January Embers Read online

  “I’m sorry, Ari.”

  “You’ve said that a lot this month.”

  Mik swallowed the other apologies she had prepared in the past few seconds. This isn’t how everything was supposed to happen. She met the eyes of every spectator, half of whom were amused and curious gals, while the other half cracked their knuckles in warning. More than one of them looked pretty damn keen to teach Mikaiya Marcott a real lesson if Ariana wasn’t up to it.

  “Yeah, I’ve said a lot of things. All of it’s been the truth.”

  Ariana plucked a yellow petal off one of the roses. “The hell is this, anyway? Did living in the city make your so-called romantic creativity soft?”

  “Blame her.” Mik gestured to her best friend, still standing outside. Skylar looked away the moment she realized she was being called out. Nobody actually believed she was enamored with the weekly newspaper, yes? “She told me I needed to come up with some grand gesture, whatever that means.”

  Someone snorted behind Mik. It was probably Anem. She seemed the type to know what “grand gesture” meant.

  “Your kind of grand gesture terrifies me, frankly. You think I don’t remember the last one?”

  “Ooh, burn.”

  Mikaiya mentally blocked the comments from the audience. “I know all about yours, too. Like making out with me at the top of Wolf’s Hill?” She paused for effect. “This past Tuesday?”

  Ariana could have denied it, but her paling, sickly face announced to everyone else that Mik spoke the truth. Ha! Suck it! Ari wasn’t getting out of this one without everyone knowing that this push-and-pull they played went both ways. Even if Ari’s intention was to toy with and break Mikaiya’s heart, she still felt something deep enough inside of her to go through that much. Mik would take it as a win. A win for posterity… and a win for her heart.

  “Why you gotta bring that up?” Ariana positioned the bouquet so Mik struggled to see her ex-girlfriend’s face. “That was a moment of weakness.”

  “Weakness my ass! You still like me!”

  “I don’t like anyone! Ask all of these assholes! I don’t date!”

  “That’s a lie,” Heaven said. “What she means is that she doesn’t date for long. You should see all the girls she hangs out with in here…”

  “Shut up, Heaven.”

  “You’ve got some big mouth on you, hon!” Heaven tugged on her apron, her frizzy hair brushing against the doorframe as she spun around and interjected herself into the conversation. “I remember when you barely came up to my tits. You wanna go?”

  “No, I don’t.” Ari attempted to get out of her seat, but was so surrounded that even if Anem and the others wanted to let her go, they couldn’t. Especially if Heaven refused to move. “And, obviously, things have changed. I no longer come up to only your tits. Nor am I the scrawny weakling everyone used to push around.” That was directed at Mik. “Excuse me. I want to go home.”

  At first, Mikaiya did not move. Not until she had the chance to say, “I’m sorry, Ari,” one last time.

  Ariana scrunched her brows into a castrating scowl. “Sorry ain’t enough, Mikkie. I don’t care about the truth. Don’t care that you’re back in town. Just leave me alone.”

  That look on Ari’s visage was the only reason Mik finally moved out of the way, head low and so embarrassed that she was definitely never, ever leaving the house again. She was also having a serious talk with Skylar about what it meant to meddle in someone else’s love life. She’d be damned if it ever happened again.

  “Thanks.” That was the last thing she heard Ari say before the café door opened and closed. The silence she left behind made Mik want to scream.

  “Whoa,” one of the women behind her uttered. “Savage.”

  “All right, ladies. Show’s over.” Heaven waved everyone away from the table at the front of the café, let alone the door leading outside. Murmurs filled the air as Mik was left alone with the bouquet and Ari’s abandoned to-go cup.

  Skylar came into the café, disappointment on her face.

  “Sorry, Mik,” she mumbled.

  “Yeah, well…” Mikaiya let out a mighty sigh. “It wasn’t meant to be, I guess…”

  Skylar picked up the crumpled note left behind. “Was she crying?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Mik was handed the note. “It’s kinda wet. See there? Looks like a tear.”

  “No way. Ari’s not the kind of girl who cries all over some note from ghosts of girlfriends past.”

  “Did she used to be?”

  That made Mikaiya double-take. “What would you know about how she used to be?”

  “I only know that she’s changed a lot. How?”

  How, indeed?

  Mikaiya plucked the to-go cup off the table and showed herself out of the café. She didn’t wait for Skylar to catch up, or for Heaven to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing. Killing myself. That’s what it feels like. It probably was suicide to follow Ariana to her house two blocks away. Unfortunately for Ari, Mikaiya knew where she lived, thanks to that truck conspicuously parked on Florida Street.

  Whatever Ari had ordered in the café was probably cold by the time Mik reached the house, but it gave her an excuse to knock on the door and steel herself.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  That bellow nearly knocked Mik over when Ariana flung open the door. The only change between the café and now? Ariana had tossed aside her jacket. For the first time since returning to Paradise Valley, Mik got a grand view of how her ex had transformed herself from skinny thing to muscular EMT. Holy shit. Those are muscles. Like, defined muscles. Mik was damn speechless for a good five seconds. Long enough for her to remember she had a drink in her hand.

  “You left this back at the café.”

  Ari yanked it out of Mik’s hand. “I should throw this in your face.”

  Mik squeezed her eyes shut. “Then go ahead and do it.” She waited a few moments, until she realized Ariana wasn’t actually going to coat her ex’s face in coffee and foam.

  “If I threw hot coffee into your face,” Ari growled, “who do you think would get called to take you to the hospital?”

  “Your… coworkers?” Was that a trick question? Ariana obviously had the day off.

  Rolling her eyes, Ari threw open the door and tugged on Mik’s arm. “Get the hell in here. Sit down.” She all but tossed her ex onto the couch by the front – yet curtained – window. “No. Stop talking. I don’t want to hear more of your silly apologies. I want you to listen to what I have to say, for once.”

  Mik sucked in her bottom lip. Her ass was still recovering from the impact of hitting the couch like a space shuttle crashing into the ocean.

  “I have spent the past ten years dealing with the aftermath of you skipping town, Mik. It’s not only about us. It ain’t only about people pitying me or wondering what I must have done to make you run away. You don’t get it. When you left town, everyone felt it. Maybe I was the one most affected. Who gives a shit? Fact of the matter is, I don’t think you properly understand what…”

  “I understand.”

  Ariana stopped talking, her countenance conveying the ire of a woman never allowed to say her peace. “You do, huh? What exactly do you understand?”

  Mik cleared her throat. “I understand that running away didn’t solve a damn thing. I hurt us both when I did that. Obviously, I broke your heart, and I will spend the rest of my life apologizing for leaving you behind like…”

  “Less about me, more about you.”

  “Right.” Another heavy breath escaped Mik’s lips. “These past ten years haven’t been emotionally easy for me. The way I threw myself into my ‘new’ life was unhealthy. How it affected my love life was unhealthier. I heard what Heaven said about your own dating life. I don’t… I don’t think we’ve ever gotten over each other.”

  Ariana scoffed.

  “I’m serious. That’s why it’s now or never, Ari.” Mik stood up. We’re
still the same height, at least. Mik may have been the more muscular one back in the day, but Ari hadn’t grown much since high school. Not in stature, anyway. “We can’t simply ignore each other to death for the rest of our lives. We have to decide, right now, whether we’re totally broken up or still harboring some weird, old puppy love for each other.”

  Ariana took a step back. “Thought you said the other day that it was ‘real.”

  Really? She was doing this? Further proof that Ari might still have feelings for her ex-girlfriend. Why else would she play these games with Mik? Maybe I deserve a few head-scratching games, but they have to end at some point. She was inclined to finish them today.

  “It was real, Ari.” A moment of heavy silence settled between them. Breath fumed through Mik’s nostrils. Her palms sweat, and before she could wipe them against her jeans, she was reminded that the last time her hands sweated this badly was when she first told Ariana that she loved her. “I loved you, okay? I broke my own heart when I ran away like a cowardly git.” She bowed her head. How could she look Ari in the eyes when so much shame settled over her? “I’ve spent the last two ten years thinking about what happened.”

  The sigh swimming between them wasn’t one of tired exasperation. That was Ariana conceding defeat. To herself? To Mikaiya? To the universe that conspired to ruin such a good thing? Mik didn’t know. She barely knew where she was right now.

  “You ain’t no coward,” Ari finally said. “I visited your grandma earlier today. She made me realize how scared you must have been for us. I’ll always wish you said something, but… a coward? It probably took a lot of nerve to pack up your shit so quickly and get the hell out of town if you thought it meant saving our lives.”

  Life drained from Mik’s face. “You saw my grandma today?”

  “Yeah. Went to see how she’s doing. She’s pretty damn lucid for someone who had another stroke the other day.”

  Mik couldn’t help but chuckle. “I can only aspire to be as spry as her when I’m her age. Never mind lucid. I think she hogged all the good genes in my family, because I sure as hell didn’t get many.” As for her mother and uncle… well, they died young, hadn’t they?

  Whatever good nature she had summoned in that cozy living room died when Ariana clasped her hands against her arms and looked away, a dour countenance claiming the air around her. “I’m sorry, too. Guess I spent so much time forcing myself to move on that when you came back to town without any warning… it set me for a spin, you know? Suddenly I had to think about everything I felt way back then. People were lookin’ at me weird again. Not to mention, you come back here looking like a pretty city girl…”

  “Don’t remind me. You’d think nobody in Paradise Valley has ever seen brand-new Doc Marten’s.” Meanwhile, they hardly made her special in Portland. Half her office wore them. The other half wore Converse. There was the one random guy who wore Nike’s, but only because his wife was an engineer at the head campus. Then again, shoe brands didn’t mean much to people in Paradise Valley. All they cared about was how comfy and sturdy they were for all the brush clearing and hiking they did.

  “I’m serious, Mik,” Ariana continued, a touch of blush on her cheeks. “You look really good. Guess it kinda pissed me off. Why couldn’t you come back to town looking like a serious mess? Could’ve given me a nice ego boost to know I looked better than you now.”

  Mik almost guffawed. “What are you talking about? You’ve always looked better than me!” Before Ariana could debate that, she continued, “You used to wear all those cute dresses and was always doing stuff to your hair! Now you got like… muscles and look like you could carry me from here to the library without breaking a sweat!”

  “There’s a way I could do that, yeah.”

  “Lift with your knees?”

  Ariana slowly shook her head in amusement. “Good to see you’re as silly as ever.”

  I mean, I wouldn’t mind seeing her try to pack me off somewhere. Mik kept that thought to herself. “So, what are we going to do?”

  “You mean besides hash this out every time we bump into one another?”

  “I’d rather not, if it’s all right with you. I would like to be able to show my face around town. It’s bad enough my friend Skylar has heard ten different versions of ‘our’ story since she came here weeks ago. Did you know I dumped you for a dude?”

  Ari shrugged. “For all I knew back then, you had.”

  That hit Mikaiya right in her heart. I really left her with nothing. Mik had spent so much of the past ten years convincing herself that she had done the right thing, that Ariana had surely moved on sooner rather than later, that her uncle’s threats wouldn’t haunt them for the rest of their lives…

  Was it any wonder they were still torn up over one another?

  Ariana took a step toward Mik. Well, here it comes. Time for us to end this, I guess. Mikaiya would at least do themselves the honor of keeping her head up and her pride somewhat intact. That was the adult thing to do. Mature. Yeah. Mature.

  “I still love you.”

  Nope. Mikaiya had not been expecting to hear that. “What?”

  Ari broke eye contact. Her cheeks were so pink that Mikaiya was convinced her ex sucked the vitality right out of her. It also explained the swaying back and forth that commenced when Ariana debated a plethora of thoughts in her head.

  “Don’t make me say it again,” Ari all but whispered. “You know how embarrasin’ that is?”

  Mik could hardly believe her ears. “You… love me? Still?”

  “You ain’t exactly an easy gal to get over.”

  That deadpan tone somehow made Mik giddier than ever. “I mean, I don’t wanna toot my own horn or anything, but I figure that really has to make me pretty special, so…”

  For the second time that week, Ariana pulled Mik into her arms and reminded her that someone knew how to kiss as well as ever.

  Chapter 16

  ARIANA

  The woman sure knew how to run her mouth, huh? Some things never, ever change! Ariana must take that to heart if she didn’t want to get hurt again. Just because some people matured and changed for the better didn’t mean everything got better. Mikaiya Marcott was probably destined to be that woman who gabbed everyone’s ear off once they got her attention. She would also have that magic ability to pry her mouth open and insert her foot like she was the most talented contortionist in Paradise Valley – and there were quite a few of those!

  Good thing Ari knew the best way to shut that mouth up for a few minutes.

  It was like the old days. Only instead of Ariana succumbing to nervous giggles the first few times she kissed her biggest crush at school, she now commanded the space around them. Mikaiya was the one turning into the puddle of mush as she hastily flung her arms around Ari’s broad shoulders and dove head first into a kiss big enough to knock them both off their feet.

  This was different from the rainy day atop Wolf’s Hill. Ariana had an agenda then. She wanted to remember what it was like to kiss Mikaiya Marcott… and see that look of pain on her face when she realized it wasn’t meant to be. There was no agenda now, outside of further proving how much a certain someone had changed.

  Mikaiya wanted to make cute jokes about Ari carrying her across the room? They wouldn’t be so funny if they actually came true!

  “Whoa!” Mikaiya gave herself the hiccups from how deeply she swallowed that sound. Ari would have been pleased with herself if she weren’t so busy “lifting from her knees” to ensure she didn’t hurt herself when she heaved Mikaiya over her shoulder. Fists flew through the air. Feet kicked several feet away from Ari’s face. A tight little butt was in her grasp. After ten years of misery, Ari couldn’t think of a better way to show her appreciation than by smacking Mik’s ass on their way down the hall.

  “Keep putting up such a fuss and I’ll spank you some more, Mik!”

  “I ain’t fussin’!”

  That happy voice echoed in the narrow hallway. Ari kicked ope
n her bedroom door. She had a feeling Mikaiya wouldn’t be so affected by city living that she scoffed at a messy, unmade bed and a few dirty clothes on the floor. Wasn’t like Ari was opening the blinds or turning on the lights, anyway. She planned on keeping Mik distracted from what one grown woman’s bedroom looked like!

  “Oh, wow, I like how this looks!” Ariana was the master of her miniature universe as she pulled Mik this way and pushed her that way on the double bed. She wasn’t the first woman to find herself in Ariana’s bed covers, but she was definitely the most satisfying to witness scrambling around, attempting to locate her lost bearings while assessing the situation. I’m giving you what you deserve, Mik. If Mikaiya were so serious about still having feelings for her ex, well… Ariana wasn’t convinced Mikaiya would say no. To any of this.

  It was, however, a sweet reversal from how sex used to look like between them.

  “You’re like a fish floppin’ out of water, girl.” Ari pulled her covers all the way back and lost her shirt over the top of her head. Yeah, she figured showing off her sports bra would calm Mik down long enough to give her the kind of heavy kiss that made a woman moan. “Do I gotta put a hook in your mouth?”

  Mikaiya finally got a damn word out of her lips. “The hell are you talking about? That some code for tonguin’ me?”

  Not a half bad idea.

  Mikaiya figured out her place in bed as soon as Ari’s lips were back on hers. The urgency they had suppressed all week finally came to a serious head. There was no turning back. Ariana’s only hope was to make this the sweetest yet hottest lovemaking she ever entertained, whether in her own bed or someone else’s.

  A flood of memories came back to her as she continued to kiss, touch, and woo the ghost that had come back to town as if nothing had ever happened. Memories that unlocked the warmest parts of Ariana’s life… and the coldest. Hot nights in the locker room showers, in each other’s rooms, and in the loft of her uncle’s barn. Cold nights huddled together in the rain as they waited for their ride to pick them up from softball practice, hiking up Wolf’s Hill in the dead of winter, or drowning in ice cubes on warm summer nights. Team parties full of cheap booze, pot, and a dozen young gay girls swapping spit and stories. Playing Seven Minutes in Heaven and ensuring they got each other by carefully calculating the rotation of the empty beer bottle. Dressing up for prom like they were going to their own wedding. Arguing with Abby whether they really knew what they were doing or not. Chasing chickens in a neighbor’s yard for a whole five bucks. Returning library books so late that the computer system couldn’t figure out how much to charge them. Looking up naughty videos on the internet and wondering how those pretty ladies could finger each other with such sharp nails. Trying on each other’s clothes and laughing because they looked so ridiculous.