Chapter 32
CY
We need to talk.
No good conversation starts with that phrase.
But Sydney isn’t like any woman I’ve ever met, so I give her the benefit of the doubt.
I shoot a glance over my shoulder, finding the camera guys, Ted and Billy, leaning forward in their saddles, hanging on Sydney’s words.
They don’t even need to. It will all be available for playback since the mics we’re hooked up to are recording.
Fucking great.
I dismount quickly and help Sydney do the same. The instant her feet are on the ground, she’s moving away from Ted and Billy, but the second camera crew is already set up near the rock outcropping where I’ve laid out a blanket.
A redo picnic. One that doesn’t involve rain or snow or sprained ankles.
She freezes and whips around, her face a mix of memory and something else. Regret?
I close the distance, pulling her into my arms in a hug.
“What’s the matter?”
“I-I have to tell you something.”
Our eyes meet and hold.
The longer I search her gaze, the more obvious it all is. Her feelings for me. A future for the two of us.
We’re on the same page.
Relief floods through me. I thought she was going to tell me that she’s leaving. But that can’t be right. Not based on the look in her eye.
But she’s scared. And tired. Signs of it are obvious in the drawn skin at her temples and the blue smudges under her eyes. The lack of sleep is my fault, and if she’ll let me, I’ll put her mind at ease about the rest.
“It’s okay.” I cup her shoulders.
A line furrows between her brows. “It is?”
“I have to tell you something too.”
Her breath catches. “You do?”
I glide one of hand down her arm and lace our fingers, then guide her over to the blanket.
At the edge of the patchwork piece of fabric, she hesitates, her ordinarily graceful movements jerky.
It’s understandable. My own hands tremble slightly because of what I have to tell her. The importance of this place. It’s all coming together.
Everything I never knew I wanted.
“Gramps and my gran had a special connection to this place, and I—”
“Maybe I ought to go first,” she says.
I shake my head. I’ve waited long enough.
“Not this time, BB. You’ve beat me to the punch a few times already. I realize I’m not the smartest guy out there, but I’ll be damned if I don’t tell you first. I didn’t imagine this could happen when we started filming. In fact, I was pretty much hoping for the opposite. Until you came along.”
“Cyrus, wait.” My name is a whisper on her lips.
No one calls me Cyrus. Except Mama and Gramps.
And now Sydney.
Three of my favorite people.
But I can’t stop. Not now that I’ve opened to floodgate.
“You don’t take shit from anyone. You tell it exactly how it is. And you wear that prickly nature like a damn forcefield to protect a heart that feels things so deeply it’s scary.”
But I cracked the code. She uses a who-gives-a-shit attitude to keep anyone from getting close enough to hurt that heart. But I hope she realizes that she doesn’t need it. Not anymore.
“I see you, Sydney. You’re honest and loyal, and you keep me on my toes. And, well, I’m falling for you,” I admit, the words easier to get out than I thought they would be. “Have fallen. My search for love is complete. I-I love you.”
It’s the first time I’ve ever said those words to a woman besides Lois, Mama, and Gran. But now that they’re out, I feel lighter.
Except she hasn’t said anything in response. The longer she’s silent, the harder my heart pounds in my chest.
“Fuck,” she eventually murmurs.
My gut sinks. That’s not exactly the response I was hoping for.
Her eyes well, and as she studies me, one tear gathers itself and crests her lashes, running down her cheek.
Why is she crying?
When another tear escapes, I reach out and cup her jaw, wiping them away with my thumbs.
“Don’t cry,” I tell her.
Rather than slow, the tears fall faster, collecting at my fingers.
“You may not feel that way when I say what I have to say,” she rasps. “Dammit, Cy, I really wish you had let me go first.”
My stomach plummets, taking my heart with it.
She pulls back, breaking our connection, and my hands fall between us.
Say something, do something.
I need to fix this. But I don’t know how. I don’t know what’s going on. All I do know is that when I told her I loved her, she didn’t say it back. The sting of rejection fucking hurts.
“I-I haven’t been honest with you,” she says, stumbling over the words. She wipes her cheeks roughly and inhales deeply, holding it for several seconds before releasing it.
“I find that hard to believe,” I say. “You’re the most honest person I’ve ever met.”
It’s the one thing I can rely on with her. Brutal honesty. Unpredictable, brutal honesty.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I haven’t been.”
I catalog her expression, the pain and fear and regret there. Fuck.
“We met once before. A long time ago.”
No. It’s not possible.
“No. No way. I would have remembered you,” I tell her, my gut clenching.
Right?
“It was eleven years ago.”
Eleven years ago, I can’t do the math fast enough to keep up.
“I was sixteen. My best friend and I went to a Boys Next Door concert, just the two of us. Katie,” she whispers. “She was that friend. We snuck backstage afterward.”
Fuck. I search through fuzzy memories of concerts. Blurry faces, alcohol, lack of sleep, drugs.
But I don’t remember her face. The guilt that comes with that realization is big enough to swallow me whole.
“I—fuck.” I grip my hair and tug. “I feel like an asshole because I don’t—I can’t…”
More flashes. More parties. More women. God dammit, it’s suddenly hard to breathe.
“Did we…?” I can’t even get the question out.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Did we?
She shakes her head.
Immediately, some of the weight crushing my chest lifts, allowing me to draw in a full breath.
“Not for lack of trying on my part. I had this plan.” She rolls her eyes.
I’d smile at her attitude if I weren’t in the process of having my entire world turned inside out.
“You were going to be my first and then you’d magically realize that you loved me. Then the two of us would live happily ever after. Fuck, I was so na?ve.”
“What happened?” It kills me to ask, but not a single detail she’s given me rings a bell.
The smile she gives me is drenched in sadness and grief. In self-loathing.
I fight the urge to reach for her again. To tell her it’s okay.
“Katie,” she whispers. “While I was talking to you, she was talking to Asher. When he asked about her age, she told him the truth. When he came over and told you that I was only sixteen, you couldn’t walk away fast enough.
” She lets out a sardonic laugh. “Actually, first you were a douchebag. Then you walked away. The last time I saw you that night, you had your tongue down someone else’s throat. ”
Her words hit me like one sucker punch after another. Because knowing who I was back then, I don’t doubt her.
“I was so mad at her for that. For tattling on us. I know better now. I realize how wrong I was. But back then, I blamed her for ruining my shot with you. That’s why I wasn’t talking to her.
That’s why she was trying to prove to me that she wasn’t just a rule-follower.
” Her voice breaks off, her eyes filling with tears again.
“Because of that night. One stupid night that changed my entire life.”
Fuck.
Pain rips through me, a thousand cuts, each one more painful than the last.
They fought because of me.
How does she not hate me? Why didn’t she just drop out when she found out I was the searcher?
“Fuck. Sydney, I’m sorry. I—”
She holds up a hand. “You did what you needed to do. It was the right call. But it set my life on the trajectory that brought me here.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” I plead, my mind spinning. “When we talked about Katie or when we were at the cabin?”
She had so many opportunities to bring it up.
Why now?
She doesn’t answer, her focus trained on the sunlit pool at the base of the rocks.
But she hasn’t walked away. She hasn’t left. There’s no way she could have faked the emotions in her eyes when we got here. There’s a reason she’s still here.
A chance for us.
I reach for her, racking my brain for the words to reassure her. If anything, I’m the asshole. It’s a miracle she’s given me another chance, and I don’t plan on taking it for granted.
“None of this changes how I feel about you. I wish you’d told me, but if you wanted a fresh start, I understand that. Neither of us is the person we were then. I hope you can see that about me.”
She nods. Her cheeks are blotchy, but her eyes are dry again. “You’re not.”
“I’ll give you a confession since you gave one to me,” I tell her. “My plan was to pick the woman I thought America would be the least upset about when we broke up after the show.”
Her mouth drops open in surprise.
I nod, no longer proud of my plan. Regretting the person I was even a few short weeks ago. Who I was the first time I met Sydney all those years ago.
“I only agreed to the show because a big wig at the network gave me hope that if I did, he’d take on a project that’s important to me.
He’d give me the opportunity to direct it.
I wasn’t ready to settle down. Not until you showed up and blew up all my plans.
But I guess I blew up all yours too. You were probably livid when you showed up that first day and discovered I was the man you were supposed to date,” I joke.
I expect some smart-ass comment from her. But she surprises me again.
“Everything,” she mumbles more to herself than to me.
“What?”
“I knew before that day that you were this season’s searcher,” she says, her eyes flicking to mine before shifting to her lap, where she’s twisting her trembling fingers.
That’s right.
So she knew I’d be here.
Then why would she even consider the show? I don’t understand.
As I search her face, a warning bell clangs in my head and my lungs seize up.
“Are you Scarlett?” I whisper.