Mine to Have (Southern Wedding #1)(44)

"We spent lots of time together." I wink at her and she groans.

"Harlow," she hisses. "Can you be serious for one minute?"

"Okay, okay." I hold up my hands. "I just don’t know the answers to everything," I admit. "And not having the answers makes me all nervous. Like, when is the next time I’m going to see him?" I shrug my shoulders. "I have no clue. How do long-distance relationships work? How long can one go with long distance before they give up?" I get up from the couch and start to pace in front of her and she knows this is me working it out in my head. "I was happy," I say and she tilts her head to the side. "Okay, fine. I wasn’t happy. I was content. But now that I see him again." I stop and the tears come without me even realizing. "I see him again and it’s like the four years never happened. I feel exactly how I did four years ago. He still makes my heart flutter. His kisses make me breathless. One touch from him and I crave more. It took me four years to try to get over him and one hour with him to fall back in love with him. I just." I look at her as she wipes her own tears off her cheeks. "I just hate this." I put my hands on my head. "He broke up with me because he couldn’t do long distance and refused for me to give up my dreams for him. And now we are doing long distance and it fucking sucks monkey balls with blue cheese dressing on it. I hate it and it’s been four days."

"Oh, Harlow,” my mother says, getting up and coming over to me and she wraps her arms around me. "You have to follow your heart."

"What if my heart is afraid of getting hurt again?" I say, putting my head on her shoulder.

"What you feel for him," my mother says as she rubs my back, "you will never feel for anyone else, this I can guarantee you."

"But love is supposed to be easy." She just laughs.

"The last thing that love is, is easy." I can’t help but laugh at the irony of it, and she lets me go and holds my face. "If it was easy, no one would want it."

"I love him," I share and she smiles at me. "Like not just, oh yeah, I love you. It’s like the I love you so much it hurts when I can’t kiss you."

"Why do you think I travel with your father when he leaves?" she asks me. "Why do you think that is? It’s because I just can’t live without him."

"Well, that doesn’t help me at all," I reply, and she laughs. "Let’s go and get you something to eat."

"I don’t want to eat. I need to find someone to take my place this weekend so I can go and see my man."

"Well, then, let’s get you to your man." She smiles at me and the little voice in my head is already making plans.





Chapter 23





Travis

I park my car in the driveway and the phone rings right away. When I see it’s her, I can’t help the way my chest contracts when I see her face. "Hey," I answer after one ring. The smile fills my face as I get out of the car. Pushing my shoulder up to hold the phone, I take out the flowers that I stopped by to get for her.

"Hi," she says and she sounds exhausted. She’s been on call for the last ten days; I look at my watch and see that it’s past 7:00 p.m. "I just got out of surgery." I stop walking midstep when I hear those words.

"Weren’t you supposed to be on your way here?" I ask her. The last text I got from her was, “leaving in an hour” and that was at three.

"I was and then I got an emergency call and I had no time to text you." I close my eyes and then turn to sit on the front steps. "I’m so sorry."

"It’s been over two weeks," I remind her and I’m pissed that our plans have changed yet again. Last week I tried to get out to see her, but then shit came up and I had back-to-back emergencies, so I just couldn’t leave. We’ve been talking about this weekend for the past week. I didn’t even make any plans except to get food in. I was going to lock the door and only open it when she had to leave. I missed her more than I could put into words, and every single day I was getting crabbier and crabbier, to the point where they were scared to talk to me.

"You don’t have to remind me, Travis," she says, and I can hear that she is pissed also. "I know exactly how many days it’s been," she huffs. "Even if I forgot, you would remind me." I drop the flowers on the steps beside me. "I have to go and take a shower. I’m covered in guts and shit."

"Fine," I snap out. "Call me after." I look down at the phone and see my screenshot, which is the picture that she sent me this week. She was sitting in the middle of the field with her hair piled on her head. With one eye closed, she looked more beautiful than she ever did before.

I grab the flowers and head inside, slamming the door behind me. I toss the flowers onto the counter next to my keys and my phone. Pulling open the fridge and grabbing a bottle of beer, I twist open the cap, throwing it into the sink, not even giving a shit. I walk over to the couch and sit down, kicking off my shoes. Grabbing the remote, I turn on the television and just flick the channels while I finish my bottle of beer.

So much is going through my head, it’s like a spinning merry-go-round. I finish the beer in three gulps and get another one. "I really fucked things up," I say to the television, taking another pull of the beer. "Should I have just asked her to come with me?" I look at the bottle in my hand. "I fucking hate this shit." I look at the television, not even knowing what I’m watching.