Chapter 20
Rory
Why does Garrett have to put it like that? But he’s not wrong.
I swallow hard around the lump in my throat. “Yes.”
The corners of his mouth turn down.
I hate the traitorous hope in my chest. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m not.” His words are clipped, though.
“It’s not something we need to do this weekend.” I back up, my legs bumping into the shorter of the two couches down here. My couch.
All I can think is, I’m going to miss sleeping next to him.
I slept so well last night, damn it.
He turns and grabs his bag. “I’m going to get changed.”
I avert my gaze as he unbuckles his belt and peels off his jeans. Not completely, of course. I can still see his long, strong legs out of the corner of my eye. Hello, rugby thighs.
They are more muscular than before.
Before.
He pulls on a pair of sweatpants.
Good night, rugby thighs.
Then he peels off his t-shirt.
Hello, sexy back.
I shouldn’t covet him like this. It’s not going to make breaking up again any easier, even if I take the coward’s way out and just inform my family via text message, maybe mid-January, that unfortunately Garrett and I have decided to part ways.
What I should I have done last April.
This is what I get for procrastinating to avoid the mess. I get even more mess.
I finally manage to tear my eyes away as he slides on a clean t-shirt for bed—goodnight, sexy back—and I try to get comfortable in my makeshift bed.
Across the room, he stashes his bag away, then glances my way.
I stare at the ceiling.
“You think I should have told you earlier that he asked me about a wedding?” he finally asks.
My shoulders tighten up and I try not to hunch them towards my ears. “You don’t?”
“Nope.” Unapologetic, resolutely calm. So Garrett of him.
I twist the edge of my blanket in my fingers. “Why not?”
There’s a rustle as he gets settled on his couch. Then he says, “Because it wasn’t emotional for me, but it would have been for you.”
I press my lips together. He’d already said as much, but to hear him say it again, and more explicitly…he’s right, and that’s a surprise. I’m emotional now just thinking about it. And he’s not, even about something that he claims he wanted very much.
Maybe he didn’t.
Maybe that’s why I pushed him away, even though he’s the only one I want close.
“Stop thinking that I don’t care,” he mutters.
I gasp. “Excuse me?”
“I can hear you.”
“No you can’t.”
“You’re stewing so hard the whole room is vibrating.”
“Well maybe I’m thinking there’s a reason why you aren’t emotional about it!”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Come over here and tell me all about it.”
I huff. “You’d like that.”
“Yeah, I would.”
I jerk my head sideways and glare at him. He’s on his side, his head propped up on his hand. And his expression is entirely unreadable. It sends my insides into free fall.
“Get over here,” he says, patting the cushion in front of him.
I swallow hard. “We won’t both fit.”
“We’ll fit just fine.”
“I’m mad at you.”
“You’re always mad at me. But I don’t think you want your family involved in this fight, so maybe you should come over here and be mad at me in a more up-close, quiet kind of way.”
I push the blanket off me and sit up. “We’re not fooling around.”
He shrugs. “Sure.”
“Garrett—”
He holds out his hand.
Heart in my throat, I cross to him and let him tug me down to the couch, where I very annoyingly fit right into the crook of his arm.
He covers me with his blanket. “I’ve heard that it’s more comfortable to be mad when you’re cozy.”
“Shut up,” I mutter.
But I still burrow deeper against his body, soaking up his strength and his heat. It’s a bittersweet kind of comfort, because I know it’s stolen, that last night was supposed to be our final night together in a bed.
Just like I was supposed to be relieved that tonight we each had a separate couch, but I lasted less than five minutes before scurrying into his arms.
Maybe I won’t spend the entire night like this.
He’s right that we shouldn’t bicker across the living room. If we need to have a conversation, we can do it close up.
And then I’ll go back to my own couch.
“I’m not always mad at you,” I whisper. It seems like a good place to start.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you were. I broke us up.”
“Because we weren’t happy.”
“Yeah.”
“Seems like a good reason to break up.”
“I thought so.” But then he takes a deep breath, his whole chest lifting, pressing against my back. And I hear the doubt, loud and clear.
I try to twist around, to look at him, but he bands his arm around my waist, holding me where I am.
“Can I tell you something?” His breath is warm against my temple.
“Of course.”
“I regret breaking us up. I’m not saying it was wrong, because I don’t think it was, but… Once you know how quiet, how completely silent loneliness is, it really puts what you once had in a new perspective.”
“Oh.” I close my eyes to keep the hot press of tears at bay. “I have regrets, too, you know.”
“You want to share?”
“I regret letting you think I didn’t want to get married.”
“Did you, though?”
“Yes.”
“What about waiting?”
“That’s the thing. I wanted that, too. And now I know that I can’t have it both ways.” I suck in a quick breath. “This is so hard.”
“It’s probably harder because it’s also your favourite time of year.”
It’s probably too self-pitying to tell him that it’s been agonizingly hard every single day since he left.
Yeah, that’s too much.
So I just nod.
He rubs his face into my hair. “New Year’s resolution to let go of regret?”
“Yeah. No more what-ifs about an apple orchard wedding.”
“That’s fucking specific.”
I shrug. “Doesn’t matter now. Plus being specific helps let it go, maybe?”
“Sure. I can buy that.” He makes a humming, thinking sound. “Okay, I regret not kissing you during our hookups.”
“What?” This time, he lets me twist around. I nearly fall off the couch, but he catches me and pulls me back against him once I’ve turned over. “Where is that coming from?”
“Every time you summoned me—”
“I didn’t summon you!”
His eyes crinkle at my protest. “Potato potahtoh.”
“You offered.”
“Still. Either way, I felt like I shouldn’t kiss you.
That wasn’t what we did anymore.” His jaw moves, then his throat bobs up and down.
I’m close enough to catalogue every little part of his visceral reactions to his own confession.
“But when this is over, if I’m going to do a postmortem on it, that’ll be my biggest regret.
Not kissing you more when I knew that every time might be our last time.
I didn’t make it the most it could be, and I regret holding back. ”
How am I supposed to respond to that?
“I thought the same thing, you know,” I whisper. “That every time might be our last. It actually haunted me that I couldn’t remember our last time before…you know.”
“The summoning?”
“The offering.”
“Mmm.” His brow furrows. “I think it was in the middle of the night.”
“Yeah, probably.” I swallow and focus my eyes on his mouth.
We stare at each other, a warm tangle of limbs and regret.
In the narrow space between us, my heart hammers in a wild, irregular rhythm.
His confession has done something funny to the self-preservation I’ve held onto for too long.
It’s as if he’s shared a new piece of his heart, raw and unadulterated.
Regret feels like too shallow a word for what is tightening in my chest, sharp at the edges and brittle all the way through.
I might shatter.
But his emerald-flecked gaze is steady.
I breathe through the pound of my pulse as his gaze anchors me. And I tighten my fingers into the front of his soft t-shirt.
He exhales, his breath meeting mine in a gust of permission I didn’t know I needed until we both lean in at the same time.
I’m sure I kiss him first, but it’s mutual, a soft collision of lips. Uncertain and wary, because after all this time, we’re strangers who don’t do this. But then need grows and familiarity follows, hesitancy melting into an urgent fever.
We taught each other how to kiss, once upon a time.
And then, for a long time, it was just something nice that we did—and we did it often. Daily, until we stopped. Until anger and unhappiness made us stop.
Somewhere in there, I forgot that Garrett Kincaid is a master at this thing he once learned with me.
Oh Lord, can this man kiss. His lips part mine and his tongue strokes deep.
His hand cradles my face, holding me as he swallows my whimpers for the first time in eight months.
Little desperate sounds that I can’t hold in because his cock is straining against my belly, and only a few layers of soft cotton separate us. I wriggle closer.
“We’re not fooling around,” he grinds out between tastes. “It’s Christmas Eve, you hot little thing.”
I laugh and kiss him back.
No, no fooling around tonight.
But no more fighting, either. Just kisses, endless kisses, making up for lost time. And then a sweet, hot, snuggly drift into a very hopeful sleep.