—32— Diego
Diego
I should’ve prepared myself better.
For how cute he’d look, rolling up onto his driveway, popping out of the car, and finding an unexpected delivery at his doorstep.
Me.
But the sight of Wyatt again after all these days apart, seeing him with his cute folded-up sleeves, his fitted work pants, his big, bright, stunned eyes, his parted lips.
“You came back,” he finally says.
“Yeah,” I say back.
Silence.
Birds in the trees.
Distant dog barking.
“You took the orchid,” he notices.
“It’s mine, isn’t it?”
He frowns. “Looks terrible.”
I frown right back. “It’s alive, isn’t it?”
“Barely.”
“Still counts for something.”
He meets my eyes.
I look back at him.
Tía Lottie was right. About how this would feel. About how his reaction to seeing me might go down.
It’s a beautiful place, where my tía and tío moved to.
A modest little house by the beach in a place called Dreamwood Isle.
To be more accurate, it’s about four blocks away from the actual beach, but you wouldn’t know it.
The beach is all you hear when you’re outside on their creaky new porch, strolling down the sidewalk to the nearby corner store, or happen to crack open any window.
Even if I spent most of that time helping my tío move around furniture, fix up the yard, and clean out the attic, I felt like I was in paradise. Even got to enjoy my tía’s home cooking I’ve missed.
It felt like a vacation.
A vacation you never have to come home from.
And my tío and I got along better than we ever have before.
As if my dad was somehow watching over us like some sweet-eyed supervisor between children at school, secretly getting what he wanted, a wish coming true before it was too late for us.
Or I’m full of shit and the beach is just what my tío needed to quit being such a hard-ass all the time.
But here I am. Here instead of there.
On Wyatt’s porch.
Again.
“I was wrong.”
Wyatt hears what I said. But he doesn’t react yet.
“Not for standing up for you,” I clarify.
He crosses his arms.
“That, I will always do.” I take a breath. “But I was … wrong to take your life into my hands like that. To fix it for you.” I pause. “I need to learn how to trust people again. You got along fine before I showed up and mowed over my tía’s favorite flowers, anyway.”
He drops his eyes to the ground, still saying nothing.
I get up. “And I was wrong for leaving.”
“You were angry.”
“No, Wyatt … I was scared.”
He looks at me now. Really looks at me.
Locked on. Listening.
Eyes turning soft.
“I stayed with my tía and tío for a week. Fold-out couch in the den. You would love it there. They’re very happy, by the way. Tía and tío send their regards.”
He keeps listening. Staying with me.
“Tío said I could stay as long as I wanted. Had work for me. A room. My tía’s delicious food. She was even reorganizing part of the hall closet for my shit.”
“Sounds nice,” says Wyatt automatically.
“It was.”
He tilts his head slightly. “So why’d you come back?”
I swallow.
Then lift my phone up, unlock it, swipe open my texts, and lift the screen toward him.
His eyes fall on the last text message he sent: SOS.
“That’s a week old,” he says.
“I know. Didn’t see it until … way, way later. Dead phone for a couple of days. But here’s the thing: I get pissed with myself when I break a promise. And I told you, didn’t I? I told you I’d come if you sent one.”
“Tad late, don’t you think?”
“Definitely.” I lower the phone. “But that’s not why I came.”
He frowns, not following.
“From what I’ve heard through my tía and her … group chat … sounds like you don’t need to be rescued anymore.” I rise to my feet. “Maybe … I’m the one who needs a little rescuing.”
His eyebrows lift up.
“Maybe … I didn’t come back … entirely for you.” I come down a step. “Maybe …” Down another. “I came back …” Another. “… to see if it was just some fucking fluke.”
“Fluke?”
“What I was feeling … in my heart. That maybe deep down … I actually missed Whitaker Auto … and Joel, even if he bugs the shit out of me most days.” I’m off the porch.
“And the way everyone in this place is always up in my business. Whole time I was here, kept assuming leaving was the plan. Then Tío showed up at my hotel and asked me where I was going.”
“And?”
I look at Wyatt. “Turns out ‘away’ isn’t a real place.”
His eyes detach.
I pocket my phone along with my hands, standing in front of him now. “Didn’t matter how hard I pushed the town away. Kept creeping back under my skin every second I spent away from it. I was scared, Wyatt.”
He presses his lips together. Fighting something inside.
My voice softens. “Scared to love something else that’d just … disappear from my life eventually. Like everything and everyone else I ever loved has. So I left. Before it could hurt me. Before I fell in love with this place.”
“Diego …”
“But no matter how peaceful it was in that beachside house … with my tía’s love, even my hard-ass tío … didn’t have what I really needed.” My eyes return to his. “Most of all … I missed the way my neighbor would check up on me … way too fucking often.”
His eyebrows pull together. “Wasn’t that often.”
“I missed you making sure I’d eaten dinner.
” I study his cute face. “Missed seeing you through my window when you’d leave for church Sunday mornings.
Missed us passing each other when we’d head out to work or come home.
I missed … having someone who made more of a fuss over my wellbeing than anyone ever has my whole life.
” I smirk at him. “Honestly kinda fuckin’ annoying. ”
“Try being the one making the fuss,” he mumbles back.
I lift an eyebrow questioningly.
He takes a breath. “I need you to understand something.”
I’m not done with the big speech I’d planned, but the look in his eyes tells me to listen. “I’m all ears.”
“I don’t need a guardian deciding which people belong in my life, professionally or otherwise.”
“I know.”
“And I don’t need you fighting every battle for me.”
“You’re more than capable of fighting your own.”
“But sometimes … maybe I wouldn’t mind … having you next to me.” He meets my eyes. “When I fight my next one.”
I gaze back at him.
Breath knocked out of me.
“You … still want me next to you?” I ask him, struck by that.
“Depends.”
I frown. “On what?”
“On who’s asking the question.” He lifts an eyebrow. “Is it my neighbor asking?” His eyes drop to my chest. “The guy who comes when I send an SOS? … The guy who … kidnaps an orchid and takes it with him because he didn’t trust to leave it with the new family who moved in next-door?”
“Your boyfriend.”
Wyatt’s eyes snap to mine.
I’m not quite sure that was the end of the path he was leading me down.
But that’s where I brought us. Dropping the hammer with that little word that breaks his beautiful face apart.
“It’s your boyfriend asking,” I tell him.
“If you want him next to you for all the battles you fight. I’ll trust you when you tell me you’re unbreakable.
And if you fall on your ass anyway …” I shrug.
“I can be standing next to you when you get back up.” I come even closer to him, right in front of him.
“I don’t wanna just be the guy who comes when you need him anymore. I want to be here.”
“My boyfriend …” he murmurs, like he’s trying it out.
“If you’ll have me.”
His mouth does something funny.
Is it because I came closer to him?
“That’s … awfully presumptuous,” he says, “for a man whose orchid sits on the porch behind him half-dead.”
“It ain’t half dead.”
“Three-eighths.”
“Wyatt.”
His smile finally breaks through. “Yeah.”
My heart stops. “Yeah? Yeah what?”
“Yeah boyfriend.”
The sound of his voice.
Uttering those sweet, perfect words.
Now I’m the one smiling. My heart as light as the breeze over our faces right now. This guy in front of me. This perfect guy.
“Can I kiss you?” I ask him.
Or was about to.
Before he rushes me, pressing his hands to my chest, and the pair of us slam against the side of his porch, lips locked.
Maybe I was lying.
What I missed most was this.
His clumsy, adorable, fumbling shows of affection.
His soft, perfect lips.
His kisses.
“Wyatt,” I whisper. “Your neighbors … they can see us.”
“Let them,” he says back, then dives into our kiss again.