Chapter Thirty-Four
Naomi
The door clicks shut so quietly, I have to turn to confirm he’s even still there.
He doesn’t look as happy as he did several minutes ago.
Certainly not as happy as he did while he was eating me out.
In fact, he’s been particularly quiet since we left the rehearsal dinner.
We shared very few words on the drive back to the cabin, but I figured he was just as tired as me, just as ready for this day to end so we could watch our friends get married tomorrow.
Except the look on his face is anything but excitement. He keeps his eyes downcast, his shoulder tense beneath his suit jacket.
Oh God, is this about the marriage conversation? Is he actually not okay with our arrangement? Will not being able to marry me change the way Graham feels?
Slowly, his hand drops from the door to his side, where his fingers flex and my heart hammers against my ribs so hard I’m afraid he might hear it.
“Graham?”
He’s quiet for a long time, staring at the wall, then the bed, then the floor. Eventually he sighs so deeply he may as well exhale his entire soul. “I never apologized to you..”
“Apologize?” My stomach gives a sick lurch. “Apologize for what?”
He finally looks me in the eye. “For the way I spoke to you that morning in Vegas. For the lies. For walking out on you when you needed me—”
Shaking my head I take a step closer. “Graham—"
“Please, Naomi,” he begs. “Let me just say this?”
The last thing I want from Graham is an apology- I forgave him for all of that a long time ago- but he looks so determined I can’t do anything except nod, taking a seat on the edge of my bed. “Okay…”
Graham swallows, fists clenching and then unclenching at his sides.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I said and I’m sorry for the way I left.
I was in a really bad place after what happened with my sister, and I never should have taken it out on you.
I never should have implied that I was using you or that what we did meant nothing—”
“Graham I—”
“I know.” He cuts me off. “I know you said the same thing but that didn’t give me any right to throw those words back at you. Especially when I still felt the ache of them myself. You hurt me, a thousand times.” I look away, ashamed. “But it didn’t give me any right to hurt you back.”
I disagree. I disagree so much. Graham has absolutely earned the right to hurt me.
To shout at me, to roar me down for using him like some sex doll I could slap around for my pleasure.
I want him to. I want him to repay me for all the harm I’ve caused his beautiful heart, so I stop feeling so goddamn guilty all the time—
“I love you, Naomi.”
“I love you too—”
“Please, let me finish,” he begs. I bite down on my lip, nodding. “I have loved you from the moment I saw you across that crowded bar,” he continues. “All I could think was, that woman is going to be my wife, or no one ever will.”
Tears fill my eyes. I knew I should never have said anything. I should never have mentioned my thoughts on marriage. Because now this is over before it can even start—
“You… Stunned me,” he goes on quickly. “You took my breath away, and I haven’t stopped thinking about you since. Not one day has passed without me wanting you, missing you- even when you’re right here- and honestly, it’s exhausting.”
I avert my gaze to my hands. But then he closes the distance, taking my face in his palms until I can look nowhere but into his green depths.
“But I can’t make it stop. Nothing you’ve done, said, or believed about me has ever changed it. No selfish choice, no insult, no cruel lie has made me stop loving you. And nothing- nothing, Naomi- ever will. God knows I’ve tried.”
A choked laugh escapes my lips.
“I’ve tried so hard to stop. Loving you has hurt like Hell, but I can’t.
You’re it for me. I love you- pathetically, desperately, with every broken piece of my heart and soul.
” His thumbs brush tears from my cheeks as they escape.
“I am in love with you, and I have been for the last four years. You have no idea what hearing you say it back has done to me, and if one day you stop, I need you to know that what I said before you left Lightning Cove wasn’t just to make you stay.
It was real for me. Every moment of it was real. ”
He leans in, placing a long, lingering kiss on my lips until I’m holding his wrists, tilting my chin up to chase him when he eventually pulls away.
“You own my heart, Naomi… Я буду любить тебя, пока от меня не останется ни крупицы, кроме пыли.”
Tears keep flowing down my cheeks. I don’t know what he says and yet I can feel the emotion in his every breath as he says it. He just continues to wipe my tears from my cheeks, peppering kisses across my brow.
“I need to go be with the guys tonight,” he tells me softly. “The night before the wedding all that nonsense about not seeing the bride. Will you be okay with Clara and Poppy?”
I groan, loudly, irritated enough to make him chuckle.
Nelly started grilling me the moment she got the chance.
Luckily, those chances were few and far between with the schedule of the rehearsal.
And of course, Graham and I had snuck away at the first opportunity. “Yeah,” I mutter. “I can handle them.”
He chuckles, kissing me again. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I reply, and his smile widens. As if he really doesn’t tire of hearing me say it.
“I’ll see you at the church.”
“I’ll be the one in blue.”
Another kiss later and he’s gone, leaving me watching the closed door far longer than is reasonably healthy, tears leaking slowly down my cheeks. Because I already miss him, and I know he’s missing me too, but this won’t be the last time we’re forced to say goodbye no matter how brief.
Because Boston is waiting.
Because I already have a flight home in two days.
Because his life is fourteen-hundred miles away.
I’m taking out my phone before I can even process what I’m doing, clicking the very first number on my favorites list and holding it to my ear while I rock on my bed.
He picks up on the third ring.
“Hello?” Nathan sounds slightly dazed when he answers. God, why did I call him? It’s nearly one in the morning. “Naomi?”
“I’m sorry,” I shake my head even though he can’t see it. “It’s late. I shouldn’t have called—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The bed creaks as he rises, leaving the comfort of his Egyptian cotton sheets and wildly handsome husband for me. “You can call me anytime.” A door closes. “What’s up?”
“I mean,” I sniffle, wiping my eyes with the back of my wrist. “Nothing really. Nelly is getting married tomorrow. We have to be up early to drive to New York.”
“Yeah… I know,” he says slowly. ‘Is that why you’re crying?”
“I’m not crying,” I lie.
"Mimi, I’ve known you all your life. I can tell when your fucking crying.” Nathan softens his voice. “Talk to me, baby girl. What’s wrong?”
My brother patiently waits on the other end of the line as I sniffle, cough, and try to find words big enough to describe the crisis I’ve arrived in. There are only three that really feel like they sum it up so perfectly.
“He loves me…”
"Who… Graham?” Nathan snorts. “Yeah, that’s not news, babe. And certainly not something you’ve ever cried about… Did something happen? Oh god,” he groans. “Did you two fuck again?! Are your fucking parts magnetized?! You literally can’t avoid connecting them?!”
When I don’t laugh he firms up his tone immediately. “Oh, shit, you’re like actually really sad.” My silence begins to worry him. “Naomi?”
I swallow another wave of sobs. “I love him too,” I gasp out.
"Oh, baby girl—"
“And I don’t know what to do, Nate! I don’t know how to leave him again now that I’ve admitted it to myself!”
“Leave?” I can literally hear his brow pinch. “Naomi, why would you have to leave?”
“I have a job in Boston!” I wail, standing to pace toward the window.
“So?” He asks like a job at a law firm is trivial. “Quit?”
“I literally just started!”
“I repeat- So?” Scoffing I scrub at my eyes again. “Naomi, do you even like that job? Do you even like Boston?”
“Of course—”
“Really? Because every time I come up you’re bitching about something. The accent, the weather, the coffee, the rain. Naomi,” he says sternly. “You fucking hate Boston, and you’re better than being an office drone.”
“Nathan, I can’t just quit—”
“And why not?”
“Because I need a job! Dad expects me to make my own way. Just like him. Just like you—”
“So come work for me.”
I turn away from the window and freeze, blinking several times because surely I must have misheard him. “What did you just say?”
“Come,” Nathan repeats slowly. “Work. For. Me.”
“I’m better than desk work but not better than waiting tables?! Nothing wrong with it, but I have law degree, Nathan. I should use it—"
“Not as a waitress!” He whisper yells. “As a fucking managing partner! Jesus Christ, you know everything about the place, just come work there! With you managing the day-to-day operations we’ll be expanding within the year.”
He’s not wrong. I practically lived at The Pink Flamingo when I was in Lightning Cove. I played Nathan when he wasn’t around, worked with Gavin to get all the books in order. The club ran like a well-oiled machine under my leadership.
“Wait, Gavin is your operations manager?”
“Right… That reminds me,” Nathan hums, then I hear a door open again. Very quietly his whispers, “Gavin, baby?”
“Mmm?” A man’s voice grumbles.
“You’re fired.”
“What….?”
“Go back to sleep.” The door opens and closes again, then Nathan says a little louder. “There. Now you’re my operations manager. Welcome aboard—”
“I haven’t agreed to the position yet!”“But you will. Because you hate Boston. You miss your friends. And you love a particularly attractive young man—”
“He’s older than you—”
“Who would fight the world for you. Which, I shouldn’t have to remind you, is hot as fuck.”
“It is…” I agree.
But can I really just uproot my life for the vibes?