Southern Chance (Southern 1)

“You knew.” Kallie pointed at him. “You had to have known. You guys are the three musketeers.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. He looked as gutted as Kallie looked right now. “I didn’t know.”

“I don’t believe you,” she hissed, and then she looked at me. “I hope she’s worth it.” She turned and walked through the crowd, and my eyes followed her, my feet stuck to the ground. As I looked around, the crowd just looked at me. Some with disgust and others with sorrow.

She got into Casey’s truck, and he peeled off. She was leaving me, and I ran, I ran so fast after the truck. I pushed myself, calling her name over and over until my voice was raw. I ran until my legs burned and my knees buckled, leaving me in the middle of the road with the sight of the red taillights fading.

The phone rings, bringing me back to the present. My chest hurts just as bad as it did that day, just the same as it has since she left. “Hello?”

“You’re a hard man to get a hold of,” Casey says, and I roll my eyes.

“Not a hard man to get a hold of. Me not answering you should have been a clue that I have nothing to say to you.”

“Listen, I don’t have much time,” he says with attitude, and I laugh.

“Actually, me neither,” I say, and I hang up on him. Fuck him, he kept me from her. The next day, he kicked me off his property and refused to let me see Kallie. Then two days later, her father told me she was gone, and I found out he snuck her out of town.

Grabbing my keys, I say goodbye to Monica while I walk out into the hot Southern heat. I’m walking down the steps when I hear Ethan call my name. “Dad!” he shouts, and I turn to look at him. Luckily for both of us, my son looks exactly like Savannah, but he’s my son right down to my bones. I bend to catch him while he runs to me, and I bury my face into his neck, giving him a kiss. His laughter gets louder, and then I hear cars honking. I look at where it’s coming from, and it’s like I’m brought back to eight years ago. It has to be because there is no way I am actually seeing what I am seeing.

Kallie, looking as beautiful as she did when she walked away from me without giving me a second thought. The same Kallie who said she would always stand by me. The same Kallie I slowly started to hate. “Oh my God.” I look at Savannah beside me. “Is that Kallie?” she asks.

Chapter Four

Kallie

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” I keep chanting it over and over again, and I blink away the tears that have formed in my eyes the minute I saw him with his son. His son.

“Kallie,” Olivia whispers. She puts her hand on mine, and I just shake my head. “Is that him?”

“Oh, that was him all right.” I wipe away the lone tear that escapes and rolls down my cheek. “He and his son and probably his wife.”

“Probably his wife?” she asks. “Probably?”

My hands grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles are white. “I don’t exactly know.”

“And why don’t you know?” She throws her hands up and huffs.

“Because I didn’t want to know,” I say, turning onto the gravel road that leads to my family’s property. “After I left, I didn’t want to know.”

“But how?” She looks out the window as the trees pass us by.

“They tried to, but I shut it down. I told them I would no longer call if they even brought him up.” I take a deep inhale. “I couldn’t think of him with her, and I didn’t want to know. I locked it away and refused to even think about it.”

“How is this going to work now that we are in town?” I’ve been asking myself that same question since we started our drive. It would be easy to pretend he didn’t exist. But now that I was home and he was so close, I knew my heart wouldn’t be able to withstand it, and I was not wrong. The pain of losing him is even more now than before. The ache in my chest is a combination of pressure and little stabs of pain.

“I’m going to make it work,” I say, trying not to make her feel any worse than she already does about bringing me back home. “Besides, I think it’s a big enough town that I won’t run into him.”

“Dude, we’ve been in your town for a hot minute, and you’ve run smack into him.” Olivia points in the direction where we can from. “Literally one street.”