Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
EVERS
Summer stepped into the room and came up short, letting out a breathy Oh of surprise. I clamped my hands around Cynthia's waist and pushed, trying to disentangle myself from her embrace.
She was like an octopus, her lean arms sticky tentacles that grabbed on and wouldn't be dislodged. I tore my head back from hers and caught a glimpse of Summer’s red face, the flash of anguish in her eyes.
Her words barely more than a whisper, she said, "Excuse me," and dashed from the room.
"Cynthia," I growled, trying to pry her off of me, "what the fuck are you doing?"
Cynthia released me, tossing her hair over her shoulder with a grin and a wink.
What the fuck?
She gestured to the door of the library through which Summer had so recently fled.
"There you go, champ. Now you have to explain. Maybe if you beg and tell her the truth about how you feel, you might have a chance in hell of winning her back. Might. But you’d better hurry."
"Thanks a lot," I grumbled, leaving the bar at a dead run, following the click of Summer’s heels on the hardwood floor. I caught up with her outside the door to the library.
Grabbing her arm, I yanked her inside and shut the door behind us, turning the lock.
"It's not what you think," I said immediately, the cliché tumbling from my lips.
Summer straightened, wrapping her arms around her chest, refusing to look at me. "It's not my business. I didn't realize—but it's not my business."
"It is your business. And it isn't what it looked like."
Summer lifted her head, spearing me with a hot blue gaze, tears swimming in her eyes.
"It looks like you and Cynthia were kissing. You're both adults. It doesn't have anything to do with me—"
“It has everything to do with you," I burst out. "The whole thing was about you."
"I don't understand." Her voice cracked, tears spilling over her cheeks. She dropped her head to hide her face and pushed past me, intent on the door.
I was screwing up again. I was done making excuses. I needed to come clean. To tell her everything.
Everything.
Including the stuff I didn't want to admit, even to myself.
I stepped in her way, sliding to the side when she would have moved around me. "Just hear me out. Please."
Summer shook her head no, but she didn't move. I had to start talking, fast, before she took off on me again.
"Cynthia and I had a thing. A long time ago.
Before she was famous. Back when she still lived in Atlanta.
She wasn't my girlfriend. It wasn't serious.
We hooked up once or twice when she came back, but not in years.
It ended way before you went to work for her. There's nothing going on with Cynthia."
"Then why were you kissing her?" Summer studied the carpet between her feet, refusing to look at me.
"I wasn't kissing her. She was kissing me."
Summer let out a breath. "She said she was interested."
"She made it clear," I agreed. "And when I turned her down, she figured out that there's no way I would hook up with her when the only woman I want is you."
I waited for Summer to say something. Anything. She lifted her gaze from the carpet and stared me, eyes wide and watery, mouth closed. Waiting.
Shit. Of course, telling her I wanted her wouldn't be enough.
To me, wanting Summer meant everything.
I didn't just want to sleep with her. I wanted her. Wanted to talk to her and laugh with her. I wanted to fall asleep with her and wake up with her.
To me, I want you covered all of that.
From the hesitant look in her eyes, the confusion clouding her gaze, I knew it didn't mean the same thing to her. She needed more.
I tried again. "Summer, I screwed everything up with you. We started, and it was just about sex. I let you think it was always about sex. It was easier."
I stopped, scrambling, searching for the words. Everything going through my head sounded pathetic.
Summer shifted her weight from one foot to the other, dropping her hands to her sides as she realized I was at a loss.
I was failing her.
She was about to give up.
She lifted her hands and wiped away the moisture from beneath her eyes, sucking in a restorative breath. "It's okay, Evers. It's over. You don't have to explain. You don't owe me anything."
"That's bullshit. I have to explain because I've never told you the truth. I started out lying to you, and I kept lying. I don't want to lie anymore."
"Then tell me," she said quietly. "For once, tell me the truth."
I stared down at her, the words stuck in my throat.
I love you.
I want you.
I'm sorry.
Forgive me.
No sound came out. Finally done with my bumbling, Summer pushed past me and stalked toward the door, her wobbly ankle slowing her down.
"Wait," I shouted. "Wait."
"I'm done waiting, Evers."
"I love you," I burst out. "I'm in love with you and I'm scared to death. That's the truth. That's what I didn't want to tell you."
Summer turned to face me, her eyes wide with disbelief. "You do not love me," she said.
"I do. I do love you. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. I knew that first night at the wedding. With you, everything was different, and I had no fucking clue what to do about it."
"At the wedding? Axel and Emma's wedding? After the wedding, you disappeared, and I didn't see you again for a year," she said.
"I know. And I spent that year trying to convince myself that I was wrong.
Deluded. That you weren't different. That I’d had too much to drink and was overcome by the wedding and all that shit.
Then your file hit my desk and I was so fucking relieved, Summer.
Relieved to have an excuse to see you again. I walked into that party and—"
I stared at her face, remembering that feeling in my chest the first time I saw Summer after a year apart.
Sheer, undiluted joy.
How could I have convinced myself it was only sex? Just being in the same room with her again had set my entire world to rights.
I was a fucking moron.
I tried to explain. "I walked in, and there you were. A shot to the heart. I never knew what that meant until I saw you again. The whole year apart I was bullshitting myself. Then you were there, and I knew."
Summer lifted her hands helplessly and dropped them to her sides.
"Evers, I don't get it. If you knew you felt this way, why didn't you—I don't know—ask me out to dinner?
Spend the night? Invite me to your place?
Why didn't we date like normal people? Instead, you snuck in and out of my place like I was your dirty little secret, and I let you because—"
She fell silent abruptly. I wanted to chase down what she'd been about to say. Why? Why had she let me? Cynthia was spot on, Summer was not the kind of girl who let a man bounce in and out of her bed.
It wasn't time to pin her down. Not until I was done baring my soul.
"I don't know how to explain it,” I said honestly.
"It's just that I was always the one my dad said was like him. A ladies’ man.
A player. I loved my dad, but he could be a bastard.
And he was a shitty husband. He cheated on my mom all the time.
He'd say right in front of her that marriage was a trap.
Love was a lie. That the only thing to do was fuck and run. "
"He sounds like a real prize," Summer said.
I let out a wry laugh. "Yeah, that's my dad.
I have no idea why my mom stayed. She deserved so much better.
I think, in the beginning, she loved him, and she thought if she could stick with him, eventually, he'd settle down.
I watched her fade away, start drinking earlier and earlier.
She fell apart day by day. Year by year. "
"Evers, none of that is your fault," Summer said, still looking a little confused.
"I know it's not my fault," I said, "but I wasn't going to do that to a woman I cared about.
Promise her forever and then fuck her over.
I wouldn't. My father meant to be faithful when he married my mom.
He intended to be a good husband. He just…
it wasn't in him. And I always thought, what if that were me?
What if I made promises to a good woman and then I realized I couldn't keep them? I didn't want to be that man."
"So you didn't make promises to anyone," Summer said.
"No. I didn't. And for a long time, that worked. Until you. I met you and I wanted to make promises. I wanted something that would last. Something real. I was terrified I'd fuck it up. Turn you into my mom. I couldn't stand the thought of seeing the light in your eyes fade. I couldn't do it.
"I tried to keep things light. To put you in a box and keep you there, where there wasn't room for promises of love and forever. Where it was just moments of time together. I thought that could be enough."
I ran out of words.
Summer folded her arms across her chest again, but this time she stood straighter, her chin lifted, her eyes level on mine.
"Okay, so if that's all true, tell me, honestly, how many other women did you sleep with the year that we were, you know—"
“None," I said immediately.
She raised an eyebrow. "Evers, we never made any promises to each other. Just tell me the truth. I know it's not any of my business, but I want you to tell me."
"None," I insisted. "I haven't so much as kissed another woman, touched another woman since I saw you at that party over a year ago." I thought about Cynthia in the bar. "Okay, correction, I guess I kissed Cynthia ten minutes ago. But that's it."
An unsettling thought occurred to me. I found myself asking, "Did you? If you did, it's not my business, but—"
"No. No one else. Not since a while before that party, if you want to know the truth."
She sounded a little embarrassed, but all I felt was relief.
"You went that whole year only seeing me every few weeks and you never went looking for another woman?" Summer asked, slowly.
"No, I'm telling you—"
"I believe you, Evers. But think about what you're saying. You're worried you're going to cheat. You're worried you'll be your father, but we weren't even together, and you were faithful. Don't tell me you didn't have the opportunity. Opportunity practically jumps in your lap."
I wasn't going to deny that. I'd had plenty of opportunities to be with other women.
Summer was right. I'd never thought of it that way. I hadn't made her promises. She hadn't been my girlfriend, and still, I stayed true to her.
Because she was it for me. I didn't want anyone else. I never would.
Her eyes on my face, she waited, watching as I processed this revelation.
"So, Evers, the real question is, what do you want to do now?"
"I think that's really up to you," I hedged, my insides unsteady as if my entire world had shifted on its axis.
"I want to know what you want," she said, her chin set, eyes impossible to read.
She wasn't going to make this easy for me. I was very aware that she'd accepted my declaration of love but hadn't returned it.
Time to put my cards on the table and see how the hand played out. I closed my eyes for a second and let myself fall into fantasy.
What did I want? Really, truly, in the deepest part of my heart, what did I want?
Images unfolded in my mind, and suddenly, it was so very easy.
Opening my eyes, I looked down at Summer and stepped closer, reaching out to take her hand.
"I want you to be mine," I said. "Not here and there.
Not for secret moments of time. For always.
I want to wake up with you in the morning and go to bed with you at night.
I want to argue with you and laugh with you.
Cook dinner with you and dance with you.
I want everything. And I want it with you. "
If I expected her to soften, to fall in my arms, her tears turning into tears of joy as she swore her eternal love for me… If I'd expected that, I would have been sorely disappointed.
She studied me before she said, “What about marriage? Kids? Is that part of what you want?"
I’d always thought it wasn't. The example my parents set hadn't left me overwhelmed by the joys of married life. Still, I didn't have to think. I already knew my answer.
"Eventually, with you? Yes. Definitely marriage. I've always liked the idea of kids. Someday." Something occurred to me and I asked quickly, “Do you want kids?"
"I do. Someday. With the right man."
"And what about me? Is there any chance that could be me?" I couldn't remember the last time I'd been this nervous.
Summer wasn't mean-spirited. I didn't think she'd set me up to crush my heart under her heel. I'd hurt her, but Summer wasn't the kind of person who needed revenge. I hoped.
"I think you'd be a great dad," she said. Still not a declaration of love, but it was something.
"I know I'd give it everything I have," I said, tugging her closer. "But that's not really the question, is it? The real question is do you think I could be a great husband?"
"Are you proposing?" Summer asked, and for the first time since this conversation began her eyes were bright with a twinkle of mischief. From any other woman, at any other time, that question would have sent me racing for the door, a cloud of dust in my wake.
Not with this woman. Not now.
"No," I said, pulling her into my arms and lowering my head to rest my lips against her ear. "Not this time. Not right now. When I ask, you'll know it's a proposal."
Summer turned her head so my lips pressed her cheek, her arms wrapping my neck, her body melting into mine. "So, you're going to ask?"
"Eventually. Are you going to say yes?" My lips brushed her chin, the lemon and flowers scent of her hair like coming home.
A laugh bubbling in her throat, she said, “Maybe. I have to think about it."
I dropped my lips to that spot just below her jaw that always made her shiver and sucked the tender skin there. "You’re evil, you know that?"
"You deserve it," she breathed as I took another bite.
I did deserve it. And I didn't care. I could take whatever Summer dished out. I’d take it happily if it meant she was mine.
"I love you," I murmured into her neck. "I love you, and I'm not going to fuck this up again.”
Summer leaned back and looked me straight in the eyes. "No, you're not. Neither of us will."
It was as close to a declaration as she was going to get. I’d take it. Glad I'd locked the door, I kissed her.