Chapter 61
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
boston
“Hi.”
I blink, suddenly wishing I’d put on some clothes. I’m standing on my porch in the freezing rural area of Pittsburgh, dick shriveling in my sweats as I squint through the blanket of dark hair in front of my eyes, rubbing my abs like a fucking old man after downing a case of beer on his recliner.
And there she is.
Still as beautiful as always, despite the lethal cold in her eyes.
Ariana keeps her chin up. She refuses to look below my neck, and she might not notice, but she stomps her foot a little—like it’s annoying her that I even put her in this position. Her face contorts with a twinge of pain when I angle my head toward her and she sees the extent of the damage.
It’s been a couple weeks and an awful, lonely Christmas.
I just spent it with Lemmy, ignoring my phone except to talk to Kane and the kids after they opened the presents I sent.
I’ve been off work, for obvious reasons, so my face has healed.
The bruises are more yellow than black now. My nose looks like a nose again.
“Ari.”
“Hi,” she says again, her eyes hardening.
“What are you doing here?” I ask carefully. I take a step back, opening the door wider for her. I might know my boundaries now, but I’m not leaving any woman outside in the middle of winter—even if she’s bundled up like we live in the frozen tundra.
Her brow furrows, and like the defiant and stubborn thing she is, she refuses to move from my porch. “No. No, I’m here to say one thing and leave.”
I hesitate, taking a small step toward her but remaining on my side of the door. Remaining where I’m supposed to be. Where I should be. Away from her.
She finally exhales, a puff of hair exploding in front of her face like a fog. “It’s not my fault that I fell in love with you. It’s yours.”
My brows skyrocket. “What?”
“It’s your fault,” she repeats. “You said just sex, but then you treated it like something different. You opened up to me. You showed me how kind you are. You brought me to see the baby goats, Boston!”
“Kids,” I correct, though I don’t know why.
“Shut up,” she seethes, glaring at me. She takes a step closer, pointing a finger in my direction.
“You are a good man, you just don’t trust that you are, and I fell in love with every part of you.
I care about where you’ve come from and what you’ve been through, but only because it makes you the man I fell in love with.
If you didn’t want me to fall for you, you shouldn’t have let me know you. That’s on you.”
My heart swoops and dives in my chest, plummeting toward the pits of hell, knowing this is the woman I have to let go of. The woman who speaks about me like this. Who sees me like this. I can’t have her. I have to let her go.
“Ariana,” I say quietly, but I make no move toward her and she notices.
“I love my brother,” she says then, pulling her shoulders back. “But he was wrong for what he said to you. He was wrong for hitting you. I will never forgive him for it. No matter what you did, you didn’t deserve that, and it wasn’t true.”
Yes, I did.
I say nothing.
“It wasn’t true, Boston,” she repeats.
I swallow, my eyes burning into her face.
I want to hold you, sweetheart. Please understand that. Please see that in the way I’m looking at you right now.
“Your parents' decisions and their choices are not your fault. You were the kid. You were supposed to be allowed to be a kid.”
My heart aches, dull and painful now. I don’t want to talk about this.
I don’t want to relive what her brother spat in my face through his rage, when he realized the physical pain wasn’t hurting as much as he wanted it to.
I don’t want to consider that the reason I can’t be with her is because the little boy in me will never feel safe enough to try.
That there was so much damage done to me before her brother threw that first punch. Damage only I can fix.
“I’m sorry that I put you in this position and I’m sorry that I ruined your relationship with my brother. But I’m not sorry for loving you. It was the best decision I’ve ever made. Easiest, too. That’s all I had to say.”
I listen to her ramble, my frown deepening.
She doesn’t wait for me to say anything.
She didn’t come here hoping some speech would change my mind or make me talk.
She doesn’t even bother to gauge my reaction, she just spins on her heel in that puffy black coat and storms right back down my porch steps now that she’s gotten it over her chest.
She stomps down my driveway in her big, winter boots that look ridiculous on her person with such little snow on the ground. She doesn’t look back, not once. She climbs into her vehicle, and I’m still in my doorway, half-naked and watching. Our eyes meet one more time before she puts it in reverse.
She’s going the wrong way.
I want to chase that car. Follow it until my legs give out.
Run after her for the rest of my life, even if I’ll never catch her.
Knowing that I’ll never catch her. I want her to see that in my eyes as she pulls away from me, and understand that I feel this agony, too.
That it destroys me that this can’t be different.
I want to run to her, and when I can’t run anymore, crawl to her until she understands the words that I can’t say out loud.
Her vehicle vanishes down the driveway and out of my line of sight.
And I stay put.