Chapter Two

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"I never stopped loving you."

-The Best of Me, coming to theaters October 17

 ***

There are melodies that fill you and never stop, almost as if it were in tune with your heartbeat, playing until your heart beat no more.

Mine was a strand of sounds from moments I never quite realized would make up the happiest parts of my life—Adam’s low laughter when he was deeply amused; the tinkling of ice against glass when we’d nurse that one drink during an entire night of conversation until the ice warmed into melting; the soft hitch of his breath whenever he pulled me into his arms; the slight catch in his voice when he said my name; the steady rush of the water when we’d stretch out on the grass by the creek; the crunch of dry, brittle hay on the old barn floor; the scuffle of our shoes on the stone floor when we slow-danced; the heavy-hearted crooning of love found and lost playing from the old cassette player.

“Your taste in music hasn’t changed,” I teased as I backed away from the pool table where I’d just missed my first ball after sinking three of them straight in a row. The strumming of a guitar played the first few notes of an old and sad country song. “Still lots of cryin’, lovin’ and leavin’.”

Adam smiled but I didn’t miss the brief, ironic flash in his eyes. “For some of us, those four-minute tracks are the stories of our lives. There’s plenty more where those came from, they’d never run out of songs.”

My smile slipped but I said nothing as I watched Adam lean forward to take his aim. With one swift motion of his arm, he punched the ball across the green surface until it plunged deep into a corner pocket. 

A wavy lock of hair had tumbled down his forehead and I curled my fingers around my cue stick before I could reach out and brush the hair away. 

I knew where I wanted to be—wrapped inside those strong arms—but we were still tiptoeing ever so tentatively behind the lines, afraid of the fires that still scorched the edges. 

“Wanna dance?” 

Sometimes, the only way to get to the other side is to burn a little.

Adam stared at the hand I’d extended to him as he straightened, like somehow a wealth of wisdom rested there to tell him whether or not taking it would be the best thing he did in his life, or the worst. 

I patiently waited as he made up his mind.

I was, for him, both ends of the extreme, after all. 

One touch and I might just save him or send him to hell for good.

Adam took my hand and gently pulled me closer to him, our cue sticks dropping to the stone floor with a clatter. 

George Jones’s deep, clear voice thrummed with the longing and heartache of a man’s enduring love in perhaps his saddest classic, He Stopped Loving Her Today. It might have been a song written specifically for Adam except that on what could have been the last day he’d ever spent loving me, he might just love me still and perhaps, for always.

The way we fit together like puzzle pieces made me smile. So much had changed yet so much still remained.  Our feet moved fluidly, as if we’d danced this dance a lifetime now, our legs brushing as they, too, followed each other’s steps with old instinct.

“You still have all the moves to sweep a girl off her feet,” I said lightly. “You’ve had practice with many?”

I nearly bit my tongue off with that comment because did I really want to know? And did I really have any right to judge him by the life he’d lived without me when it was me who walked out of it?

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