That Thing You Do (Whispering Bay Romance Book 1) (Volume 1) (24 page)

After what seemed like both forever and
not long enough, he paused to pull a condom from the nightstand. They laughed as he struggled to roll it over his erection. “Let me do that,” she said, taking over the job. She pushed him onto his back. He watched from beneath hooded lids, and her mind couldn’t help but flash back to last night. But this wasn’t anything like that other encounter.

Last night had been hot and furious and incredibly
exciting. This was hot and exciting, too. But in a different way. She straddled him once again and took him deep inside and began to move. After a minute or so, he gripped her hips, guiding her with his hands to slow down the pace, their gazes locked. Neither of them said anything. But they didn’t look away, either. Not until the very end, when Allie had to close her eyes as she shattered
into a thousand tiny pieces. He owned her body, no doubt about that. But that was all she was willing to give up to him.

A
llie searched the floor
for her panties. They had to be here somewhere. Underwear didn’t just get up and fly away by itself. Tom lay on the bed, naked, with his arms crossed behind his head, looking more than a little pleased with himself. “So I was thinking of going up to Tampa next weekend.”

She froze for a second. “Yeah?”

“I’m taking you out.”

“Like on a date?”

“That’s usually what taking you out means.”

“Well, it could also mean putting a hit on someone.”
Oh no
. She was going to start babbling. She found her panties beneath one of her cowboy boots and quickly began to dress.

He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. Everything was perfect. Better than perfect.”

He sat up. “Then come back to bed.”

She carefully
sat next to him and pulled her knees up to her chest. He didn’t try to pull her into his arms and for that she was grateful. Last night had been epic. But she hadn’t anticipated what they’d say to one another this morning.

“I owe you an apology. For the other night. I…” she shook her head, “I don’t know what got into me. I should never have told you to shut up.”

“It’s all right. I
understand.”

This nice guy routine of his was well and fine but no one was
this
nice. There was a chink in his armor. She just hadn’t found it yet.

“The other night, when we picked Henry up for soccer and you went to Panama City. You said you went to the hardware store.”

He slowly nodded. “Yeah.”

“But that’s not the whole story. I mean, I know it’s none of my business and
you don’t have to tell me—”

“I went to the library,” he said. “To check out the periodical section where they keep old copies of
Florida!
magazine. I wanted to read your Perky the Duck article.”

He’d driven all the way to Panama City to read her article? “That’s…the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she blurted.

He grinned. “Yeah? Because I thought last night—”

She threw a pillow at him. “I said it’s the sexiest thing anyone has ever said, not
done
.”

He relaxed back on the bed. “So about next weekend—”

“What did you think of it? My Perky the Duck article?”

She felt him stiffen. Because she’d redirected the conversation, or because he was about to tell her something she didn’t want to hear? “The truth?” he asked.

“Of course I want
the truth.”

He hesitated long enough that she almost thought he wasn’t going to answer. “I hated it,” he said quietly.

Her whole body ricocheted like she’d just been shot. Did he just say he
hated it
? No one hated that story! Even cold-hearted-publisher Ben Gallagher had tried to hide a watery eye after reading it.

“Excuse me?”

“I hated it because it was warm and funny
and real, and reading it made me feel like you were talking to me. Only I couldn’t talk back. It was like looking into a one way mirror and seeing everything you’d become, but I wasn’t a part of it.” He let out a slow breath. “The truth is, I haven’t thought about you in twelve years. Not really. And now, the crazy part is that I can’t stop thinking about you at all.”

He couldn’t stop thinking
about her
?

“Wait. Did you just say you haven’t thought about me in twelve years. Not even
once
?”

He rubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t know if this is a good time to talk about this.”

“You’re the one who said I wasn’t leaving town until we had this conversation. Well, it’s now or never, Tom. Because believe me, as soon as I get my license back I’m out of here.”

A muscle
twitched on the side of his cheek. “Remember the night of the senior awards banquet?”

“What has that to do with anything?”

“That night…” he shook his head. “Man, I was on fire. I won almost every award they gave out. Even that cushy scholarship from the Rotary Club.”

The memory of a packed high school gymnasium, Buela sitting on one side of her, Zeke, Mimi, and baby Claire on
her other side, came flooding back. Allie had worn a purple dress and a new pair of sandals Mimi had helped her pick out at the outlet mall in Destin. She’d felt pretty and excited and full of senioritis energy—ready to leave one chapter in her life and begin another.

She had won the English award, and Nate Miller had won the science award, but Tom’s memory served him right. He’d scooped
up every other academic award and had even been named top athlete. He’d looked so handsome in his navy blue blazer with the orange and blue striped University of Florida tie. She hadn’t been able to keep her eyes off him. Neither had anyone else. It was his night, all right. A tribute to Whispering Bay High’s star of the year.

“Of course I remember that night,” she said.

“Afterward,
a bunch of us went to the beach. I’d swiped a bottle of rum from my dad’s liquor cabinet and we got pretty wasted on rum and cokes.”

“Buela and I went to the Denny’s in Panama City,” she said in contrast. “She used to love how they served breakfast even at night. She’d get the Grand Slam, although she could never eat even half of it, and I’d get the short stack with the strawberry syrup,
bacon on the side. Which I definitely finished.”

He smiled. “You were always a good girl, Allie.”

“Getting drunk on the beach isn’t exactly bad ass. Every kid I know has done that.”

“Yeah, but not everybody gets their girlfriend pregnant.”

Bam!
And there it was. The conversation she’d been dreading for over twelve years. But at the same time, she needed to hear it. She
took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. She could handle whatever it was he had to say.

“You weren’t alone there, Tom. Lauren is just as much to blame.”

He shook his head. “No, she wasn’t.”

“But—”

“I’d just had the night of my life and I was dating the most popular girl in school. I didn’t have a condom with me, but hey, I was king of the fucking world. Lauren and
I had had sex a few times, but never without protection. She didn’t want to do it, but I told her one time wasn’t going to get us in any trouble. She only went along with it because I talked her into it.”

Allie gulped. She didn’t have to imagine how persuasive Tom had been. Nor could she blame Lauren. Not when Allie herself had uttered those famous words of hers.
Just Do Me
took on a whole
new meaning. If Allie had been in Lauren’s place, she wouldn’t have waited for a condom either. Stupid, but true.

“The next day Lauren broke up with me. Said she thought our relationship was moving too fast. And here’s the kicker. I was relieved because I was planning to break up with her before we left for college anyway, so she saved me the drama. I was a real prince, huh?”

Allie
looked away from his gaze. There was something in his eyes that made it hard to maintain eye contact.

“So that afternoon I asked you to prom because I needed a date, and because I thought you were hot and we were friends and I knew we’d have a good time. But it wasn’t supposed go any further than that.”

She nodded. Their relationship had surprised her, too.

“And the more we hung
out, the more I liked you. The thing is…I want you to know, even though we were planning on going to different schools, I wouldn’t have broken up with you at the end of summer.”

She felt her breath hitch. “But you did anyway.”

“That morning after you told me…” He shrugged, like he was too embarrassed to go on.

“After I told you I loved you?”

He nodded. “Lauren came to see
me. She hadn’t had her period in over three months and she’d finally broken down and told her mom. The rest…well, you can figure it out. I could tell you that my dad put a lot of pressure on me to do the right thing, but that’s not why we got married. The way I saw it I had a couple of choices. I could let Lauren figure it out for herself. Go on to school like nothing had ever happened. Or I could
be a part of my child’s life. Try to build a family. Try to make things work between the two of us. But to do that I had to completely cut you out of my life. So I made a decision and I stuck to it. I gave it everything I had. And the thing is, I don’t regret it. Not a minute of it. I’d only have regretted if I hadn’t tried.”

What could she say to that? There was nothing she could say to
that. He was who he was. He couldn’t help that. Just like she couldn’t help who she was, or the decisions she’d made along the way to this moment.

“You want to know what’s craziest about this whole thing?” he said. “I left Atlanta to move back here to be close to Henry. And now I’m thinking of moving to Tampa so I can be close to you.”

“
What
?”

“Steve Pappas offered me a job in
Tampa. I don’t want to take it. But I don’t know if I can’t not take it either. Not if it means you and I might really have a shot at making this work.”

It felt like all the air had been sucked right out of her. “You want to move to Tampa? So you can be with me?”

“I loved Lauren. We had a good marriage but not a great one, I guess. I threw myself into my work and Henry, because, hell,
that kid is worth anything. I would have kept going on if she hadn’t called it quits. For a while there, I was even pissed at her. What the hell did she want from me? But then, I got it. She wanted something better. She said I should wait for it, too. So I dated a little. And it was great at first, being single again. Having all this freedom. But I missed Henry too much, so I came back to Whispering
Bay, and then you came along. Back into my life and it was like all those feelings I had for you that summer had never gone away. They just came rushing back. And I get it. I get what Lauren means about waiting for something better.” 

“And you think that
I’m
that something better? Tom…you haven’t seen me or thought about me in twelve years, but after four days now you suddenly think I’m,
what? The love of your life? We don’t even know each other for God’s sake! Not really.”

He held her gaze with a fierceness that this time Allie couldn’t look away from. “I know you’re loyal to the people you love. That you hate confrontation and when you’re nervous you talk too much. But it’s so damn cute I could let you go on talking for days even if you just said the same things over and
over. I know you have no clue how beautiful you are, or what kind of effect you have on me, because if you did I’d be in a hell of lot of trouble.” He shook his head and laughed. “Shit. Look at me. I’m in trouble now, aren’t I?”

He took her hands in his and lightly squeezed them. “I know you can’t cuss to save your life and that no one but you could have a written a story about a half-dead
frozen duck that made most of the south want to give up hunting.” He paused. “Want me to go on?”

She was flabbergasted. Speechless in a way that she’d never been before. Tom Donalan had just exposed his jugular. He’d basically told her he loved her. Without saying it, of course. But that’s what he was leading up to. It was her Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey fantasy come to life. She should
jump up and pump her fist in the air. Or do a happy dance. Or feel something. Shouldn’t she? But all she felt was sad.

“What do you want me to say to all that, Tom?”

“You know what I want.” He bent down to kiss her.

She turned her head to avoid his touch and the sadness quickly turned to anger. It was all she could do to not punch him in the nose. How
dare
he do this to her twice
in a lifetime? She snatched her hands away.

He reached out for her again. “Baby, I—”

“
No
. It’s my turn now.” She jumped up from the bed and began to pace the room. “That day I told you I loved you? It didn’t matter that you didn’t say it back. I mean, yeah, I wanted to hear you tell me you loved me, too. I wanted to hear it so bad, but I knew you weren’t ready. And that was okay, because…
my love wasn’t some conditional thing. But then when you told me you and Lauren were getting married? I wanted to
puke.
I wanted to hate you, but I—” She swiped a tear from her eye.
How had that gotten there?

“I admit it. Okay? You broke my heart, Tom. You looked me straight in the eye and told me you
thought
you loved someone else. That you had this big
responsibility
to take care of your
mistakes. Well, what about me?” she asked, her voice rising with each word. “Where was your responsibility to
me
?”

He looked stunned.

“So I went home and I locked myself in my room and I cried because all I could think of was myself. And how
I felt
. And Buela was banging on the door, trying to get inside because she could hear me crying. And she kept begging me to tell her what was
wrong. But I told her to go away. And after a while, she did. And she must have gotten Zeke…because then he started banging on the door, too.”

Allie stopped her pacing. She’d forgotten all about Zeke trying to coax her out of her room. It was like she’d buried that memory along with a bunch of other stuff from that night. Obviously, Zeke hadn’t forgotten a thing. His animosity toward Tom
made perfect sense now.