Chapter 58
KATIE
We’re on my roof at nine p.m. Tristan told me he wanted to go to my apartment, because he likes it better, which seems insane to me, because he has about twelve times the space, but I’m too lust drunk to worry about it.
I’m sleepy and deliciously full from the grilled cheese he made and the second round of sex.
He set me on the counter, murmuring that it was the perfect height, then pushed into me with his mouth on my neck.
He came apart with husky sounds and shuddering pulses and then finished me with his tongue between my legs.
His finger skims up and down my arm. We watch a satellite wink above the big dipper.
I love him.
The secret is ballooning inside me, sending shivers down my spine.
“Why won’t you marry me?”
The balloon pops.
I sigh and push to sitting, then scoot until my back is to the raised portion of the eaves. Tristan does the same. Our shoulders touch.
“Do you remember the first time we did this?” I slant him a look, seeing frustration on his face at my lack of answer.
“Yes.” He tips his head back, his throat working. “The night of my birthday, two weeks after you started working here.”
Warmth curls through me at the memory, at the first time we were an us. “You were drunk. You were on your way out the door after the party to go to a bar. But you didn’t go. Why not?”
He looks thoughtful for a second, emotion passing over his face, his strong throat working in a swallow. “It felt like I was meant to be here,” he says finally. His voice is slightly husky. “You anchor me, Bailey. I told you that. That day and every day after.”
My eyes are heating and I blink furiously. “You anchor me too. But more than that, you picked me. Starting that day and every day after.”
He looks surprised, then pleased. His smile is dawning, so easily, as it always does. “Let me pick you now.”
My stomach bottoms out. “But what if you don’t? In the future.”
“Katie, no,” he breathes. His hand wraps around mine where it sits on the blanket. He squeezes, but this isn’t a hurt he can fix just by being Tristan.
“Just listen. Don’t try to fix it. No Tristan magic, okay?” I give him a watery smile and he squeezes more tightly. I turn my eyes to the sky, trying to figure out how to shape my loneliness into words.
“I moved a lot with David. You know that.”
“Eighteen places before eighteen.”
“Yeah. And I had friends. Kids in school. Boyfriends, even.”
“Fuckers,” he mutters.
I bump him with my shoulder. “None as hot as you, don’t worry. All of it ended. I’d cling. I’d text. Call on the weekends. And for a little bit, it would work. And then it would fade. Every time, I was the annoying girl who couldn’t let go.”
I can feel him breathing next to me, shallow and fast, and I will him not to speak. Our hands are clasped so tightly that it’s nearly painful. It feels like he’s trying to squeeze the bad feelings out of me and take them for himself, and I love him more for it.
He knows all this, and I try to figure out how to tell him the things he doesn’t know. The things I can’t admit even to myself.
“It started before that.”
He inhales sharply. “When?”
“It took me a long time to get adopted.”
The words are simple, but they contain a world of pain.
There’s no culpability in them. Just a fact.
And it’s the worst fact about me. Immutable.
Unchangeable. The thing I try to never think about, because honestly, how embarrassing is it to care that much about something that happened to you so many years ago, so much so that it shapes everything you’ve ever thought about yourself?
“Katie,” he whispers. His voice is heartbroken. Devastated. For me. Because of course it is. He’s Tristan and he cares about others sometimes more than he cares about himself, and god, I love him for it.
“It’s fine.” I squeeze his hand.
“It’s not fine.” His voice is fierce and ragged with all the emotion I never let myself feel where this topic is concerned. “Don’t try to sugarcoat it. I hate when you do that.”
My gaze darts to his. He looks as wrecked as he sounded just now, and the tiniest of fissures cracks across my composure. I blink, fast and wide-eyed, my lip trembling.
“You don’t need to be okay with me, Katie. You should know that by now.”
“Okay.” I take a shaky breath and look away.
I am crumpling inside. “It is inconceivable to me that someone would pick me. I’ve seen the proof, Tristan.
” I force the words out before he can argue with me.
“There’s just something about me. I’m too quiet, too weird, too awkward for the girls, and yet somehow not enough for the boys either.
I love myself, but vanishingly few people love me enough to keep me.
You’re one of those people.” I rush on, before he can focus too much on what I’m admitting.
My heart is pinching now. “It would kill me if you didn’t choose me, Tristan.
I can’t afford to just give it a go with you or try this out because you have to marry.
For me, this would be everything. You mean too much to me. ”
“I am going to yell at you later,” he whispers harshly.
I lay my head on his shoulder, feeling oddly protective of him. He’s tense, like he’ll shatter under me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I’m breaking his heart.
“Why do you keep thinking I won’t choose you?”
His words are quiet, but they arrow straight to my heart.
“I have for years, Katie,” he continues. I can feel him shuddering under my cheek. “Look at me.” His thumb tilts my head up until we are nearly nose to nose.
His gaze is fierce and hungry as he cups my jaw. “It’s my turn. I’m going to tell you something and you have to listen.”
My mouth is too dry to speak, so I nod.
“I want you,” he says simply. “Forever. I am not willing to give you up. You will have to kill me first.”
The words drop through me, crystalline and pure. Simple. The emotion behind them so raw and honest that my hands tremble.
“Tristan,” I breathe.
His lips flatten briefly, before he seems to shake himself. “Actually, I want to rephrase that.”
My pulse accelerates. It feels like he’s retracting his declaration just seconds after making it. Proof, my brain shouts. I try to pull my hand away, but he grips it.
He seems to be talking himself up for something. His eyes close briefly. His breath is shaky. “Actually, I’m in love with you.”
“What? You’re what?” I feel like I can’t breathe.
He’s squeezing my hand so hard it hurts.
“I am desperately in love with you.” He pushes the words out, fast. His pupils are blown.
I can feel his pulse in my hand. “I’ve never felt like this before.
It took me forever to recognize it. I am so terribly sorry, Katie.
I proposed and I offered you half of what you need.
” He flips our palms, brings them to his lap. “Of course you said no.”
He knows how I feel.
“You knew?” I croak. I’m not elegant, and I should probably be kissing him or confessing my feelings, but I feel so damn out of my depth.
I feel the exact way I did as a kid—David offering me his hand, Tristan offering me a birthday present, and me, terrified, that it would be a joke.
For me, it would be the world. For them, just another gesture.
I have only told one person in the whole world that I loved them, and it took me years to admit it.
My heart feels like it’s been pulped. Tristan’s gaze is crawling over my face. His head tips slowly to the side.
“Knew what?”
My stomach is folding in on itself. I have never wanted to admit this, even to myself, but for him, I will.
“Katie?”
“You said you’ve never felt like this before. But I have.” I push the words out, then lick my lips.
“When?”
An agonized breath slips out of me, and on its heels, “Of course I have, Tristan.” I nearly choke on the words. “Three years ago.”
I see the moment he understands.