“What thoughts have that smile on your face?” Momma asked as she put a plate of chocolate conchas and a serving of mixed berries sprinkled in sugar as if I were still five in front of me.
I looked up at her. “The truth?” I asked.
She nodded her head.
“You,” I told her.
CHAPTER THREE
ASA
Nash had offered to let me stay at his place while I was in town, but I had needed somewhere I could escape to in the evenings. I had decisions to make, and being back here in Lawton was enough to mess with my head. I wasn’t the same kid who left here five years ago, and I had a decision to make that would impact the rest of my life.
Besides, Nash had his own house now, and there were several people coming into town that might need a room. I’d leave his three-bedroom house available to them. It was more house than Nash required, but he’d finished college in three years by taking summer classes, gotten his teaching degree in physical education, then gotten hired full-time byLawton High as not only an offensive coach but a phys ed teacher. He made a nice salary for a single guy.
I winced at the idea of Nash single. I hadn’t been back to Lawton since he and Tallulah broke things off a year ago. I didn’t know all the details, but she had been offered a great opportunity in Chicago as an intern. They had done the long-distance thing until she had hooked up with her new boss or something like that. I wasn’t sure.
Putting my duffel bag on the white king-size bed, I walked over to the window. This was a new hotel. It had been built three years ago. There was nothing fancy about it, but it was clean with big rooms. It also sat diagonally across the street from the Ramoses’ store. Moving the curtains back, I saw what I had expected when I walked into my room and realized which way it was facing.
My view was the Ramos Stop and Shop. Great. Just what I wanted to look at every day I was here. Shaking my head, I walked over to the minifridge to take out a water that the guy at the front desk had said would be inside it. Along with the water were three chocolate bars, a bag of trail mix, and two apples. I grabbed an apple and bottle of water, then went to sit down on the chair beside the window.
Might as well look at the damn place and get it over with. Once I got my mind off Ezmita, I could focus on myfuture. She wasn’t a part of that. I used to measure every girl I dated up against her, and they failed. It took me until my third year in college to stop doing that. I still didn’t have any serious relationships, but at least I could date a girl more than once.
Damn if Ezmita Ramos wasn’t gonna be my girl that got away for the rest of my life. I took a bite of the apple and stared at the store. I recognized a few faces as they filled up their cars with gas or went inside to get groceries. Being back here was weird. It didn’t feel like home. Not with my mom buried in the cemetery. I hadn’t spoken to my dad in five years. Last I heard from Ryker, my dad was living in Little Rock. His momma was real informed by the gossip mill in town. It was believed that my father was also remarried.
I was the reason we hadn’t spoken. He had tried to call me a few times over the years, but I never answered. He had sent me a handful of letters that I never opened. Eventually he stopped. It was how I wanted it. I preferred a world where my father did not exist.
My thoughts didn’t get much further about him. Standing up, I walked closer to the window. My eyes locked on the girl I hadn’t thought I would see. But there she was walking outside carrying a bag of groceries for Gran Lee, Ryker and Asa’s grandmother. Even from here I could seethat damn smile that still haunted me in my dreams. Hell, it haunted me in the daytime, too. When I least expected it, Ezmita would always show up in my thoughts.
Last time I had asked, which had only been a few months ago, Nash said she was still in Nashville after graduating college. He hadn’t known much more than that, but I didn’t expect him to. Her hair was shorter, but it looked good on her. She looked older, like a woman. Not the young girl who had broken my heart.
It had taken me a while to accept that she had been right. That day in my truck, she had chosen what was best for her and in the long run best for me. I’d been ready to do anything to get her to come with me. To choose me. In the end, Ezmita had chosen herself. She had been more mature at eighteen than any girl I had dated.
The last time I had seen her, she had been holding hands with a tall guy who was speaking Spanish because he was talking about the night before when they had been making out in the stockroom of her parents’ store and her younger brother caught them. The guy had tossed Ezmita’s bra over the boxes to hide it from her brother and they still hadn’t found it.
Ezmita had been laughing up at him so hard that she was wiping tears from her eyes. Until she had turned and our eyes met. Her laugh faded, and then she had just smiled.She had greeted me and asked how I had been. Small talk that people who once knew each other did before going their own way again. She hadn’t known I was fluent in Spanish and I’d understood every word of their conversation. Nor did she know that my chest had felt as if someone had fucking kicked it. I drank a six-pack of beer by myself at the field that night.
There was no sign of the guy with her now. I had returned to this town for closure. Ezmita was the biggest part of that closure. I needed to be able to put my past firmly behind me in this town so that I could decide which job to take with a clear head. Reaching for my wallet and the key card to the room, I headed for the door.
Once I was outside the front of the hotel, I scanned the parking lot for Gran Lee’s Buick and found it pulling out onto the road. I turned my attention back to the parking area and found Ezmita just as she was about to walk back inside the grocery store side of the Stop and Shop. Someone called her name, and she paused and looked back to wave. It was then her gaze moved and she saw me walking across the road and in her direction.
The bright sun made it difficult to see her expression so I could gauge how this was about to go, but I knew Ezmita well enough to know she’d wait for me to reach her. I saw her move toward me then, and as I walked under the shadeof the awning I was able to see her smile. That damn smile still did things to me.
“Asa Griffith,” she said, looking happy to see me. “I didn’t expect you to be in town, but then again, I didn’t know about the field dedication. Mrs. Lee just told me about it. She’s so proud of it and what the boys are doing. It sounds amazing.”
Her voice was the same. She was the same. Just older and more appealing. Which wasn’t fair. God could have helped me out and let her age badly. Although my feelings for Ezmita went far beyond her appearance. It had been much deeper than that.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be great,” I said realizing how much of an understatement that was. “I’m here for the dedication, and I’m doing two of the camps in July,” I added then.
She still had to tilt her head back to look up at me. I always loved the way she did that. “You were the first one I thought of when Mrs. Lee told me who would be doing the coaching. I was hoping I would run into you. It’s been a couple years.”
“Two,” I replied too quickly.
Her smile, however, widened. “Yeah, I guess it has been. Time goes so fast now, doesn’t it? I mean compared to when we were younger. I feel like I blinked and college was over.”
I nodded once. “Yeah, I know the feeling. Are you backhere for a while, or do you live in Nashville now?”
Her smile fell a little, and she didn’t have a quick response. I wondered if there was something important I was supposed to know. Had someone died and Nash not told me? Damn, I hope I didn’t ask the wrong thing.