Chapter Twenty-Eight
Graham
L et me get this straight.”
My voice comes out calmer than I feel. Lily stands in front of me, an earnest expression on her face. She’s not going to let me leave until we have this conversation. Since we’re essentially trapped at this rehearsal together, there’s no point in outrunning her.
I continue, “So, we meet. I fall in love with you. We say we love each other. We make plans. I want to marry you. I buy a ring. And then, you see said ring and run away without a word. No, not a word. You tell me everything I thought we felt for each other was one-sided. Oh, and then, just to further confuse things, you never reach out to me again. Not even for the box of stuff you left behind that I still packed and took with me across the country like an idiot in love because throwing it away felt like throwing you away.”
Tears are streaming down Lily’s face now, but she nods.
“Let’s continue.” I begin to pace, deliberately avoiding looking into her eyes because I never could stand to see her cry. Whatever troubles Lily endures, I always want to fix them, to hold her until the world is right again. She used to let me. She’s been letting me . . . which makes me more determined to finally speak the words I’ve wanted to say for a long time.
“I can’t get you out of my head or my heart. You told me the little town you lived in was a dreamy and darling place to call home—albeit sometimes unhinged—but a place to mend a broken heart. In case you haven’t guessed it, that is why I showed up in Birch Borough in the first place.”
I wring my hands and crack my neck. It’s emotional, laying out all the evidence for my case against her in real time. For once, she doesn’t speak, letting me pour out my heart without interruption.
“During your parting shot to me, you promised me that you were leaving the country. You weren’t going to stick around, you said. I believed you. Again. And I moved into an apartment here. Why? Because I like to blow my life apart, apparently.”
My hands rise to loosen my tie. I work on the buttons of my shirt to roll up my sleeves.
“Graham . . .” Lily whispers. She can’t seem to get out the words. My chest is hollow, with the harsh facts spread out before us. I can’t take them back or will myself to stop. I’m aware of the internal alarm going off in my head, warning me that I should’ve stopped a few hundred words ago, but I keep pacing, the truth tumbling from my lips.
“Fast forward. Our best friends—of course fate would connect us for life somehow—are getting married. I’m in this wedding with you. And I have to watch you . . .” I pause, emotion clogging my throat .
The tears slip down her face, the drops soaking the top of her linen dress.
I gather myself and go on, “I have to see you. And talk to you. Through some magic, I got to kiss you in what must’ve been a portal to a dream world. I get to have you near me again. Yet, even when it feels like things are working, I know what I’ve already lost every single time.”
Her breath hitches. I clear my throat. I’m still not done.
“Still, knowing all this, I let you challenge me for my future in this town. I agreed to your terms. I fulfilled your demands. I put my whole life on the line again. Every step of the way, I warned myself not to fall for you, not to dare bare my soul just for you to crush it again.
“I thought we were on the brink of something. Everything I had buried started to break through the dead soil in my life. I thought my heart found the strength to beat again. It was as if my real heart was merely going through the motions of keeping me alive until you came back to me.
“And then you ask me if I’m leaving before we walk down the aisle—and I remind you . . . that you . . . you once said—I can’t even say it out loud because it feels like poison and a weird excuse for what we are to each other. So, I give my mom the apartment. I give you what you want. And now . . . you call me a rake?”
“You wouldn’t stop walking!” The frustration in her voice is like a poker, prodding the coals between us to keep the fire burning.
“Why should I stop, Lily? I’m genuinely asking . . . why?”
“Because I . . . I . . .” she starts, but the words get stuck in her throat.
“And a rake ? Really? I’ve done everything in my life with the goal of being an honorable man. I’m not perfect, but I’m not that, and I . . .” I trail off.
“It’s my favorite show,” she says, her jaw lifting minutely, defying me to call her on this truth.
“I know.”
“I watch it over and over.”
I sigh. “I know.”
“I can’t live without it. I don’t want to do life without it.”
I wince. “Okay . . .” I shake my head and hold my hands to the side, my body language practically begging Lily to fast-forward through the painful parts of whatever is ahead.
“And I can’t live without you. I don’t want to live this life without you.”
Her passionate words catch me off guard. I did not expect them. For the first time tonight, I allow myself to search every feature of her face, looking for anything to prove them false. There’s nothing. She really means it. And deep in my gut, I know it’s true.
She’s staring at me so intently that I couldn’t move if I wanted to. I feel the sigh escape my lips before I’ve thought it through. I’m tired of pretending that I’ve ever been anything but hers.
“Lily, this had better be the last time . . .” I plead.
“It is. Because I can’t pretend that you aren’t everything I’ve ever wanted and that I’ve been too terrified to admit it. And because I love you,” she says with her signature smirk. Fresh tears fall down her face through the smile.
They match my own. I couldn’t hold it together right now if I tried. Slowly, pulled together by the invisible force that exists between us, we meet in the middle. I take her in fully. The glow of the church’s interior lights filters through the windows, carving a journey from the crown of her head to the tips of her hair. Her piercing grey eyes are now clouded by the glare catching off my rain-specked reading glasses.
“Graham.” Her voice catches, my name sweet on her lips. “Graham, I love you so much that I don’t know where you end and I begin. Even if I can’t be your first choice, after all we’ve been through, you’re mine. And I’ll choose you every time. With all my heart, I choose you.”
Hungrily, I take her in, the ache settling deep in my stomach. She moves her hand and does what I’ve been hoping she’d do again: touch me without giving an excuse for it. Her fingers stroke the edge of my jaw, and she lightly rubs the back of her hand over my beard. The sensation causes my lips to part.
“You’re wearing your glasses,” she marvels, a hint of wonder in her voice.
I haven’t worn them in front of her since LA. I nod, my reaction taking a few seconds to catch up with her words.
“It’s a miracle you can see out of these things.” Her voice is soft and low. Despite her tear-streaked cheeks, she moves her hands upward with confidence to gently remove them from my face. She uses the side of her dress to wipe them clean before she pauses, a blush creeping up her cheeks. When she hands them back to me, there’s a subtle caving in of her shoulders, a hesitation, a shyness I’ve never before noticed. I’m caught in a state of wonder at the realization.
Though my instinct has always been to care for her, to feed her, and to make sure she’s okay through all the ups and downs, Lily has struggled to show her tenderness ever since we reunited. She’s always so strong, seemingly unbothered by the opinions of others.
But this, seeing her vulnerability and weakness in this moment . . . She really does love me.
I choose my words carefully, wanting to speak with intention. “As much as I’m for this turn of events for us, I don’t want to rush you. There has been a lot of emotion this season. So, I’m going to give you until the wedding. My feelings for you are what they were in LA. What they’ve always been. So, tell me how you feel after our friends get married. Until then, I’m still yours.”
I fold and place the glasses in my jacket’s inner pocket, the one over my heart. Without them, there’s no barrier between her gorgeous eyes and mine, and it turns me inside out. I just want her to be mine again.
“It’s up to you what happens next. I mean that.”
She reaches for me, her hand lightly grasping my wrist and then sliding down—slowly and gently—until our fingers are intertwined. Without breaking eye contact, she shifts her weight so she’s leaning closer as music from the back of the church begins to play softly. Its heady notes whirl romance all around us.
When I use my free hand to reach for her, she freezes. This moment in time could be placed over the moment when she once rejected me in perfect synchronicity. The reenactment has haunted me for two years—the moment when I reached for her, and she backed away.
Except, this time is different because she leans in. The edges of my fingers wrap around her shoulders. I feel the brush of the ribbon around her waist. I haven’t even commented on the wedges she’s wearing tonight, but I love them. I love her. I tug her closer to me as she wrestles with a grin.
“Lily, I never . . . I never could pretend you’re not the sun and moon of my world,” I admit.
My hand slides up her waist, over her elbow, and up her arm before it lands at the curve of her neck. I pull her to me and place a tender kiss on her forehead. Her skin is soft beneath my lips, and I exhale heavily.
“Graham.” Her eyes lock on mine as she leans back. I watch them swirl into a pool of affection as she passes them over my face before halting at my mouth. “Hit me with your best shot,” she challenges.
She’s barely finished the words before I feel her lips pressed to mine. Instantly, the weight of them transforms me from someone with a broken heart into someone who knows what it means to have everything that was missing returned to me and then some.
The warmth of her touch sends me reeling. Liquid heat moves throughout my body. Her arms wrap around my neck as I release her mouth just long enough to trail soft, lingering kisses down the side of her neck. The scruff of my beard slides against her smooth skin as I move my way back up the path I created, and she shivers. Gently, I nuzzle my face into the spot beneath her ear and feel her breath hitch. The edges of her ponytail are calling to me. With one hand clasped around her waist, I lift my free hand to gently weave through her ponytail, twisting the golden strands around my fingers. Knowing she’s near me—that she wants me near her—is a sensation that leaves me feeling steady and exhilarated at the same time.
When she leans back again to look into my face, I will her to really and truly hear me. Once hostile, her eyes have given way to a wave of love.
“You’re it for me. Got it?” I say, the gritty quality of my voice revealing my affection. “I love you, Lily. And I’ll choose you first every time.”
Her eyes glisten with tears, and I feel a few of my own trailing down my face and catching in my beard. Slowly, she lifts her hand to wipe some of them away with the back of her hand. The gentleness of it all is a contradiction to the fire still in her eyes.
“Sounds like a challenge,” she declares with a grin.
I know without a doubt that my heart is finally in her hands for good.