Home Sweet Home by Bella Riley

“There was practically blood, Nate.”
    He winced. “Again, I’m a total asshole.”
    “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she said with a small smile. “ Total might be taking it too far.”
    It was good to see him start to grin, and despite the words that had been shot out across a scratched-up table at the Tavern, Andi knew she wasn’t ready to lose him as a friend. Not when she’d only just found him again.
    “You were right. I can see that now. We’ve got to talk about what happened between us. We can’t pretend nothing happened when we were eighteen.” He shook his head. “It’s just that I honestly didn’t realize things had affected me like that.”
    Appreciating his honesty, she found herself admitting, “Me, either.”
    “Once we’ve hashed through everything, said whatever needs to be said, we can leave the past in the past. Where it belongs. You weren’t the one making things personal last night. It was me, Andi. I shouldn’t have done that. I won’t do it again.”
    Boy, he sounded so sensible now. So different from the man who had been coming at her last night, all emotion and unavoidable feelings.
    Andi knew she shouldn’t be wanting that intense, difficult Nate back.
    But she did.
    Because then at least she’d known he cared.
    No. That was crazy. Of course, she was happy that they weren’t at a total impasse. Of course, she was thrilled that he was willing to discuss the condos with her in greater detail without it becoming a big, heated fight where one of them ended up storming out.
    He cleared his throat, looking more than a little nervous. “So I was thinking, what if we each get one night to try to make our point about the condos?”
    One night.
    Her brain—and body—immediately spun off in the worst possible direction, away from condos and proposals and sensible discussions to other nights full of kisses and sweet caresses from their past.
    The same past that Nate was so bound and determined to put to rest. The same past she knew she needed to let go of too.
    Andi licked her lips, hating her own nervous gesture, but not knowing how to stop the nerves when Nate was this close, his warmth radiating out at her from across the counter.
    “I want one night to remind you of everything that’s good about Emerald Lake. What do you say? Will you give me one night, Andi?”
    Was that really yearning in his voice? Or was she just imagining it was there because that was what she suddenly wanted to hear?
    “When?”
    “How about I’ll take tonight and you take tomorrow night?”
    The longing to be with him swelled within her, swift and overpowering, pulling all of her emotions to swirl around inside her chest, right behind her breastbone.
    Still she tried with everything she had to tell herself it was the businesswoman saying, “You’ve got yourself a deal,” and not the flesh and blood woman inside.

Chapter Eight
     
    A s nervous as Andi was about spending another night with Nate—especially knowing that they were going to be having “the talk”—she had to smile when she realized where he was taking her.
    “I haven’t been to a football field since high school,” she told him. The new coach was already putting the kids through their paces when she and Nate arrived at the field. “Funny, it looks exactly the same.”
    Nate grimaced. “No kidding. We’re in desperate need of an overhaul. But hey, it still does the job. And the kids still love it. The town still shows up every Friday night. One day we’ll get there with something a little shinier.”
    Looking more carefully, she saw that the bleachers had seen better days, way better if the rust stains on the seats and beams were anything to go by. The goalposts were pretty darn beaten up, too. The seed of an idea flashed into her mind, and Andi made a mental note to think more about it later.
    She took a seat on the least dented row only to jump up with a small shriek. It was like sitting on an ice cube. The wind had