Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
RYDER
I watch in fascination as Elizabeth finishes off the cheesecake.
“So good.”
She sighs contentedly and stretches her arms overhead, the pose innocently provocative. She doesn’t notice the blatant attention from a few of the tables, and I glare down the assholes who won’t stop staring at her. I get it. Elizabeth is stunning. Absolutely beautiful. When we walked in, several heads turned her way, all guys, and I had to tamp down the immediate sting of jealousy their appreciative looks produced.
Which brings me to…
“Trevor seems cool.”
Elizabeth swirls her straw around her iced tea.
“We ran into each other a few weeks ago at the beach. Remember the day I had lunch with Julien?”
I nod.
“That was the day.”
“He likes you.”
Why did I say that?
Elizabeth splutters her drink and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “I don’t think so. I don’t get that vibe from him.”
“He’s already given you a cute nickname.”
He called her Wildcat.
“As a joke,” she replies.
Deliberately changing the subject, I ask, “Do you have any more sessions this week?”
Elizabeth had told us about the therapist she’s seeing. I’m glad she’s going. She seems to be having a lot of nightmares lately. Come to think of it, the night she called me was the same day as her first appointment with Dr. Clairemont.
I don’t think any of us will ever be able to imagine the hell Elizabeth must live in now with no memory and having to start her life over from scratch. I wish Jay would ease up with the pressure he puts on her.
For a brief second, a haunted expression flickers over her face before it’s gone.
“I go again tomorrow, and I have an MRI on Thursday.”
“Want me to go with you?”
Her face is a myriad of emotions—fear, uncertainty, hope—all fighting for space in her expression.
“You don’t have to do that.”
When she begins biting her thumbnail, a nervous habit she used to do, I gently pull her hand away from her mouth and place it on the table. “I want to. You don’t have to do any of this on your own. You need me, I’ll be there. Always.”
She gnaws on the corner of her bottom lip. “I’d like that. Thank you.” Growing quiet, her gaze falls to our hands, still clasped together on the table. “Ryder?”
“Yeah?”
In the kind of silence that feels like it stretches forever, she finally looks up, her green eyes impossibly unguarded.
“Would you like to go out on a date with me?”
The weight of her stare produces a gravity that makes the air feel too thick, like I can’t quite breathe. For a moment, the world drops out from beneath me, and my heart violently slams against my ribcage as my brain finally registers what she said.
Did she just ask me out?
“What?” The word flies out louder than I intend.
“Go out...on a date,” she repeats, slower this time, her voice carrying a vulnerability that makes my throat tighten. “With me.”
I can’t speak. I can’t even think. All I can do is gape mutely, caught somewhere between elation and my goddamn conscience.
“What about Jay?”
She frowns as if perplexed. “What about Jayson? I’m not asking him out. I’m asking you out.”
Ten years of my life I’ve spent pining for Elizabeth. I spent almost half of that time watching from the sidelines after Jayson claimed her. Forced to watch all the times he kissed her. All the times I loved her and couldn’t be with her. All the times Elizabeth and I would collide back together, being pulled toward one another by buried feelings that we were forced to suppress because of that one night Jay went behind my back and stole her away from me. The night when she chose him because she didn’t know I was in love with her, too.
Now it seems that fate has given me a second chance. I think back to what Fallon said to me at the track, and I understand now. I’m being given a second chance with Elizabeth. But that chance may come at a price.
Elizabeth has no memory of what she and Jay were to each other. What happens if I say yes, and her memory comes back? Will she leave me and go back to him? Will I be able to survive it again? Am I brave enough to take this chance?
And what about Jay? This will destroy our friendship we painstakingly rebuilt. He’ll hate me.
A selfish part of me doesn’t care. Jay destroyed that nexus of our friendship years ago when he listened to me confess my feelings for Elizabeth, then immediately ran off and took her away from me. I may have stepped aside, but I have never forgiven him for doing that.
Elizabeth collects her trash and rises from her chair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you in an awkward position. I apologize if I was too forward.”
Do something. Do not let her leave. Do not let her walk away. Don’t be a stupid asshole. Grab hold of this gift that you have wanted so much for so long and take it.
It’s funny how random thoughts pop into your mind at unexpected moments. I remember Elizabeth’s words from the night she came to me after her fight with Jay. The night she chose to kiss me for the first time. The night she chose to stop fighting her feelings about us.
“I’m done letting everyone make decisions for me. I won’t do it anymore. How do I know what I want if I’m never given a chance to decide for myself?”
Right now, she’s making a choice. A choice that is all hers. And she’s choosing me. Not Jayson. Me.
My hand moves instinctively, lightning-fast, catching hers before she can take another step.
“Yes.”
Her eyes widen, a spark of something hopeful lighting them as she settles back into her chair. “Yes?” The word seems to bloom with quiet joy.
I pull her chair closer, my hand finding her cheek, the softness beneath my thumb like silk. I can feel the heat of her blood under the skin come to the surface, deepening the color before my eyes. I let my hand linger there, my thumb slowly caressing her skin, reveling in the fact that I get to touch her like this.
“Yes,” I tell her with clarity, making sure she doesn’t doubt how much I want her. “I would love to take you out on a date. But we need to be careful, Elizabeth. Jay isn’t going to understand.”
Her countenance hardens with resolve. “Who I choose to date is none of his business.”
“The love is still there, even if you don’t remember it.”
Her fingers curl around my wrist, not out of rejection, but to emphasize her point.
“I don’t want to cause any problems between you and Jayson. But it’s like I told Julien, I feel it, that thing that’s between us, and I’m pretty sure you do, too.”
The truth she hits me with is like a riptide, one I’ve been tirelessly fighting for too long. But the thing about riptides is to let it carry you away from the shore. Don’t fight it. And once you’re out of its powerful current, swim parallel to the shoreline, then back to the beach at an angle. Somehow, the analogy fits us.
“I do.”
She subtly tilts her head, seeking the warmth of my palm, and a sigh escapes her lips. Lips I’m dying to kiss.
“I would like to be able to explore that. With you. I can’t live in the shadows of the past everyone remembers. I want to start living now, in the present. And I want that present to be with you. What we do is between us. You and me. It’s no one else’s business.”
When my thumb grazes her mouth, Elizabeth presses a soft kiss to the calloused pad. Electricity zings down my hand and through my body at her featherlight touch, and I can feel that invisible string that has always tethered us together pulling more taut.
“You and me,” I tell her.
Her radiant smile lights up my soul.
God, I love this woman.
And this time, she’s finally mine.