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320 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 5, 2016
“It seemed like my entire adult life had been spent either running from or to this one girl. She was the compass when I was so lost I couldn’t find my way.”
“…every time I imagined myself having a future with someone, it was always Becca.”
“How could someone feel like an old friend and a stranger at the same time? Was it my own wishful thinking imagining a connection that no longer existed, or was it possible that even with the time apart, there was still a piece of me that he held in the palm of his hand?”
“Have you ever looked back on a part of your life with regret? Like if you could have a do-over, would you take it?”
“He kissed me like he was dying for my lips, my mouth, my tongue. Like the same madness that coursed through my veins was inside of him, too, pushing to get out.”
It seemed like my entire adult life had been spent either running from or to this one girl.
Maybe I was a fool. I probably was. But the thing with love was that once you felt it, it was impossible to turn off.
This was a decade of pent-up unrequited whatever-we-were, and we kissed like we couldn't get enough of each other.
Holy hell, in this moment, his call sign seemed totally apropos. He looked like the god of thunder and lightning, like a warrior who commanded and men followed.
On our first date. I told you I spent half the night fantasizing about you. You didn't ask me what I was doing the other half."
"Do I really want to know?"
"I was falling in love with you."
Look at me. Please. Forgive me. Let me in.
"What?"
"You being here. In South Carolina. With me."
"Not a nightmare?"
"It depends on the day you ask me."
"It feels like a dream."
"Have dinner with me tonight."
She grinned. "Okay."
I graduated from "maybes to "okays", and I felt like a fucking king.
Maybe it took losing her to realize just how much I needed her, the contrast between my life with Becca and my life without never clearer than in this moment.
I was a mess, felt cracked and broken inside, and she’d always been the one I’d counted on. It seemed like my entire adult life had been spent either running from or to this one girl. She was the compass when I was so lost I couldn’t find my way.
I didn’t know how to start over and I didn’t know how to just be friends, and I was terrified to let him past the electrified manned-by-viciousman-eating-dogs fence I’d built around my heart.
It makes it hard to remember to live at times, to just enjoy the moment, because you’re always looking forward, always preparing for the next deployment, the next TDY. Always leaving, always going, never just standing still.”
It seemed like my entire adult life had been spent either running from or to this one girl.
I didn't know if I felt guilty for having survived, or like I'd dodged a bullet, or guilty for feeling like I'd dodged a bullet.
Either way I felt like I was falling, reaching out with nothing to hold on to, the girl whose hand I wanted to grab, just out of my reach.
I wanted to hear about his life, driven by the desire to understand what it was that he found in the plane that he hadn't found anywhere else, that he hadn't been able to find with me.
"Don't come back here with your 'maybes' and your 'what ifs' and expect me to hang my future on it. I've been here before. I know how this goes."
"My life seems like it's spiraling out of control, and I'm trying to hold on, but I"m afraid I'm holding on to the wrong things. I love my job, but I love you, too."
...even though those ties had felt like chains pulling me down when I was younger, now they felt like roots keeping me grounded when the wind shook the fuck out of my branches.
"How bad is it if I send him a picture? Hot or desperate?"
Lizzie grinned. "Well, first off, you guys were together for like forever. Second, I was there Friday night and he looked at you like he was gagging for it. And finally, he went down on you in a field on Monday. I'm thinking a Wednesday sext is well timed."
And that was why she was my best friend.
I’d been an idiot before and thrown away the best thing that had ever happened to me, but there was no way I was making the same mistake again.
You couldn’t fake what we had. Couldn’t duplicate it. We were so fucking lucky to have found each other once, and even as I’d always suspected it, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that letting her go was the biggest mistake of my life.
Now I needed to fix it.
I’d never felt this way about anyone before. Wasn’t sure I’d even felt this way about her before. Maybe it took losing her to realize just how much I needed her, the contrast between my life with Becca and my life without never clearer than in this moment.
It seemed like my entire adult life had been spent either running from or to this one girl. She was the compass when I was so lost I couldn’t find my way.
Ten years ago Becca Maddison and Eric Jansen were very much in love, but they were also so young and wanted different things. She wanted stability and the family she lost when her parents died, and he wanted to make something of himself. So he crushed her dream and her heart, after five years of being together, when he broke their engagement by letter while he was away at the Air Force. Now it’s a decade later and they cross paths by accident. And the bond they had is still there. Eric wants to fix what he broke so long ago, but can Becca trust him to choose her this time?
“What else do you remember?”
“You’re the most loyal person I’ve ever met, and when you do something, you don’t believe it’s worth doing unless you give it your all. You love fiercely, would die for the people you love, but the flip side is that you don’t forgive easily, and once someone breaks that bond, it’s tough to get back in.
But if someone is lucky enough to be one of those people that you love, if they’re lucky enough to get just a moment of what you give, then they’d have to be a fucking idiot to do anything to jeopardize that. And if they were stupid enough, then they’ll do everything they can to get back what they lost because once someone’s had it, life without it is unimaginable.”
I really hate second chance romances. They almost never work for me. So this book was really just a case of “it’s not you, it’s me”.
There definitely were parts that I liked: the fact that Eric stills remembers after a decade everything about Becca, that he still remembers the dress she wore on their first date, and that back then and now he refused to let her give up her career for his, and that this time he chose her above everything else.
Now my big problem with this trope is that I never feel that the person who left really regretted what they had done, and that they had missed the other person. And in a way that was the problem for me here. Yes, he did sometimes miss her, but he loved flying more and it basically made him forget how it was with her. I also hate the fact that they didn’t meet again because he went after her, but that it was a chance meeting that set everything in motion.
I love how this author writes, the emotions she brings forth, how real she makes the Air Force life feel, and her sexy times are scorching. Her characters are amazing, and she just has this ability to suck you into the story. However, because of my issues with this trope, I just didn’t love this book as much as I loved the first one. But luckily most people don’t have this problem, and would love this book. This is an amazing series, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who loves scorching romance, with no OTT drama but only real life problems.
Easy’s book is next and I cannot wait. I really love him, and I hope that he will get his own HEA.
"I walked into the bar, already feeling about ten years past my prime."