“Why won’t you tell me?You’re always telling me to be honest.”
“I’m honestly telling you that I’m afraid you’re going to blow it out of proportion because of your insecurities with yourself.And I’m asking you to let it go for now.But if you want me to tell you right now, I will.I don’t want to, but I will.”
He paused, then drew in a deep breath.“I’m asking you to trust me.Trust that what we’re building is good and right and perfect.”
“There’s no other woman between us?”
“No,” he exclaimed.“Harley, my God, no.Just you.Only you.I have zero interest in anybody else.”
“You don’t have kids or something?That wouldn’t bother me.”
He kissed my temple.“I don’t have kids.And if I did, I certainly wouldn’t hide them like they were something to be ashamed of.”
“Do you have a criminal record?”
He groaned and pulled away slightly.“Harley, honestly.I said it was nothing.Would a criminal record be nothing?”
He sounded tired.
He’d given me no reason to doubt him.
I thought about Noelle and how she didn’t give up on Hawkley when things were tough.
Every epic love story requires a leap of faith.
This would be mine.
“Okay.”
He wrapped himself back around me, tighter than before.
“You have to know, Harley.There’s no one and nothing more important to me than you.I won’t allow anything to come between us.Not even you.”
29
Better
Familydinnernightthefollowing week was worse.Everything else in my life was perfect, but my brother’s attitude wore me down to the point I bowed out of dinner the following week.
For those two weeks we lived in our own idyllic bubble.I knew it couldn’t last; I couldn’t avoid everybody forever.But I resented the shit out of Hawkley’s hostility marring what was otherwise a beautiful love story.
I was in love.
Perfectly, beautifully, wholly, completely in love.
And it only scared me a little bit.
Even his secret dimmed to insignificance in light of the joy he brought me.For the first time in my life, I felt beautiful.
Andchosen.
Chosen by someone who made me nothing but happy.
Still, at some point every day, that secret crossed my mind.The time was coming when we’d have to deal with it, and I hoped against hope I would consider it as much a non-issue as he did.
In my darker moments, I worried it might have the power to break us, that Hawkley was right, and I was foolishly naive.But those were few.
And I took comfort in the fact Max had no qualms.
