Just the Way You Are (Decadence Creek) by Ryan Lexi

Author:Ryan, Lexi [Ryan, Lexi]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance
Published: 2012-10-06T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Ten Years Ago

The apartment walls shook at the loud knock at the door, and Stacey’s pencil snapped in her hands.

She exhaled slowly and dropped the pieces. Maybe she wouldn’t even look this time. They came more often since her mother’s death, and she knew she wouldn’t let them in. Her daddy’s gambling buddies, his drinking buddies, and—worst of all—the men he owed money.

No, she wouldn’t open the door. But what if it wasn’t one of them this time? What if her grandmother had come to visit?

The numbers in her calculus textbook swam before her eyes. She forced herself out of the kitchen chair and across the apartment to check the peephole.

She nearly stopped breathing when she saw who was on the other side of the door. Her hand went instinctively to her belly. He couldn’t know. She hadn’t told a soul.

She rolled her shoulders back and opened the door. “Harrison.”

His eyes ran over her, taking in her baggy sweatshirt and jeans before meeting her gaze. It wasn’t a sexual perusal, more like he was checking to make sure she was still intact. “Can I come in?”

The apartment was clean, but it was small and sparse. She didn’t want him to see it. “You’d better not. What do you need, Harrison?” She asked, not any one of the million other questions she had for him: Have you thought about me? How’d you find me? Can you take me away from here?

She wouldn’t be that girl.

He got the message and shifted away from the door. “You disappeared. I…” He swallowed and ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus. I was so preoccupied with getting to you, and now that I’m here I’m thinking what an idiot you must think I am.”

Her heart squeezed. She wanted so badly for him to hold her. He would if she asked. But then she would cry and, in that moment of weakness, she’d confess her secret and his life would be over.

Instead, she asked, “How’s Dartmouth?”

His shoulders dropped. “It’s…great, I guess.”

She nodded. “Good. I hope…” She bit her lip and looked at her feet—bare against the cold linoleum floor. “I wish you the best.”

“Stacey, we never talked about what happened. That’s why I’m here. I’m not that guy who just walks away.”

And that’s why I can’t tell you. She shrugged. “You’re at Dartmouth. I’m here.”

“But we could—”

“Have a long-distance relationship based entirely on a single afternoon of sex?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. “There are worse things.”

She wanted to touch him, wanted to reach out and brush his hair out of his face and press her lips to his one last time. But her secret stood between them. “I’m going to save us both the drama and pass.”

Her grandmother was right after all. Harrison deserved better. “Don’t you do that to some nice boy. Don’t you let the poison of being a Parker bring down a man who deserves better.”

He stepped back, hurt tightening that beautiful face. “Right. Okay. Well, I’m sorry I bothered you.

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