CHAPTER 54 MISSING PIECES #3
“Yeah, I had a great time that night, even though we didn’t win anything. At least, the agency didn’t win any awards. I won having a beautiful woman agree to come to a triathlon with me.”
Okay, now he’s trying to make me cry. “The triathlon was where Caleb told me about how you left Tish.”
“You know, she came to see me in rehab and was so horrified, I thought if tough, mouthy Tish can’t deal, there was no way you were ever going to be okay with this. Or if you were, you’d be fooling yourself.”
“I’m not fooling myself.”
“Look how happy she is now,” he said, glancing over at the general direction of the dinner tables. “Told you it wasn’t me; it’s finding the right person,” he said, referring to their early conversation denying Caleb’s aspersions on his relationship with Tish.
“You think she found the right person?”
“Tom seems like a nice guy. But I thought we were talking about us.”
“Us?”
“Yeah, like our happy memories. The club, down the shore, Paris.”
“That was great, and that was what, nine, ten months ago?”
“Yup, and we’ve made happy memories recently, too. Like tonight.”
“And then there was that whole mess in the middle of those happy memories,” she said.
“Mess, like you thinking I was dating my assistant?”
“Mess, like us not talking, and you not calling me back. And don’t forget about falling through your glass case and you thinking I’d date Caleb and all that. That mess.” Now she was laughing, kind of crying too. Ciao. Au revoir. Zai jian. Goodbye.
He looked up, and then stood to take her in his arms. Holding her tight, cheek pressed against her hair, he laughed. “No more messes, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. “Six thousand miles between New York and Beijing should do the trick.”
His gaze drifted to an empty spot above them, like he was lost somewhere inside. “You tried so damned hard to get us together. You’re amazing, you know that?”
“Is amazing a euphemism for stupid?”
He trailed a finger down her arm, bare below the plaid sleeves, tracing a line of longing. “Hardly. You had faith in me. Even when I’d lost sight of that and not because of you, but because I didn’t think I could be enough.”
She searched her mind for possible interpretations of what he was saying, trying to slow her hopefulness in case it was going to be obliterated. Again.
“And then you told me the most amazing thing. That you’d fallen in love with me and hadn’t stopped.”
“Well, that was last week,” she joked.
He looked at her, measuring the meaning in her eyes.
“I hope it’s not too late to tell you something.
Because I’m learning from you. I’m learning to be courageous.
Courageous enough to tell you how I’ve felt all along even though I’ve been scared shitless of being rejected for not being . . . enough.”
“No chance of that,” she said, memorizing the planes and contours of his face.
“You know, I thought you being sensitive, squeamish Orchid meant you’d never be able to deal.
” He ignored her intake of breath as she prepared to defend this tired argument.
“But actually, you being sensitive means you have more empathy than all those people who say they’d never be able to make it through what I did. ”
Orchid wasn’t sure she could speak. He brushed his lips against her ear.
“I love you.”
The shock of the words required her to replay them in order to absorb his meaning.
Her hand over her mouth when she didn’t remember raising it, the tears she’d predicted came.
Hot, salted droplets cascaded heavy like liquid metal, one for every moment apart, for every stone of his suffering, for each missed opportunity.
She threw her arms around him. He returned the embrace, no buttered rolls needed.
He tilted his head back to trace a thumb over her cheek, reading her right. “I’m sorry I hurt you. Forgive me?”
He held his breath waiting for her answer. She nodded, her throat too tight to speak.
“Tell me we can try again. Long distance, or I’ll find business in China.”
He’s willing to go around the world for me. Tears welled, spilling off the precipice. She burrowed into the safety of his shirt.
His voice rumbled through her. “It’s only fair to warn you not everything’s going to be easy being with me. It’s not going to be the same as before the accident, but do you want to try?”
Unable to resist the rush of the improbable tipping towards reality, she tiptoed up to touch lips to his soft, full mouth. Holy scent of soap and spice. “It has to be easier than not being with you.”
His lips curved up at the corners over straight, white teeth, brightening his face. He pulled her closer, his chest against hers. “How I’ve wanted this.”
He bent and touched his lips to hers until every subatomic particle bloomed to its fullest glory. He tingled her skin with a kiss like no other, one that evoked thoughts of an expanding universe and the study of numbers beyond infinity.
“Me, too,” she said.
He tightened his hold on her. Time ticked forward to unearth each lost intersection, devotion and affection.
He was hers, and she was his. Not a thing missing.