High School Sweetheart (Sweetheart, Colorado)

by Frankie Love

  "So you just left?" she demands. I can see some of the anger there again, the hurt. I wish that I could take it from her, carry it for her instead, but I know it’s not that easy.

  "I had to go back," I reply. "They would have come looking for me, and I couldn’t bring that to your door. Or to Sweetheart. I was always going to leave, but I didn’t intend to leave you behind, too."

  I can still remember, all too vividly, the day that I left. After prom. When I had packed up my stuff and left without a word to the woman that I loved, and I returned to Boulder. I had struggled so long and so hard with that choice, but it was the only one that would keep her safe. She wouldn’t want to be caught up in my world. She should never be subjected to it.

  I had cried on the plane back to my father. I never let myself cry – not since then, not before. But the thought of her back here, thinking that I had left her, that I had abandoned her to her life here, was more than I could take.

  "You went back to that?" she asks me. She sounds shocked. I suppose I should take that as a compliment – she doesn’t think that I could be capable of anything like that.

  But in truth, she doesn’t have any idea just what I am capable of. And I know that she will never be able to understand it. I don’t want her to. I want her to know this new version of me – and I know that I will not be able to let go of her until I am sure that she does.

  7

  Bailey

  I sit there, his jacket draped around my shoulders, his eyes searching mine for some kind of reaction, and try to make sense of what he’s just said to me.

  He was a criminal. Is a criminal?

  I have no idea what he has been trying to communicate to me. I’m so confused. He left – he left because his father wanted him back to run some criminal empire? It seems almost too wild to be true. But, as he looks at me, waiting for a response, I know that it’s the truth.

  "You run his cartel?" I ask, finally. I don’t know what to say. This is the last thing that I had expected him to come out with. Somehow worse than everything I had been imagining.

  He shakes his head. “No. I ran it. Past tense. I worked under him for a long time," he explains. "I – I did some bad things, Bailey. And I know that you might not believe me, but trust me, I would never make something like this up–"

  "I know that," I mutter. He knows how strong my sense of morality is, and he would never make up something so awful to try and get out of trouble.

  "Why are you here?" I ask finally. I need to know. What brought him back here, after all this time? He has no reason to be here with me again, especially not if he is bringing the chaos of his life in Boulder down here.

  "Because I’m done with that life now," he confesses. "And I knew that I wouldn’t be able to look you in the eye again until I knew that life was behind me for good. Now, it is."

  "Why?” I demand. "Why should I believe you?”

  He looks away from me. His face is briefly clouded with pain, and I can almost guess what is about to come out of his mouth before he says it.

  "My father," he mutters. "He...he died."

  I catch my breath.

  "I’m so sorry," I murmur, and I reach out to touch his hand. As soon as our fingers skim past one another, I feel the heat begin to rise between us again, and I draw my hand back at once.

  No, can’t let that happen. Too dangerous. Too likely to cloud my judgement.

  "So am I," he mutters. "It wasn’t that long ago. Last year. And I was all poised to step up and take over everything. Everyone expected me to, but then, when the time came, I knew that I just couldn’t do it."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I had seen the level of destruction that the cartel had caused across the state," he replies, shaking his head. "And I didn’t want that on my head. I didn’t have a choice when my father was alive, but with him gone, I knew that I had to take responsibility for myself. And that responsibility meant dispersing the cartel. Putting that life behind me."

  "And that’s why you’re here again?" I ask. The air is so still around us I feel as though I could breathe too loudly and disturb it. He nods.

  "I’m done with it," he replies. "And so – I thought it was only fair to come back and give you an explanation as to why I left in the first place."

  My heart pounds in my chest. What has he done in his life that made this seem like the best choice to him? Leaving behind the legacy his father made for him was all that he could think of? I want to ask him, but I doubt that I want to know the answer.

  I must have sat there in silence for a moment too long, because he turns to me again, tilts his head to the side.

  "What about you?" he wonders aloud. "What have you gotten up to?”

  It’s almost like he’s asking about what happened in the last week, not in the last ten years. It’s strange – even after all this time, I feel a familiarity with him, a closeness that runs deeper than merely seeing each other. I shared something with him that I could never share with anyone else, wouldn’t have wanted to even if I could, and being in his presence again is starting to remind me of that.

  "I went to college," I reply. "I had that scholarship so I left Sweetheart. I didn’t want to come back, not really, not after what – not after what happened with us."

  "Where are you in the world now?”

  "Denver," I tell him. "Working at an art gallery. I do the bookings and deal with the artists. Nothing too fancy, but it gives me the freedom to do what I want. In my free time I paint."

  "I bet you’ve made some beautiful paintings,” he says. “Though I doubt you ever show them to anyone.”

  I feel the ghost of a smile pass over my face. He still knows me. Better than maybe anyone ever has. After he left, I was so scared that I was going to be hurt that same way again that I closed myself off from people, shut myself down to the thought of letting anyone get too close. Now I am here again, I can feel that depth of connection between us. I don’t want to let it go.

  "Honestly, this is the first time that I’ve been back in town in a while," I confess. "I – I lost my parents last year, too."

  His eyes widen, and he covers my hand with his and squeezes it tight. His touch is comforting, even despite the confusion in my heart right now.

  "Bailey, I’m so sorry," he murmurs to me. "If I had known–"

  "Liv was the one who got me through it. It was so sudden – car accident, you know – everything that came afterwards was a blur."

  "I get that," he agrees softly. His fingers link through mine. We just look at each other for a moment, and I am sure that I can almost remember once more the way his lips tasted against mine.

  "It just makes you realize how short life is, right?" I reply. I can feel tears pricking the back of my eyes, the memory of my parents’ loss almost more than I can take. If I keep talking, I can’t do this without crying.

  "It does," he agrees. "You know, I bought this villa in Spain a few years ago – I always planned to retire there. But now that I’m out of the game so much earlier than I thought I would be, it’s just sitting there. Needs someone in it to keep things ticking over."

  I stare at him for a moment. He smiles at me. His grin has always been a little crooked, but I think it’s about the most handsome thing I’ve ever seen.

  "Could use some company out there, if you’re looking," he remarks. I catch my breath. Can he really mean that? It feels crazy for him to even admit to it out loud. How many times have I imagined him coming back here, telling me everything, admitting to me that he wants me back? And now, he is sitting here in front of me, his hand on mine, smiling at me as he invites me to come across the world with him, to dive into the kind of adventure that we always swore we would have together.

  I drag my eyes away from his. I need time – time to think. Time to deal with him being here in front of me again. I look back towards the hall, where all of our old classmates are gossiping and drinking together.

  "We should go back inside," I tell him softly, and I
mean it. I know that he wants an answer – and I know that I am not ready to give him one. At least, not yet. Not when the warmth of his skin on mine is still enough to make my head spin.

  8

  Baxter

  I’m not about to let her walk away from me like that.

  I came all the way down here so that I could see her again, so that I could tell her that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her in all the time that we’ve been apart, and that I’m not going to be able to let go of her until I get the chance to make that right. I had no idea if she was going to listen to a damn word out of my mouth, but honestly? Honestly, I am going to tell her everything that I know she needs to hear.

  Back inside the main hall, people are dancing, drinking, chatting, laughing. But they all glance around as soon as they sense the two of us in here together. It’s as though the whole place has come down with a great hush, and I know that people are curious – curious to know what the hell is going on here, how much I have been hiding from everyone all this time.

  Bailey goes to get herself a drink, her back turned to me. Even just being this close to her is enough to make everything inside of me feel as though it is lighting up. I need her, need this – need everything that I can get my hands on. I close the distance between us, slide my hand over the small of her back.

  She turns to me, leans into me, like this is what she has been waiting for. I can tell that she wants this, even if her brain is telling her that she shouldn’t. I don’t care. At this point, I just want to make sure that she understands how I feel for her. Then, I can leave this place knowing that I did what I came here to do.

  She looks me in the eyes, and I can see how torn she is. How much she wants to just sink into my arms, but how fearful she is of letting it happen. Her face is soft, full of questions, and I know that I have answers for them if she is just willing to listen. Our mouths are so close that I can almost taste her, and it takes everything I have to fight the urge to lean in and plant a kiss against her lips.

  "You remember what we were voted in the yearbook?" I ask her.

  She nods, slowly. "Of course I do."

  "Most Likely to Get Married," I remind her anyway. I slide my hand over hers, lift it to my mouth. I can see that she is holding her breath. I know that she wants this, the same way I do.

  "So?” she asks. Everyone is looking at us. I don’t care. They could be recording the whole thing for all I give a shit about it – I just want this to be between us. All I care about is her hearing those words come out of my mouth, once and for all.

  "So, we could do it," I tell her. "Get married. Go have those adventures that we always said that we would."

  I trail off, searching her eyes for a response. For a moment, she doesn’t say anything, and I have to squeeze her hand to remind her that I’m going to need her to say something to me right now.

  And then, all at once, her face lights up, and she laughs. “You’re crazy,” she says.

  Before she can say another word, I lean in and plant a kiss against her lips at last. I swear I can hear whispers from the room around us, but I don’t give a damn about it. The whole world could have vanished in the time that it took me to kiss her and as long as I got to feel her mouth against mine, I would be happy.

  When I pull back, her eyes are shining with excitement, and I know that, like me, she can see the whole of our lives opening up in front of us once more. Everything that we had planned before we were pulled apart is finally coming to pass. It might have taken me way too long to get here, to work out that this was what I wanted, but now that I have, there is no way on earth that I am ever going to forget it.

  She leans her forehead against mine, and she grasps tight to my hand. Everyone around us is staring, and she laughs.

  "I bet you think I’m crazy, huh?” she murmurs to Liv, who is standing closest to us.

  "Totally," Liv replies, and she brushes a tear away from her cheek and shakes her head. "But if getting back together makes you happy..."

  "It does," Bailey tells her, and she looks to me again, as though she’s trying to work out if this can really be happening. I want to tell her that it can, that it is, that everything that we have done was always going to come down to this moment, but there is plenty of time to talk after we are done.

  Right now, there are other things on my mind. Mostly to do with how much I want to get her alone again, how much I want to lose myself to her and remind myself just why I haven’t been able to get her out of my head all this time.

  "Let’s get out of here," she whispers to me, and I circle an arm around her waist and lead her to the door. I can’t stop touching her. I don’t think that I am ever going to be able to get over the shock of having her close to me again.

  I brush a strand of hair away from her dress, admiring the soft tan on her skin, her beautiful, lean body beneath her dress. She is mine. And I am going to make sure that she knows just how much I want her right now.

  9

  Bailey

  We barely make it back to the car before he is kissing me properly. His body is hard and strong and eager against mine, and it takes everything I have not to rip his clothes off and let him take me right here in the parking lot of our old school. If it wasn’t February in Colorado, and freezing-cold to match, I might have gone ahead and done just that.

  "You have no idea how long I’ve been thinking about having you like this," he murmurs to me, his voice dropping to a growl that sends a shiver down my spine.

  This is the version of him that I remember best, the one that was sexy and serious and almost a little angry when the two of us were fooling around. As though not being able to have me was the hardest thing in the world for him, and it took every ounce of self-control not to give in to the want that spiraled through him whenever we were close to each other.

  "Show, don’t tell," I tease him softly, and he pushes me into the car and climbs into the driver’s side. I swear this is the same one that he drove in high school – a little more pimped-out, but basically identical. I smile as I run my hands over the dashboard, snuggle into the leather seat. This is familiar to me, in the best way possible. Feels like home. He feels like home.

  He pulls us out of the parking lot and slides his hand over to my leg, gripping tight to my thigh as we cut through the night. I part my legs a little, and his fingers trace up towards my panties. I have no idea how he can keep his eyes on the road while he is touching me like this, but I know that I am not going to be able to contain myself much longer.

  I glance at him as he drives, and his eyes are fixed on the road as though he knows that he is going to lose his cool if he looks over at me. It gets me so wet to think of how long he has been imagining this, how long he has been waiting for the two of us to come together again the way we are right now.

  It might be hard for me to wrap my head around, hard for me to make sense of how this has happened and whether I have made the right choice, but when he touches me, all of that seems to fall away and all I can think about is the powerful need that consumes me when his hands are on me.

  He is driving me, I realize, to the spot where we spent our first few hours after prom – the place where I lost my virginity to him. He still remembers, after all this time? Of course he does. If it is embedded in his head the same way it is in mine, he must remember every detail.

  When he pulls the car to a halt, he doesn’t hold back for another second. He reaches over and pulls me onto his lap, running his hand through my hair and pulling me towards him so that we can kiss properly.

  His tongue pushes into my mouth and I sink against him, running my hands over his chest, feeling the pulse of his heart, the strength of his body beneath me. His other hand roams my body greedily, sliding down my back to grab my ass through my dress, pushing down the straps so that he can lower his mouth to my breasts once more.

  I groan, cradle his head in my hands, and watch him as he rolls his tongue around my nipple, baring his teeth for a moment and ma
king me gasp as the shock of pain turns into pleasure between my thighs.

  I need him inside of me. This isn’t like the last time that we did this, when I was so nervous, so worried that I was going to do something wrong. Right now, all I can think about is how badly I want to feel him in me, and nothing is going to satisfy me until I feel his cock filling my pussy.

  I push open his shirt and rake my nails down his chest as we kiss again, and I can feel his dick stirring to hardness against me. I grind against him, letting him feel how needy I am for him in this moment, knowing that he is as hungry for this as I am right now.

  "I need to fuck you," he growls in my ear, reaching between my legs to push his hand into my panties and massage my clit. "Right now."

  "Then do it," I breathe to him, pushing my hips back against his hand as he touches me. He reaches down to unzip his pants and then pulls my panties to the side, pushing my dress up so that he can watch as he thrusts inside of me for the first time in what feels like forever.

  I can’t take my eyes off his face as he pushes his cock deep inside of me. Something seems to lift, as though a tension that he has been carrying for far too long is finally giving way to something else. His mouth softens and he looks up at me, slowly arching his hips so that he can push into me properly.

  The feeling is incredible. My pussy seems made for him, made to take him like this, my body fitting around him in all the ways that it is supposed to. I want nothing more than to stay in this moment forever, feel his hardness as he takes me, as he makes me his.

  There is nothing more perfect than the way he fits into my pussy, the fullness just at the edge of what I can take before it starts becoming painful. I close my eyes to savor it, but he reaches up and grabs my face, tilting it down to look at him again.