“Nothing you say is going to change my mind,” I say, brushing her cheekbone again, and again. “I told you, I just want you. All of the other stuff is just hurdles. We can get over hurdles.”
Where I expect her to keep fighting me, keep reaching for excuses that won’t matter, I’m surprised to see her give up instead. Readjusting her legs on the bed, she twists until she can lay down, her head resting on my lap as her hair fans out enough for me to run my fingers through it as I smile faintly down at her.
I won.
I actually won.
“Just hurdles,” she mumbles.
“Just hurdles,” I repeat.
“Tatum, I’ve never heard you talk so confidently before,” she teases a bit, side-eyeing me before she looks straight ahead again. “Who are you right now?”
My smile widens as I comb my fingers through her hair, starting from her hairline all the way down to the roots, doing this for a few minutes before I finally respond to her question.
“This is who I am when I’m with you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
MAEVE
Monday, January 3rd
“Just take what you absolutely need.”
I let out a dramatic sigh as I put my hand on my hips in a tired manner, giving Tate a pointed look from where he sits in the hospital bed, surrounded by all of my things that were stuffed into my bags for the trip. Trying to take all of this back home on a flight would prove to be more of a hassle than it was worth, so he convinced me to leave a bunch of it with him to bring back to Pennsylvania when he comes.
“I need…a lot,” I say with a playful wince.
Tate swallows, raising one brow down at my mountainous pile of panties that I tried to discreetly hide underneath a sweater. “You need all of those for your flight?”
Pulling my lips between my teeth to keep from laughing, I quickly stuff them all further underneath my sweater. I would die if a nurse walked in and saw them on display like this. The laugh slips out anyway when Tate teasingly hooks a finger into one of the lacy ones, tugging slightly before I’m ripping it away and stuffing it back with the others.
“Well, no, but I’ll need them when I get back to campus.”
“Did you bring your entire panty drawer?” he asks incredulously.
“Tate, you don’t underst?—”
“These areallof your panties?” he interrupts, a grin spreading across his face as he pokes fun at me, and I can’t help but giggle.
“It’sdifferentfor girls,” I whisper-yell, shoving the pile back in my suitcase, leaving the sweater wrapped around them. “Girls need to have options, okay?”
“Options,” he repeats.
“Yes, options.”
“Okay,” he says, gazing up at me with a hint of amusement in his dark eyes, “got it. Do you need all of these clothes, too?”
Licking my lips, I give the rest of my clothes a once-over before peeking back up at him. “I guess I don’t needallof them.”
“Maeve,” Tate urges softly, sitting up straighter as he does, “just take what you really need. I will keep everything else safe with me. I promise.”
It’s the perfectionist in me that’s silently screaming because I can’t just easily take all of this back home with me, I know that. I’m fretting where it isn’t needed, but I tend to do that a lot. So instead of further trying to argue a futile point, I take a deep breath, relaxing my shoulders as I give him a nod in agreement.
“Okay, you’re right. Just the essentials.”
The essentials being: my entire panty collection, some clothes, my bathroom necessities, some shoes, and other tiny items I can fit into the bag I’ll use as my carry-on. The more money I save, the better. It needs to go to helping Tate, although he doesn’t know that yet. I can see the cogs turning in his mind as he watches me only pack the one small bag.
