Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
AUGUST CURRENT DAY (THURSDAY)
W arren walks out of the bathroom and runs a hand through his wet hair on the way to bed. I’m already in one of his old T-shirts, curled up beneath the covers, and the sight of him shirtless sends a thrill through me. This beautiful, sunshine man loves me— still loves me—and I won’t ever understand why. But who am I to question what’s meant to be?
He crawls under the covers and when he rolls over, so we’re face to face, the corner of his mouth pulls up. “What’s that look for?”
I smile as his hand finds my hip beneath the covers, and my shirt, to pull me closer. “You’re like a man man now,” I say.
His eyes narrow at me like I’m crazy, but a beautiful, bright laugh comes out of his mouth. “What does that even mean?”
“Back then, we were still immature kids, even though we acted like adults. We were still on that short high that comes from finally having the freedom you craved your whole life. We thought we had everything figured out, but looking back, I knew nothing.” He laughs and I reach to trace the wrinkles his scrunched-up face causes. “And don’t get me wrong, you were attractive as hell back then, but now you’re all filled out.” I run my hand down his arm and back up his chest. His body shudders beneath the touch. “Your muscles and jawline are more defined. But more than that, there’s a calmness, a sureness about you that I never felt back then. It’s like something settled in you and that change helped you become the man you are today.”
I expect him to kiss me, to pull me closer, but instead, he takes a deep breath and starts talking about the things we never discussed before.
“On the way to Boston, you were right that there was more about my feelings on my parents’ divorce that I never talked about. I don’t think I ever consciously understood those feelings until recently. But before I met you,” he starts, a small smile on his face even though his eyes have dimmed like the sun on a cloudy day, “nothing about me was settled. I was a mess. I was a different man than I was starting the day I met you. It was like a piece of me had always been missing, I wasn’t balanced, and then you showed up and suddenly everything made sense in my world.”
I shake my head slightly, not believing that I could’ve changed him on day one—that he could’ve been different before the day he met me. He just smiles in return and some of the sun peeks out from behind the clouds. “I know you heard about what caused the divorce. That their marriage was over long before they told me, but they played the part of a loving couple in front of me until I went off to college. Then they couldn’t separate fast enough. But I stopped believing in love for a little bit because of them. If the two people I thought loved each other more than anything could end so quickly, what chance was there for me?”
Even though I’d guessed how he probably felt about it all, the words still cut through me like a knife coming from his mouth.
“In college, anytime a relationship started to get semi-serious, I’d bolt. I didn’t trust it so I left before I could get hurt.” He won’t look at me during this part, and my heart breaks for the shame he still feels. “I never wanted to tell you about it because I feared you’d look at me differently. I always used humor and banter to cover anything real and I hurt so many people, but at the time all I could think was not to let myself get hurt.”
“But then I walked back to my desk that day to find your face twisted in concentration and a warmth ran through me I’d never felt before.” He finally looks up and my eyes widen. In that look I start to understand why he always seems to say my name as if it was holy, or as if I was his savior, because maybe I really did save him, or a part of him at least. “So, of course, I led with humor, but then you played along and shot back with the perfect counter and it almost knocked me off my feet. We only had one conversation, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I spent so long avoiding anything serious and then I spoke to you for a few minutes, and I wanted to get on my knees and beg for you to give me a shot, to go out with me, to never leave.”
I laugh and lean in to kiss him, looping my leg with his to help me pull closer. “If it makes you feel better, I totally would’ve given you my number that first day. Then you wouldn’t have had to berate me when you got back from your cousin’s wedding a month later, and it might not have taken you two months to ask me out.”
He chuckles against my lips. “I did come on a little strong after that wedding. God I was such a mess while I was gone. I should’ve been happy for them, celebrating, but I was more annoyed that I had to be away from you right as I was starting to believe you could be into me too.”
“Then why not ask me out sooner?”
“I was scared you’d change your mind about me,” he says so fast it’s like a bullet to my chest.
“Warren,” I breathe, the word barely there.
“I’d spent so much time running I was worried that, now that I’d found someone to be serious about, they’d run,” he adds. “So, I waited—absolutely too long—but that day I couldn’t take it any longer. I couldn’t wait another day to ask you out. Then you hugged me and said yes, and when you took my hand you officially became the sun in my world. Everything I did, thought, and wanted revolved around you.”
“And then you sang a song about summer love.” I smile, remembering how off-key he was. But that key fit right into my heart.
“It was more about loving Miss Summers.” He kisses my nose. “I know I said I was only falling for you then, but I was so fucking in love with you already.”
“If I hadn’t loved you before you sang for me, that would’ve sealed the deal.” I laugh. “But I didn’t want to scare you off.”
He rolls over so he’s hovering over me, and I let my hands roam his bare upper body. His lips move to my neck and my eyes close. My whole body hums and it feels a lot like the word more.
I’m just about to slip my hands under the waistband of his boxers when I turn to stone because he says, “I went to therapy in D.C.”
My breathing gets deeper. He doesn’t pull back to look at me, he just keeps his head buried in my neck as he talks. “Walking away from you completely ruined me. I hated myself so much for what I did I fell into a deep depression. It took some convincing, but eventually I listened to one of my friends and went to see a therapist. He helped me finally deal with all the things I never talked about—all the things I avoided and hoped would just go away but never did. Helped me realize that the way I acted in college, and running from you were because of unresolved feelings I had about my parents’ divorce. That I made a mistake with how I handled leaving last time. That I didn’t communicate the way I should have, and that hiding parts of myself didn’t help us in the end. He helped me finally be ready for this. For us.”
“Thank you for telling me this,” I say, softly, running my fingers up and down his back. It’s different, hearing it from him, hearing everything. My heart aches for our younger selves who both messed up, who didn’t fight for the love we knew we had. Yes, he walked away, but I let him. I didn’t fight for him, for us, the way I should’ve. I didn’t communicate the way I should’ve either. I hid my fears and let them ruin us. He might’ve made the bigger mistake, but my hands aren’t clean either. “I’m proud of you for getting help. For healing.”
“Last time, I loved you with everything I had but I didn’t give you all the parts of me,” he says, finally pulling back so I can see his face. My fingers moved to smooth the pain and worry off his face. “This time, I want you to know all of me, to love all of me, because I still love you with everything that I am.”
“Warren.” My lips curl up into a small smile. “I have always loved every part of you, even when I didn’t know them all. There was never anything you could tell me that would make me love you less.”
“Really?” he asks, skeptically. A real, big grin spreads across his face and my heart kicks into overdrive. He leans down to brush his lips against mine. “What if I told you I killed someone?”
I laugh, shifting beneath him so more of our bodies press together. “The only time I’ve ever seen you angry was when someone hurt me. So that would have to be the reason, and how could I be that mad when you were just protecting me?”
With a smirk, he leans down to press his lips to my neck again. I lift my hips when his hand runs up my leg, lifting the shirt, then hooks into the waistband of my underwear and pulls them down to my knees. I shimmy out of them completely as he removes his own.
“I love that you know me so well,” he whispers against my neck as we start moving together. Each movement is so rhythmic and in-sync, like we’d mastered a piece of complicated choreography, but in reality, we’ve just mastered each other. And there’s nothing better than that.
“I . . . love . . . you,” I gasp out before his lips crash against mine.
As the tempo picks up and our breaths get shorter and heavier, I can’t help feeling that these shared breaths between us are all I need to survive.
It’s not until we’re cuddling and getting ready to fall asleep that I tell him I’m ready to talk about the job offer—that I finally communicate the way we needed to back then. “What happens to us if I don’t take this job? How do we make this work if I’m here and you’re there?”
“Analise,” he says, his touch turning gentle and tender as it encourages me to turn around. His hand rests on my cheek, and it settles the loose wire hovering over the fuel in my gut—stopping me from exploding with worry. “Listen to me, I don’t care where you are in the world. D.C., Hartford, hell if you had to move to Tokyo, I’d wake up in the middle of the night just to hear about your day. I lived without you once and I refuse to do that again, even if it’s through texts and phone calls, I want you. In any way I can have you.”
“Really?” It just slips out, but the warmth from his returning smile evaporates the rest of my doubt. He chuckles and kisses my nose, then cheek, then lips.
“I understand why you’re worried about taking the offer, and I don’t blame you for feeling that way,” he says, but I know what he’s going to say next. I know because I’ve thought about every angle of this, every possibility. “But Peter is not like our bosses at Triniti. It wouldn’t be an issue like it was then.”
But my eyes burn. How can he say that so casually after everything we went through last time?
“Even if I knew for sure that was the case.” I take a deep breath and open my eyes. “I couldn’t accept it without him knowing about us first. I won’t leave it to chance.”
He hesitates, but asks, “Do you want to tell him, or do you want to turn it down?”
“I don’t know yet.” I have worries both ways, but I need to decide what will be best for me . As much as I might want to, I can’t make this decision solely for him.