Mia flushed. “Those are different.”
Tom found himself smiling. It was good seeing his brother so happy. It hurt, a little but it was a good hurt.
Jake still hadn’t taken his eyes off Mia. “I need to step up my game. Something… vulnerable.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her before glancing back at Tom. “Not like—you know—naked vulnerable, but emotional vulnerable.”
Mia laughed, swatting at Jake’s arm. “Hey, sometimes a woman likes both.”
Tom leaned back, staring at the ceiling as the thought sank into him. He wanted to be vulnerable for Lauren. He needed to be. He needed to risking looking stupid, risk being too much.
Lauren had done all of that for him.
Mia leaned in and kissed Jake’s cheek. “You being vulnerable makes me feel… chosen.”
Tom swallowed hard.
Chosen.
The word rattled through him. Did Lauren feel chosen?
Jake held out a cookie. “Here. You look like you’re thinking too hard.”
Tom took it, even as something tectonic shifted inside him.
He’d considered vulnerability as the price of falling in love, a tax you paid during courtship. But what if it had never been a byproduct? What if it had been the point?
He’d followedthe map she’d stitched into the quilt.
First date.
First apartment.
The hiking trail where he’d proposed.
The church where they’d married.
Each square had given him a hint, a way to rebuild what he’d broken.
Now there was only two left before the blank row she’d included for their future.
The next one was a square of pale blue and gold thread, waves curling against sand. Their honeymoon.
Tom traced the stitching with his thumb, the tiny embroidered sun..
He remembered the real trip—the salt wind, the taste of her sun-warm skin. How she’d laughed when he’d tried to build her a lopsided sandcastle. They’d been ridiculous and happy and whole.
He wanted that again.
WantedLaurenagain—laughing, easy, happy.
He could take her to the coast, maybe. But this square hadn’t been about thebeach. It had been about being known—completely, and without hesitation. About touching her, and being touched by her, in the kind of trust that came from being utterly seen.
He wantedthatagain.
Wanted to makeherfeel what she’d always given him—wanted, chosen, adored.
She wouldn’t want that—not now.
He sat on the edge of the bed, the quilt spread across his knees.
