The Probability of Us

Chapter 13

Thirteen

AUGUST CURRENT DAY (THURSDAY)

T he bar is a small room off the back of the lobby with just enough space for a few high-top tables in front of the bar top, where most of the seating is. There are two open seats close to the middle and I lead us over. Before I can pull out the black leather seat, it’s being pulled out for me. I give him a closed-lip, nervous smile and sit down.

We haven’t said a word since we entered the hotel. The weight of the what-if’s, what-could-have-been’s, and where-is-this-night-going hang over us, threatening to drop at any moment and break this fragile foundation we’ve been rebuilding. This night—this location—feels different. At The Dizzy Acorn, at work, or even when we’re walking around, I have some level of comfort knowing nothing will happen. Or at least, if it did, we’re weren’t in a location that would be conducive to letting it go too far. But here, we’re sitting in a building that he has a room in. It’d be much too easy to let it go too far.

I wring my hands in my lap and watch the way the blue light lining the arch behind the bar plays off the mirror behind it as the bartenders grab different bottles on display. It’s mesmerizing, but it’s not enough to distract me from the man sitting beside me, watching me with a serene but contemplative expression. He doesn’t say a word but when the bartender comes by, he orders for both of us.

“It’s been so weird being back here this week,” he says, finally taking his eyes off me to look around when our beers get set in front of us. “It feels like I’ve gone back in time.”

“Have you really not been back since you left?” I press my hands flat against my legs, trying to still their shaking before I reach for my drink.

He shakes his head and glances over at me. “I could never work up the courage to face what I left behind.”

I close my eyes and take a long sip of my drink. I’m confident he’s talking about me—us—but struggling to believe him, to trust this . If he still feels this way, then why did he end things in the first place? Why have I not heard from him until now?

He sighs and I look over at him, getting trapped in his molten eyes. “It’s crazy how it feels like nothing has changed.”

I want to smile and play along, to flirt and laugh, but I can’t, because if I do, it’ll be the first domino to fall down the line that leads us to his room at the end of the night without having the conversations we need to have.

I’ve put it off long enough. I need answers and I need them now, because I only have so much willpower left before I let my lingering feelings for him take over and ignore the logical part of my brain.

“But everything has changed,” I say, looking away to steel my nerves for the gut-wrenching truth of the words I’m about to speak. “If you had asked me seven years ago, I would’ve said, without a doubt that you were the person I was going to marry.” I look back at him and his face falls. “I was sure I was going to spend the rest of my life with you, but now . . .” I shake my head. “I don’t know anything.”

“Analise,” he rasps, reaching out to grab my hand.

My chest tightens, suddenly scared of what he’s going to say again. Maybe I don’t want to know why. Maybe I should’ve taken the easy and fun way. My head shakes faster now. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have?—”

“I was going to propose,” he says, so softly and it feels like I just took five punches to the chest. All my breath is gone and I’m struggling for air. I’m surprised I’m still in the chair and didn’t fall out of it—I’m surprised my body is still functioning.

“What?” I squeak.

“I had a ring, I had a plan, well, I still have the ring, actually.” My head won’t stop shaking as he so casually says words that shake the foundation of what I thought I knew. “I was going to do it that night, on top of the hill after Il Piacere. The day I got the call, I was going to propose.”

“You . . . that night . . .” I can’t form words. I can’t finish sentences. My entire world has just been flipped on its head. How am I supposed to act like nothing has changed?

He was going to fucking propose and instead he just left. I can’t think, I can’t breathe. I rummage through my purse and let out a breath of relief when I find enough cash to pay for my drink so I don’t have to stay here any longer. I think Warren says my name but there’s only a ringing in my ears. I don’t wait, I just stumble out of the bar and into the lobby, trying to reach the fresh air, trying to breathe.

Halfway through the lobby, my legs give out and I sink to my knees. Tears build behind my eyes as my head keeps shaking. I’m trying to get air into my lungs, but it won’t go. I can’t see anything but that night on repeat in my head—that night when I thought he was going to propose . . . because he was going to. I see that perfect moment when his mouth opened, and I smiled. But the words that came out were not what I expected.

At what point that day did he decide that moving meant we could no longer be in each other’s lives? That he no longer wanted to marry me?

“Analise,” a gentle voice goads me out of my thoughts. He’s squatting next to me with troubled eyes.

He reaches towards me, and I scramble away, feeling a little guilty for the pain that flashes across his face, but I need a second to breathe, to think. I try to stand but my knees buckle. Instead of falling, strong arms catch me. I savor the feeling for one second before pushing away.

“Don’t touch me,” I say through tears, a little too forcefully, and a little too loud. I don’t mean ever, I just mean until I can sort through these feelings and process this revelation. He takes a small step towards me, and I take a step away. His face falls into something beyond devastation. I open my mouth to clarify, but one of the hotel receptionists walks up to us.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he says, only looking at me, and deliberately placing himself between us. “Is everything okay here?”

It takes me a moment to realize what he’s implying. Oh, god. I can only imagine what they think after the small bit of what they’ve seen: a woman in tears, leaving the bar, trying to get away from a man who won’t leave her alone.

“Everything’s fine,” I say with so much anger in my voice that it doesn’t sound true.

“Are you sure?” His eyes widen and the words are slower, like he wants me to know I’m safe here.

I take a deep breath and try to put on a calm face. “He’s a good friend of mine.” I gesture to Warren to clarify. “I apologize for the disturbance, but I promise I’m safe.”

I don’t add that he probably should be making sure Warren is safe in this scenario too because I want to beat the shit out of him right now. I just give him a polite smile then grab Warren’s arm and drag him out the front doors.

“Analise,” he says first when I let go and turn to face him.

“What the fuck, Warren?” I’m almost yelling again. “You were going to propose but instead you told me you were leaving? At what point that day did you decide I wasn’t enough anymore?”

He flinches. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Then please tell me what it was like?” I am screaming now. “Because you still left.”

“You said you were happy for me,” he counters, and I let out a cruel laugh.

“I was, I am !” I yell, then pause to take a deep breath when a look of confusion runs across his features. “You still don’t get it do you? I was proud of you. I would’ve told you to take that job any day. I’m not mad that you left, I’m mad that you didn’t ask me to come with you.” My voice gets smaller and smaller, now only barely audible. Tears flow steadily as I squeak out, “Why didn’t you ask me to come with you?”

He’s quiet and when I look up at him, his face is full of pure shock. He blinks quickly, processing and I can almost see him playing back those final weeks, trying to reconcile what happened with this revelation.

“It was easier when I thought you didn’t want me, because at least I could understand why you did it,” I say. Nothing makes sense anymore. “But you were going to propose . . . you wanted me.”

“Of course I wanted you, Analise.” I can hear the pain in his voice and my heart wants to reach out to him. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

I close my eyes, frustrated at how different his words are now from his actions back then. “Then how could you just walk away?”

“I didn’t want to be like my dad,” he blurts out and my mouth drops open. I didn’t expect this to come up so fast, for him to so easily tell me the information he kept secret for so long. He takes a deep breath. “When he got his job in New York, he just told my mom she was going—didn’t give her a choice. Her job, her friends, her life was in Boston, and he forced her to leave all of it. When they divorced, it seemed so sudden to me, but I found out later that they stopped loving each other long before that. That he thought his career was more important than hers and it pushed them apart. I was so scared that you would end up hating me if you had to move. I wouldn’t have been able to stand it if things ended up that way, so I thought breaking up with you and being forced to live without you was the better choice. But I’ve been miserable without you.”

“You do realize that you basically did the same thing, just in reverse, right?” I close my eyes. I know he was trying to be better than the example set for him, but he handled it so wrong. How could he have thought he was doing the right thing here? “You could have just asked me, given me a choice. Instead, you took the choice away from me completely. I wanted you to ask me to come. I would’ve come with you in a heartbeat.”

“I was twenty-six! I didn’t know what to do, and all I knew was what my dad had done to my mom and I couldn’t bear the thought of doing that to you—to us. You never said anything so I thought I was doing the right thing.” He looks like he’s in shock, like he’s just now realizing we lost out on six years of life together because we fucked this up. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It wasn’t my place to,” I say. “You were the one leaving. I wasn’t going to force myself into your life if you didn’t want me there. I didn’t want to be the girl that followed you to a new state when you didn’t even ask me to come. All I needed was one sign that you wanted me there, but you never gave me it.”

“I wanted you there, Analise.” He takes a tiny, hesitant step towards me. “I wanted you to come with me. But your job?—”

“I could’ve found another job,” I cut him off, voice raised and teary-eyed. “There are hundreds, thousands of jobs out there, but there’s only one you. I would’ve gone anywhere, done anything if it meant getting to be with you. I was so completely, life-consumingly in love with you, Warren, and you took my choice away from me.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing, but the second I stepped onto that plane, alone, nothing felt right. Nothing feels right.” I take a step back to rest against the brick wall behind me as he takes a step closer. “I told you once that I was color-blind before I met you, but life has been colorless without you. Like someone turned down the saturation on my life because you weren’t there with me.”

He takes another step closer and there’s only a few feet between us.

I whisper, “Then why did you tell me not to get on the plane? Why did you break up with me?”

“Because I knew if I held you in my arms again, I’d never be strong enough to let you go.”

I want to believe it. I want to trust it. But . . . “You weren’t there when I needed you most.” The words are soft, but they stop him in his tracks. Tears spring to my eyes thinking of all the pain I went through alone. “My mom died and then my dad became a drunk, and you were nowhere to be found.”

“You didn’t call me,” he chokes out. “You didn’t text me. No one told me. I didn’t know any of this happened until yesterday. If I knew—” His eyes are wild, and he runs his hands through his hair. “If I knew I would’ve been on the first flight back. I would’ve been here, and I would’ve made sure you didn’t feel alone for a single second.”

“I don’t understand.” I can’t breathe. “Why did you stay away if you felt that way?”

“After the day we broke up I never heard from you,” he says, his voice squeaking. “Not that it was your job to reach out, but I thought you would’ve heard from someone that there was a ring, that I still felt that way about you. I thought you knew all of that and hated me enough that you didn’t want to hear from me, so I forced myself to stay away. I never reached out because the only words I wanted to say to you were the four words I didn’t ask that day that I’ve regretted ever since. I never visited my mom because two hours wasn’t enough distance to keep me from driving to your door, dropping to my knees, and begging you to forgive me. Earlier in the week you asked me if I would’ve reached out if you didn’t work here, and I probably wouldn’t have because I thought that was what you wanted. But I also wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from going to Kallia in the mornings, or The Dizzy Acorn in the evenings, hoping to catch even a glimpse of you. And once I saw you, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from walking right up to you. From trying to figure out if there was any possibility of squeezing back into your life in any capacity. From trying to win you back and show you that I’m not the same person who left you all those years ago.”

“I didn’t know.” I can’t stop shaking my head. All of the words he’s just spoken rattle around and I keep waiting for them to form into sentences that make more sense, sentences that don’t make the past six years feel like a waste. “I didn’t know any of it. I always thought you didn’t reach out because you’d changed your mind. I thought you didn’t want me. I didn’t want to beg you to love me if you wanted to leave, and I didn’t want you to come back just because you felt sorry for me, so I didn’t reach out, even though you were the one person I wanted to talk to every day.”

He lets out a soft, sad laugh and looks up at the night sky. “I really fucked this up, didn’t I?”

“Yeah.” The word just slips out, a whisper of a breath that brings so much pain to his face you’d think he’d just been shot. “You broke up with me by way of a thirty second phone call while I was at the airport waiting to board a flight to see you. I was heartbroken. I was humiliated. I was so confused how you could tell me you’d never leave me if you knew you had no intention of making things work.”

“It wasn’t like that,” he says forcefully and steps closer, taking my hand in his. The part of me that has been angry all these years screams at me to pull away, but it’s only a faint echo now, fading more and more with every word from his mouth. “God, no wonder you hated me if that’s what you thought. When I first decided to take the job, I didn’t know what to do. I was so in love with you, but I knew this was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. I wanted to ask you to come with me so badly, but I psyched myself out with thoughts of my parents. So, then I thought, it’s okay, we love each other so much we’ll be able to make long-distance work until we figure something out. I needed to talk to you about it but all I ever wanted to say to you was that I wanted you to come with me, and I convinced myself I couldn’t ask you that or you’d end up hating me, so I just didn’t say anything. I wanted to make sure you knew that I still loved you in those months, but looking back it’s easy to see how it could be misinterpreted as using our attraction as a tactic to avoid talking about anything real.”

Silent tears drop down my cheeks. Back then I didn’t know what to think, because I did feel loved by him, but I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just talk to me or ask me to go with him. And I think a part of me was afraid that I wouldn’t like the answer, so I didn’t bring up my worries. In the end, we both stopped communicating in an effort to keep the relationship alive, but it’s what ended up ruining us instead.

“When I got to D.C,” he continues, and nothing could take my focus away from the words coming out of his mouth, “I missed you so much more than I ever could’ve imagined. The texting and phone calls weren’t enough, I wanted you in my arms. I knew that if you came to visit, I would beg you to stay. I went back and forth that whole day, and I called you so late because I couldn’t bring myself to do it before that. I forced the words out of my mouth, and I hung up right away because if I stayed on the line even a second longer, I would’ve taken it all back. I told myself I was doing the right thing, but every word felt so wrong. The last thing I ever wanted was to break up with you.”

“I wish you had just talked to me.” I close my eyes, so I don’t get distracted by the way the moonlight is adding the perfect sparkle to his glassy eyes. “I wish you had told me about the reason your parents divorced sooner. I wish you told me about the ring and your fears and your feelings. I wish . . . so many things.”

“Is it too late then?” His voice is small but full of emotions. “To have a second chance. To show you that I can do things right this time. To communicate. To be together.”

My eyes open and lock on his lips, then slowly drift up his face until I’m looking him dead in the eyes. I can feel the weight of my next words—they’ll be the tipping of the scales one way or the other. But I already know my answer, so I take a deep breath and say, “No, it’s not too late.”

That’s all it takes. With those words, all my anger is gone and all his restraint breaks. With two steps, the distance between us is gone and he’s crashing into me.

Or I’m crashing into him.

We’re colliding, lips desperately finding each other after years of being lost from each other. I’m too desperate to be anything but wild, my hands clawing at his chest, arms, then back—anything that will pull him closer to me. I want to melt into him. I want to become the liquid sunshine that he’s made of. I never want to be anywhere but in his arms again.

His hand slides into my hair as a buffer as he pushes me against the wall, hips pinning me in place as his tongue begins a long, slow exploration of my mouth while his other hand runs up my sides, around my waist, anywhere it can reach as he retraces the path they used to make on my body—remembering every inch he used to love so much.

My hands slowly find their way between his dress shirt and jacket, savoring the feel of his muscles with only the thin layer between skin. One of my hands wraps around to his back and when he kisses me particularly deeply, my nails gently run down his back causing him to groan into my mouth and kiss me deeper. My other hand doesn’t care that we’re on a public street and anyone could be watching as it starts to untuck his dress shirt from his pants and then slides up his bare chest. His hand tightens on my waist, and he must be remembering where we are too, because if we were anywhere else that hand would already be somewhere else—where I want it to be.

It’s enough for him to pull his lips from mine, but he rests his forehead against me as we both fight to suck in our next breath.

“Are you trying to ruin me?” he breathes.

I smile and run my hand down his chest. “Is it working?”

“You tell me,” he whispers as he rolls his hips against me and I can feel just how much he wants me, wants this .

“Mmm,” I purr. My eyes close and my body trembles with remembrance of everything good that comes after this. “That doesn’t feel like ruin.”

His voice is shaky when he asks, “Then what does it feel like?”

I kiss up his cheek until my lips are at his ear and whisper, “It feels like pleasure,” as I tug him even closer by the waistband of his pants.

He lets out a groan that shakes me down to my core and curses, “Fuck.”

Then his lips are back on mine, but his hands aren’t quite so restrained. One of his hands drifts between my legs and applies pressure over my pants exactly where I’m craving it. I moan and hold on tighter to him, so I don’t slip away.

“Are you just going to tease me with that beautiful mouth, or are you going to let me take you up to my room and give you all the pleasure you can take?” he asks against my lips.

“From what I remember, you didn’t need a bed to do your best work.” I smile when his eyes light up.

“I never said anything about a bed,” he says, leaning in to whisper in my ear. “And I know you well enough to know you’re stalling.”

He’s right. If I was going to go up to his room tonight, we’d be in the building by now, probably making out in the elevator. And I do want that, I want to go so bad, but it feels like I just survived a war and have come back to a life that no longer feels familiar.

He drops a kiss on my cheek, and the pit in my stomach eases. Because as much as I’m feeling like I’m ready to lean into whatever this might be, so much has been dumped on me tonight and I’d like time to process this before we take it further. Before this becomes real again.

“I really want to . . .” I start, my voice trailing off as I try to find the right words.

“But it’s a lot to process,” he finishes for me, and I nod, letting out a breath of relief. “I know, it’s okay. I’m sorry I brought it up so casually like that at the bar, I thought you knew about that part already.”

“How would I have known any of that?” I pull back and scrutinize his face.

“Because Trent knew,” he says, and I stop breathing. “I just assumed he would’ve told you.”

My teeth clink together and I’m seeing red.

Trent knew. Trent fucking knew and he never said a word. All those times I cried over Warren and thought he left because he didn’t want to be with me, and Trent knew he did. Trent knew he wanted to marry me.

“I know that face.” Warren’s voice pulls me back. “That’s your scary face.”

“Sorry, this is a lot of information.” I try to smile but it’s hard. It feels like my life, for the past six years, has been a lie. I don’t know what to think, who to be most angry at.

“Don’t worry about it, go get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He lifts his hand to my cheek, and I lean into the touch.

Before he can expect it, I lean forward to kiss him and mumble against his lips, “Just make sure to think of me when you’re taking care of this.” I run my hand down the front of his pants, and he jolts.

“What do you think I’ve been doing the past six years,” he says before kissing me.

“You’re lying,” I mumble between kisses.

“Analise.” He pulls away to look me in the eye. “You’re all I’ve thought about for the past six years.”

“Oh, come on,” I say, eyes narrowing. “You must’ve been with someone else at some point.”

He shakes his head. “Not once. All I’ve wanted—want—is you.”

“Really?”

He nods and a fluttering feeling cascades through me.

“Is it bad that I’m happy about that?” I smile as his arms wrap around my waist and pull me into him.

“It’d be bad if you weren’t,” he says, laughing into my neck before planting kisses, but he stops after a few. “Have you?”

“Hm?” I sigh, feeling drunk on his kisses.

“Have you been with anyone?” The anxiousness is evident in his voice, but he quickly adds, “It’s obviously okay if you have, but I might need names.” It only sounds like he’s half joking.

I look him in the eyes. “I told you the first night, I never got over you. I couldn’t even think of anyone else that way.”

I tried dating. I tried putting myself out there again, but I never made it to a second date with anyone. No one compared to him, and he was all I wanted. One of the dates kissed me goodnight once and I went back to my place and scrubbed my lips with soap and water in tears, because I couldn’t remember what Warren tasted like and some random guy’s lips were the last ones to touch mine. It felt like I was losing him all over again.

“Good,” he says with a sly smile on his face. “Because the thought of anyone else’s hands on you drives me fucking crazy.”

“It’s sexy as hell when you get jealous.” I lean to kiss him again, wondering how I’m going to make myself walk away.

“Sexy enough to make you stay?” he teases with a kiss, and I laugh.

“Just like our first time, it’ll be worth the wait,” I tease back.

“You’ll always be worth the wait.” He kisses me, sweetly, deeply. “Now you should probably go because if you stay another second, I’m not going to be able to let go.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I kiss him one last, lingering time. “I hope you’re ready to get your ass whooped at basketball.”

“Oh, Analise,” he calls as I start to walk away, “you can whoop my ass anytime.”

“I’ll hold you to that!” I call over my shoulder with a huge grin. I’ve missed him. I’ve missed this.

“I hope you do.” His smile is bright even though it’s the middle of the night. “Sweet dreams, Analise.”