Who Needs Air Read online

  Someone clears their throat and I snap my eyes open, sitting up too quickly, knocking a few books off the shelves behind me. I grumble and quickly stack them in a pile.

  I see his shoes first. They’re just like I remember. Old black and white, worn Chuck Taylors. He’s not wearing the ragged jeans of my memories though. He’s in slacks and a button up shirt. So unlike the August I knew. His shirt is black, which shouldn’t matter, but I haven’t seen his face yet, and I already know he’s going to look remarkable. Black is his color. Always has been.

  His body is more pronounced than it was the last time I saw him, and I don’t mean the last time I watched him on television or saw his picture next to an interview in a magazine. I mean the last time I laid eyes on him as he was walking out of the college dorm room five years ago, tears on his face.

  His sports jacket is obviously tailored for his body and I gulp, my mouth watering at the way he affects me so easily. I force the feeling down.

  I push my hair out of my face and slide my glasses up my nose. The lenses shove forcefully against my long eyelashes and I have to readjust them, looking like an idiot.

  When I finally see his face, I gasp. Not some girly oh-my-stars-I-sound-like-Audrey-Hepburn gasp, it’s a full-on shocked wheeze. So much so, I clear my throat.

  Oh, heavens to Betsy.

  August smiles. I mean – he really smiles. It’s the one I fell in love with and the one I hope he shares only with me. The smile pulls on his lips and the dimples on his cheeks show. He has one distinct wrinkle by his right eye, and I’m happy to see it’s still there – maybe even a little more pronounced now. From age or laughing often, I don’t know. I don’t see this particular smile regularly – if ever – on his television appearances, and I’ve never seen it in a magazine. He bites his bottom lip, offering me his hand.

  “Well this is one hell of a meet cute,” he says, snickering as I gain my footing.

  I straighten my tank top, and flatten my rumpled cardigan. I can’t help the giddy grin taking over my entire face. I feel the muscles aching already.

  August is still holding my hand and I quickly remove it.

  I laugh, looking down at my own Chuck Taylors. Same color as his. Same amount of age. “Meet cute?”

  August steps back a few feet, giving us space, taking a good look at me. My denim jeans and yellow tank top. My light blue cardigan. My eyeglasses I can’t live without and my tangled hands. My tawny-colored hair is disheveled now, but I don’t fix it. He’s seen worse.

  “If this were a movie, this would be our meet cute,” he says with a glint of mischievousness. “The first time the hero and heroine find their way to each other.”

  Is it still considered a meet cute if we’ve already lived this scene years ago?

  Doesn’t matter.

  Even though I’m almost positive a real meet cute involves some possible lover scenarios, I’m sure he’s just trying to lighten the mood. This is all new territory for us. We haven’t seen each other in five years. Do we know how to be around one another?

  My heart pounds at the thought, while my stomach performs nausea-inducing somersaults. My chest aches and my head thumps. He’s a mere three feet away from me and the yearn I feel is overwhelming.

  Seconds feel like eternity and inches feel like miles. I have so much buried inside my heart – so much to say.

  I knew seeing him again would hurt.

  I knew hearing his voice for the first time in years would sting, but the distance and uncertainty? The last three feet between us are going to kill me.

  My face falls. How am I supposed to do this? Shudders wreak havoc on my body and I hunch forward, feeling the weight of what I’m doing. My eyes fall to the floor and I cover my mouth with my hand. So many emotions at once – happy and then terrified – I’m overcome.

  “Belle,” August breathes, rushing to me, engulfing my body into a hug. My arms fall limply to my sides, taken aback by his actions. At first, I’m stunned, shunted by his embrace, but quickly I’m thrown into a tornado of familiar smells and emotions.

  His scent is exactly the same. A little woodsy with a hint of laundry soap. His arms and chest are bigger than they were when I knew him, but they still feel unchanged wrapped around me.

  I allow myself to put my arms around him, and as my grip tightens, I’m transported back to when I knew him best. When he could see my emotions playing out so easily on my face and automatically knew I needed a hug.

  I’ve always said his embrace was the best medicine, and even now, years later, the sentiment still holds true.

  “Belle,” he says again, calling me by my nickname. The nickname he gave me. “I’m here,” he whispers against my neck.

  My knees give out and I hold his body tighter, tears threatening to spill from my eyes.

  He feels like home.

  And I haven’t been home in years.

  He squeezes me harder and I allow myself a few seconds to enjoy it before I’m hit with the sickening realization that he’s not my home anymore. He’s someone else’s.

  Swallowing the moisture in my mouth, I sigh dejectedly. “It’s great to see you,” I say, pulling away from him, crossing my arms over my chest – closing myself off.

  August’s sky-crystal eyes narrow and he grimaces slightly. “It’s uhh…” He rubs the light dusting of hair on his face. “It’s good to see you, too. How are you?”

  Freaking out. “I’m good,” I lie. I’m so not good right now. “Working at the museum.”

  “I heard,” he quips, letting his hands fall to his sides almost as if me mentioning the museum hurts him somehow.

  “Oh?”

  August shrugs his shoulders. “Mom, of course.”

  Oh, right. Kitty Wyatt lives in the town just outside of Bradshaw but is head of every committee known to man. Of course she knows all about me. Though, she dropped me like a hot potato the moment her son walked out the door. Losing her hurt, too, but I never let it show.

  Conceal and all that nonsense.

  I shift on my feet, feeling slightly awkward the longer we stand in silence. It lingers between us like a putrid stench I wish I could neutralize.

  “You want to go get some dinner?” he asks, either hoping to rectify my odd emotions or because he’s hungry. I don’t know why I’m questioning it. He’s always hungry.

  I double-check myself. Am I actually standing here? In front of August? Does he seriously want to go eat dinner with me? This feels so strange.

  I discreetly pinch my leg. Nope, still awake. Self-conscious and a little nervous, I chew on my lip.

  “We can go out of Bradshaw if that’ll help,” he offers, already recognizing the hesitation on my face. Damn him and his eerie aptitude to know everything I’m thinking without having to hear it come from my mouth!

  Venturing out of Bradshaw would help. Everyone in this town is August crazed at the moment. We can’t just waltz into LuLu’s Diner with anonymity. They normally leave me alone, but the moment they see us together all hell will break loose. “Okay,” I agree. “Want to meet me at the pizza place in Gaston? Remember where it is?” I’m already pulling out the keys to my blue Toyota SUV.

  August laughs and the reverberation rumbles through my body like a bulldozer. It lights up my senses. “Of course I remember where it is, Belle, but you don’t have to drive. We can go together.”

  In his company car with an uppity chauffeur? Not likely.

  “I don’t have a company car.” His eyes crinkle but I can’t help but notice his utter beautifulness.

  Did I say that out loud? Must have.

  “I drove the truck down from New York. It’s sitting in the parking lot outside.” He points over his shoulder toward the exit. “Come on.” He offers his hand. “Just dinner. After that, we can go our separate ways if you want.”

  That’s not what I want. Not at all. Pigs are more likely to fly out of my ass before I’ll want that. I already feel his alluring pull and I’ve only been with him ten mi
nutes. He’s a drug and Lord knows I’ll want another hit the second he’s gone. I hate that I feel that way, but I also can’t deny myself, either.

  Whatever it is he wants from me, I’m likely to agree. I can’t help it. Old habits die hard.

  I compose my face as best I can and stand a little taller, hoping to mask what I’m truly feeling. “Okay,” I say. “Yeah. Dinner sounds great.”

  August’s smile is triumphant as we leave our coveted spot behind.

  Captain, The Pigs Are In Flight

  The old beat-up truck smells the same. He smells the freakin’ same.

  Why does everything seem the same? My nostalgia is starting to be a pain in my ass.

  I grab the door handle and grip it tight. Breathe in through your nose and out your mouth, Cam. You can do this. It’s just your first love, August Wyatt, driving the same truck where you last had sex together.

  Well, not the cab, but the bed of it. Just imagine a whole heap of comforters, singing crickets in the background and the stars as light. You pretty much get the picture. It was romantic and wonderful and now I can’t seem to get the image out of my brain.

  I let go of the door handle and clench my fists on top of my thighs, wishing I could pound the side of my head a few times without August noticing.

  I huff.

  August continues to ramble on in his deep, husky voice about being back in town and I can’t, for the life of me, concentrate.

  I lick my lips and try my best to listen to what he’s saying but it’s moot at this point.

  His hands, so veiny and strong, grip the steering wheel and I avert my eyes.

  I’ve moved on.

  Sure.

  Totally.

  Well…kind of. Do you truly move on from your first love? It’s not an easy thing to do. Maybe I’m not still in love with him, maybe I just miss the good times we had because he was the first boy I’ve ever loved.

  The only boy you’ve ever loved…

  Shush.

  Come on, Cam. Think about all the times he pissed you off. Remember that time you had a fight in the rain as the water pelted your head as you screamed at him? Remember the look in his eyes as he argued with you over…what was it?

  Ugh, dammit, I can’t recall. Now, all I can do is picture the moment he smiled when he realized he was wrong and pulled me into his arms. He kissed me senseless, and ruined rain for me. It became magical that night.

  No, stop it!

  “…it looks so different.” August points his finger straight ahead at the new shopping center. “Was that store there the last time I visited?”

  Like a sledgehammer to the stomach, he presented the painful reminder I haven’t seen him in way too long. That last time he was in town, I didn’t see him.

  He’s probably visited countless times and I had no clue.

  “Oh, uh, I don’t know.” My eyebrows downcast and I look at my lap.

  August clears his throat. “So, what have you been up to?” he changes gears, looking to me as he makes his way onto the freeway.

  I laugh nervously. “I work. I go home. I work some more.” It’s true. I don’t have time to do much else.

  He gives me a level look and shifts into fifth gear. His little I-don’t-buy-it look makes me want to smack him in the chest with the back of my hand. “You don’t go out? Hang with Lily? You used to love to bar hop.”

  I shrug. “I see Lily all the time, thankfully. She keeps me sane, but my bar hopping phase is long over, though. Plus, I’ve been to all the bars here. It’s not any fun when you see the same people every time you go.”

  “You liked not knowing anyone.” He smiles. “I remember.”

  My heart flutters. “What about you? Your new movie. The book. Must be an incredible ride.” Mentioning the book blurs my vision a bit, but I push past it.

  “It’s something,” he says, his tone falling flat.

  “Something…awesome? Amazing? Earth shattering?”

  His mouth turns down, his right eyebrow lifting. “More like exhausting. Exhilarating. Grueling.”

  “Ah, not going how you thought it would?”

  It sure as hell is not going how I’d imagined.

  He holds onto the steering wheel firmer, his knuckles turning white. “Honestly? No. The loss of anonymity is tough. Never being able to go to a store or to the movies.” He shakes his head. “I miss being a nobody.”

  “You were never a nobody.” I feel silly for even having to say that. He was super popular and was voted “most likely to succeed” in high school. People saw his greatness before he did. No one would equate August Wyatt with the word nobody.

  “Yeah, well.” He shakes off my words. “It’s hard when I’m supposedly the ‘hottest male romance male novelist’ in the world.” He uses quotations and his skin turns an odd shade of green. “I’m just a writer, Belle.” His eyes pinch. “I just want to be a writer.”

  I remember when that particular article came out about him, dubbing him the gorgeous ‘It Boy’ of the romance world. US Weekly or People Magazine – I can’t remember which – did a full exclusive on him. All out, took pictures of his townhouse in New York and snapped candid shots of him with his Jack Russell, Claude. The magazine flaunted his good looks. They caught the chiseled square of his jaw and the long curl of his eyelashes. The pictures that depicted him best were the ones of him gazing out of his window, his sea-glass eyes so enamored with something just beyond the picture. They captured the dimples in his cheeks and five o’clock shadow on his face. They even caught that remarkable wrinkle next to his eye. He had the kind of regard where you’d think he was angry if his smile wasn’t firmly planted all the time. The magazine portrayed him perfectly and – unfortunately for him – that resulted in the world seeing exactly what I saw in him.

  Greatness.

  “Well, Big Shot,” I say, lightly smacking his chest the way I used to when we knew each other. “You’re still a writer.”

  “I know.”

  “What about your next book? Earlier this year I’d heard you were supposed to have another release.”

  “Didn’t happen.”.

  Something heavy drops on my chest and I fight the urge to comfort him. “Why not?” My voice is small because I know if he hasn’t turned anything in, it’s because he’s blocked. When August has writer’s block, he loses himself.

  “I just…” he trails off, keeping his eyes focused on the traffic in front of us. “I haven’t finished it yet. My publisher is up in arms about it.” He looks at me, the sun catching the blue of his eyes at just the right angle. “I’ll get it done, I know I will. It’s just going to take time.”

  Offering a little levity, I say, “Well, to be fair, the first one was easy.” I wink.

  The corners of his lips pull up and his shoulders shake with laughter. “True.”

  “You’ll write another fascinating book, August Wyatt, and it’ll be a best seller. I know it.”

  He deflates, his smile less now. “Thanks, Belle.”

  We continue the rest of the drive talking about what we’ve been doing for the past five years. He bought a townhouse in the Upper East Side in New York. Has two cats that he loathes but refuses to get rid of because he found them walking home from the office two separate times. I giggle at that tid-bit of information. He’s never been a cat person. If the guy walks past a dog, he’ll kneel to pet it – snuggle it, all-but name it – but if a cat was anywhere near him, he’d ignore it. He also bought a sports car, which I gave him great grief about. He blushed a bit but said it was the first thing he bought with his money and he hardly ever drives it. Boys and their toys.

  I told him about how after I graduated from the University of Georgia, the head curator at the museum hired me on the spot. The museum was in a pickle and I was simply at the right place at the right time. I also gushed about my apartment and how much it meant to me that I was finally able to buy something of my own without help from my mom.

  “Wow,” August says as we p
ull into the pizza parlor about a mile off the freeway. “So, you’ve been working at the museum for a few years, have a house and no pets. What else have you been up to? Dating anyone?”

  Ugh, the dreaded dating question. Beau’s sweet smile pops into my head and my body warms. I hadn’t thought about him much since meeting with August, but I’m going to chalk it up to the fact that I haven’t seen him in so long and we’ve been too busy catching up.

  “His name is Beau,” I offer and slide my eyes to August as his hand stills on the gear shift. His face falls slightly but he regains it in the blink of an eye. “He works at the museum, too, actually.”

  “He’s a good guy?” August asks, and I don’t know how to take the question. Is he asking because he cares or is he asking because he’s jealous?

  Jealousy, Cam? The guy has no reason to be jealous.

  Whatever the reason, I’m honest. “He is…he’s really great.”

  Shutting off the engine, August looks down at his lap for a few seconds, thinking, but then hops out and runs to my door, opening it with a grin. Just like he did when we were younger, he outstretches his hand and without a second thought I take it, clasping my hand in his.

  “So, is pizza your thing now?” August asks as we slide into the dark red vinyl booth in the back of the dimly lit restaurant.

  I laugh, taking the napkin from the table and placing it on my lap. “Maybe.” It’s something I’ve always done. One month, I’ll be all about sushi, and the next, I can’t stomach it because I’ve eaten it twenty-five times in a short 30-day period. One time it was chicken kabobs, and another was parmesan crusted salmon. I’m all over the place, but he’s totally right. Pizza is my thing right now and I can’t get enough.

  “What’s your poison?” he asks, looking at the menu. The red colored light hanging from the ceiling between us glints off the shiny plastic, casting a bright beam across his face.

  My eyes squint as I watch him. “Pineapple and bacon, please.”

  August blanches. “Pineapple? Gross.” He shakes his head, setting his menu down. “You’ve changed, Belle. You’ve changed.”