25. Pity Truth with Zero Qualms #2
“We’ve got about ninety seconds,” I tell him. “They’ll summarize one more time while pretending to debate. In or out, Jacobs.”
“In,” he says, sitting up a little straighter and giving the television his full attention.
Why is this so attractive?
When they’re done summarizing, I turn to Wyatt with my brows raised. “So, which house?”
“If I were choosing for me , I’d go with option one,” he says. “Good views but far enough off the beach it won’t be wiped out by a hurricane. It’s fine as is but could use some fixing up. Good bones.”
That would be my personal choice too. Not the show winner, but the house I’d pick for me . His reasons are almost the exact same as mine, but I don’t say it.
“But you don’t think they’ll pick that one?” I ask. “Ticktock, Wyatt.”
He turns to me, and not for the first time, the intensity of him knocks my pulse off course. The dark blond hair. The piercing gray eyes. That sharp jaw—all on top of broad, muscled shoulders straining against the sleeves of his T-shirt.
“They’ll choose the new build with no personality.”
I can’t hold back my grin. Even if his guess is the same one I would have bet on. Which leaves me with option three.
“I’ll say...the high-rise condo.”
A risky choice, since the couple clearly said they wanted a house. But I can just tell they’re the impatient types. They don’t want to wait on renovations, and they certainly aren’t going to do it themselves. Plus, the views from the tenth floor were hard to beat, and there’s a doorman.
“Is that really your best guess?” Wyatt asks, studying me.
I grin. “No,” I confess. “I would have gone with your pick.”
Which is exactly what the couple chooses. I groan, and Wyatt sits up straighter in bed, adjusting the pillows behind his back.
“Double or nothing?” he asks, and I laugh. “Double or nothing.”
In the end, we watch three shows and I owe Wyatt three truths. He is shockingly good for a man who swears he’s never turned on HGTV before.
“No fair,” I grumble, turning off the TV before he can suggest we watch another episode.
“Hey,” he protests, grabbing for the remote.
I toss it toward the door and it clatters against the baseboards, scaring Jib awake. She makes three turns in her chair before groaning and going back to sleep.
“You’re not allowed to be good at everything,” I say.
“I’m not good at everything,” he grumbles.
“True. You’re very bad at some things. But you’re good at too many things.”
“I’m afraid to ask what I’m bad at,” Wyatt says. “You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”
“Yep. But we can save that for another night. You’ve got three truths. So, go ahead. Ask about my deepest, darkest secrets. I’m an open book.”
I settle in, punching down my pillows as I turn fully on my side and prop up my head with my hands.
Wyatt mirrors my position, then twists back and clicks off his lamp, which was the only light in the room.
Now the glow of the moon seeps like mist through the curtains, blanketing us in soft blue-grays.
My heart immediately picks up the pace. I’d gotten used to being in this room with Wyatt, being in this bed with him. Now, suddenly, things feel more intimate.
“Are you going to sleep?” I ask, a little confused. “What about our truths?”
“Telling the truth is easier in the dark, don’t you think?”
I want to hug him. Not at this moment, because that would be the exact thing I don’t need right now, but I appreciate the thoughtfulness. Even if I am an open book, there’s something about Wyatt having the power of three questions.
“Thank you. Considering you’re getting three whole truths out of me.”
“I’ll let you have one to start with.”
“A pity truth?”
“You don’t want it?”
“Oh, I’ll happily take my pity truth with zero qualms.” I jump in before he can change his mind or before I rethink my question. “Do you think you’ll go back to playing hockey this fall?”
A simple question. One I feel like I should know the answer to by now. One I’m not sure I want the answer to. It’s almost like we’ve been living in a little hockey-proof bubble.
Is it bad if I prefer it that way?
Considering the fact that Wyatt views hockey as a part of his identity...probably.
“Yes,” Wyatt says finally, and there’s no real justification for the swell of emotion this one word produces in me.
It’s his career. Something he’s good at. Something he loves. Why wouldn’t he go back?
And why am I so disappointed?
“My turn,” Wyatt says, yanking me out of my thoughts.
I tighten my fingers around the edge of the comforter, wishing I’d suggested we bet for something else. Like...bragging rights. Or candy. Even money.
Why did I think truth was a less valuable currency than money?
“How many bathing suits did you really buy for Jib?” Wyatt asks.
The question is as unexpected as the laugh that bursts out of me. “Seriously—that’s your first question?”
“Yes. And you have to tell the truth.”
“Are you going to judge me?” I ask.
“Definitely.”
I pause. “Only three.”
“Only?”
“No, wait! Only three bikinis . There’s also a one-piece. It’s a fifties pinup style—”
“Stop,” Wyatt says with a groan, dragging a hand over his face.
“—with ru?es and—”
Reaching over, Wyatt covers my mouth with his hand. I laugh behind it, my lips brushing his palm.
“I am sorry I asked,” he says. “So very sorry. Can we move on?”
I nod, and slowly he lifts his hand away from my face. I’m tempted to grab it and press it against my cheek. But I let him go.
Wyatt readjusts his pillows. And he scoots just a little closer to me. Not quite touching. But close enough that I can feel—or maybe I’m just imagining I feel—his warmth.
“Why did you stop wearing nail polish?”
Never in a million years would I have expected Wyatt to ask me about this. “You noticed my nail polish?”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Yes.”
Maybe it shouldn’t, but his question throws me. Why did I stop wearing nail polish? And when? There was a time when I used to change bright colors week to week. When I started in nursing, I switched to more muted, standard colors. Then I wore no polish at all.
“I don’t think it was a conscious choice. It started to feel like too much.”
“Too much work?” Wyatt asks.
“No. Like... I was too much,” I confess. I’ve never thought about this until now, and I don’t like the realization.
“You could never be too much,” Wyatt whispers. “And for the record? I always liked the nail polish.”
This knowledge makes me unreasonably happy.
“Last question?” I ask, feeling buoyed by Wyatt’s words. “Hit me.”
Wyatt doesn’t make me wait, which means I don’t have time to prepare for his question, asked in the softest, haltingest voice possible. The unbearable gentleness has me smiling in the dark, thinking that fans of Oscar the Hockey Grouch will never get to see this part of him.
It also makes me miss his actual question at first. I see his lips moving and hear the words but don’t immediately process them.
Until his words start reverberating inside my skull, clanging like a drum. Or an alarm bell. A tornado siren.
Did something happen to make you dislike athletes?
That’s Wyatt’s third question.
It’s like he launched an axe at the center of my chest with deadly perfect aim.
“Wow.” It’s a strangled syllable. “That’s...a big one.”
I halfway expect or maybe hope that Wyatt will roll it back. Apologize and tell me never mind. Ask for my most embarrassing memory or maybe if I’m really okay with the way Jacob derailed my summer plans.
But he doesn’t.
What Wyatt does do is reach out and curl his hand around both of mine, which are now white-knuckling the comforter. Closing my eyes, I draw in a shuddery breath and find that I do actually want to talk about this.
I knew I’d need to if anything more were to happen.
The truth is easier in the dark.
Wyatt planned this, I realize. Turning off the light wasn’t because he planned to give me a pity question, but for this exact moment.
“Okay,” I say, my voice breathy but stronger than a moment ago. Building momentum.
I can do this.
It’s not such a big deal. That’s what I’ve been telling myself for years, to the point I can almost believe it.
Almost. Wyatt’s thumb traces a gentle, soothing rhythm on the back of my hand. His touch eases the tightness in my chest, even as I’m forced to remember the sour-sweet smell of alcohol on a boy’s breath.
Hands, everywhere. And his weight on me—so, so heavy.
You’re not there now , I remind myself.
Letting go of the comforter, I curl my fingers around Wyatt’s hands, which were still cupping mine.
“Jacob had some friends stay over the summer before he left for college. One of them”—I pause, swallow, draw in a slow breath, remind myself that it’s not a big deal, not a big deal — “came into my room while I was sleeping. The bathroom that connects our bedrooms only locks from the inside. Anyway”—I clear my throat—“he...climbed in bed with me. On me, really.”
A sound comes from Wyatt—a low rumble that sounds like it’s coming from the back of his throat. Almost a growl.
“When I woke up, I just froze for a few seconds. Probably minutes, I’m not sure.
” Wyatt’s hand moves, and I realize it’s shaking.
I tighten my grip on him, drawing strength from him or giving it to him.
Maybe both. “I really don’t remember much.
Just the broad strokes. He was on me, and I couldn’t move, and then the anger took over.
I grabbed the closest thing I could and clocked him with it.
Then dragged him back to Jacob’s room and put a chair under my doorknob. ”
Wyatt’s breath hisses out of him, and I can feel him tense. I pull one of my hands away from his and slide my fingertips up to his face, brushing them over his jaw.
“You don’t need to do that,” he says.
“Do what?”
“Try to make me feel better. This is about you. And I’m so sorry, Josie. I wouldn’t have asked if...I should have realized—”
“Stop. I was going to tell you anyway. Maybe just not...tonight.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Wyatt, please. It feels good to tell you. It isn’t a big deal,” I say. Wyatt rears back in the dark, but I keep my hand on his cheek. Steadying him, steadying myself. I’m not sure which. “I was still fully clothed and he didn’t—”
“ Josie .” Wyatt’s voice is a harsh whisper, a rusty blade sawing through the darkness.
I blink away the tears gathering. “I mean, comparatively, it was nothing. Legally speaking, it was barely assault. Almost nothing happened. So many women face so much worse.”
“It’s not a competition,” Wyatt says. “You don’t need to place what happened to you on some sliding scale and decide how you should feel based on what could have happened or what happened to someone else. Trauma is trauma.”
I scoff. “It wasn’t trauma. Just something that made me skittish around athletes.”
And maybe men in general. But I don’t say that. This experience isn’t why I haven’t had a serious relationship. It’s unrelated. I just haven’t met the right guy.
I can feel Wyatt fighting with himself, tension radiating through him.
“When we met and I tried to shake your hand,” he says, and I know where he’s going with this. “You flinched. This is why?”
“The guy was a football player. Huge. Maybe it’s not fair, but you’re a big guy. I just...reacted.”
“What’s his name? The guy who did this.”
“Why?”
“No reason.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I should tell you.”
“I think you should. I hope you hurt him.”
“Knocked him out.” I’m proud of this fact, and I’m sure he can hear it in my voice.
“Good.”
“I hit him with a ceramic unicorn I made at camp in middle school. I’m not even sure why I still had that or why it was in reach. The thing was ugly and covered in glitter. Apparently, some got in his eyes. Scratched his cornea.”
“I hope he went blind,” Wyatt says. I’m used to him sounding gruff but not fierce like this.
I like it a lot.
“He didn’t. Went on to play college ball at some D2 school.”
Now Wyatt does growl. Not a rumble, but an actual legitimate growl. It makes me grin in the dark.
“Are you going to turn feral?”
“Who says I wasn’t feral already?” he asks, and I shiver, then snuggle closer.
“Touché.”
Silence descends. A comfortable one. Soft, like the dim light blanketing us. Forgiving. Kind. A sense of relief unfurls in my chest, easing the tightness that wound through me at Wyatt’s question.
I want to wiggle even closer. To wrap myself completely in Wyatt’s warmth and solid presence.
“Should I sleep on the boat?”
Apparently, I’m the only one who wants to be closer.
I sit up, dropping my hand from his face. “What? Why?”
He sits up, too, and scoots back so far I’m concerned he’ll topple out of bed. The inches between us feel like miles.
“I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable with me. If you need...space. Physically or otherwise.”
He slides his legs toward the edge of the bed like he’s going to climb out, and I fist my hand in the front of his T-shirt, tugging him back toward me.
“Wyatt,” I say, a soft admonishment. “Don’t you know by now?”
“Know what?”
“I trust you.”
They aren’t the only three words I could say, but they’re the ones that best fit this moment. The other ones, the ones I suspect are also true, stay tightly curled behind my ribs. Where they probably need to stay. Possibly forever.
“I don’t know why,” I continue, “considering your constant grumbling about everything and the way you answer no to eighty-seven percent of questions you’re asked—”
“That’s a very specific data point. Josie, are you counting my nos?”
“ No .”
He chuckles, and I loosen my hand, letting go of his soft T-shirt and smoothing it over his chest. I keep my hand there. Though I can’t feel his heart beating, I know it’s there, steady and strong below my palm.
“Stay,” I whisper. “Please.”
“You’re sure?”
I am.
After a few minutes, Wyatt and I both settle back down on our respective sides of the bed. He makes a joke about building a pillow wall between us. I kick him in the shin. He traps my feet between his.
I don’t think it will be possible to fall asleep, but I must because I wake in the soft hush that exists between midnight and morning.
Wyatt’s feet still bracket mine and he has one of my hands clasped in his, right up against his mouth where I can feel the steady whisper of his breath on my fingertips.