Always My Forever

31. Gemma

THIRTY-ONE

GEMMA

Aaron takes a deep breath, puffs out his cheeks, lets it out, and lets it rip.

“Look. I know there’s nothing I can say to make my behavior make sense to you. It still doesn’t make sense to me. There’s no excuse for what a fucking tool I was.” His frank admission makes me laugh out loud, despite the somber setting, the tension. He gives me a wry smile and keeps talking.

“But I’m going to do my best to explain it, from my perspective, after a lot of reflecting and my come-to-Jesus with my mom… I’ve realized a lot of things, Gem. And I want you to hear them from me. All of them. So if you’re willing to hear me out, it’s my turn. I want to come clean with you, fully, and let you know exactly where I stand.”

I nod my head, giving him permission, my attention, for as long as he needs it. As cathartic as it was for me—for both of us—to have my side laid bare, I hope we experience the same release with his. I honestly have no clue how some words will make his behavior better, or justify his actions, but I’m willing to hear what he has to say. He deserves that chance. I deserve it. If for nothing more than closure.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, his eyes darting to the couch and back up to mine again. “I won’t ask you not to speak. If you want to lay into me, or ask me for more on something…you deserve that.”

My chin tilts down slightly in a nod of appreciation, and he begins.

“I’m an idiot.”

The confession is so unexpected, so wide-sweeping, spoken with such certainty, and just so fucking Aaron that I crack up. His eyes alight at the sound of my laughter, and the tension is instantly half the weight of what it was a moment ago.

“Thanks for clearing that up, kid.”

His eyes darken visibly at my words, but he keeps going.

“Not only did I not see you like I should have for our entire friendship, I didn’t even realize you…had a thing for me.” He waves his hand on that last bit, like he can’t find the words for it, or he doesn’t want to put them in my mouth.

“That’s one way to put it,” I say with a little humor in my voice. Desperately, head over heels in love with him is probably how I’d word it, but no need to nitpick. It’s his turn to feel embarrassed now, not mine.

“Trust me, I haven’t stopped beating myself up over missing what’s been in front of me all this time since the, uh, the double date thing. I think that was the first time I really saw you for the woman you are, not the girl I met in seventh grade homeroom.

“And in case I haven’t made it clear yet, Gem, let me start by telling you that I see you now. I see the woman you are. The incredible, beautiful, selfless, unbelievable you that you share with everyone who gets past your impressive, impressive barriers. And I know those are there to keep me safe. Like you’ve always done.” Chills break out along my arms, leaving goosebumps behind, every hair standing on end from the sincerity in his admission. I think I might pass out at his next words. “But just so we’re totally clear here—I love you, Gemma Carson. I’m in love with you. And you deserve so much more than I’ve given you. But I’m going to try and do my best to walk you through my head, my biggest regrets, all the ways I fucked this up, and all the ways I’m going to make it better. Because I want a future with you, but I’m not the man you deserve. Not yet. But I’m going to get there.”

Hearing the raw words from him, the simple admissions I’d come to accept would never pass his lips…it moves me. I’m embarrassed to feel a cool spot on my cheek, the breeze of the air conditioning on a wet trail there. One of his hands comes out to cup my cheek in his warm palm, and his thumb wipes away the rogue tear.

“I’m so sorry for the pain I’ve caused you. For this tear, and any others there were before it.” His eyes are shining with regret, but he doesn’t realize for me, this is relief spilling over. For all the reasons I have to still be mad at him, I’ve never felt so full of hope in my entire life. My chest is so full of it, it’s brimming out through my eyes.

My left hand comes up to cover his on my face, just for a second, before he pulls back, fisting his hands and holding them tightly in his lap. I can’t help but wonder if his skin is still tingling, still burning with that touch like mine is.

“No matter how many times I think back, drive myself crazy reliving our timeline together, I can’t make much sense out of it. I don’t have a good reason for remaining blind to you all this time. The only thing I can come up with to explain it is that it was more than a friend zone that I kept you in. It was a best friend zone. I had this space carved out just for you, and it was sacred to me. I don’t know why I never saw you in this light before now—I think I had installed blinders around that best friend zone—every time I stepped into it with you, what we had was so special, so important to me, it was a world of its own. It didn’t compare to anything else out there. I didn’t even see you in the same light as other girls. It was like you guys weren’t even the same species to me.”

That hurts more than I care to admit. Feels a bit like I just got kicked in the stomach, kind of like that time Aaron was training with the guy who trained Thor and lost focus at the wrong moment. The air whooshes out of me, just like it did to him, only that blow he took that day wasn’t from words. I always knew he didn’t see me in that light when we were younger, but hearing it from his lips doesn’t do much for my confidence in that regard. It solidifies my decision back then to keep my feelings to myself.

“And I’m so fucking sorry, Gem, that it took me seeing another man realizing what I was missing to snap me out of it. To break down those walls I’d put up. To realize how you’re everything I could ever want in a partner. You always have been.” He lifts his hands a little and lets them fall to his lap again, hopelessly.

“But once I saw it… That’s something I couldn’t unsee. And I tried like hell to ignore it, I tried to keep things going with Kayla, to keep our friendship going as normal as I could—” his hand motions between us, “—but every time I was around you, it haunted me. You, your beauty, the chance of not having you for myself, it haunted me. It fucked me up, realizing that, realizing I was losing you. That I deserved to lose you. I’m far from proud of how I behaved this summer—I’m ashamed, I’m mortified, actually. But when everything aligned for me—when I realized why I was acting out, acting up, being a damn prick…that snapped me out of it. I think. Now I just need to make up for it. Prove my worth to you. Make sure you know I’ll cherish you, won’t make those same mistakes again. Whatever it takes to earn your trust, your forgiveness…hopefully your love. That’s what I’m here for.”

His words fill me with a warmth I didn’t know I could feel for him again. But I can’t get past how he treated me before any of that even happened. And I need us to get everything on the table tonight. Finally. So I voice it.

“I have so much I could say on that, Stone. And I have questions for you about that night at the restaurant, the night on my couch,” my eyes flick down to the said furniture briefly. “You acted like a fucking psychopath.” He looks chagrined at that, at least. “But before any of that…I don’t think I’ll ever be able to wrap my head around the way you dismissed me from your life because Kayla asked you to, and then the way you kicked me to the curb outside the trailers…”

His head drops suddenly, and he lets it hang as my words seem to have a physical effect on him.

“It doesn’t add up to me. We’ve worked together every day of our lives for five freaking years. Like I know we had a pretty lax arrangement between us, you were a chill boss, you gave me a lot of leeway in my days, but that’s because I was the best at my job, Stone.”

“You were,” he admits readily, adamantly.

“I know.” My voice is quiet but sure. “It wasn’t a job for me, it was just our life. And you were a fucking asshole about it. Like you just woke up one day and voila ,” I snap my fingers for emphasis, “suddenly you were this complete dick . What the fuck, kid? How am I supposed to trust you’re not going to wake up on the wrong side of the bed in another month, a year, a decade, and push me out again?”

“I jerked off to you,” he says suddenly, abruptly stopping not only my words, but my intake of breath.

“Wha—?” My question dies in my mouth. He looks up from the spot on the couch he’s been picking at with his fingers and faces me, owning his words.

“I got off to you. For the first time. That morning, the one we woke up together on the couch. I woke up hard as fuck, you were making these noises… God, the way you called my name, Gem, I’d never heard you like that before.” My cheeks heat and I can feel the flush without needing my hands to verify it for me. It’s my turn to drop my head, letting my hair fall in front of my face and cover my response.

I’ve never heard him speak so openly, so filthily. And about me? Suddenly I’m glad the air conditioning is on, we’re not quite in the heating season yet, because it feels real warm in here. He grabs my hand with one of his. One of the hands he used to pleasure himself to, while thinking of me. I wonder if he realizes how many times my hand has done the same? A jolt of awareness shoots up my arm from the point of contact, and my flush deepens, moving down my neck and chest. I force myself to look back up, meet his eyes again.

“It fucked me up. I had all these barriers between us, these lines, and they started to blur that morning. I ran to my bathroom, took a shower, and fucked my hand to the thought of how it felt to be pressed against you. How you sounded when you called my name, when you were grinding your ass on me.” My mouth pops open at his confession, and his eyes track down to it briefly, before darting across the room. He forces a hard swallow and drops my hand before continuing. My eyes don’t miss the way his thumb rubs back and forth across his finger, the one that was underneath my hand, like he misses the feel of it.

“I didn’t even know if you were conscious, if you knew what you were doing, but Jesus, Gem, I’m only a guy. But I had a girlfriend, and I had you in that…zone in my mind. But I was so uncomfortable with all of it. I felt so guilty. That was the day I told you about Kayla. When you guys met. I needed to bring those two parts of my life together, not keep you separate anymore. And yeah, she wasn’t super comfortable with how close we were. It was kinda hard to reassure her, when even I was starting to worry about how close we were. I mean what kind of boyfriend wakes up with another woman, with his dick halfway up her ass?” He shakes his head, like he’s disappointed in himself, and his eyes roam the room for a minute, like he’s looking for the words he wants to say.

“It freaked me out, it fucked with my head, and between that and Kayla…I started to push you away. I thought maybe we needed more space between us in order to have our own personal lives.” He pauses again, looking thoughtful. “I guess, in a way, I was right. There’s no way I can have another woman in my life when you take up so much of it, Gem. I just had it backward. I don’t need any other woman in my life, Gem. You’re everything I was out there looking for.”

My mouth works to take a shaky inhale, my lungs are still struggling to cooperate. My hands are trembling from the shock of what he’s telling me. Pieces are starting to click into place, and while I don’t agree with how he handled things, I am starting to see how it all happened.

“Then you started dating someone. It had been so long since you had dated, and I never really saw you with any of those guys, either. Hearing about this guy, thinking of you with him…it made me go nuts, but I didn’t know why. It’s like you were always my Gem, and in this short time…you weren’t anymore. I had some other girl there, and you were giving so much of your attention to someone else. I don’t know what to say other than I wasn’t prepared for what that would do to me, how much that fucking wrecked me. I know I was an asshole, Gem. I fucking was. I’ve never been more embarrassed in my life than I am of how I acted toward you in those weeks. One of the things I’ve realized the most is that I’m not me when you’re not in my life. You’re what keeps me me . I’m sure that’s not healthy, there’s probably a dozen labels for it, but I don’t care. It’s always been you and me. Because that’s how it’s supposed to be. We’re a set, you and I. Take us apart… Well, you seemed to do amazing on your own. But not me. Without you… I’m not the person I like to think I am. You’ve always been who I’ve turned to when things got tough. And things were never tougher than when I didn’t have you in my life.”

The tears are running down my cheeks at this point, but I don’t try to stop them, or catch them. They freely roll off of my face and splash onto my forearms below. My eyes are locked on his, absorbing every sentiment he’s sharing with me, and my heart is unlocking for him with every word. Allowing him back to his rightful place, where he can settle in, make himself at home, because I don’t want us to be apart again, either.

“I’m so, so sorry for my behavior, for what it did to you, how it made you doubt yourself, and us, but mostly yourself. You’re the most selfless person I’ve ever met, you’re so fucking strong, so brilliant, have I mentioned so goddamn beautiful?” My face heats again, and my head turns to the side, suddenly finding the black TV screen so interesting. “And I crushed that in you. I took those things away from you. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to apologize enough for that. But I’m trying. To be honest, even if you end up forgiving me for it, I doubt I ever will.”

My eyes shoot back to his, taking in the dismay in them, the responsibility he feels for what he did to me, to us. My hands seek his out automatically, and I grip them both in my hands as he keeps talking.

“I don’t have an excuse for hitting on you when you had a boyfriend. For trying to make a move on you. I’ve never been hit with jealousy like that in my life, and I couldn’t explain it to you if I tried, Gem. I’ve beat myself up about it every single day since I realized all this. And it still doesn’t make sense to me. All I could think at the time was you belonged with me , and that scared me. But I wasn’t willing to lose you to someone else when I was just finally starting to see you.”

He pauses to take in another huge breath, sighing as it comes out. Like he’s psyching himself up to keep getting this out. I rub his hands encouragingly with my thumbs a couple of times, and his eyes look down, a small smile gracing one corner of his mouth, and he continues.

“I guess you could call that rock bottom for me. I went to my mom after we had that night together here.” His head nods down toward the couch, the coffee table. “I came clean on everything to her.” He pauses, bouncing his head back and forth a few times in thought. “Well, I didn’t tell her the part about how I came super hard all over my shower wall thinking about your ass.” A laugh tumbles out of me unexpectedly, partially in disbelief of him speaking so frankly, so dirty, about me, and partially in rejection of him telling that to his mother who might as well be my second mom. Also, did I mention that’s his freaking mother? For at least the fourth time in the last half hour, my face flushes. He notices and shoots me a smirk.

“But I told her all the rest of it.” His voice, his face is somber again. His thumbs run over the backs of my hands where ours are connected. “She made me see how fucked up it all was. She, uh, she kinda let me have it. Made me realize for myself how it’s you that I want, and how badly I hurt you. All the ways you deserve someone better. I’ve never been so freaked out, so fucked up, in my life as that talk with her. But she pushed me through it. And for the first time, I got clarity. For me. I got my head on straight. It was like everything clicked into place, once I realized you were it for me… It all makes sense now. What I want, what you deserve, what I’d do to make sure you get it.”

He looks up at me from below those lashes of his, almost shyly, and my heart has no walls—not even a decorative fence— left around it. This man has full access to all of me, anything he wants, he can have it.

Maybe I’m stupid for being so quick to forgive him, but I can’t help but feel for what he’s shared with me. I can all too easily picture him, his confusion, his panic, struggling to make sense of things between us. My softest spot has always been for this man in front of me, and I don’t want that space forced in and jammed between us anymore. It’s unnatural, doesn’t belong there.

He places my hands back in my lap, gently, putting more of that cursed space there when he withdraws back to his side of the tiny gray couch. “I don’t blame you for losing faith in us, Gem. For doubting that I was the man worthy of your love for all those years. But I’ll carry the torch for both of us now, for as long as you need me to. Getting clarity on what I wanted in life, how you’re the only thing I need to be truly happy in this life… It’s made me a very patient man. A very certain one. So I’ll be here, madly in love with you, supporting you however I can, in any way you need me to, okay?”

My stomach erupts with butterflies taking flight at hearing those words from his lips. My eyes water newly, and I trace every detail of his face, his appearance, to remember this moment forever. And still, he keeps talking, melting any shred of resistance that might possibly still exist somewhere within me.

“I want to make it clear to you just how clearly I see you now. Make sure you know that I know exactly what I want. You were always my forever, Gem, it just took me a while to realize it. I’m sorry for making you wait so long for it to start.”

My head drops into my hands and the only word I can use to describe what’s happening now is weep . I am openly weeping in front of the love of my life, like an idiot. Not responding to the words I’ve waited half my life to hear, not jumping into his lap and claiming him for mine. Just…letting the years of longing, pining, wishing find solace in his apologies, his promise.

He leans forward to wrap me in his arms, so I drop my hands, press my face into his neck, his chest, soaking in the smell of him, the feel of his body against mine. My words are failing me, but my body isn’t. I bring my hands up to clutch at his arms where they’re wrapped around me, holding him as tightly as I can while I breathe him in. Make sure he knows I know we belong together.

One of his hands holds the back of my head, pressing me to him, while the other rubs up and down my back soothingly. My tears slow and eventually stop altogether as I feel the press of his lips against the side of my head. A chill breaks out up my spine and works its way out through my limbs, replacing the tears with an awareness brewing within me of every inch of contact between us. Everywhere we aren’t connected yet. A pulsing starts between my legs, which sparks with desire every time our bodies rock a little in this embrace, resulting in friction along my peaked nipples. Another chill of an entirely different kind runs up and down my body, and the anticipation, the longing, has me breathless.

After another torturous minute, he places one more firm kiss to the side of my head and pulls back from me. His hands stay on me, though. He places them on either side of my face, one hand gripping each cheek with a reverence I will cherish every time I look back on this night. And I realize this is it. This is where our lips finally, finally meet, and our forever actually starts. I lick mine in anticipation, and stare at him expectantly. And his mouth? Starts moving. But not against mine.

“As much as I want you, as much as I hope I can win you over, get us back to a point where we’re each other’s happy place—the port in the storm, the favorite hideaway—I can only pray that eventually, I’ll work my way back into that top spot in your heart. Find a way to convince you that you were right about us all along. Get you to give me a chance to make you as happy as I know I can.”

You’ve already done all that, a voice in my head screams. But my mouth says nothing.

I feel a watery smile on my face, and it’s met by one of his own. One that’s pure, full of adoration and a respect I didn’t realize I needed to see from him until this moment. He pulls his hands back, and my chest leans forward, chasing the contact I’m already missing.

“I need you to know that as many times as I’ll be tempted to touch you, hold you, kiss you during however long this takes…I won’t. Not as anything more than friends, at least. Just know that I’ll be thinking of you as a lot more than a friend. And my thoughts are far, far beyond friendly when it comes to you, Gem.” He pauses there, running his eyes down my body, over my chest, my stomach, the small curvature of my hips, even down my scrawny legs, before he drags them back up again. He licks that tempting bottom lip of his and shakes his head sorrowfully, clenching one of his hands repeatedly, like it’s taking effort not to put it to use right now. God, I wish he would. And then he crushes me with his next line.“I promise I won’t make another move on you. Not until you ask me to.”

Of all the time to lose my words, this has to be the worst of them. I want to tell him he doesn’t have to wait, that I want him to make a move now , we’ve waited long enough to see the light and get our shit together. But before I can find my voice, he’s standing up, stepping back from me, not hearing the screaming within my heart, that I don’t want distance between us. I want him, as near and close as I can get him, forever.

“This is an ongoing thing, Gem. This self-improvement shit. It’s a forever thing. I know I’m nowhere near the man I want to be. But I can see him off in the distance, and I’m getting closer to him every week. That goalpost will probably keep moving farther away—the more we evolve, the better of a man I’ll aspire to be—but I promise you, Gem. I’ll never stop chasing it, never stop trying to become the man you deserve. No matter how long it takes for you to forgive me. This…this is my life now. I’m going to earn your love this time.”

And with one more sad smile my way, he’s out my door, leaving me slumped alone on the couch. Which means he doesn’t hear my whispered words.

“You already have, kid.”