Chapter 17 #3
This time, when she shoves, he relents and stumbles the rest of the way onto the boat. Then he grabs her hand again, a bit of excitement flaring in his eyes.
“Okay, but if we’re doing this, we’re doing this.”
She stares at him blankly.
He tugs, gently urging her forward. “Come on. We’ve gotta do the thing.”
“The thing?”
“The Titanic thing.”
“Sink?”
He responds with an exaggerated eye roll before guiding her toward the front of the boat.
When they reach the dinner table, he maneuvers around it, pausing only for an instant to swipe one of the blankets piled on the ground.
Suddenly, she understands. Tyler doesn’t stop until they’re arranged at the very tip of the bow, her back perfectly aligned with his front as he wraps the wool throw fully around them like a warm cocoon.
Frigid winds whip at their cheeks, but Winnie is perfectly toasty.
She relaxes into his body, not a single bit of her wishing to be anywhere else in the world.
He nestles his chin against her shoulder, turning so his breath caresses her ear. Then in the softest voice, he sings, “Come, Josephine, in my flying machine.”
She turns toward him, surprised. “You remember that?”
“Mostly I remember spending about twenty-five minutes silently whispering the name of my evil old chemistry teacher to myself while Kate Winslet took her clothes off because you were lying about six inches away from me in one of those skintight pajama sets you used to torture me with, and I was desperate not to get a hard-on. I was relieved as hell when the boat finally hit the iceberg and we moved on to the action portion of the movie.”
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, hiding her smile. “I wasn’t.”
“I know. You scrunched your face up and made the most adorable little whining sound the entire time they showed the hull scraping against the ice.”
“I did?”
He nods against her collarbone. “You did it again when that search boat came back to find Rose, and she had to let go of Jack’s hand.”
“I hated that part.”
He kisses the nape of her neck. “I know.”
“I like happy endings.”
“I know that, too.”
She arches her head back to look at him, noting the subtle sparkle in his eyes. “You seem different tonight.”
“Different how?”
“Lighter, I guess.”
“I am.” He shrugs, still holding her close.
“My life hasn’t always been very easy. You know the environment I grew up in, the things I had to deal with—with my family, with school, even with hockey.
The sport itself always came naturally to me, but I struggled a lot with needing your dad to pay my way, worrying I would never live up to the faith he put in me, knowing along with everyone else that I was the charity case of the team. ”
“Ty—”
“It’s true, Win. You know it’s true. And the guys didn’t care, as long as I kept carrying them to the championship. But I heard what some of their parents said. I saw the way they looked at me, at my mom when she bothered to show up.”
He cuts off with a sneer, flicking his gaze to the camera hovering off to the side.
All at once she realizes how careful he’s being not to reveal too much.
He’s always been quiet about his mother’s struggles, and blasting them out to millions of viewers is the last thing he’d want—more importantly, it’s the last thing his mom needs.
“What I’m trying to say,” he continues after a breath, “is even now, with the money and the fame and the career I worked my ass off to achieve, my life is rarely easy. It’s complicated.
And it’s messy. Hell, I’m complicated and I’m messy.
And I’m afraid to let people in. But I don’t have to be afraid with you.
You already know all the baggage I’m bringing with me, and you’re choosing me anyway, so when I’m around you, I can just…
let it go. When I’m with you, all that weight falls away.
If I seem lighter, it’s only because that’s how you make me feel. ”
She turns in his arms, lifts her hands to the back of his neck, and scrapes her fingers through his hair. He closes his eyes with a satisfied hum. “You know I don’t think of it like that, right? Like baggage.”
“Maybe you don’t, but it is.” Those baby blues refocus on her, softening in a way she’s seen before, but never realized until now is with adoration. “My family life is…a lot. Hell, it’s a lot for me, so to ask someone else—”
She places her finger over his lip to silence him. “I don’t care.”
“You should.” Pain lances through his eyes like a bright sapphire comet. “I don’t have relatives. I don’t have traditions. I don’t bring any of that to the table. And we both know my mom is never going to be the sort to knit baby blankets for the grandkids.”
“We don’t know that. She might surprise you.”
“Or she might be exactly who she’s always been.”
“People can change, Ty.”
“When?” he asks, voice unusually tight. “I’ve been waiting my whole life already.”
“Maybe she will, or maybe she won’t, but either way, it won’t matter to me.
Because I do choose you, not because of your money or your fame, though I’ll be honest, your body, maybe, plays a part.
” She waggles her brows in jest. He pulls her closer, squeezing her hips as a grin twitches at the corners of his lips.
“It’s for the same reason you just said.
When I’m with you, I’m lighter. You’re the only man who’s ever made me feel like I’m enough, just the way I am.
I don’t need to carry the weight of my doubts.
You know I’ve struggled with confidence and self-worth my entire life, but never once around you.
For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve always made me feel beautiful, inside and out. ”
“You are.”
The blanket falls away as he cups her cheeks with his hands, arching her head back as he draws the pads of his thumbs along her cheekbones.
Winnie doesn’t feel the cold. Despite the ice and the setting sun and the wind blowing off the water, she’s warm, lit up by the fire in his eyes as he looks at her.
“You’re so smart, and so kind, and I have no idea what I did to deserve you.”
Sea lion barks suddenly fill the air. They turn together.
Winnie points, spotting the animals on a patch of ice.
Tyler pulls her back against his chest, kissing her on the cheek as they watch the pups roll and splash and dive.
Instead of the sky turning black and filling with stars, the sun hovers at the horizon, never quite setting.
Icelanders call it the midnight sun, but to Winnie, it feels like magic, as if the whole world wants to stop time for them and let this perfect night linger.
Eventually, when their stomachs start to growl, they take their seats beneath the twinkling fairy lights, sipping wine and talking over dinner, not a single awkward or uncomfortable moment.
“Is this too good to be true?” she whispers as they step off the boat at the end of the date. She doesn’t want it to end. She can hardly believe something so wonderful could be real.
Tyler takes her by the chin and kisses her softly. “Maybe that’s exactly why it is this good. Because it’s true.”
If the producers were trying to set them up—throwing them into this date right after a day of travel, making them wear those absurd outfits, keeping them out in the frigid cold—they failed miserably.
Winnie has never felt more connected to Tyler.
She’s never felt happier. She practically floats on a cloud all the way back to her hotel room after they make their goodbyes.
Her daze is so complete, she doesn’t even notice the red lipstick smeared on the mirror as she wets her toothbrush.
Nor as she spits, washes out her mouth, splashes water on her face, and dries her cheeks with a towel.
It’s only when she finally looks up to apply her lotion that she sees the scrawls.
And even then it takes her a minute to understand.
The color is too bold. The lines are too harsh.
The message is too hateful. She flinches back as if struck, so propelled from her reverie it would be comical if it weren’t so cruel.
But there’s no denying what’s scrawled across the mirror with clear intent, the single malicious word obviously meant for her.
Bitch.
Winnie flattens her palms against the counter and closes her eyes as she inhales a deep, centering breath.
It’s nothing she hasn’t heard before, and it’s nothing she’s going to let derail her—not when she’s so close to getting everything she’s ever wanted.
Instead of screaming or crying or running the way she once might have, she simply wets a washcloth and starts scrubbing. Five minutes later, the glass is clean.
The stain on her soul isn’t nearly as easy to remove.