Second Chance Summer (Chance Series, #1) (15 page)

“They’re fuckin’ terrible.” He puts his fork down and looks at me.

“How do you mess up pancakes?” I ask, fighting the laughter bubbling up inside me.

“I… Have no idea.” He shakes his head absently. I can’t help it. The laughter bursts out of me, and I giggle uncontrollably into my hands. It’s the look on his face – the furrow in his brow, the slight pout of his lips as he stares at the pancakes – that does it for me.

I push the plate away, leaning forward. Reese kicks me under the table.

“Don’t laugh!” he says, and it sounds like he’s fighting his own laughter.

“I’m sorry.” I look up, and he’s smiling.

“No you’re not.”

“You’re right. I’m not.” I giggle again.

Reese sighs, pushing his plate away. “I guess we’re eating out, huh?”

“Looks that way.” I get up. “I’ll go get ready shall I?” I make to leave the room, and I hear the chair scrape. His arms wrap around my waist, pulling me back against him.

“Who needs food for breakfast?” he murmurs, kissing my neck.

I put my hands on his. “I do. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

“Mmhmm.” He hums against my skin, his hands skimming down to my hips.

“Reese,” I scold even as my head moves to the side. “I need food.”

“I can feed you.” He tilts his head, and I can see his wolfish grin from the corner of my eye.

“I’m sure you can,” I reply dryly, stepping away and turning to him. “But I need real food.”

“Fine.” He grabs my hands, pulling me back to him and pinning them behind my back. I crane my neck up to look at him. “I hope you weren’t planning on a busy day today, because you’re gonna need all of your energy for tonight.”

“Is that so?” I raise an eyebrow, my heart beating erratically.

Reese’s hands release mine. He puts them on my back, sliding them downwards until they cup my ass. He pulls my hips toward him, and I can feel him hard against me. I rest mine flat against his waist and take a deep breath in.

“Damn right it is.”

CHAPTER 10

I tug at the light scarf wrapped around my head, adjust my sunglasses, and sip my milkshake.

“I don’t get why we dressed like this,” I say, looking at the cowboy hat on Reese’s head.

He grins. “Because this weekend is about getting away, so we’re in disguise.”

“But no one here knows us. Why do I need to be in disguise?”

He shrugs one shoulder. “Because it’s fun.”

“Fun. Right…” I glance at him innocently. “Is the disguise thing your explanation for your failed breakfast, then?”

He purses his lips and his eyes tell me if I keep it up I’m in for it. Naturally, I’m going to keep it up, because a small part of me just loves to wind him up. It’s so easy to do, and he falls for it every single time. Without fail.

“Because, let’s face it, we all know you can’t cook.
Especially
not pancakes.” I leave my glass on the table as we stand. “What did you put in them anyway? Half the packet of flour?”

“Kia…”

“Do you remember last summer? You always burned the smores. They’re marshmallow. How the hell can you burn marshmallow? I mean, you’re watching them on an open fire. That’s like watchin’ a sink fill up and letting it flow over the edges.”

“Kia!”

“I’m just sayin’, Reese. I should have known you’d have a crazy plan by the cooking attempt.”

He grabs my hands and wraps our arms around my stomach, resting his head on my shoulder from behind me as we walk along the sidewalk. “I’m not that bad,” he protests lamely.

“You burned marshmallow,” I repeat, giggling and squirming when he tickles my sides. “And then you wiped it all over me.”

He chuckles low, his chest rumbling against my back. “And then I kissed every bit of marshmallow off of you,” he reminds me. “You weren’t complaining when I was doing that.”

I blush as he runs his nose along my jawline. “Maybe not,” I acquiesce. “But that was only on my face.”

“Hey, I can arrange to smear marshmallow all over other parts of your body if you really want. I’m pretty damn sure I’d have no problem kissing it all off again if that should happen.”

I smirk a little and shake my head. “But then you’d get all the fun.”

Reese spins around, grabbing my hands in front of me, and walks backward down the sidewalk. “Baby, if you feel like smearing marshmallow all over
me
instead, all you have to do is say the word. I would lie there quite happily covered in that sticky shit if it meant you were going to kiss every inch of my body.”

“Are the abs included in that?” I give him a sassy look, and he tugs me toward him. His face bends toward mine.

“The abs are a requirement.”

I press my mouth to his and take his bottom lip between my teeth, letting them graze over it. “Maybe we should buy marshmallows later.”

“Or now. Now is good, right?”

I laugh, throwing my head back slightly. “Um, now might be a little awkward.” I glance around at the tourists surrounding us. “And you promised to show me Fort Raine.”

His eyes twinkle as he grins boyishly, and when he speaks, he exaggerates his accent into the long, sexy drawl that makes me want to lick more than just marshmallow off his abs.

“Kia, baby, the underside of our sheets count as Fort Raine, and it’s a part I definitely have to show you.”

I smile against his mouth, remembering just how easy it’s always been to be with Reese. When I’m not fighting with myself, it’s easy to see why I couldn’t keep him away. Why I couldn’t keep away. And now I’ve given up the fight, it’s clearer than ever.

Being with Reese is as easy as breathing. Every movement. Every smile. Every kiss. It’s all as natural as the sun rising and setting. Being
KiaandReese…
it’s effortless.

“You’re thinkin’ again.” Reese lets my hand go and cups my face, his fingers sneaking below the scarf to my hair.

“A little.” I smile.

“What about?”

I look up into his eyes. “You. Me. Us.”

“Uh-oh,” he murmurs, dropping his hand. “It’s never good when you’re doin’ that.”

I curl my fingers around his neck, holding him to me, not caring that we’re still standing in the middle of the sidewalk. Not caring that everyone else is having to detour around us.

“It’s amazing that, after a year, it’s like nothing has changed between us. It doesn’t even feel like we’ve been apart, does it?” I blink harshly, swallowing. “Absolutely nothing has changed.”

“You’re right and you’re wrong. We have changed, both of us. We’ve grown up a little – we know what we want from life now. We’re not just a couple of kids that have finally been let loose on the world. We’re older, more mature… But as far as me and you go, you’re right. We haven’t changed when we’re together; we’re still as crazy and impulsive and as lost in each other as we always have been. If anything has changed, baby, anything at all, it’s that this time round there’s not a damn chance you’re leaving for New York unless I’m right there with you. I’m not makin’ the same mistake twice. Know that when you go back to school in the fall, come hell or high water, I’ll be right there beside you.”

“I believe you,” I say quietly, honestly. “Can I tell you something?”

“You can tell me anything, you know that.”

I step closer to him again. He tugs my hair from the scarf, letting it cascade down my back, and he runs his fingers through it to the ends as I look straight into his eyes.

“When I go back to school in the fall, I want you beside me,” I tell him.

Reese smiles, sweeping his mouth across mine. “You know I was gonna go whether you wanted me to or not, right?”

I can’t help the small laugh that leaves me. “I know. Now get me ice cream.”

“Bossy.”

I grin.

~

“Where in the holy mother of all fuck are you?!” Luce screams down the phone. “I have been looking everywhere for you! Do you hear that?
Eh-vah-ree-where
! No one knows where you are! Or Reese! Where are you?!”

“I’m on a beach. In Alabama.”

“Informative, Kia.
Real
fuckin’ informative. Do you know how many goddamn beaches there are in Alabama? Huh, d’ya?”

“All right, Luce, keep your panties on.”

“You better be with Reese. Has he kidnapped you? By God, I bet he kidnapped you. He did, didn’t he?”

I bark out a laugh. “No, Reese didn’t kidnap me.”

Reese looks up from the small disposable barbecue he’s trying to light and raises an eyebrow at me. I shrug a shoulder.

“Then my phone call best be interruptin’ some red hot sex or, we need serious words.” She pauses. “Shit, we need words anyway. I’m mad, Kia. I’m real mad. What the hell were you thinkin’, takin’ off like that?!”

“I’ll explain everything when we get back; I promise.”

“You’ve eloped, haven’t you? I knew it. You better not come back married. If you come back married and I don’t ever get to be maid of honor, shit is gonna hit the fan, Kia James.”

I snort this time. “We are most definitely not married.”

Reese looks at me again, this time both eyebrows raised.

“Thank God.” She audibly exhales. “Can you tell me where you are? Then I can at least tell Reese’s mom. She’s a bit pissed he hasn’t told her he was taking you off for a romantic weekend. At least that’s what we’ve all assumed after practically fingertip searching the
whole damn town
for you!”

“Not so much a romantic weekend,” I hedge. “More an impromptu getaway.”

“Whatever it is, someone needs to call his mom. All she knows is he’s taken you and disappeared.”

“Tell her we’re at his aunt’s, and he’ll call her later.”

“And what are you telling me?”

“That we’re at his aunt’s and I’ll tell you everythin’ on Monday.”

“Hmph.”

“Promise.”

“Fine. I’m gonna call his mom, but he owes me. You both owe me.”

“You’re the best, Lu.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Use a condom.” She hangs up. I blink at the phone a few times. Perhaps I should have sent her a message yesterday…

“You, er, probably should have called her or something yesterday,” Reese says as if he’s reading my mind.

“Ya think?” I roll my eyes. “She’s mad. Like, way mad.”

His lips quirk, and he rolls over. “We did kinda just take off.”

“I know. I guess I’m just surprised she doesn’t already know what happened. Isn’t that what Harlan Grove is famous for? No one’s business being anything but everyone’s business and all that.”

“Maybe no one heard?” he suggests, resting his chin on his hand and gazing up at me.

I snort, thinking of the screaming fit Mom pitched when Dad told her he wanted to get married to his new girlfriend and needed a divorce. Momma had gone completely crazy – complete with a glass meeting the wall and shattering all over the floor as she screamed all sorts of insults at him.

Apparently, she forgot she was, and is, the reason he left.

“No, someone would have definitely heard it. Or at least some of it. Enough to make assumptions, anyway…” I trail off.

“You don’t have to talk about it.”

I sigh and shake my head. “No, I do. Dad wants a divorce. Basically, he wants to marry some girl he met in New York two years ago, but since Momma cut all contact he had to come back and talk to her about it. I think he was hoping I wouldn’t be around, but obviously, I was.” My mouth twists.

“That’s not so bad, though, right? He’s come back; you know the truth, and you can all move forward however you want to. You can have a relationship with your Dad again. If you want it.”

I swallow and look out to sea. The gentle blue-green waters lap at the edge of the beach, breaking as the waves collide with the sand. White foam takes its place, spraying out slightly. A silent coastal breeze circles around us and all across the beach shared by all the houses on this part of town. In the distance, a dock stretches out half a mile into the water. Little fishing boats bob on the surface of it, silently moving with the waves.

“No, all of that is great. I can talk to my dad and get the whole truth and build a relationship again, like you said.”

Reese doesn’t say anything. It’s okay, though. I haven’t totally processed it myself. Dad getting married again… The idea of him being with someone other than my mom is hard to swallow. I never imagined my parents with anyone else, even after all this time. I guess a part of me still hoped that if and when he came back, he’d be coming back for
us
.

“At least she isn’t some college girl young enough to be my sister,” I reason to myself out loud. “She’s thirty-something with her own job and house and stuff. I just…”

“Never thought he’d get married again?” Reese finishes for me.

“Yeah. I dunno how I feel about it. Him coming back unannounced, finding out I’d been totally lied to for six years, then that?” I shake my head. “Talk about dropping a bomb on someone, y’know? They really did it there. I just… Shit. I don’t even know.”

I laugh, but it comes out as a half-laugh, half-sob. Reese sits up and pulls me into his side, resting my head on his shoulder. He wraps his arms right around me, and I squeeze my eyes shut tightly to hold back the stream of tears that want to escape.

I won’t cry anymore. I won’t give my parents any more of my tears. Not for this. Six years ago, yes. Three years, yes. Hell, even six months ago I would have locked myself away and cried. But not now. Now I’m going to be the person I pretended I was in New York… And the person I pretended I was before then.

The sassy, determined, confident person who takes things in her stride and doesn’t take anything lying down. The person not afraid to speak her mind and be honest. The person who goes after what she wants without thinking about it, without overanalyzing every little detail.

The person who doesn’t let the past of her parents define the present of her.

Because if I could pretend to be her so easily, then maybe she’s the person I have been all along. Maybe she was just buried under all the bullshit of everyone else.

The smell of something burning reaches my nose, and I open my eyes.

“Um, Reese?” I mutter.