The Davis Years (Indigo) by Nicole Green Read Free Book Online Page B

would be gone soon. To Florida. And that was a good thing. He’d screwed up enough lives. He’d almost screwed up hers. They’d go to the wedding together and that would be it. So why was he allowing himself to get wrapped up in some fantasy of them having everything that had been missing in high school?
    He’d been a real idiot back then. He’d denied his real feelings for her for a ton of stupid reasons. Because of his absent mother and the father he wished had been absent. Because of his stupid friends. Guys he didn’t even talk to anymore—none of them had been real friends. But none of the reasons really mattered. None of them should have kept him away from her.
    Anyway, Jemma needed out of Derring and it would be stupid and selfish of him to try to keep her there. He couldn’t think of asking her to give him another chance. Even if she was the one his heart ached for. Ironically, she’d taught him the meaning of true love by breaking his heart.
    He smiled thinly, thinking of how happy she’d been in high school in those few moments they’d shared, even with all she had going on at home. That’d been before he’d been among the number of people who’d broken her. Those nights in his car when it was only them, they’d shared something that their lives outside of it hadn’t been able to touch.
    Davis tensed at the sound of a voice behind him. “Hi.” He knew he had to deal with her eventually, and maybe that was subconsciously a part of the reason he hadn’t left the parking lot yet.
    “Hey there,” he said as Rosa stepped in front of him. She was another server at the restaurant. They’d been flirting for the past few weeks, and it had gotten a lot heavier right before Jemma came into town. They’d gotten to the point where something needed to be said or else it would look like he was playing games. He didn’t want to be that guy. He’d only been that guy once, and nothing good had come out of that.
    “We haven’t talked much lately,” she said, giving him a sexy, full-lipped pout.
    “I know.” Davis slapped a mosquito away from his neck. Night had cooled the summer air off a little, but it was still wet and muggy out and the critters loved that sort of weather. Especially the flying, biting ones.
    “Did I do something wrong?” she asked, moving closer, giving him a perfect view down her blouse. She didn’t have the first three buttons fastened.
    He backed up, shaking his head. Should he tell her the truth? But what was the truth? He was in love with a woman who was leaving for Florida in a few weeks? That sounded like a lame and made-up stupid way to blow her off. He didn’t want her to think of him as a jerk even though he probably was. “No. Nothing you did.”
    “Then what is it?”
    He leaned back against his car, pressing his palms into the hood. What could he say? He had a rash? He’d met someone? That last one was kind of sort of true. “I should go.”
    She frowned. “What? That’s all you have to say?”
    “Trust me, Rosa. You’d be thanking me if you knew my whole story.” And how screwed up he really was.
    “People told me you were an ass and to stay away from you, but I said no. I’d give you a chance. Guess I should have listened, huh?” she said in a sharp voice, her Mexican accent becoming more pronounced than usual.
    He shrugged. “Probably.” No, he really wasn’t that great of a guy, so what could he say for himself?
    “Fine. I’ll see you around.” She turned and walked off without giving him a chance to respond. He let his head thud against the roof of his car.
    ***
    At the end of the night, Jemma helped a very drunk, very happy Emily Rose into the Bradens’ house and up to bed.
    They’d gone to a club in Richmond for the bachelorette party and Jemma had volunteered to be DD. They’d already dropped Carolina off at her hotel and Meg, Emily Rose’s bridesmaid, off at home. Emily Rose was Jemma’s last stop before heading back to Mary’s.
    Meg and