Chapter 23
“Are you okay?”
Emily sucked in a long breath, trying to create some space in her chest for air. There was none. She was furious.
“No. I don’t think I am.” She walked quickly down the sidewalk, not only angry, but also sad. “Do I have some kind of sign on my forehead that says, ‘Go ahead—earn my trust, then shove me over the edge’?”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was stupid of me to think Faye could be my friend.”
The town gazebo and all the businesses were coming into view.
The community center, which had cleared out.
Everything just looked so ideal. The small-town streetlights.
The couples eating inside The Pancake Bar.
“It’s not easy to make real friendships in my world.
Not like here, in this perfect little town. ”
“Deep River is far from perfect.”
“Okay, maybe not perfect. But it’s real. Real people. Real relationships. This morning, a kid stopped an elderly man to tell him he’d dropped a five-dollar bill. And tonight, Maureen, a lady I’d never met, told me she’d do a reading for me.”
“Maureen would offer a reading before she learned your name. She also won’t charge you for the first session.”
“See? That’s kindness. That’s kindness without strings attached.”
“Emi, you’re limping.”
“It’s the cold. The cold makes me stiff.”
“Stop.”
“No. I have to move. I have to—”
“Stop.” He grabbed her arm.
“I’m not ready to go home yet. I need to walk this off. I need…I don’t even know…something.”
He glanced around, gaze landing somewhere behind her. “How about drinking it off?”
“What?”
He took her hand and pulled her toward a shop.
Deep River Liquor Store.
“Ryan, if your plan is to get me drunk so I forgive Faye, you’re going to need to buy a really big bottle.”
He went straight to the fridge and grabbed a four-pack of Blue Moon.
“You hate Blue Moon.”
He lifted a shoulder. “You don’t.” He paid, then led her back outside.
It was like the ice cream all over again. And she liked it. More than she cared to admit.
She thought he’d lead her to his truck. Take the beer home so she could drown her sorrows on his couch. Instead, he walked her to the gazebo.
He lowered onto the top step before patting the spot beside him. “Sit.”
“You’re not worried this mysterious movie killer’s going to get us?”
“There are too many people around. Besides, if they do come, I can shoot them and we won’t have to worry anymore.”
Her lips twitched as she sat. “Cocky, as usual.”
“Nope. Self-aware. This asshole doesn’t want to cross me, and they know it.” He twisted the cap off and handed it to her. “Here.”
She took the beer, and the glass was cold beneath her fingers. “This reminds me of the night we met.”
“You mean the night you fell in love with me at first sight.”
She couldn’t even laugh. It was true. She’d been willing to throw away every dream then and there, to the point her entire future had rearranged itself in one night. “Remember when you told me you were a SEAL?”
He chuckled, his gaze lowering the beer in his hold. “I believe you were up to cocktail number three when you said, ‘Like the fish?’ then asked if I could balance a ball on my nose.”
This time she laughed. “You so could have gotten lucky and taken advantage of me that night.”
“Nah, I was in it for the long game.”
Her small smile slipped. “Until you weren’t.”
“Emi…”
“Sometimes, I kind of get why you did it. I understand that I was about to give up something really big for a relationship that was pretty new. I know that you thought you were doing what was best for me.” She looked at him.
Really looked. Into his chocolate-brown eyes.
Eyes that almost looked black in the dark night.
“It was wrong…but I still kind of get it. What I don’t get, is how you could do it again. How you can see what this career has cost me, how sad it makes me, and still think that I’m better off doing this rather than being with you.”
A deep crease formed between his brows. “It makes you sad?”
“It feels like trying to breathe under water. The actual acting part, I love. But maybe that’s because when I act, I’m not me. I can let myself go numb for a while. At least I could…until I came here.”
“You hate it that much?”
“I hate it that much.”
“Then why keep doing it?”
Wasn’t that obvious? “What was my alternative? You walked away. Acting was all I had left. Should I have walked away from that too and been left with nothing?”
Emily, the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, thought that without him or acting, she had nothing? “Emi, you are so much more than your career. There isn’t a version of you that wouldn’t be remarkable in anything you did.”
Her brows flickered. “I liked the version of me with you the most.”
Fuck. He didn’t know how to respond to that. Did he admit that his best version was with her too? That after her, anything that had once made him smile just fell flat? Replaced by an emptiness at the knowledge that she was missing?
“Can I ask you something?”
A part of him wanted to say no. Because his gut said her question could ruin him.
But he couldn’t say no to her. Not under the stars with the cool Deep River breeze running over his skin. “Anything.”
“What do you think would have happened if my mother hadn’t messed with my phone?”
He swallowed, stared at the beer in his hands. He’d asked himself that same fucking question so many times since learning the truth.
He looked at her again, the answer suddenly glaringly obvious. “I would have requested emergency leave. I would have been by your side in that hospital.”
“And then?”
Yeah, and then? “I’m not sure.”
Her eyes fell, the corners of her lips turning down. It wasn’t the answer she wanted. And shit, he hated himself for that.
“Nora thinks I like making decisions for other people because I did it a lot when we were kids. And I got used to no one saving us. People saw that we weren’t safe with my mother.
But they did nothing, because they didn’t want to risk involving themselves in someone else’s business.
” His fingers tightened around his beer.
“Apparently, that might have done something to me…made me believe I’m not worth any type of risk. ”
Emily knew about his mom. He’d always been open about his upbringing with her.
But there were a lot of stories she didn’t know.
Stories that only lived inside of him and Nora.
The days they hadn’t seen sunlight. The days they couldn’t even turn the lights on because their mother had been scared someone would see and come for them.
“I’m sorry.”
“It hurt so fucking much to let you go, but I told myself I was doing it for you. That if you chose me, you’d eventually look at me and only see what you’d lost.”
Her hand went to his thigh.
“So, to answer your question…I’d like to think that the selfless part of me would have put you first five years ago, left that hospital room once you were better and gone back to my team. Let you live out your dream as an actress.”
“But?”
Yeah, because there was a but. “But I don’t know if I would have been strong enough to do that.” He looked at her hand for a moment, then back up at her eyes. “I think I would have walked into that room and been unable to walk away again.”
Tears built in her eyes. “I like that ending better.” She tilted her head. “And just so you know, you’re worth it. You’re worth so much more than any job or career or life that could be built without you.”
“You wanted that though.”
“Everything I thought I wanted changed after one night with you. The New York apartment became a small-town cottage with bright red Indian paintbrushes and floral wallpaper by the stairs. The busy fourteen-hour workdays cut down to a manageable job that allowed more time with you.” She lifted her hand and cupped his cheek.
“Without you, everything I previously wanted felt so empty.”
He wanted to close his eyes. Let those words, let the heat of her palm, beat into him like a second pulse.
“You weren’t just worth changing my plans for, Ryan. You were the plan. You became my entire future.”
Every word hit him so hard that air knocked clean out of his lungs. He couldn’t breathe.
Without taking her eyes off him, she set her beer down and slipped her fingers through his hair. For a second, she just watched him, her gaze shifting between his eyes. When she pulled his head toward her, there was no resistance.
She kissed him. And it was like everything else, the past, the pain, the versions of their future that never came to be, just disappeared.
He let her take the lead. Slip her tongue between his lips and taste him.
When he cupped her cheek, the warmth of her skin bled into his palm. He moved his thumb over that soft porcelain skin.
She exhaled against his mouth, like she’d been waiting for too long and was finally able to breathe.
He felt it too. The new ease of moving air through his lungs. The tightness around his chest loosening.
He pulled away just enough to look at her, then the realest words he’d ever spoken tumbled out. “I love you, Emi. I never stopped.”
She tilted her head into his hand. “I love you too. I tried not to. I tried so hard. But I’ve always loved you.”