Never His: A Second Chance Romance (Second Chances Book 1)

by Amelia Wilde

  When the movers pull away from the house, I linger on the porch just long enough for a red pickup truck to lurch into the driveway at high speeds, almost colliding with the rented Honda.

  “Hey! What the fuck?” I yell, the heat rising to my face.

  The guy that jumps out is laughing. “Brett Miller, you’re a complete dick. Why didn’t you tell me you were in town?”

  I’d know this bastard anywhere.

  “Andy?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know who I am.” Andy is tall and broad and blond, and he thunders up the steps and claps me so hard on the back that it almost knocks the wind out of me. “Shit! You could have looked me up!”

  My stomach turns over. As far as I know, Andy’s never left Lockton, and he’s still lurking around, doing the same low-paid jobs and generally making nothing of himself. But he was my best friend back in high school. Part of me wants to dismiss him—I want nothing to do with that kind of life—but who else do I have in this town? Nobody, now that Addison is firmly anti-Brett.

  “I haven’t been in town long.”

  “Let’s get a beer. Tell me all about it, asshole!”

  I shake my head. “How did you get my address?”

  “You think you can just show up here without it being big news? Somebody at O’Malley’s said they saw you were driving this car around. I saw it from the road. Come on, man. Let’s go.”

  I take a half-step back. “Another time.” I jerk my head toward the door. “I’ve got some shit to do.”

  “Okay,” Andy laughs, bounding back down the steps toward his car. “But you’re not going to get rid of me that easily.”

  He slams the door behind him and throws the truck into reverse, tires squealing as he backs out of the driveway and speeds off into the evening.

  I go inside and shut the door behind me. The movers left one light on in the living room.

  I hook up the TV—at least I’ll have something to do tonight—and sit down on the couch.

  Not thirty seconds later, there’s a knock on the door. Jesus Christ. I almost wish I hadn’t been standing outside—Andy is going to be damn impossible to get rid of.

  I pull open the door with a snotty retort on my lips, but it dies in my mouth.

  Addison is standing out there, holding a plate in her hands like an offering.

  Flashback

  Addison, 17

  Brett appears at my window in the middle of the night, in the middle of the summer, and the instant I hear his knuckles against the glass I’m out of bed, fully dressed. When I was a little kid, I always wanted a two-story house—all of the most popular girls in school had big, sprawling houses with at least two stories—but in this moment I’ve never been more glad for my parents’ ranch.

  I’m at the window in a flash, sliding it carefully up on its runners. On the other side, Brett is popping the screen out. He sets it carefully onto the ground behind my mother’s carefully tended bushes so any cars driving by won’t notice it.

  “Hey,” he breathes, giving me a grin that leaves me breathless.

  “Hey. What are you doing?”

  “Making it easier for you to get out.”

  “I can’t go out.”

  The thought of sneaking out makes my blood thrum in my veins. My parents are sleeping two rooms away, and if they hear me, there’ll be hell to pay. They won’t be pleased to find out that I’ve been out in the middle of the night with a guy like Brett Miller.

  “He’s handsome,” my mom said after the last football game, her cheery tone not matching the look in her eyes. “Do you like him?”

  I’d shrugged one shoulder, looked past her out the kitchen window. “We’re friends.”

  “Just friends?”

  “Just friends, Mom.”

  It’s almost true. We are just friends—nobody could accuse us of being a couple—but when we’re together, Brett makes me feel like...like he’d do anything for me. Like I’m the only girl in the world. It sends heat racing down my spine and to my core.

  This isn’t the first time he’s appeared at my window, but I’ve made up my mind. I’m going with him. If he really wants me to.

  “You totally can,” he says, then extends his hand through the open window reaching toward me.

  I bite my lip, pretending to be deep in thought. “If I get caught...”

  “Just blame it on me. Your good buddy Brett.”

  His smile makes me feel like I’m floating, and my heart pounds against my rib cage. I know what will happen if I leave with him. We’ll drive out to a place nobody knows and talk, and his lips will end up on mine, his shoulders under my hands, and it will be like there’s nobody else on the entire planet except him and me. Not Alicia, his current girlfriend, not Tom, the guy in our class who keeps trying to sit next to me whenever we’re in class together, nobody but us.

  “Okay,” I whisper, and put my hand in his. When our skin touches, it’s a pleasant shock.

  Brett’s car is parked waiting halfway down the block, and I slide into the passenger seat as soon as he opens the door for me. When we get to the corner of our street, I turn and take him in, the fine lines of his face lit up by the blue light from the radio, and my heart swells until it presses against my rib cage, taking up all the available space.

  This is the happiest day of my life.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Addison

  I lean up against my front door, my breath coming fast and hard, for a full minute before I snap out of it. So what if Brett Miller lives next door to me? That doesn’t change the way I feel about him.

  Which is...?

  Pissed off.

  And also...

  Deeply, deeply attracted to him. Still. After all this time.

  I dig my phone out of my purse and send a text to Leah.

  I tap out I’m going to be the bigger woman.

  She’s not going to know what the hell I’m talking about right now, but next time she sees me, she’ll ask about it for sure.

  My phone vibrates with her reply.

  Don’t stretch out the clothes you borrowed :P

  Purse discarded on the table in my tiny entryway, I stalk into the kitchen and flip on the lights. Cookies. I’ll make Brett Miller some damn cookies and then we can move on past this unbelievably awkward discovery that we’re next door neighbors.

  I was kind of a bitch the other day when I walked out of the Dockside like that. I thought that twenty-eight-year-old me would be able to handle whatever he said with grace and poise. Turns out I’m still as human as I was back in high school, although most of the time I can keep my delicate feelings under wraps. I’m still not sure why it stung so badly to hear that his leaving Lockton like some kind of ghost had nothing whatsoever to do with me after how heated—how passionate—that summer was that we spent together.

  You do, too, know, says a tiny voice in the back of my mind.

  There’s a package of cookie mix—add butter, add an egg—in the cupboard above my oven. Do I even have an egg? I’ve been working so much lately that I can’t remember when I went to the grocery store last.

  There’s a single egg left in the carton, and just barely enough butter left to add to the recipe. I scowl while I blend it into the mix.

  It hurt because I was so wrapped up in him. I wanted him to be mine. And I thought that when the end of the summer came, we would finally move into actual “together” territory. Brett disappeared instead.

  No matter how much it sent a knife blade of pain through my heart to hear that it had nothing to do with me, I have to get the hell over it, for both our sakes. Now that I’ve seen him, I have to know what that was all about. Even if it hurt…and still hurts…otherwise, I’ll never be able to let it go. Running into him at O’Malley’s awakened memories from that summer that my mind returns to every time it wanders. That’s not how I want to spend the rest of my life, damn it.

  I pointedly don’t look out the kitchen window while I scoop the batter into little
balls on a baking sheet. The best case scenario is that I can’t actually see into his house, but I bet a man who’s just moved in doesn’t have any curtains. The worst case scenario is that he’s already driven away, and I’m going to have to sit here for the rest of the evening wondering why I didn’t just put on my grown woman panties and have the damn conversation before.

  The cookies only take sixteen minutes to bake, but it’s the longest sixteen minutes of my life. When they come out, perfectly brown, it’s all I can do to let them cool before I stack them on a plate, covering them with a layer of plastic wrap.

  Before I lose my nerve, I head back out the front door and cross my driveway, cross his—his car is parked in the same spot it was earlier, so he’s here—and march up the steps to his front porch. Our two houses are so alike it’s almost creepy; they’re just flipped one end over the other. Except mine has been maintained, and this one hasn’t. I lift my hand to peel off an errant strip of paint from the siding, but stop myself just in time.

  Don’t be a weirdo, standing out here forever, I chastise myself.

  I suck in a deep breath and raise my hand to the door instead, forcing myself to knock with a jaunty confidence I definitely don’t feel.

  There are footsteps inside, and as they get closer to the door, my heart leaps into my throat. The Brett who answers the door is, somehow, even hotter than the Brett from the Dockside, or even O’Malley’s. He’s wearing a black t-shirt that makes me think the abs underneath are at least a six-pack, maybe an eight-pack, and his hair is just slightly mussed from the work of moving. Despite the fact that I acted like a total asshole at the Dockside, his mouth quirks into a smile when he sees me—a smile that goes all the way up to his bright green eyes.

  “I’m really pissed at you,” I blurt out, thrusting the plate at him like some kind of ridiculous Girl Scout. “I baked cookies.”

  Brett laughs, and his face is so damn gorgeous in that moment that it sends a blaze of warmth through my chest, and the urge to reach out and take his shirt in my fists and pull him toward me nearly overpowers me. If it weren’t for the cookies...

  “You could start by coming in.”

  He steps aside to let me cross the threshold, and when I’m in the tiny entry hallway, he reaches behind me to close the door. I automatically step farther inside, toward the living room entryway. There’s a couch and one lonely side table in there, so I step into the room and put the cookies down on the table.

  “What kind are they?”

  “What?”

  Brett’s face—and his body—have totally transfixed me, and he steps closer, peering over my shoulder at the plate.

  “Oh—chocolate chip.”

  “You really went all out, didn’t you?” He’s teasing, but heat rises to my cheeks anyway.

  “Actually I did, so don’t be an asshole. Cookie?”

  “Did you really come here to give me a housewarming gift?”

  I lift the corner of the plastic wrap and pull out one of the cookies with a napkin I was holding under the plate, holding my arm out toward Brett. “For starters.”

  He takes the cookie, lifts it to his mouth, and takes a bite, eyes still focused on my face. “What’s next?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Brett

  Addison is practically trembling as she hands me the cookie, but she does her damnedest to hide it. The energy spiking between us is hot and crackling, so much so that it’s all I can do not to strip my shirt off and drop it on the floor.

  I take a bite—it’s still warm, and damn if it isn’t good—and look her in the eye. “Want to talk about it?”

  “About what?”

  “About what you’re pissed at me for.”

  “Do you really not know?” Her voice rises and falls, almost musical, and though it seems like she’s trying to put an edge in her tone, it doesn’t quite come through.

  “I know.” I put the rest of the cookie in my mouth, chew, swallow. “I left you behind like a total dick.”

  “Yeah.” Her eyes fall to the floor, and we’re right back where we left off at the Dockside.

  “Okay—fuck. I’m going to get this right.” I take a breath. “I didn’t leave to get away from you. That’s what I meant before. It wasn’t you I was running from.”

  “What could a guy like Brett Miller possibly have to run from?”

  “Are you going to have a cookie? They’re good.”

  “They’re Betty Crocker.”

  “Betty doesn’t fuck around.”

  I’m keeping it light, keeping it as fucking casual as I possibly can, because we both know she’s not here to drop off a plate of cookies. This is about ten years ago as much as it’s about right now.

  Addison takes a cookie from the plate and bites into it. I’ve never seen a sexier pair of lips close over a chocolate chip cookie.

  “What were you running from, Brett?”

  There’s no getting around this, and the bitter truth is that I don’t want to. I’ve been dying to talk to her for ten years, almost as much as I’ve been dying to avoid her, dying to avoid this kind of conversation.

  “Did you know your dad took me aside toward the end of that summer?”

  Addison’s mouth drops open.

  “I take it that’s a no? Well, he did.”

  “When?”

  “Right before we left for Kari Hauser’s party.”

  “What the fuck...?” Addison’s eyes are narrowed, like she’s trying to remember where she possibly would have gone that wasn’t right next to my side and been aware of it.

  “You went to get some clothes, or go to the bathroom, something like that, and he cornered me by the front door.”

  “What did he say?”

  I want to act like I don’t remember his exact words, but I absolutely fucking do. “If you screw with her life, if you make her think that a life with you is going anywhere, I’ll never let you live it down.”

  “Oh, my God,” Addison says, her face turning pale before she resorts to burying it in her hands. “That’s—I’m sorry, Brett.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “He was just—I think he was scared. Or nervous about me going to college. Only child, all that. It’s not an excuse.” She looks back up at me, blue eyes sympathetic. Then her eyes narrow. “You could have told me.”

  “I should have.”

  “Then why—?”

  “He wasn’t the first person to come down on me like that. That same week, my dad almost punched me in the face because he was convinced I would be useless. More ‘don’t drag that girl down with you.’“

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “Look—now, I don’t give a fuck what they think. But when we were eighteen, I still cared. I hadn’t told my dad that I’d been accepted to the U because I’d gotten in by the fucking skin of my teeth. It was a damn miracle. I was going to surprise him, and all he was worried about was that I’d stay in Lockton and ruin your life.” I can’t keep the bitterness from seeping into my voice. “Men like that—they always thought the worst of me. I was going to go off to college, make something of myself, and shove it in their faces.”

  Addison nods, the corners of her mouth turned down. “Okay—but still. You had my number. But you just disappeared.” She looks at me and her eyes are pools of loss, the emotion not quite disguised.

  “I figured that deep down you felt the same way they did. I swear, I was going to call, just as soon as I had shit figured out.” I shrug. “I never did. And then I was in the Air Force, and I was never here, and I didn’t know where you were…”

  “Well, that was on purpose.”

  “So I gather.”

  “I blocked the hell out of you when you didn’t call me for a year.” She purses her lips. “If I hadn’t done that, I might have known you’d be here.”

  “And you would have avoided me?”

  I don’t know who’s been stepping closer—me or Addison—but we’re inches apart now, her hea
d tilted up slightly to look at me. For the first time in months, I feel strong and solid. Being with her has that effect on me.

  “No,” she whispers, and I can’t help myself. I put my hands on either side of her face and pull her in to me, kissing her like I’ve wanted to kiss her for ten unbelievably fucking long years.

  Her lips part instantly, and my tongue finds hers in such a familiar way that my heart breaks in two. I’ll never say it out loud—I’ll never admit it to anyone—but my chest is melting with warmth, like I’ve finally come home.

  I slide my hands down to her shoulders and then wrap my arms around her, pulling her body closer to mine, testing out the new curves of her body. She’s still slim and petite just like she used to be, but there’s a fullness to her now, like she’s grown into herself. And damn, has she ever. She feels so good.

  The kiss deepens, lengthens, and the room whirls around me, all the detail disappearing in her scent, in her taste, in the sheer joy of her closeness.

  Then she moans into my mouth, and it’s all over.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Addison

  Brett tastes like chocolate chip cookies and pure sex, and the way our mouths fit together, taking and tasting, it is like nobody I’ve kissed before or since. If I were a cheesy person, I’d say we were made for each other because in this moment that’s exactly what it feels like.

  As his strong, rough hands slide down my shoulders to my hips and pull me in, all of my muscles relax, the tension at the base of my neck melting away. Still, in the pit of my stomach, there’s a flare of warning. So his dad was an asshole to him—why did that mean I had to suffer the consequences?

  The kiss moves onto another hotter plane, and I tilt my head back and open my mouth to let Brett’s tongue explore even deeper. His hands are tight on my waist, pinning me against him, and the rich sensation takes over my mind. I’m losing myself to him, even after all these years, and I’m helpless to stop it.