Chapter 19 Giselle
GISELLE
I lay awake in bed for a long time thinking about the events of the night.
Was Thayer crazy? Bursting into the women’s room like that.
Asking me to move in with him and my brother like that would ever happen.
I wouldn’t lie and say I didn’t love his attention.
I mean, he looked damn good on stage staring at me as he quietly let my brother do his thing.
Unfortunately, he was currently back at home with the women’s Canadian snowboard team.
I grabbed my phone from my nightstand. Despite Thayer’s current situation, I knew what I needed to do. My fingers began texting.
I know I should be doing this in person, but I feel like I need to get this off my chest. I owe you so much for all you’ve done for me. You gave me my career. You gave me a place to live. You gave me your love.
I paused, urging myself on.
I hope you don’t think I haven’t thought about this, because I have. I think
Just say it, Giselle.
The cursor continued blinking, taunting me with the expectation of what needed to come next.
I flipped the phone face down on my stomach and considered how I should say it.
I think it’s time we break up. I think we’ve grown apart.
I think you care more about your work than me.
I think we just don’t make sense anymore. I think I love someone else.
My phone vibrated. I flipped it over and found a text above my unfinished text to Gino.
Thayer
Open your window.
My heartbeat quickened. I placed my phone on the nightstand and crawled out of bed.
I hurried to the window and threw back the curtains, expecting to find Thayer standing down below on the driveway.
But, he wasn’t there. Hoping to get a better view, I unlocked the window and pushed it open.
When I poked my head outside, I found Thayer somehow balancing on top of the garage with his fingers gripping my windowsill.
“Hey,” he said, like it was normal to be scaling my house.
“You’re gonna fall,” I whispered.
He pulled himself up like it was nothing. I stepped back as he climbed through my window. “Do you know how many times Kason and I snuck in this window while you were away at college?” he said, closing the window behind him.
“Yeah, well, we didn’t have alarms and cameras back then,” I said.
“Fuck,” he cursed.
“Nothing’s ringing yet.”
He walked around my room, inspecting the photos on my dresser and flipping over the one of Gino and me so it lay face down. Something about the jealous act sent my stomach flipping.
“What are you doing here?”
“Well…I saw the look in your eyes when Kason danced with Shay tonight.”
I narrowed my gaze. “What look?”
“The one that told me you would’ve liked to dance too.”
“So, why didn’t you ask me to dance?”
He cocked his head to the side. “What would you have said?”
“Probably no.”
“Exactly.” He slipped his phone from his pocket and scrolled until Coldplay’s “Sparks” began to play.
I smiled as he placed his phone down on my dresser, then walked to my door and locked it.
He stopped in front of me and rested his hands on my hips. “Dance with me.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously,” he said.
I twined my arms around his neck, letting him pull me closer and sway us in time to the music in the middle of my childhood bedroom. My high school self would have swooned at the whole scene. Hell, my adult self was swooning. “Why’d you pick this song?”
“Because you wanted it for your prom theme and were bummed when no one else did.”
“You remember that?”
“G, I remember everything.”
All sorts of emotions rushed through me as I released a shaky breath. I’d been so freaking blind. “Did you really just come by to dance with me?” I asked him.
“What do you think?” he asked, his eyes gazing into mine and turning my brain to mush. He’d left the Canadian snowboarders for me, and I was so damn happy that he had.
“I don’t know.”
“Have you been sleeping okay?”
“Not as good as I slept when you were with me,” I admitted, suddenly realizing how much I loved being in his space until I hadn’t been in it.
He smirked, and he had no idea how sexy he was.
“How was the party?” I asked, needing to change the subject before I foolishly threw myself at him.
“Were you jealous thinking about me in a house full of female snowboarders?”
“Extremely.”
“Now you know how I feel all the time,” he whispered.
A fissure cracked through my heart. I didn’t even have a comeback because he wasn’t wrong. And I was the only one who could fix it. He was the one. The one who showed up. The one who knew what I needed without me needing to tell him.
We danced until the song ended. My room grew quiet, but I didn’t want him to let me go. “Do you have to get back?” I asked, every fiber of my being begging him to stay.
“Depends. Do you want me to leave?”
I swallowed hard, unsure if I even had the right to ask him to stay.
“I could be heading back to go hook up with some girl,” he taunted.
I pulled back enough to meet his eyes. “Do you plan to hook up with some random after coming over here to be sure I could sleep?”
“That’s a stupid question,” he said, as if he hadn’t been the one to bring it up.
“Stay with me, Thayer,” I said, the words coming out in a whisper, as if I wasn’t sure he would.
“Thank god,” he said.
Making it perfectly clear how much I wanted him to stay, I pulled his sweatshirt up and over his head. He reached down and unsnapped the button on his cargo pants. They fell to the floor, leaving him standing in only his boxers.
I released a contented sigh as he shed his shoes and pants and moved to my bed.
He held up the side of my comforter, and I realized he was waiting for me to get in.
I climbed in first, then he slipped in, his arms wrapping around me and pulling me into his chest. My cheek rested against his bare skin, and all I could hear was the steady thump of his heartbeat as I breathed him in.
“This okay?” he asked.
“Perfect.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t reach out this week.”
It wasn’t like I expected him to. I hadn’t either. “Why didn’t you?”
“Because I know what I want. And I want you to want it too.”
The fissure expanded. “I never said I didn’t want the same thing.”
He squeezed me tighter, and a comfortable silence passed between us. I wanted him to know how I felt. But I knew that making him promises when I was still committed to Gino was a crap move—even if my text was almost finished. I should’ve just sent it.
“So…”
“Uh oh,” he said, and I felt bad that he was expecting the worst.
“You excited for Big Bear?” I asked.
I felt him exhale as if he’d been braced for what I’d say. “I’ll be gone for five days.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.
“I just did. I won’t see you for five days.”
“You’re stupid.”
He dropped a kiss to the top of my head. “Only when it comes to you.”