If It's Only Love (Lexi Ryan) novel Chapter 6

Easton

Seeing Shayleigh Jackson for the first time in almost seven years is like an iron fist to the solar plexus. I’d be a liar if I said I hadn’t thought about her in our time apart, and an even bigger liar if I denied doing a little Internet stalking to prepare for this meeting today. Her Facebook account’s locked down tighter than Fort Knox, so I couldn’t get much there aside from her profile picture and a handful of pics both she and Carter are tagged in. Instagram and Twitter were no more fruitful.

This profile is private.

I’m sure I’m being defensive, but it felt like those words were directed at me. Like she’s kept everything private just to shut me out. I’m not entirely paranoid. She’s done worse to keep me away.

Luckily for me, there’s still Google. The Starling University website didn’t disappoint. She’s a lecturer there, teaching classes in postmodern fiction and contemporary women’s lit. According to her bio, she’s working on a dissertation on the intersection of pop music and contemporary American women’s poetry, which sounds so much like Shay that I had to smile. Life is full of shitty surprises, but I’m glad some things stay the same.

No amount of research could’ve prepared me for what it would feel like to stand here. To be close enough to touch her. And I swear I can smell the lemon and lavender soap she fell in love with in Paris. I want to know if she still uses it. I want to know if she’s found an American substitute, or if down-to-earth, practical Shay pays to have fancy Parisian soaps shipped to her in Jackson Harbor.

I sent her a box of it for her twenty-fifth birthday, and the store contacted me a month later letting me know it had been returned. Would I like to send it to another address?

I didn’t bother. Message received.

“How’s the dissertation coming?” I ask her now. It’s hard to free myself from the tangle of memories when she smells like my favorites.

“Whoa!” Levi says, making a face.

Carter shakes his head and stage-whispers, “We aren’t allowed to ask that question until after she defends.”

Shay rolls her eyes at her brothers. “It’s fine. I just don’t like to be harassed about it, and for a while there, these guys thought I’d finish faster if they just asked more.” She gives a pointed look to each of her brothers, as if daring them to deny it. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“You’re planning to defend this spring?” I ask. I want her attention so badly that I feel like a fiend, but her curt nod tells me the desire to catch up doesn’t go both ways. If I were wise, I’d let it go, but I can’t.

“Easton, it’s so good to see you! I always knew fate would lead you back home,” Mrs. Jackson says, forcing me to turn away from my study of the woman I’ve missed so damn much.

I open my arms and wrap my surrogate mother in a hug. Her hair is shorter than she used to wear it. Carter tells me that’s because she lost it fighting cancer, and when it grew back, she decided she liked it short. “It’s good to see you, Mrs. Jackson.”

“Please, you can call me Kathleen now.”

“That’s sweet of you, Mrs. Jackson.”

She chuckles and pulls back, rubbing my arm. “I was so sorry to hear about your mother passing.”

I nod. “Me too. Thank you.”

She looks around. “Where’s Abigail this morning?”

“She’s back in L.A. with her nanny. I have a lot of business to take care of on this trip, and I didn’t want to overwhelm her with everything else going on.”

Kathleen nods, as if she knows “everything else” means the fact that my daughter found out in the worst way possible that she’s not really my daughter. Fucking Scarlett. When I discovered her lie six years ago, it was hard to swallow, but I realized if she hadn’t lied, Abi would’ve never been in my life. Since Abi’s easily the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I couldn’t stay angry about it. But then Scarlett had to go and reveal the truth in a drunken reality TV rant that the whole world would see.

The kids at school were relentless in their teasing, and the cameras I’ve kept away from Abi her entire life swarmed closer and closer.

“Breakfast?” asks a bright-faced woman with honey-brown hair.

Levi grabs a plate. “Finally. I’m starved.”

“Pardon my children,” Kathleen says, frowning. “They forget their manners when they’re hungry.” She points to the honey-haired woman. “This is Nic, Ethan’s wife. I think you met Lilly at Frank’s funeral,” she says, pointing to a little girl who’s at the breakfast bar filling her plate. She has dark hair like her dad and is around the same age as my Abigail.

I grin at her. “You were barely talking then. Just two years old. I bet you don’t remember me.”

Lilly shakes her head. “I thought you were bringing me a friend.”

Gratitude washes over me. We won’t be alone here, Abi. We have family. “Next time. I promise.”

Kathleen points to a woman with a dark bob who has a baby on her hip. “You remember Ava, I’m sure. She’s Jake’s wife now, and this is their daughter, Lauren.” She turns to the brunette hanging close to Levi. “That’s Ellie, Levi’s fiancée.”

“I know Ellie,” I say, waving at my Realtor. “She’s been house-hunting for me.”

“Are we still on for this afternoon?” she asks.

Shay

Lucky me, I have an email from a student about his two-week-late paper as an outlet for my frustrations. I’m a lengthy paragraph into a careful recap of my course policies when I hear the basement door open and close again. I know without looking that Easton just came back upstairs. Why is that? Why do I feel him when he’s around, even after all these years?