“Wh-what are you doing here?” Nick had intended to sound a lot angrier than that. He sounded more shocked than anything else. Well, actually, he probably was more shocked than angry when he saw her standing on his doorstep.
“To be honest, I’m not exactly sure. I was in Tampa for vacation, and I was driving around randomly in my rental car, and I kind of ran out of gas near here. I decided I’d rather pay you a visit than call a cab or anything,” she explained.
“You left fifteen years ago. Now you just wanna come and ‘pay me a visit’?” he exclaimed incredulously. “Sorry, Shelle, it doesn’t exactly work that way.”
“Please, Nick,” she begged. “My car is a mile away, I’m tired, and it’s starting to rain. It’ll probably start storming soon, and you know how much I hate storms.”
After several moments, he sighed and stepped out of her way so she could come in. “Fine.”
“Thanks,” she said softly.
He led her through the hall into the living room. “You can sleep on the sofa, I guess. You have to be up and out of here before Katie wakes up in the morning, though. That’ll probably be late. She sleeps in late all the time on the weekends, and she went to prom tonight, so she’ll probably sleep even later tomorrow.”
“Oh, God, I can’t believe I missed her prom.” Tears welled up in Michelle’s eyes as she looked at a recent school picture of her daughter on the wall. “I’m sorry I left.”
Nick took a deep breath and sat down. “To be honest, I was kinda hoping we wouldn’t bring that up. I was hoping we could pretend we’d never met each other before and you would just go to sleep and I would just go to sleep and then I would get up tomorrow morning and come downstairs to see that you had left, and then I would never have to think about you again…even though I know I would.”
“I was hoping that, too, but I felt I had to apologize.”
“I loved you, you know. More than anything in the world, besides Katie,” he said softly.
“So I left for nothing, then. I tore myself apart because I thought you didn’t love me when you really did. I went through hell because of my insecurities,” she replied.
“You weren’t the only one who went through hell.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry, Nick,” she sobbed.
His anger for her melted away…he had always felt bad when she cried…and he pulled her into a hug. “It’s too late now, Shelle. It happened fifteen years ago.”
“What did you tell her happened to me?”
“I told her you died. I didn’t want her to resent you for leaving.”
“Thanks.”
She met his eyes, and they burned into his. He was shocked at how easily feelings resurfaced after so many years. After a long debate with his conscience, he couldn’t resist it and gave in. He leaned down and covered her lips with his.
She started to respond, but pulled away. “Don’t do this to me, Nick. There’s too much history between us to have a fling now.”
“What makes you think this is a fling?” He kissed her again, but then, being the gentleman that he was, he pulled away. “If you’re uncomfortable with this – “
She cut him off by pulling his face to hers and kissing him passionately. “I’m not.”