If It's Only Love (Lexi Ryan)

Chapter Six

Easton

Seeing Shayleigh Jackson for the first time in almost seven years is like an iron fist to the solar plexus. I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't thought about her in our time apart, and an even bigger liar if I denied doing a little Internet stalking to prepare for this meeting today. Her Facebook account's locked down tighter than Fort Knox, so I couldn't get much there aside from her profile picture and a handful of pics both she and Carter are tagged in. Instagram and Twitter were no more fruitful.

This profile is private.

I'm sure I'm being defensive, but it felt like those words were directed at me. Like she's kept everything private just to shut me out. I'm not entirely paranoid. She's done worse to keep me away.

Luckily for me, there's still Google. The Starling University website didn't disappoint. She's a lecturer there, teaching classes in postmodern fiction and contemporary women's lit. According to her bio, she's working on a dissertation on the intersection of pop music and contemporary American women's poetry, which sounds so much like Shay that I had to smile. Life is full of shitty surprises, but I'm glad some things stay the same.

No amount of research could've prepared me for what it would feel like to stand here. To be close enough to touch her. And I swear I can smell the lemon and lavender soap she fell in love with in Paris. I want to know if she still uses it. I want to know if she's found an American substitute, or if down-to-earth, practical Shay pays to have fancy Parisian soaps shipped to her in Jackson Harbor.

I sent her a box of it for her twenty-fifth birthday, and the store contacted me a month later letting me know it had been returned. Would I like to send it to another address?

I didn't bother. Message received.

"How's the dissertation coming?" I ask her now. It's hard to free myself from the tangle of memories when she smells like my favorites.

"Whoa!" Levi says, making a face.

Carter shakes his head and stage-whispers, "We aren't allowed to ask that question until after she defends."

Shay rolls her eyes at her brothers. "It's fine. I just don't like to be harassed about it, and for a while there, these guys thought I'd finish faster if they just asked more." She gives a pointed look to each of her brothers, as if daring them to deny it. "It doesn't work like that."

"You're planning to defend this spring?" I ask. I want her attention so badly that I feel like a fiend, but her curt nod tells me the desire to catch up doesn't go both ways. If I were wise, I'd let it go, but I can't. "Easton, it's so good to see you! I always knew fate would lead you back home," Mrs. Jackson says, forcing me to turn away from my study of the woman I've missed so damn much.

I open my arms and wrap my surrogate mother in a hug. Her hair is shorter than she used to wear it. Carter tells me that's because she lost it fighting cancer, and when it grew back, she decided she liked it short. "It's good to see you, Mrs. Jackson."

"Please, you can call me Kathleen now."

"That's sweet of you, Mrs. Jackson."

She chuckles and pulls back, rubbing my arm. "I was so sorry to hear about your mother passing."

I nod. "Me too. Thank you."

She looks around. "Where's Abigail this morning?"

"She's back in L.A. with her nanny. I have a lot of business to take care of on this trip, and I didn't want to overwhelm her with everything else going on."

Kathleen nods, as if she knows "everything else" means the fact that my daughter found out in the worst way possible that she's not really my daughter. Fucking Scarlett. When I discovered her lie six years ago, it was hard to swallow, but I realized if she hadn't lied, Abi would've never been in my life. Since Abi's easily the best thing that's ever happened to me, I couldn't stay angry about it. But then Scarlett had to go and reveal the truth in a drunken reality TV rant that the whole world would see.

The kids at school were relentless in their teasing, and the cameras I've kept away from Abi her entire life swarmed closer and closer.

"Breakfast?" asks a bright-faced woman with honey-brown hair.

Levi grabs a plate. "Finally. I'm starved."

"Pardon my children," Kathleen says, frowning. "They forget their manners when they're hungry." She points to the honey-haired woman. "This is Nic, Ethan's wife. I think you met Lilly at Frank's funeral," she says, pointing to a little girl who's at the breakfast bar filling her plate. She has dark hair like her dad and is around the same age as my Abigail.

I grin at her. "You were barely talking then. Just two years old. I bet you don't remember me."

Lilly shakes her head. "I thought you were bringing me a friend."

Gratitude washes over me. We won't be alone here, Abi. We have family. "Next time. I promise."

Kathleen points to a woman with a dark bob who has a baby on her hip. "You remember Ava, I'm sure. She's Jake's wife now, and this is their daughter, Lauren." She turns to the brunette hanging close to Levi. "That's Ellie, Levi's fiancée."

"I know Ellie," I say, waving at my Realtor. "She's been house-hunting for me."

"Are we still on for this afternoon?" she asks.

I nod. I'm here to see the latest house she's found for me, and if all goes well, I'll be putting in an offer first thing tomorrow and closing before leaving Jackson Harbor. "Looking forward to it."

"Good. Then, of course, there's Teagan," Kathleen says, pointing to an olive-skinned woman who's been inspecting me like I'm an interesting artifact since I walked into the room. Teagan's been keeping close to Shay, and I wonder how much she knows about our past. "Teagan is Carter's girlfriend."

Brayden clears his throat. "My fiancée, Molly, isn't here this morning. She and her son Noah are wedding dress shopping with her mom in Chicago this weekend, but I'm sure you'll meet her this week."

I sweep my gaze across the kitchen and try to take in all the faces. "Wives, fiancées, girlfriends, babies. You all have been busy," I say, and everyone laughs.

"Now we can eat," Mrs. Jackson says.

I fall back and watch with a pang of nostalgia as the familiar Jackson brunch ritual plays out. Everyone fills their plates and mugs, the brothers poking fun at each other, Mrs. Jackson smiling proudly at her children.

Shay catches me watching. "We've squeezed around that table for years, but it just got to be too much." She shoves a plate in my hand. "So now we split up between the kitchen and the dining room." "It's different," I say softly. On the one hand, it's just like they did it when I was a kid. I have fond memories of sleeping over on Saturdays and waking up Sundays to a massive meal with this family that became so precious to me. On the other hand, the differences are impossible to ignore. There are so many more people, and it's crowded, but most notably, Frank Jackson isn't here to keep his arm around his wife and steal kisses like they're teenagers.

"The only thing guaranteed in life is change." Pain flashes over Shay's face, and I'm thrown back to her father's funeral and the feel of her in my arms as she cried. The way her sobs were so powerful, they shook me. The way I took her grief in my hands and made it so much worse.

I open my mouth to apologize for that night, for the years I let her shut me out-but I snap it shut again. There are too many eyes on me right now, and I don't think Shay wants them to know why I owe her an apology.

Shay

After brunch is cleaned up, everyone scatters. Levi and Ellie leave to run some errands, Ethan, Nic, and Lilly head out to a movie, and everyone else heads to the basement to play games. I use my revisions as an excuse to stay upstairs with my laptop, but I can't face my dissertation while I'm this distracted, so I sit at the kitchen table and respond to student emails instead.

Lucky me, I have an email from a student about his two-week-late paper as an outlet for my frustrations. I'm a lengthy paragraph into a careful recap of my course policies when I hear the basement door open and close again. I know without looking that Easton just came back upstairs. Why is that? Why do I feel him when he's around, even after all these years?

I lean closer to my computer, pretending I'm not aware of every step he takes, pretending I don't notice when he pulls out the chair beside me and sinks into it.

When I look over at him, he's turned toward me, elbows on his knees, deeply engrossed in a study of the tiled floor. Fine. If he's not going to tell me what he needs, then I'm not going to ask. I go back to my email, realize my last sentence is nearly incoherent, and delete it.

"You're giving me the silent treatment?"

Sighing, I pull my gaze off my screen and turn to him. "What gives you that idea?"

He lifts his head, and those sea-green eyes search my face. Whoever gave Easton Connor those eyes wanted to torture me. No one should have eyes that make you feel lost and precious all at once. It's not fair. "You barely talked to me at all at brunch."

"That doesn't mean I'm giving you the silent treatment."

Leaning back in his chair, he folds his arms. He's not buying my shit, and I don't care. "You blocked me on social media-I sent requests."

I snort. "Really, Easton? Do you care if some girl from back home keeps her accounts private?"

"You're more than that to me, and you know it."

"Am I?" My heart is doing some really crazy racing-and-stuttering thing in my chest. Like someone's trying to test its accelerator and its brakes at the same time. "I don't go years without talking to the people who matter to me, so I guess I don't know anything."

"Would you have talked to me if I'd tried?" He swallows, his eyes scanning my face over and over. What's he looking for? A sign that he didn't screw things up with me? Proof that maybe we can still be friends after everything? He can keep looking, but he's not going to find it.

"It doesn't matter." I close my laptop. “That was all a long time ago, and I'm not some moon-eyed girl anymore.”

"Have dinner with me," he blurts.

Clearly, guilt over the past has made this man lose his mind. It's bad enough that he's moving back, but he can't seriously expect me to want to spend time alone with him. "Why?"

He blinks. "Because I missed you? Because I want a chance to apologize properly?" He looks out the window over my shoulder and frowns. "I'm not wrong, am I? You've never told your family. . . about us?"

I shake my head and slide my laptop into my bag. "I don't hate you, I don't need to go to dinner to hear you apologize, and my family doesn't need to know about our mistakes."

His throat bobs as he swallows. "Was that all I was to you? A mistake?"

I'm too tired to deal with this today. Merely sitting beside him is more emotionally taxing than I was prepared for. "What else would you call it?"

"Bad timing?" He shakes his head. "I'm back here now. For real. We're going to have to talk at some point. You can't keep pushing me away."

"Just because I'm not available to you doesn't mean I'm giving you the silent treatment. And just because you're moving home doesn't mean I'm obligated to have dinner with you. You and I have said all we need to say." I sling my bag over my shoulder and do my best to ignore the hurt in his eyes. Even after everything, I can't stand the idea of causing him pain, so I attempt to soften my words. "Welcome back to Jackson Harbor. I'm sure your daughter will love it here."