That's the Way I Loved You

by Carrie Aarons

  The reason I felt so much relief when I ended my relationship with Perry was because he was—as terrible as it sounds—a placeholder. My heart has always belonged to the first boy I ever loved. And even though it’s insane, even if it might end in us crashing and burning, I want to jump into the fire. With him.

  My tires kick up gravel, and then I’m in motion, moving toward the house. Wrenching open the door, I hear him drop something in surprise and then turn in a defensive motion.

  The moment he sees me, his expression morphs into confusion. “What the hell, Savannah, I thought you were about to attack me—”

  “I left him.” The words rush out of my mouth, untying the knot in my gut that’s been there for far too long.

  Jason drops the wrench he was holding. “You … what?”

  “Perry, I ended things. We’re not together anymore. I wasn’t sure if I could do this … and this isn’t a rebound—”

  He doesn’t even let me finish. Before I can get my jumbled thoughts out, Jason is picking me up, bringing his mouth down on mine, my legs wrapping around his waist.

  My heart all but bursts, exploding into fireworks in my chest. Whereas before, when we kissed, I felt a mixture of guilt and gnawing indecision. Now, I’m free to feel every enormous emotion I’ve always harbored for Jason Whitney.

  He moves us to the floor, our clothes coming off in a flurry of ripping and tearing. The air smells like passion and sex, and the fusion of our mouths is an unbreakable bond. I can’t get close enough to him fast enough, and every cell in my body tingles with arousal and purpose.

  Jason looks crazed, roaming every inch of my body with his eyes as if he’s trying to put it to memory. I do the same, kissing my lips down his cheeks, neck, chest.

  Finally, after what feels like years, we’re both free of our clothes, kissing so achingly hard that I can barely breathe.

  When he pushes inside me, it’s the feeling of being completed. We’re two puzzle pieces who have been missing from each other for a very long time. Now that we’re back, that we fit, my soul feels at peace.

  Jason’s eyes blaze into mine, a blue so serene it reminds me of the sea off the coast of Bermuda. We’ve waited so long for this and there doesn’t have to be a preamble. We can have slow and gentle later, but right now, the only thing I crave is seeing him unravel at the same time I do.

  “I love you. God, I love you.” Jason breathes, moving over me in agonizing strokes.

  I don’t want it to ever end, but at the same time, his pace is punishing. It pushes me right to the edge while never fully getting me there, and I know Jason is prolonging this.

  “Jason … please …”

  “I could stare at you like this forever.” He groans, his eyes all but rolling back.

  “Harder … please …” I’m wriggling beneath him, desperate for release.

  A spark of electricity crackles in his iris, a challenge I’ve just thrown down. Jason lowers himself, grabbing both of my hands and pinning them to the floor with his above my head. Then he starts to move. Thrusting so hard that I swear the floorboards we redid are going to give out beneath us.

  When the wave of my orgasm crests, sweeping me under and drowning me in the tow, I keep my eyes trained on his.

  The only pair I ever want to look at me this way again.

  And as if he can read my thoughts, Jason murmurs, “forever” before throwing his head back and howling his release.

  30

  Jason

  After we thoroughly undo each other, making love over and over again, I run out to my truck to grab some blankets.

  Neither of us feels like leaving this spot at the moment, and I’m not seventeen anymore. I can’t lie on a wood floor all night like some romantic teenager.

  When I spread the fleece out, I guide Savannah down, pulling her warm, naked flesh against me and snuggling us beneath another layer of blanket.

  “Did you ever think we’d be back here, like this?” she whispers, the dark of the night and the hum of the mosquitos the soundtrack to our reconciliation.

  “I hoped.” I press my lips against her temple. “For a while there, I thought you’d never be able to forgive me.”

  I don’t want to bring the past up right now, but we haven’t fully addressed it, well … ever.

  Savannah is silent for a few beats, scratching her nails up and down my stomach gently.

  “The day you got hurt, it was the end of the world. Not just yours, but mine. I knew how much you loved baseball, Jesus, we’d only talked about your making it to starting pitcher of the Rangers for as long as we’d known each other. It wasn’t just you that banked a future on your career; I thought I’d be a baseball wife. I thought I’d trail you to games and set up our homes and all the other things that come along with that. Looking back, I was so naive. I’d never ask for you to be hurt, or for your dreams to be ruined, but I’m so grateful I was able to realize my own dreams. Anyway, I panicked when you got hurt. I tried everything to get you up and moving, to make you see the positive. I knew we were in deep, but we could get through anything. We were Savannah and Jason.”

  She looks up at me, her big hazel eyes full of ghosts from yesteryear.

  “But then your mama …” I say, running my fingers through her hair. “I should have listened better, back then. I should have gotten out of my own shit, seen how it affected you, too.”

  “We were just kids, Jay. We didn’t know how to stop thinking about ourselves, even if we were in love.”

  It’s the first time she’s said the words in conjunction to us, even though I said them while I was full seated inside her. I meant every syllable, even if she couldn’t say it back right now.

  “Still, I should have pushed it aside. After she passed, I was a jackass. I should have never said those things. I’m so sorry, darling.” It makes me sick to think about it.

  The day of June’s funeral, Savannah had burst into our tiny house, screaming at me for missing it. I told her that I didn’t have time for her shit, that my dreams had just died. I told her that I didn’t care that she’d just had to bury her mother; I didn’t even know if I’d be able to walk. I was dramatic and horribly selfish and grieving the loss of June myself. Having two enormous blows to my life within a month of each other, I couldn’t handle it. But I should have, for the woman I loved.

  Savannah clears her throat, clearly trying not to cry. “We both have things to be sorry about. I’m not sorry I went to New York, but I am sorry that I left. That I abandoned you.”

  We have a lot of apologies to make, and a lot of time to make up for. This is a great first step in our journey of healing.

  “Are you going to go see her now that you’re back?” I ask, knowing that Savannah knows who I’m talking about.

  “What is this, take advantage of my open mood?” She smirks, because I’m not shying away from the hard topics now that she’s talking.

  “I could go with you,” I offer, because I’ve been out to see June plenty of times.

  She thinks for a minute and then shakes her head. “No, I think for my first time out there, I want to go alone.”

  “That’s understandable,” I agree.

  “Gosh, we really know how to have depressing pillow talk.” She snuggles into my chest.

  I laugh. “Did you want me to sing your praises? Tell you how sexy you are? Because I could do that all night long.”

  “Learned some moves while I was away, huh?” She wiggles an eyebrow at me.

  “I had to learn how to impress you some way.” My voice is husky as her hand skates down my thigh.

  “Believe me, it was very impressive. But I think I need to see it again,” she purrs.

  But before her fingers wrap around the place I really want them, Savannah stops and looks up at me.

  “What happens now?”

  I hedge my bets, weighing whether to admit it all. We’ve gotten nowhere keeping things from each other, and a decade’s worth of words that need to be said ar
e just sitting on my chest.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what I want to happen. What I’ve wanted to happen since you drove back into town like a speed demon out of hell. I want to be with you. I know it’s not going to be easy, but it wasn’t easy back then either. I know you just got out of a long relationship, but this is different than if I were a stranger. Our history eclipses decades, lifetimes. You are it for me, you always have been, Savannah. I’ve never loved anyone else the way I love you, and I have no intention of letting that or you go again. I want to work on this, even when you cry or yell. I want to fix up this house with you, live in it like we always intended. I want to marry you, and that might freak you out right now, but I don’t really care. I want to take our kids here, swim with them in our lake during the summers. That’s what happens, at least for me. Say yes, and we won’t ever look back.”

  It’s a heavy challenge, throwing all of that on her. I hold my breath, hoping to all that is holy that she doesn’t reject me.

  Savannah sucks in a breath, her eyes piercing mine. “I won’t give up my career, I want to make that clear right now.”

  A little of my hope falters, but I nod understandingly. “Of course not. We’ll figure it all out. Together.”

  I really mean that.

  “It’s not going to be easy. I’m … I’m fresh off of the ending of a very long-term relationship. And you’re right, this isn’t a rebound, but the sadness is fresh. And the pain of what happened before is still here.”

  She’s quiet for a moment, and I think my heart is about to be thoroughly stomped on.

  “But yes, that’s what I want to happen now, too.”

  And then, instead of crumbling into nothing, the organ in my chest soars.

  31

  Jason

  I wake up with my knee and my back screaming at me.

  Rolling over, my entire body protests in pain, and Savannah lets out an unhappy groan at being moved. I forgot how much she hated her sleep interrupted; the woman could probably peacefully dream through a symphony orchestra and a war happening simultaneously outside her bedroom window.

  “Why did we fall asleep here? I have a perfectly good bed at home,” I whine, trying to get my thirty-year-old body off the floor.

  Savannah is draped in the blankets from my trunk, and all the skin from her waist up is exposed. She looks golden and gorgeous, and suddenly, I’m remembering why I didn’t push more to get out of the shack and back to my house. Being with her last night was the only thing I cared about. Body aches be damned.

  “It’s nostalgic, don’t you think? Spending our first night together in years in the place we last spent a night together?”

  “Becoming a professional writer, especially of that sappy love show, has made you overly poetic. Has anyone told you that?”

  “You knew I was a romantic when you met me, not much has changed.” She rolls over to glance up at me, where I’m resting my elbows on my knees in a sitting position.

  Strands of her rustic red hair drape over her bare breasts, and I’m hard within moments.

  “On second thought, maybe we could stay down here a little bit longer.” I move over her, fusing my mouth to hers.

  But now, she’s the one pushing me back. “Uh-uh. I have to pee, and the toilet in there still doesn’t work. Also, I’m hungry.”

  Chuckling, I ease off of her. “Ah, I forgot about the bear that needs sustenance in the morning.”

  “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Jason.” She adds an extra bit of Texas twang to my name.

  Running a hand across her bare stomach, I give a wolfish grin. “I know it is, which was why I was trying to eat.”

  Savannah rolls away, standing to her full height, completely nude. “Nope. Not happening. I want breakfast tacos. You owe me breakfast.”

  I was going to give her a lot more than breakfast, but we could start slow. Now that she was back in Hale, and back in my arms, I was never letting her go again. And no matter how hard she fights me on this, I am going to put a ring on that finger. And soon.

  After my bones and muscles allow me to finally get off the floor, we dress, sneaking sly smiles as we do so. Last night was something out of my wildest dreams. Not just the mind-blowing sex, but having Savannah come back to me. I’ve waited for this moment for a long time and gave up on it ever happening. What we shared last night, and what is still clearly between us today … I’m not taking that for granted.

  “Come on, I’ll drive. Where we going, that taco stand out on the freeway?”

  Savannah rubs her stomach. “You know it. I haven’t had one in too long.”

  “Remember the time we cut school and went? Your mama almost whipped me, I swear.” I crack up.

  “But the shrimp tacos were so worth it.” She winks at me.

  “Yeah, they were.”

  We hop into my truck, and the memories float around us like ghosts. Only it’s different than the first time we were in here. That time, there was so much animosity and uncertainty between us. There is still uncertainty, but now we’ve committed to working on things.

  “Lots of good times in this truck.” Savannah sneaks a sly smile at me.

  “Yes, yes, there were. There could be some more good times.” I scoot toward her, and she presses a hand to my chest.

  “I said nope. Food first, sex later.” She shakes a finger at me.

  Now that I’ve had a taste, I don’t want to do anything else. Savannah is my addiction, and I just fell off the wagon. I need that high now, though I know if I don’t get her tacos, she might kick me in the nuts.

  “What kind of breakfast taco are you going to get?” I ask her, trying to make conversation that isn’t too serious.

  Savvy fiddles with the radio in my truck, finally finding a station that’s playing an old Shania Twain song. “You really don’t remember my order?”

  “Of course, I do, I just don’t know if it’s changed. It’s okay if it has, but I’m … well, I’m trying to get to know this Savvy. I didn’t want to assume.” My voice is sheepish when I say it.

  I feel like she’s been holding it against me that I’m not giving her room to be the Savannah Reese who lived in New York for ten years. So I need to make it a point to do so. Just like our talk last night, I’m not going to make her give up that part of herself.

  And I’m rewarded with a pleasantly surprised smile. “I appreciate that. But no, I’m getting my same old order.”

  “So then, two bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast tacos with extra bacon?” I rattle off.

  “With queso drizzled all over them.” She licks her lips.

  “Ugh, queso? On breakfast tacos? It’s so … heavy,” I argue.

  “Hot spiced cheese? That shit should go on everything.” She waves a hand as if her opinion is fact. “Why, what’s a better option?”

  “Guacamole, duh. Fresh, delicious, avocado is by all means a breakfast category of its own these days. You know all about that avocado toast they live off in New York.”

  Savannah sticks out her tongue and makes a sour face. “I knew you were going to say that. So gross. I think I’m the only person on the planet who hates guacamole and avocados. It’s just green slime that literally tastes like nothing. I don’t know why you’d want a big slice of that in the middle of your taco.”

  “As opposed to warm, melted cheese making everything around it just taste like warm, melted cheese? Doesn’t sound like breakfast food to me.” I fake cringe.

  “Then you’re not doing breakfast right.” She crosses her arms over her chest and smiles smugly.

  I glance away from the road and rake my gaze down her body. “I was trying to do breakfast right, but somebody stopped me.”

  Savannah clucks her tongue, but blushes. “Keep your eyes on the road, horndog. I need some tacos and for you to not kill us because of your blue balls in the process.”

  That has me laughing, and I forgot how much I missed that saucy mouth when it was on my side instead of hurling actua
l insults at me.

  32

  Savannah

  Pure chaos plays out in front of my eyes.

  Hope and Lori argue over the best way to cut the two roast chickens still sitting in steaming hot pans on the counter. Adeline is trying to corral the children into washing their hands, which has ended up in a water fight in the kitchen. Noah is at the table, spoon-feeding Lori’s youngest while making airplane noises, while Brad hauls in another load of ice to the freezer. And I’m trying to set the table without breaking plates while children of all ages and sizes bump into me.

  And then there is Jason, who casually sips a beer while I look on wide-eyed.

  “This is pandemonium.” I chuckle to him as he lays out forks on the napkins I’ve set next to each plate.

  “Wait until dessert. These kids are like vicious dinosaurs.” He laughs, nodding at Adeline who confirms with an eye roll.

  That’s right … he’s a pro at these dinners. He’s been to way more than I have; In all, I’ve only attended one and that was a truncated version with just Adeline’s brood. This is the whole shebang, all eight kids, seven adults, and a couple of mangy dogs running around. It’s loud and too hot in here, but the food smells amazing and I’m kind of loving the energy flowing through the room.

  “You’re an expert, huh, Whitney?” I elbow him as we pass on one side of the table.

  He tries to grab for me, but I skirt away, not wanting to do that in front of … well, anyone. Jason notices, raises an eyebrow at me, and then frowns.

  “What’re you doing?” he asks, not letting it slide.

  It’s been approximately four days since we slept together … and have kept sleeping together. If we don’t spend the night at my apartment above The Whistlestop, we’re at Jason’s place. When we’re not working, or with my family, we spend pretty much every other waking hour naked in one of our beds. We have a lot of catching up to do, and apparently we’re really putting in the work when it comes to the physical side.