Always and Forever by Soraya Lane Page B

to post a pic of their car that she’d taken earlier. Her customers loved seeing snaps of her life and what she was wearing or doing. After a little while offline when things were really rough, she’d jumped straight back in to social media, sharing designs, what she was wearing . . . Lisa gulped. Pretending like she hadn’t had her heart ripped out of her chest and her dreams shattered had been tough, but there was also something freeing about being another person online. Work was what kept her going, and she liked the contact with the women who frequented her store or bought online, the fact that her clothes made them feel good.
    Lisa put her phone back in her purse once she was done and turned as Matt jumped back in the car. He passed her a Coke and put a bag of chips in between them, and she quickly ripped the bag open. So much for her post-cancer diet.
    “To hell with no sugar, huh?” she joked.
    Matt held up his Coke and banged it to hers. “Cheers to that.”
    They both sipped, and Lisa loved the taste. She never drank soda and it took her back to the drinks she used to buy at school when she was earning her own money and her mom couldn’t stop her.
    “Maybe we should have bought a more practical car. Like one with cup holders,” Matt said, taking another swig of his soda before balancing it between his thighs and firing up the engine.
    Lisa drank some more, not even bothering to feel guilty. She’d done so well with her special cancer diet of no sugar or dairy, but the sugary bubbles were definitely worth it.
    “Where are we stopping tonight?”
    “Anywhere we like,” Matt replied.
    She got the map out, a real one instead of the app on her phone. It was like trying to read Braille, but she squinted at it and turned it a few times and tried to look like she knew what she was doing. They’d talked about where they wanted to go but she’d been so anxious packing and worrying about the dog and her shop that she’d left it to Matt to figure the rest out. He was better at working out distances and stopovers than she would ever be. Lisa put down the map and angled her body so she was facing him.
    “Do you ever think about how different your life could have turned out if we hadn’t met?” she asked.
    “Hmmm, not really,” Matt said through a mouthful of chips. “If we hadn’t gotten together, maybe I would have moved away from Redding, closer to the beach maybe so I could have surfed whenever I wanted.”
    She put the map down and stared out the window at the Californian landscape as it whizzed past. “Would you be playing football still?”
    Matt chuckled. “Baby, we both know I wasn’t cut out to go pro, and I sure as hell wouldn’t still be playing now, not at almost thirty.”
    “How do you know you weren’t good enough?” she asked.
    “If I was, I’d have done it regardless of whether I was with you or not. Are you asking me all this to avoid having to read the map?” he joked.
    She bit down on her lower lip and gently chewed on it, ignoring the map comment. She’d always wondered if Matt felt like he’d sacrificed anything for her, whether he had dreams he wished he’d followed that didn’t include staying in their hometown. Suddenly she needed to know the answers to questions that she hadn’t bothered asking before, didn’t want to take for granted how he felt. Because now it wasn’t just all that stuff; it was the fact that she couldn’t give him a family, too. That she might have made him sacrifice something else. Would he have married her if he’d known? She tried to push the thoughts away but they were hard to shake.
    “I was a damn good high school quarterback, but I was never pro kind of good. Not good enough to make a career from it. You know that, Lis.”
    “You would have been picked up by a college team.” She wasn’t trying to pick a fight or dredge up the past, but suddenly she couldn’t stop, needed to know.
    Matt glanced at her before quickly looking