“Sure, baby.” He jumps up to do it. I keep my eyes closed and listen to the sound of his bare feet padding across the kitchen floor. Of him opening and closing cabinet doors. He’s shirtless and wearing a pair of dress slacks, and the view of him like that is too tempting—and the sound of him filling my kitchen too welcomed after years of loneliness—for me to think straight.
I’ve missed this and him. Years ago, I had once mentioned getting married, not long after he moved in with me after college. Back then, he said he wanted to wait to do that because he didn’t need a piece of paper to be with me. Plus, with me eventually owning the house and store, he said it would be complicated to set up the prenup properly. That it’d be better to wait until that was all official and on paper, and once he’d built his career. We had powers of attorney for each other about healthcare decisions and hospital visitation, but I didn’t push.
I was afraid to push him out of my life, or that if I pushed too much he might think I was too needy.
Then, when he left, I sadly realized maybe he’d known all along that he might one day leave me. In retrospect, his initial rebuff of getting married made sense when contemplated in that context. It was also a bittersweet relief that I didn’t have to spend money or emotional resources on a divorce. I could still lie to myself that things weren’t “over” between us.
I hear him return and he places the glass in my hand, presses my fingers around its cool sides, and waits to release it until and he knows I have a secure hold. Several long swallows help slake my drought and settle my stomach enough I can think.
Holding the cool glass pressed against my forehead with my right hand, I keep my eyes closed.
Desi doesn’t interrupt me as I digest all of this. As much as I love him, I can’t look at him when I ask it.
“How do I know you won’t leave me again?”
“Baby, I swear. Whatever you need from me, whatever you ask of me, I’ll do it.”
“But you left before. How can I trust you won’t get itchy feet in a few years and leave again?”
When he takes my left hand I finally open my eyes to find him slipping a gold band on my ring finger. “Marry me, Tommy. Please? We’ll draw up a prenup, and I’ll even pay for you to have another attorney represent you when we do. I want to marry you. I want my last name attached to yours. I want to wear matching rings and brag to everyone that you’re my hubby.”
He holds out a matching wedding band to me. “Forever. Ineedforever with you, because I haven’t been happy when I haven’t been with you.”
I find my hand reaching for it even before my mind fully engages and processes what he’s said. The ring sits there in my palm, a mate to the one now on my finger.
I guess I’m silent for too long because he drops to his knees again, his hands resting on the tops of my thighs.
“I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I was stupid, and I was wrong. I let my mother guilt-trip me to take this job and I thought I could convince you to leave Maudlin Falls and want to be with me. But I had it all backward—I never should have left here, or you.Thisis where I belong, and I always have.”
When I meet his hazel gaze I see the pain there, the longing.
The grief.
Once again, my mouth engages before my brain. “Why wasn’t I good enough for you before?”
“You were, baby.Iwas stupid.Reallystupid. Never should have left you. I will go to my grave hating myself for walking away from you and for the time I wasted between us.”
This feels…too easy? Is that what I’m looking for?
I don’t know but with my head pounding it’s hard to think. Heck, it’s hard to listen to him without wincing. He’s not screaming but my ears feel like they’ve been turned up to eleven.
Jester twines himself around my feet, then rubs his head against Desi before looking up at me andmaowing. Like even my cat’s asking me to give Desi another chance.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. My heart wants to say yes and jump at this. My head says slow down because I’ve been emotionally scorched once already by this man.
The gold band warms to my touch. I roll it between my thumb and index finger as I struggle to process all of this. I know he wants me to put it on his hand right now, to reassure him that everything’s forgiven, except I need more.
I can’t manage anything over a whisper. “How do I know you won’t leave me again? How do I know there’s not more to this I’m not seeing right now? If this were someone else telling you about their ex suddenly reappearing and proposing, would you tell them to jump for it, or wait? Honestly?”
He sadly sighs. After he takes the glass from me and sets it on the table, he cups my hands again. “I would tell them to be very careful and take their time,” he says. “I’d tell them to guard their heart and make him work hard to earn it back.”
I force myself to look him in the eyes again. “Then why should I trust you yet?” Another thought hits me. “How many guys have you slept with since me?”
Despite the pain in his expression, I don’t take the words back.
I can’t.
“I’ve dated a few guys, yeah. But none of those relationships lasted. Mainly because I couldn’t make myself sleep with them. I couldn’t see myself with them. Every single guy, I compared them to you. None of them could come close.”
