Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
WREN
H e appears at the window, ripping the curtains out of the way and grabbing me around the waist so fast, I barely have time to suck in a breath before I’m suddenly deposited on the cushioned bench at the end of Drew’s guest bed.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he demands, crouching down in front of me as he runs shaking hands over my arms and legs. “Are you hurt?”
“Just a couple scratches from the bark but?—”
“You could have killed yourself,” he cuts me off, his eyes blazing in the dimly lit room. “In what world did climbing a tree in the dark in a dress and your bare feet seem like a good idea? You could have broken your neck. You could have been paralyzed for life. Or worse.”
“I took my time and was careful,” I say, though a part of me knows he’s right. Climbing two stories into the air in the dark was a risk. It was scary, too, but not as scary as the thought of letting Barrett push me away.
I know him. The longer he has to justify his decision, the more entrenched he’ll become. If I’d waited until morning, my chances of getting through to him would be even slimmer than they are now.
“I work out,” I add, lifting my chin, “I have strong arms and legs. And I wouldn’t have had to climb the tree if you’d come down to talk to me. Or at least opened the window instead of being a big cowardly baby.”
The muscle in his jaw clenches as he stands. “I’m not being a coward. I’m making the most mature, most reasonable decision for the both of us. Even though it’s hard and hurts like hell.”
“But that’s the thing,” I say, surging to my feet, wishing I were taller so I could look him straight in the eye without having to tip my chin back and push up on tiptoe. “You don’t get to make decisions for both of us. That’s not the way relationships work. We work through problems together.” He starts to speak but I cut him off, “At the very least, we’re obligated to tell the other person what the problem is. You can’t just run away without an explanation. That’s not fair to you or me or Keanu, who is going to be really sad if you make me move out, by the way. You know how much he’ll enjoy peeing in smaller, cuter shoes.”
His lips don’t so much as twitch, confirming whatever sent him running is serious.
I step closer, reaching for his hand, but he steps out of reach with a small shake of his head. “Please,” I add in a softer voice. “Tell me what happened. One minute everything was fine, and we were having a lovely evening and then you were suddenly just…gone.”
“I explained in my text.”
“Your text explained nothing. If anything, it just made me more confused. Like that part about my reputation being damaged. Where did that come from?” I ask, hazarding a guess when he remains tight-lipped. “Did you hear someone talking about me or something? Maybe thinking it was weird that you brought me to your ex-wife’s wedding?”
He looks away, making me think I might be on the right track.
“Because if that’s the case, I don’t care,” I say. “Lane invited you and offered you the chance to bring a plus one. And Lane and I have always had a perfectly civil relationship. She even smiled and waved at me after she and Grant finished their first dance.”
Barrett glances back, a pained expression on his face. “She’s good at hiding the way she really feels. Apparently.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“She thought there was something going on. With us. Before the divorce. Before her affair,” he whispers. “I heard some of her friends talking by the champagne fountain. They didn’t know I was there and…spoke freely.”
“And they said Lane thought we were sleeping together?” I ask, my brows shooting up my forehead. I exhale with a huff. “Because that’s crazy. We weren’t. You barely even noticed I was a woman.”
“I noticed, but…” His gaze drops to the carpet. “From what I heard, it seems Lane considered it more of an…emotional betrayal. One year I forgot about our anniversary. I stayed late at the office with you and ruined Lane’s surprise celebration. She never said anything, but it seemed that was a turning point for her in deciding our marriage might be beyond repair.”
I rock back on my heels, stunned. “Wow, that’s…” I want to say crazy again, but maybe it’s not. I was certainly emotionally invested in Barrett back then and eager to soak up every extra minute I could steal with him. I thought I was hiding the way I felt from Lane and everyone else, but maybe I wasn’t. “And the woman you heard thought I was complicit in that? That I was trying to steal you away or something? Is that why you were worried about my reputation?”
He shifts his focus back to my face, but slowly, heavily, like there are lead weights on his eyelids. “I’m not sure. More than anything, they seemed to feel sorry for you.”
My chin rocks back this time, the words hitting like a physical blow. “What? Why?”
“They don’t consider me much of a catch,” he says, his lips curving into a smile that doesn’t have a lick of happiness in it. “One of the women thought I’d emotionally betray you the way I did Lane. The other thought you’d wake up one day and realize you’d wasted your life caring for a man you’d created in your mind. And by then it would be too late for you to move on with someone else.”
I force myself to take a deep breath, attempting to calm the storm inside, but I can’t stop myself from asking, “Who were these women? Can I have names?”
He shakes his head and I press my lips together.
“Fine,” I force out through clenched teeth. “I don’t need to know their names to know they’re catty gossips who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.”
He sighs. “That’s another thing they mentioned. That I touched your ass an embarrassing number of times.”
My jaw drops. “I think that’s for you and me to decide, not a bunch of jerks who clearly have no idea what they’re talking about.”
“They weren’t jerks,” he says. “They were upstanding members of the community. Well-liked people. People who come to us for care.”
“Well, they can go somewhere else if they don’t like the fact that we’re dating,” I shoot back, even as shame creeps into my chest on sharp, stinging little feet. I was so lost in the love glow; I hadn’t even noticed that Barrett was touching me inappropriately or imagined that anyone else might notice. “Besides, you would never emotionally betray me. That’s not the type of man you are.”
“I wouldn’t mean to,” he says. “But I didn’t mean to with Lane, either. I didn’t even realize I was doing it. Just like I didn’t realize so many things about you or have any idea how you felt about me for so long. I’m oblivious, Wren, and it hurts the people who matter most. I can’t hurt you the way I hurt Lane. I just…can’t. I’d never forgive myself.”
I step closer. This time, he lets me, but just barely. I can feel how close he is to bolting and know I have to tread carefully. Barrett is so strong and steady, the man everyone in his family and the community can count on, but his faith in himself has been tested the past few months and it’s left him on unsteady ground.
“I’m not like Lane. I don’t suffer in silence. If you hurt me, I’d let you know about it,” I say softly. “That’s why I’m here. Because that text and being left alone at your ex-wife’s wedding really hurt.”
He winces. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry,” I say. “I want you to promise me you won’t do something like that again. The next time you overhear something that makes you doubt yourself, or us, I want you to come to me first. Then we can talk through things together before any rash decisions are made.”
“You deserve better,” he says, his voice rough and raw. “You deserve a man who knows how to get love right the first time, not an emotionally stunted oddball the community tolerates because he’s good at his job.”
“Great,” I correct. “You’re great at your job. And you know what else you’re great at? Loving me.” I blink faster, fighting the tears pressing at the backs of my eyes. “The past few weeks have been the best of my life, Barrett. I am so happy with you. All week, I’ve been walking on air. I was so excited about sharing a house with you, building a home with you, I could barely contain myself. The other nurses kept making fun of me for wandering around the breakroom humming and smiling to myself, but I didn’t care.”
His throat works as he swallows. “I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Drag you down to my level,” he says. “Your reputation will never recover. You’ll always be someone these women and people like them pity, and you don’t deserve that. You are worthy of respect and admiration. You’re brilliant and kind and beautiful and an incredible nurse and you’ll find someone so much better, Wren. Someone who’s your equal in every way, who you don’t have to coach through every step of being a fully functioning partner.”
Tears slip down my face, and the feeling that I’m losing him for good makes my stomach churn. “You don’t get to decide what I deserve. That’s my choice to make, and I choose you. I chose you when I was twelve, when you were the kindest teenage boy, I’d ever met. I chose you when I was twenty-four and had half a dozen other job offers, and I’m going to keep choosing you for the rest of my life. You are it for me, Barrett.” I sniff and swipe the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hands. “And I don’t mind helping you learn how to navigate things like this. I really don’t. All I care about is that you choose me, too. I just want to be your person, and I know I am. I feel it every time you touch me. Every time you look at me. We’re meant to be together. Can’t you see that?”
His shoulders begin to shake, and all the blood instantly drains from my limbs to pool in my core.
I’ve never seen Barrett cry. Ever.
I’ve never even seen him sad, really. Even after his divorce, he was low energy and obviously down, but his grief was tightly controlled, like everything else about him.
Now, he’s unravelling in front of my eyes.
“I don’t know what to do,” he says. “I don’t know, Wren. I don’t want to let you down or hurt you, but I don’t trust myself. So many things fly under my radar. How can I make promises to you and know I can keep them when I’m consistently getting it wrong?”
“Getting what wrong?” I whisper, aching to hold him, but knowing he won’t let me. His entire body is stiff and he’s already backing away.
“Emotion. Connection,” he says, drawing his shoulders back as he pulls in a breath. He swallows and his expression smooths. It’s like he’s flipped a switch inside him and suddenly all the messy stuff is contained. “Love. I’m not sure I even know what it is, at least not the way other people know. And I sure as hell don’t have faith that I can give you what you need.” He walks to the bedroom door and opens it. “Please, go. Please, before we hurt each other any more than we have already.”
The world blurring from the tears spilling from my eyes, I head back to the window and crawl into the tree. A few limbs down, I hear Barrett demand that I come back and take the stairs, but I don’t listen. I can’t listen anymore.
It hurts too much.
It hurts worse than I’d imagined an emotion could hurt.
It tears away at me all the way to the wedding in Patrice’s car and back to Barrett’s house in the one, very expensive cab company willing to come fetch me at the winery. It hurts as I walk through the darkened rooms that I was so excited to call home, making me wonder if I’ll ever feel whole again.
Without Barrett, I’m afraid the chances of that are pretty slim.