“You haven’t,” she began, but paused for a few seconds. “Have you been giving him updates too?”
“Seriously, Grey? Your brother hates me; I didn’t even know he had my number until a few minutes ago. Besides, if I had, he probably wouldn’t have said all that shit to you, and your family wouldn’t have acted like statues at the graduation.”
“I heard you say something about that to him before we left. So you noticed it too, huh?”
“Wasn’t hard to. My sister wanted to see you, but after we found you and saw the way they were all just staring at you, she was afraid to say anything.”
“Charlie was there? I wish she had said something. I’ll have to call her this summer, or something. I haven’t seen her in forever.” She frowned for a second before turning to look at the stage when everyone clapped.
I hadn’t set foot in here in two years, and it felt strange, but good, to be in here again. Almost like I could see Ben sitting on the opposite side of the booth, right next to Grey. But just as soon as the memory hit me, it was gone. “Do you ever feel like he’s disappearing?” I asked suddenly.
Grey’s head shot up, her eyes wide as she took in my words. “What?”
“Ben. Do you feel like his memory is disappearing? Everywhere, all around us.”
“All the time,” she murmured and nodded absentmindedly for a few moments. “I forced myself to stop buying his cologne, and there are times I don’t remember what he smelled like. When I realize that, I panic. I’m afraid I’ll forget forever, and I want to go buy another bottle. But I know I can’t, I know it’ll just make it harder to move on. I don’t—” She cut off on a quiet sob, and covered her mouth with her hand as tears filled her eyes. “I don’t remember what his laugh sounded like. I don’t remember the way it felt when he held me. I’m afraid to go back to Thatch, Jag.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t want to see his parents’ house and know that Ben’s been completely erased from it.”
I sagged into the booth and blew out a heavy breath. “Yeah, I’d forgotten about that.”
Six months after Ben died, his parents had moved. Not just to another house, not just out of town. They’d moved across the country to get away. They hadn’t been able to handle all the memories of Ben when their only child was now gone. And in a town the size of Thatch, there were memories everywhere.
I’d felt the same, but now I was in the same spot as Grey. I was terrified of forgetting him, and now I wondered if his parents regretted leaving.
“So what are you going to do?”
She blinked a few times, like I’d just pulled her from somewhere else, and after a few seconds she shrugged. “I’m still going back. The apartment here isn’t much better. He’s the one who picked it out, and all I ever think about when I’m in there is that he’s supposed to be in there too. It’ll be hard at first, but I need to go home. What about you?” Grey’s lips curved up in a rare smile, and I felt myself smiling back at her until she spoke. “I always pictured you just taking off. No one has ever been able to hold onto you, and I feel like towns and cities are no different. I don’t see you ever finding a place where you’ll want to settle down forever.”
Of course, you don’t. My eyebrows pinched together, and I looked down so she wouldn’t see anything she wasn’t supposed to. There was truth to her words, and at the same time, she was so wrong. No one had ever been able to keep me because I’d only ever belonged to her. I’d dated a handful of girls in the first two years after leaving Thatch . . . if you could call it “dating,” and had only ever had one girlfriend back home—and that had been in hopes that it would get a reaction out of Grey as much as it had been a distraction for me from the constant in-my-face relationship of Ben and Grey. If Ben hadn’t died, and if they’d gotten married, leaving is exactly what I would’ve done. It was one thing to stay back, not saying anything to her, hoping one day she would see in me what I’ve seen in her since we were kids. It was another when I had to finally acknowledge she would never be mine.
But even though I wasn’t sure she would ever get to a point in her life where she was ready to move on, there was no way I could leave her now. She wasn’t mine, but she needed me. And I would be there for her as long as she did.
“So where do you think you’ll go?” she asked, and I looked back up at her.
“Thatch,” I said, my voice low and gravelly. “I belong in Thatch.”
About the Author
MOLLY McADAMS grew up in California but now lives in the oh-so-amazing state of Texas with her husband and furry four-legged daughter. Her hobbies include hiking, snowboarding, traveling, and long walks on the beach . . . which roughly translates into being a homebody with her hubby and dishing out movie quotes. When she’s not at work, she can be found hiding out in her bedroom surrounded by her laptop, cell phone, and Kindle and fighting over the TV remote. She has a weakness for crude-humored movies and fried pickles, and she loves curling up in a fluffy comforter during a thunderstorm . . . or under one in a bathtub if there are tornadoes. That way she can pretend they aren’t really happening.
www.mollysmcadams.com
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Also by Molly McAdams
Capturing Peace (novella)
Deceiving Lies
Needing Her (novella)
Forgiving Lies
Stealing Harper (novella)
From Ashes
Taking Chances
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Credits
Cover design by Julia Gang
Cover photograph © by Tyler Seielstad
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SHARING YOU. Copyright © 2014 by Molly Jester. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McAdams, Molly.
Sharing you : a novel / Molly McAdams.
pages cm
Summary: “Sensational New York Times bestselling author Molly McAdams breaks bounds with this emotionally wrenching, heartbreakingly real New Adult novel of love, passion, guilt, honor, and infidelity. Twenty-three year old Kamryn Cunningham has left behind a privileged, turbulent past for the anonymity of small-town life. Busy with her new bakery, she isn’t interested in hook-ups or fix-ups. Then she meets the very sexy, very married Brody. Though she can’t deny the pull between them, Kamryn isn’t a cheater and she’s not good at sharing. Twenty-six year old Brody Saco may be married, but he isn’t happy. When his girlfriend got pregnant six years ago, he did the right thing. and he’s been paying for it ever since. Now, his marriage is nothing but a trap filled with hate, manipulation, and blame—the remnants of a tragedy that happened five years earlier. While he’s never broken his vows, he can’t stop the flood of emotion that meeting Kamryn unlocks. Brought together by an intense heat that is impossible to resist, Brody and Kamryn share stolen moments and nights that end too soon. But is their love strong enough to bear the weight of Kamryn’s guilt? And is Brody strong enough to confront the pain of the past and finally break free of his conniving wife?”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-229940-6 (paperback)
1. Man
-woman relationship—Fiction. 2. Adultery—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.C25S53 2014
813’.6—dc23
2014008305
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EPub Edition JULY 2014 ISBN: 9780062299420
1415161718OV/RRD10987654321
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Sharing You: A Novel Page 27