Chapter 45 #2
“I never wanted to give anyone that kind of power over me again. I lost the family I thought we were going to be, and I almost lost my dream of playing hockey professionally. Not letting anyone close enough to hurt me like that again became my number one priority when it came to relationships.”
“I get that,” she says, squeezing my hand before she pulls away.
“Because?”
She lets out the kind of silent laugh that shakes her chest slightly, and rolls her eyes.
“I’m starting to think that maybe I’ve subconsciously chosen guys who have obvious red flags because then, when they eventually do something shitty and break things off, I can refer back to those red flags as reasons they would have been a terrible partner.
I’d rather think I was lucky to escape when I did, than think that I’m unlovable,” she says, looking down at the table.
I reach across the space, cupping her jaw in my palm and lifting her chin so that she’s looking at me.
“You deserve to be loved for exactly who you are, because loving you is not hard, no matter what you’ve been led to believe.
In fact, loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.
So easy that I can’t make myself stop, no matter how hard I try. ”
Her throat bobs as she swallows, and her eyes widen. “Did you just say what I think you said?”
“That I’m in love with you? Yes. And I want everyone to know it.”
“What about my dad, and your contract negotiations?”
I give her a sly smile. “I already got his blessing. How do you think I knew where you’d be tonight?”
She laughs in response, and finally seeing her smile has me relaxing in a way I haven’t been able to since I let her walk away from me that night in front of my house. “No wonder he asked where Sean was taking me tonight.”
I clear my throat. “Let’s agree that we’re not going to talk about other men you’ve been with. I’ve met too many of them already.”
“First of all, I wasn’t with Sean—”
“Whatever,” I interrupt. “I don’t want to think of you with anyone but me.”
She just shakes her head at me. “And secondly, your jealousy and refusal to talk about past partners are both signs of emotional immaturity. I swear, you’re a walking red flag, Aidan Renaud.”
Just the kind she says she always falls for.
“Yeah, but I’m your red flag. And I’ll work on all of that . . . the jealousy, and being more open to talking about the past so we make sure not to repeat those mistakes with each other. Whatever you need from me, Morgan, that’s what I want to give you.”
“You already have. That’s what I told you that night. You showed me what it felt like to be accepted and supported unconditionally—”
“Yes, but you need to know that this isn’t just me accepting you as you are. These last two weeks without you, it was like part of my soul was missing. I crave your company, and the way you make me want to be a better version of myself.”
“This is . . . a lot to process, Aidan.” She lets her hand slip off mine.
“Letting you back in after you pushed me away feels like a familiar pattern that I promised myself I’d avoid moving forward.
At the end of the summer, AJ reminded me that when people show you who they are, you need to believe them. ”
“And what did I show you?” I ask the question with genuine curiosity, and also trepidation about her reply.
She sighs. “On the one hand, you showed me how I should be treated in a relationship. On the other hand, you played a bunch of fucking mind games, insisting that you didn’t have feelings for me and pushing me away when I admitted I wanted more than friends with benefits.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you, but the reality is that I was thinking more about my own feelings than yours. And that won’t happen again.”
“I’m trying to wrap my mind around this complete one-eighty from not wanting a relationship. Because it sure sounds like you do, now?”
“I don’t want a relationship, Morgan. I want forever, and I want it with you.”
“How can I trust that you’re not just going to turn and run again?”
“I think the last two weeks taught me what Liam was trying to make me see back when we were in Ember Cove: that it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.
I know that sounds cheesy, but while we were apart, I never once regretted us being together, no matter how badly it hurt to be without you. I only regretted letting you go.”
I pick up her hand, sliding the narrow strip of paper from the straw beneath her ring finger before carefully looping the paper around itself to tie it into a knot on top of her finger.
She looks at that knot and lets out a short laugh. “You know rings are supposed to be removable, right?”
My fingers tug the knot gently, making sure it’s secure but not pulling hard enough to rip the paper. “Maybe I don’t want you to be able to remove it. Maybe I want a ring on you permanently.”
“That’s my right hand, you know.” A small smirk plays at the corner of her lips.
“That’s okay, this one’s just a promise.” Our gazes meet and her breath hitches. I want her to understand how deeply I’m already in this. “We’ll make sure the next one is on your left hand.”
“Aidan, this is . . .” She shakes her head. “You’re here now, saying all the right things. But two weeks ago, you pushed me away when I told you how I felt.”
“Which was the hardest and stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I was scared of how much I cared about you, and how quickly it happened. I promised myself that I’d never let anyone get close enough to hurt me again . . . but you vaulted over all the walls I’d erected—”
“Pretty sure you handed me the rope and pulled me over those walls yourself,” she says with a small chuckle.
“Maybe, but it still shocked me how completely I fell for you. I was telling you that it was casual, that we were just friends, while internally I was yelling at myself that none of it was casual for me, and that I should just tell you how I felt. But I kept thinking that if I could convince myself that this was just friends with benefits, it would hurt less when you pulled away.”
There’s a sadness in her eyes when she asks, “Why did you think I’d pull away?”
“I was going based on past experiences, I guess. That, and thinking that there was no way I deserved you.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true. Look at you. You are an attractor. Your enthusiasm is contagious. Your friendships are rock solid. Your colleagues respect the hell out of you. Everyone loves you Morgan. I think you just don’t see it because . . . maybe you don’t love yourself quite enough.”
“Way to take something sweet and make it an insult,” she says, rolling her eyes like she so often does with me. But I hold her hand tightly, not letting her pull it away.
“I don’t mean it as an insult at all. You just don’t see yourself how everyone else sees you, and I’m planning to spend as long as it takes undoing all the ways your mother has fucked up your self-image.
You deserve to be loved and appreciated exactly as you are, because you are already amazing and there is absolutely nothing you need to do to change yourself.
I don’t want to say that there’s no version of you that I could love more, because I suspect that I’ll love a lot of future versions of you even more—like the version where you’re mine, where you fall asleep every night in my arms and wake up every morning in my bed, where we grow and change together as we get older, where we’re sitting in rocking chairs with our gray hair, looking back on these days and talking about how far we’ve come. ”
Morgan gulps, and the tears that were pooling in her eyes spill over her cheeks. I lean over the table, using my thumbs to wipe away the tears. “Why are you so perfect for me?”
“Not sure. But I’m really glad I am.”
Her cheeks push up into a small smile. “That night I came to talk to you after I was at dinner with Lauren, Paige, and Eva, what I really wanted to say was that I was pretty sure I was in love with you.”
The tips of my fingers curl into the hair behind her ears. “And now?”
“Now, I think I’m even more sure.”
“I’m really sorry that I hurt you, Morgan. I should never have let you walk away thinking that I didn’t care. I was a mess that night—”
“Why?”
“You heard about Marissa Walsh?”
“Yeah,” she nods her head in my hands, but looks like she doesn’t understand why that would affect me.
I pull my hands from her face and sit back in my seat.
“Hearing Walsh talk about not knowing what he’d do if anything happened to her or the baby, and talking about how hockey was his only escape from the reality of what he could lose .
. . it brought back a lot of trauma, a lot of memories about what it felt like when I was in a similar place. ”
“You got scared.” It’s not a question, it’s an acknowledgment that she understands what I was feeling and why I made a stupid decision because of it.
“I did. I should have told you I wasn’t in a good headspace for the conversation we needed to have.
No, I should have told you all of this then—about Hayley and the baby, about how I really felt, and about how damn scared I was.
But the thing you really need to know now is I’m not scared anymore.
I’m . . .” I glance away, trying to think of the right word. “I’m hopeful.”
“How very unlike you,” she teases, running her thumb over the scar on the back of my hand.
I focus my gaze back on her. On the small smile gracing her lips, on her blue eyes twinkling in the soft light, on the freckles that have mostly faded but are just visible enough for me to remember what they look like.
“Funny, I feel like myself for the first time in a long time.”
The waitress comes up to our table then, apologizing for taking so long to get to us.
I want to thank her for not showing up sooner, but that would entail some sort of an explanation I don’t have time to give.
Because right now, I want Morgan to have all of my attention, and to finally know that she always will.