Chapter 15 #2
“Ask,” I whimper. Anything to stop his heart from breaking. It’s more painful than I can even fathom.
“Is it—is it that you don’t think you could love me?
If that’s it, then there’s no fixing this.
I’d still want you to stay and be okay. I’d still beg you to let me keep you safe and let you find where you need to be.
I’ll always be your best friend, but if there’s no chance that you could ever feel more than that, I’m so sorry for putting you in this position.
For asking. For wanting. It’s not—fuck, it’s all wrong and I’d die of shame. ”
“Shame?” I hiss. “No. There’s no shame. You haven’t done one thing other than be amazing.
Listen to what you just said. ‘If you can’t love me, it’s okay, I’ll still be your whole world.
’ Do you know how impossibly incredible something like that even is?
” I shift back to the road I’ve travelled for so many years that I’ve worn craters clean through the ruts.
“It’s not a question of if I could love you or not.
” I inhale deeply into his shoulder. “I’m halfway there already.
So many things I didn’t understand or realize what they were until you said it and then it all made sense.
Could I fall in love with you? Who on this earth could know you and not love you?
” That’s it for me. My voice cracks and breaks.
All the fight drains out of me. He bows around me like an apostrophe, equally as exhausted.
We sway slightly. I’m not sure who is holding who up. I get my arms all the way around his back and make fists into his soft cotton hoodie.
His hand smooths over my back, up and down, up and down. His breath is ragged.
“I know I shouldn’t ask you to stay,” he breaths into my hair.
“But Hart is different now. I’m different.
You’re different. You might never have had a proper family.
Maybe that’s something we share, but you could with my club brothers and their women and their kids and all the good people in their lives.
We’re this thing. We’re our own amazing community.
We’ve tried hard to make Hart a better place.
Safer, sure, but better all around. Stay,” he pleads.
“Let me share it with you. Stay,” he repeats, an echo.
A wish. A dream. “Let me love you properly.”
I want to stay wrapped up in him forever, but that’s the easy way out.
I wouldn’t deserve it at the best of times.
I dig down inside my aching chest and get my scrambled thoughts to line up into something tangible.
“I’m so scared,” I blurt, looking up at his face.
His gorgeous, dawn framed, sun tinted golden face, precious beyond measure.
“I’ll fuck it up. I know I will. I’ll ruin it all. ”
“What if I won’t let you? What if we built something incredible instead? What if that was our dream?” His lovely eyes are filled up with agony, but it’s not the tumbling down broken kind. There’s something good and hopeful shot through it too.
“People would talk. They’d say things about you.
They’d say that I went from one brother to another.
I wouldn’t be ashamed. I’d know the truth.
They can go fuck themselves with that kind of nonsense, but it’s you, and if anyone says one bad thing about you, I know I’ll want to fight and scratch and tear their eyes out for it. ”
“I don’t care what people say, but no one will talk, I promise.”
I don’t see how he could stop it. Everyone knows that Satan’s Angels aren’t a bad bunch.
They don’t go around threatening anyone.
Crushing skulls and smashing faces isn’t their style.
People might hesitate, knowing that the club has chased out a lot of the bad shit from Hart.
That they’re the ones keeping the town safe, but more, that some of them are the best people anyone could ever meet, Wizard included. He’s homegrown.
People might not talk about him, but they’d whisper about me. I’m still a bundle of fears. I’m uncertain. I’m anxious. I don’t know if the amazement and disbelief over this man wanting me and loving me, even when I can’t want or love myself.
“I’m here, Esme.” Wizard’s voice is impossibly gentle, even though his breathing is raspy and uneven.
“Always. I’m sorry if that’s problematic, but it’s true.
” A tumble of emotion flickers behind his eyes.
Pain battling with hope. Maybe even a little bit of resignation, as though I’ve already made my choice.
Fear, that he’s going to stand here and lose me.
Have I been denying what I felt? Was it there before all of this? Before I made that decision on the beach under a sky older than I can even fathom? Fuck. “I made you cry. I’m so sorry. That’s unforgivable.”
“It’s not. I forgive you. It’s done.” His expression blanks out, but he’s not able to stop the deep creases from settling into his forehead and lining his eyes and mouth as he studies me.
My hands are still on his arms. His muscles flex beneath my fingers as soon as my eyes skate to my hands. I don’t drop them, even though I should.
Should I?
Can I leap and think later, or will that destroy us both? Can I jump, knowing that Wizard is right there, an infallible safety net, waiting to catch me, warm me, teach me, guide me, and love me?
“Can I tell you just one more thing, Esme?” He seems so earnest, yet so hesitant. He chews on his bottom lip, then grinds his jaw, sawing it back and forth while a muscle leaps along in his temple.
I bite down on my lip too, gnawing it between my teeth, and nod.
“Grandpa told me once…” he stops, sucks in a breath.
His eyes go glossy. My own burn with a brutal fire.
No man meant more to us in the entire world.
To me, as a kid who felt like she never belonged anywhere, but Reg meant a thousand times more to Neal.
Reg was good at passing down wisdom. He never did it in that preachy way.
Just gave snippets that made so much sense and made all the muck of life seem clear.
He was a quiet man, but he spoke when it counted.
He jerks in a hard inhale, so violent that his chest quivers and a shiver rocks through him. I squeeze his arms a little bit harder, wishing I could anchor him. I wish, most of all, that I could make that monumental loss, that massive crater in his heart, just a little bit easier to bear.
“Grandpa said that—that you have to love the whole person if you’re gonna love them at all.
That you have to try and understand everything they’ve gone through and everything they will, in order to understand who they are in the present.
Some people can’t let themselves go. It’s monumental for them to open even the smallest parts up.
Those small parts and tiny moments are the best gift.
” He cups my face. “That’s how I want to love you.
Good. Right. Proper. For a lifetime. Not perfectly. Real.”
He steps away, leaving me with those words, his hands at his sides, his jaw locked tight, and his heart in his eyes. He walks to the side, out of range of my car, giving me the freedom to choose.
How would leaving make this better? Would it be so insane to listen to that quiet voice of truth that has been prodding me to change my life for a very long time?
I wouldn’t be opening myself up or putting my heart and soul out there just to be smashed apart.
I know that if I get to the point where this man has enough power to rearrange me on a molecular level, cosmically, to change my whole heart and mind and reshape me, that he would never abuse any of that privilege.
“It seems impossible,” I whimper, before I even know I’m going to say it.
He goes so still. Not a pillar, but like he’s a part of the ground. One of the many towering trees that surround this place. The purple hued mountains in the distance. It makes sense. He’s always been so wise and kind and elemental. The oldest soul in the most beautiful body.
“I don’t want to be a butterfly.”
His pulse leaps at his neck and his shoulders rise and fall a few inches. They’re the only signs of movement.
I swallow thickly. “I don’t want three days and then nothing. I don’t want to imagine a world without you in it.”
I run to him and throw my arms around his shoulders.
He tenses and then melts around me, his strong arms caging me in, tugging me deeper and deeper so that I can fall into him and never stop.
His body quakes beneath me. He drops his chin to the crown of my bent head.
He sniffles, the sound echoing wetly in his lungs.
Every time I fill my lungs, it’s him. His heart beats beneath my ear.
The heat of him seeps into me. One day, he’ll be just like the man he admired so much.
He’s so wise already, but it’s his patience and kindness that will get him there.
I’ve never dared reach for what I want, but I curl my fingers into his hoodie and tug him even closer, until there’s no space between us.
If Wizard’s love language is keeping me safe no matter what, that’s what I want mine to be too. I want to learn to love him through the fears, the what ifs, the craziness, the pain, the good and all the bad. I want to love him for exactly who he is.
He holds me, rocking us gently, swaying and breathing until our crashing emotions subside just a little. He pulls back and extends his hand. His eyes burn straight through me. I hear everything he’s not saying.
Will you reach for it? Will you take this? Will you give me your hand and your heart in return?
I don’t just give him one. I give him both. I wrap my palms around his and hold tight.