30. Blair
30
BLAIR
M y head spins, each revelation hitting like a physical blow. Love? I press my back against the rough bark of the old oak tree, needing its solid presence to stay upright. Everything is coming at me too fast.
"He didn't trust me." The words scratch my throat. "My own father thought I'd—" I can't finish the sentence.
Ransom takes a step closer. "Blair, it wasn't about trust. He was trying to protect you."
"By assuming I'd hurt you?" My voice cracks. "By thinking I was some kind of—" I wrap my arms around myself, feeling dirty, wrong.
"Stop." Ransom moves closer but keeps enough distance that I don't feel crowded. "You were the most important thing in his life. He panicked."
"And you—" I look up at him, searching his face. "You say you love me? After all this time? That's impossible."
"Why?" His brown eyes hold mine, steady and sure.
"Because you don't know me anymore. Twenty-five years, Ransom. We're different people."
He takes another step. "I know you still fix cars like you're solving puzzles. I know you fold the corners of pages in books instead of using bookmarks. I know you'd do anything for the people you care about—look at what you're doing for Maggie and Max."
"Those are just facts. Details." I push off from the tree, needing to move. "That's not knowing someone."
"I know your heart hasn't changed. You don't hate someone for twenty-five years without love still being there. They're two sides of a coin." His voice stays quiet, certain. "My heart's yours, Blair. Always has been."
"How can you be so sure?" I turn back to face him, anger and confusion tangling in my chest. "How can you just stand there and say these things like they're simple?"
"Because they are simple." He closes the distance between us, slow and deliberate. "I've loved you since I was fifteen years old. That's never changed. Even when I tried to stop, even when I thought I should."
The certainty in his voice makes my knees weak. I grip the tree trunk again, bark rough under my fingers. "I can't—this is too much. Dad's lies, you being here, Maggie being sick..." My breath comes faster; the air feels thinner. "I can't process all of this at once."
"Then don't." He stops an arm's length away. "Just breathe."
My heart hammers against my ribs as I stare at him. Twenty-five years of hurt and anger battle with that tiny spark of hope his words ignite.
"You can't just walk back into my life and say these things." I push away from the tree, pacing. "You have this whole deal in Chicago. Your brothers, your business?—"
"Blair—"
"No, let me finish." I spin to face him. "I saw the articles about you. Your company is huge. It's not just the garages; it's auto parts and real estate and god knows what else." My throat tightens. "That's who you are now. You're money and big business. And I'm just?—"
"Just what?"
"A small town mechanic." The words taste bitter. "I fix engines and change oil and argue with suppliers about part costs." I suddenly feel small, my life unimportant, and I hate it. I’ve always believed that everyone has a valuable part to play, but standing here, looking at him, I’m having a hard time believing it.
And I should nurple myself for that. It’s stupid, and not who I am.
Stupid feelings.
"You're not just anything." He steps closer. "You built something here, too. This whole town depends on you."
"Exactly." I rake my fingers through my hair. "I can't leave. And you can't stay. So what's the point of any of this?"
"Who says I can't stay?"
He says it so casually, like it would be so simple to do. And for a second, I buy in. Why couldn’t he stay? I can picture it now. The Billionaire working in my garage, getting his hands dirty.
I can’t picture it. It’s crazy.
"Your whole life is in Chicago."
"My brothers are in Chicago." He catches my arm as I try to move past him. "The business runs itself most days. And there’s this amazing thing now called the internet. And video calls. Those are amazing.”
That spark of hope flares brighter. I crush it down. "Stop. Just stop making it sound so simple."
"It could be."
"Nothing about this is simple." I jerk away from his touch. "You have board meetings and charity galas and probably houses all over the world.”
"I have a secret hamster."
The random statement stops me cold. "What?"
"Yeah, I live in a penthouse. And I spend most of my alone time on a couch watching movies with a free-roaming hamster. I named her Chester." His lips twitch. "I don't actually know if it's a girl or a boy. It seemed rude to check, but she has excellent manners, so I’m thinking girl.”
A laugh bubbles up before I can stop it. "You're impossible."
"I'm honest." His eyes hold mine. "I love you. Everything else is just details."
His casual use of 'details' sets off warning bells. I've heard that tone before — when he's trying to convince himself of something.
"You don't believe that." I search his face. "The way you said 'details' — you're not sure this could work either."
"Blair—"
"No." I hold up my hand. "I don't even know if I love you anymore. How could I? Twenty-five years is a lifetime." It’s true. I’ve lived more than half my life without him. That’s why this is such a mindfuck. Because it feels like yesterday. Everything I felt then is coming back, but I can’t let myself feel it.
I can’t still love him, can I? After everything?
His jaw tightens. "You're seeing someone."
"Adam." The name falls between us. "We've been... it's not serious. But it's been a couple of years."
"Do you love him?"
"No." The answer comes quickly. Maybe I should lie. Maybe that would be easier than being honest. But there have been too many lies already. "But he's here. He's stable. He doesn't complicate everything."
"Like I do?"
"Like you always have." I wrap my arms around myself, feeling the chill that has nothing to do with the temperature. "From the moment you walked into that garage with Dad, my whole world tilted sideways. And now you're doing it again." I remember that day so clearly — a gangly almost teenager with too much attitude and pain in his eyes, trailing behind my father like a lost puppy. I'd been so afraid then, worried that this boy would steal away my Dad, the only sure thing in my life.
But somehow, over the months and years that followed, seeing him grow steadier and more confident, my heart had started doing strange flips whenever he was near. Those feelings had grown into something deep and terrifying, something that had threatened to consume me entirely. And now here we are again, twenty-five years later, and I'm right back in that same whirlwind of confusion.
"I never meant?—"
"Yes, you did." I cut him off. "You came here to buy the garage. To keep your promise to Dad. But then you saw me, and everything changed. Just like before." I was happy, dammit. Content. And now I can't stop myself from wondering and wishing for something more.
That stability, the equilibrium I had is long gone.
He runs a hand through his hair. "What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to admit this is crazy. That we can't just pick up where we left off like no time has passed. That maybe we're both holding onto something that died a long time ago."
"Is that what you believe?"
"I don't know what I believe anymore." My voice cracks. "Everything I thought I knew about my life, about Dad, about us—it's all twisted up now. And I can't... I can't think straight with you standing there looking at me like that."
My breath catches as Ransom steps closer, his body radiating heat in the cool evening air.
"You're right." His voice drops low. "Maybe I am making it all up. Maybe we're both chasing ghosts. Maybe I’m wrong about how I feel." He moves closer still, until I feel the solid oak at my back. "But there's one way to know for sure."
His hands come up to frame my face, fingertips gentle against my skin like I'm something precious, something sacred. The tenderness in his touch makes my heart stutter.
My palms press flat against his chest, but I don't push him away. Can't push him away. The solid warmth of him seeps through his shirt, and memories flood back—stolen moments when everything felt simple and inevitable. Back then we were forever. I was sure of it.
And God help me, his touch still feels the same.
"Blair." He breathes my name like a prayer. "Tell me to stop."
"I—" The words die in my throat as his thumb traces my bottom lip.
He leans in slow, giving me time to pull away. But I'm frozen, caught between the rough bark at my back and the magnetic pull of him. His lips brush mine, feather-soft, testing.
"Oh god." The words slip out against his mouth.
"I know." He deepens the kiss, still achingly gentle. "I fucking feel it too."
The careful press of his lips sparks something deep inside me, something I convinced myself died years ago. My fingers curl into his shirt as heat blooms in my chest, spreading outward until my whole body tingles.
"This isn't—" I gasp as he traces my jawline with his lips. "It's been too long to?—"
"It was fucking yesterday, Blair." His voice rumbles against my skin. "Tell me you don't feel it. Tell me this isn't real."
Instead of answering, I pull him closer, claiming his mouth with mine. The kiss turns desperate, years of longing and hurt and want crashing together in a head-on collision.
His mouth moves against mine with a confidence he never had at fifteen. Back then, our first kiss had been tentative, questioning—both of us afraid we'd do it wrong. Now his hands know exactly where to touch, how to trace the curve of my neck. The way his fingers thread through my hair makes me shiver.
The memory of that nervous boy overlays with the man before me. Back then, he was darker. Emotionally heavier. The weight of his past pressing down on him. Now those same dark eyes are softer. At peace. And that throws me off more than anything else. He's not tentative anymore. He's an experienced man.
I remember standing down in that valley the first time. My heart pounding so loud I was sure he could hear it. How Ransom's hands had trembled when he touched my face, like I might break. How tentative he was, how quick to apologize. But I didn't want his apologies then. All I wanted was time to catalog the sensations, to try and understand all those big feelings pinging around in my chest.
Adam's kisses never make me feel like this—like my skin is too tight, like electricity runs through my veins instead of blood. His touch is familiar, comfortable. Safe. But there's no fire, no desperate need to get closer.
Adam is safe and predictable.
Nothing about Ransom, or my feelings for him, is safe.
Ransom's thumb traces my collarbone, and heat floods my body. Every brush of his fingers leaves sparks in their wake. I arch into his touch without meaning to, muscle memory from decades ago taking over.
"Blair." He breathes my name against my throat, and the sound shoots straight to my core.
The bark of the oak bites into my back as he presses closer. And I'm torn between the past, when everything felt possible, and the now, where I'm barely keeping my head above water most days.
His touch holds no uncertainty. His hands grip me like he never wants to let me go. Like he's making up for twenty-five years of distance in a single moment.
And I realize with startling clarity that every kiss with Adam has been a pale shadow of this—a safe harbor when what I really wanted was the storm.
Because that's what Ransom is. A storm perfectly designed to make me question everything I thought I knew. Everything I thought I wanted.
I shove him back before I even realize I'm doing it.