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When I walk into the house from the garage, I hear some grunting. When I turn the corner, I find her.
She’s as gorgeous as ever, and my heart palpitates wildly in my chest at the sight of her.
God, I love her.
How did I think I could walk away? What the fuck is wrong with me?
She’s struggling with one of her suitcases as she yanks it down the stairs, and I walk up to take the suitcase from her.
“Oh!” she gasps when she sees me. Her hand flies to her chest. “You scared me.”
“Sorry,” I murmur, and even from here I can smell that fresh-baked cookie scent that somehow now only serves to make me horny as fuck.
I keep it in my pants.
For now.
We have to talk first.
I have to tell her how sorry I am for what I did.
I get her suitcase down the stairs, and I pause with the handle still in my hand. She seems to be waiting for me to keep moving it along, maybe even out to her car, but I don’t want to do that. I want her to stay right here.
“I’m sorry. I had planned to be out by the time you got home. You’re earlier than I thought you’d be.”
I rushed home so I could see you.
I let the words die on my tongue. “You don’t have to leave.”
She purses her lips. “Well, it doesn’t make much sense for me to stay when you made it clear that things are over.”
“What if they aren’t?” I ask.
“Wha…um. What?”
“What if things between us aren’t over?” I ask.
She sighs. “Can you, like…be clearer?”
“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t want things to be over. I fucked up, Ava, just like we both knew I would, and I’m sorry. I want to try this with you. I want to be with you. I love you.”
She’s quiet as she touches a hand to her forehead for a beat.
I wait with bated breath for her to leap into my arms.
“God…what is with today?” she wonders quietly, and I can’t help but wonder what she means by that.
I don’t get a chance to ask because she plows forward. “I love you, too, Grayson, and once upon a time, I thought that was enough. You told me it wasn’t. So…I’m sorry, but no.”
She twists her lips as her words pack a punch to my gut.
“I never thought I’d be the one to say it,” she continues, “but I’ve realized over the last two weeks that I need to be with someone who believes in us—who believes in me. I need to be with someone who won’t run at the first sign of trouble. I deserve that. I deserve someone who might go away for two weeks but who can’t possibly not call me every single one of those days. I deserve someone who doesn’t leave me like everyone else leaves me, especially not when you knew that was my biggest fear and you bailed on me anyway. You showed me exactly who you are, and I wish who you are could line up with what I want, what I deserve, but it just…doesn’t.” She presses her lips together, and then she reaches out and squeezes my arm.
She squeezes my fucking arm when I’m expecting her to fall into them at my confession.
I thought this would be so easy.
Clearly…I was wrong.
