingered her menu, looking up and down, her eyes skimming each word but not really reading anything. When she looked up, she saw Cody studying the wine list.
“What do you like? Red? White? Champagne?” he asked, looking at her over it. “Or maybe a beer like the old days?”
She remembered them drinking a lot of beer back then. “What the hell, it’s Christmas. Why don’t we have champagne?” Lexi wondered who the confident, happy-sounding voice belonged to, because she was never one to suggest champagne, and even earlier that day she was hardly feeling Christmas-y, but Cody was paying and she knew he wouldn’t care what the bill came to. If she were going out with a mere mortal, she would have been far more conscious of the price.
Cody waved the waiter over. “A bottle of Veuve Clicquot,” he said, before turning his attention back to her.
“You do realize it’ll take more than ridiculously overpriced champagne and a fancy meal to impress me?”
He studied her, his eyes moving over her face as she refused to squirm, letting him look as she watched him right back. She was surprised how good he looked, when half the guys from back in their school days looked like middle-aged men by the time they hit thirty. Cody had always been confident and good looking, but he was more filled out now, very much a man, and she could see that unlike the exaggerated confidence of his youth, he seemed to know his place in the world now. He’d spoken in a quiet voice to the waiter, not needing anyone else to overhear that he was ordering pricey champagne, and the way he carried himself and spoke exuded old-world confidence. She guessed that was the case for most people who’d grown up with wealth like he had; they didn’t have to worry about anything. She only wished she knew what that was like.
“What will it take?” he finally asked.
“Why do you even care? You have your pick of women, Cody,” she said softly. “Do you even care about a jilted ex-girlfriend? Or is it just the fact that you want to be nice so I don’t walk out on your father? Is it because your family told you to play nice with me?”
For the first time, she seemed to get a reaction out of him, his jaw steeling as he stared more coolly back at her. “I’m a big boy, Lexi. I don’t need to make anyone happy, not my family, not my father, not anyone.”
She blinked away tears as they filled her eyes, not knowing why she was suddenly overcome with emotion. She wasn’t the crying type, she barely cried ever, but suddenly sitting across from Cody and trying to be brave and witty, when she was actually crumbling into pieces inside, it was all too much.
“I’m sorry, I…” She reached for the perfect white napkin and dabbed at her eyes.
“Hey, I’m sorry. Shit, what did I say? I didn’t mean to upset you!”
She took a big, shaky breath. “I’m sorry. It’s me, not you. I’ve been going through a lot and it just hit me like a ton of bricks all of a sudden.”
The waiter arrived with their champagne and popped the top, one hand behind his back as he poured first her glass and then Cody’s. She slowly curled her fingers around the stem, inhaling as she looked at the bubbles frantically rising to the top, and only exhaling as she felt brave enough to raise it and clink it to Cody’s.
“To new beginnings,” he said, waiting for her before raising it to his lips.
“New beginnings,” she repeated, taking a long, slow sip. The bubbles tickled her throat, and she took another small one before placing the glass down.
“If this is too much for you, if you’d rather go home?” he asked. “You just say the word and we’ll go.”
“I never thought I’d ever forgive you, Cody,” she confessed. “I’ve spent my entire life hating you, resenting you for the way you left me hanging, wasting my time when I could have been out having fun instead of pining over you, brokenhearted, while you had the time of your life at college.”
He grimaced. “
And now?”
“Ugh, I don’t know.” She took another sip. “Given the things that have turned to crap for me this past year or two, I guess it seems stupid to be holding on to such negativity. It’s been easy to blame you, I guess. Even when my marriage turned into a disaster, I kept telling myself that you’d broken me, and wondering what it would have been like if things had worked out differently between us.” She swallowed slowly, blinking away tears. “But maybe I’m just hard to love. It would explain a lot.”
“Don’t you dare say that, it’s as far from the truth as possible. God, look at you, you’re gorgeous and you’re intelligent, what’s not to love?” Cody moved so fast she didn’t have time to pull back, his hand suddenly covering hers, squeezing her fingers. “For the record, I wasn’t actually having the time of my life. I was studying like a complete nerd, not going to frat parties, and I was too scared to come home most of the time. I guess I’d just decided that I was done with Texas, and that Texas was done with me.”
“But I wasn’t done with you, Cody,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Far from it.”
She clenched her fingers against the glass before backing off, scared it might shatter in her hand. But the way Cody was looking at her, the anger that had shifted off her chest and somehow started bubbling up her throat into emotion, it was all too much.
“I wasn’t running from you,” he ground out, as if he was the one in pain, not her. “All I could see was where I wanted to be, what I wanted to do, and I didn’t realize how much I hurt the people I left behind.”
“There was someone else you hurt?” she asked. “You said people. As in plural. I always thought it was just me.”
Cody lifted his glass and she watched his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed, holding his glass up a little too long, as if trying to buy himself time.
“Cody?”
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” he muttered. “Have you looked at the menu? Maybe we should think about what we’re going to order?”
She didn’t stop staring at him. “You don’t get off the hook that easy with me. What were you running from? If it wasn’t me, then who?”
Cody stared at his menu, before slowly raising his eyes. “I was never running from you, Lexi. I was running from my family.” He took a big breath and shook his head. “I was running away from my mom so I didn’t have to see her die right before my eyes.”
Lexi’s heart broke even further as she saw the sadness pass over Cody’s face. Why the hell hadn’t she put two and two together? Now it was her reaching for him, but Cody was quick to back away, deftly avoiding her touch.
“I’m so sorry.”
“And that right there is why I’ve never told anyone that. I can’t stand being pitied.”
She sighed. “It’s not pity, Cody. It’s empathy.” She paused. “Actually it’s me feeling like the jerk for not realizing why you left. I just thought you were trying to break up with me without having to actually tell me.”
“As a man, I’m sorry for hurting you. But back then, I don’t think I was even mature enough to see what I’d done to you, or that what I’d done could hurt you.” Cody said, his voice a pitch lower, gravelly as he looked into her eyes. “I would never intentionally hurt a woman now, but there’s something selfish about being eighteen that stops you from giving a shit about the people around you sometimes. Or even being perceptive enough to understand the ramifications of a decision.”
“Yeah, you can say that again.”
Lexi picked up her menu, staring hard at the words but still not seeing. She wasn’t sure what hurt more: the fact she’d thought he was just a jerk trying to get out of breaking up with her all these years, or that he hadn’t felt he could talk to her instead of turning his back on everything and running away.
“All this time, I believed you had some sense of being too good for this place. Like it was beneath you,” she said. “It was like the second you could spread your wings and move on to something better you took it and got the hell out of Dodge.”
“Not something better, just something different,” he said, lowering his voice as their waiter neared. “Because it was easier to move on than deal with how I felt.”
* * *
Cody let Lexi order first, wondering why the hell he’d opened up to her like that. Granted, it had broken the ice and at least made her see that he wasn’t a heartless beast, but now she had that look about her like she wanted to fix him.
“I’ll have the steak with beans and truffle oil, medium rare,” he said, smiling up at the waiter as he passed him the menu. “Actually, do you do fries?” It was a fancy restaurant and he hoped he hadn’t offended the waiter, who just smiled.
“Of course, sir. To share?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Lexi leveled her gaze on him and he sat back, collecting his drink and finishing what was left in his glass.
“So we’re going to drink the best champagne and eat the most gourmet-sounding food, but we’re going to share fries too?”
“Hey, I remember we used to always order fries, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, because we were uncouth eighteen-year-olds.”
“Nothing much has changed. Except for the expensive threads and—”
“Cody,” she interrupted. “Everything has changed. You’re a hotshot finance guy and I’m just a regular girl who is way out of your league. I know there’s no chance I’d be sitting here having dinner with you if you weren’t trying to be nice and make it up to me for old times’ sake.”
He laughed then. He actually burst out laughing, stopping only when he saw the serious look on her face. She hadn’t been kidding. “Lexi, if I’d seen you here or in New York, hell, anywhere in the world for that matter, I would have stopped what I was doing just to meet you.”
He saw the change in her face, the way her cheeks flushed, her hand quickly reaching out for her drink as if she needed it for courage
“You’re just saying that.”
Cody refilled her glass and then his. “No, I’m not. When I saw you in the kitchen that first night, I couldn’t stop thinking what a beautiful woman you were. Granted, I didn’t think you were necessarily that friendly, but so damn gorgeous I wanted to know more. If I’d seen you in New York I’d have asked you out in a heartbeat.”
Lexi didn’t say anything that time, and he watched as she carefully lifted her glass and took another tiny sip.
“The worst part was wondering how on earth I didn’t recognize you, but it’s been a long time,” he said. “I look like an older version of the teenage me, but you? You don’t look like your old self. You went from pretty to goddamn beautiful. You changed your hair, your style is different, I just…”
Lexi was still staring at him, an expectant look on her face that he wished he knew how to deal with. He didn’t know why, but for some reason he actually cared about her knowing he wasn’t a complete asshole.
“Tell me about your mom,” Lexi said.
Their fries arrived just at the right time and Cody was able to think for a minute, trying to process how much he wanted to tell her, how much he could actually open up about what he’d been through. All these years, he’d kept it locked inside, refusing to talk to anyone about his grief or what he’d endured. He’d watched from afar as Tanner had immersed himself into bull riding, traveling away on the circuit a lot; his older sister Angelina had bolted just like he had as soon as she could, and Mia had sought solace in the sport their mom had loved—show jumping. But Mia had also had to be there to see their mom slowly wither and eventually pass away, whereas the rest of them had tried to live their own lives away from the pain.
Tanner always tried to make him feel bad for leaving, but the way he saw it, there was no difference between what he’d done and what his brother had done. Other than the fact that the miles he’d put between the family ranch and where he lived were more permanent than Tanner’s rotating schedule. But for some reason, he was always seen as the one who’d
run away, and the one who was always too scared of ghosts to ever come back.
“I don’t talk about her,” he finally said, after eating a few fries. “But I think about her a lot.”
“You still miss her?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I do. Every time I come home, I have this feeling, and it makes me want to run the hell back out the door and to the airport again.” He took another few fries. “It’s stupid, I should be way past it now, but it’s just easier to stay away. Not dealing with stuff is a whole lot easier than facing up to it.”
Lexi ate too, and he wished he had just taken her somewhere more low key. He was trying to impress her, but she was probably the one person who didn’t need impressing. She’d made friends with him at school and dated him without seeming to care who he was and what his family was worth, so he didn’t know why he thought she’d care now.
“How about we take a rain check on talking about my feelings, and you tell me all the great things you have going on right now? Catch me up on what I missed.”
Their dinner arrived then and Cody sat back as the food was placed in front of him. It smelled great, the steak covered in drizzles of sauce, with tiny potatoes and green beans on the side. He was starving.
Lexi had surprised him by having the same, and he waited for her to lean back as the waiter covered her lap with a napkin, before smiling up at him and saying thank you. It suddenly felt like a long time since he’d eaten.
“My stomach’s growling. Those PB and J sandwiches weren’t enough to keep me going.”
“Cody, they weren’t enough to keep anyone going.”
He ate a few mouthfuls and watched as she did the same, before asking her the question again. He was curious about how things had worked out for her, and everything was slowly starting to come back to him about her. It had been so long since he’d even thought about his past, but now that he had, it was like he’d unleashed a stream of memories he’d long since buried.
“So tell me about what happened after school? You were always talking about becoming an interior designer or an architect, weren’t you?”