No matter how stupid it makes me feel trying to explain myself to her, I know she deserves it.
“What do you know about puffins?” I ask, my gaze still on her lips.
“Um”—she twirls her finger around the hair at the nape of her neck—“they’re birds?”
“Correct.” I chuckle at her answer. “They also mate for life, spending most of their winters apart before coming back together each spring.”
Kelsey cocks her head, thinking. “And you’re…really loyal?”
I consider lying. I could spin this in a way that doesn’t make me look like I’ve been pining after her since my voice first dropped, but I’m not sure that’s what I want. If I’m going to have any chance of keeping Kelsey once we get back to Wild Bluffs, I need her to know that this isn’t just some passing interest. I mentioned my crush on her in high school, but not how that somehow morphed into an infatuation that I’ve never been able to shake.
I walk around the table, my hand gently lifting her chin until her eyes meet mine. “One of the guys I was in the Rangers with was also my roommate freshman year of college. He knew about the girl I couldn’t stop thinking about when we first got to college. The one I wished I had taken a chance on and asked out, especially after she stood up for my mom. The girl who never left my mind, no matter where I was, or what I was doing, even though I’d never dated her—even though she wasn’t ever mine to come back to.”
Her breath hitches slightly, and I see the realization flicker in her eyes. It’s like a spark between us as my words finally sink in.
“My Army buddies would set me up with women, but they were never as beautiful or as interesting as you were—or at least the you in my head. So they got annoyed with me always coming back from dates unimpressed with the women and started calling me Puffin. And like all ridiculous nicknames, it stuck.”
“How? You…we…you wouldn’t even talk to me in high school,” Kelsey says.
“Yeah. That’s what happens when you have a crush on someone since middle school: your brain stops functioning around them.” I brush my thumb lightly over her cheek. “But as for how, you know how small schools are: You know everything about everyone. You always fascinated me. And then, somehow, you burrowed your way into my heart and became the standard I compared all other women against. A standard that no other woman was able to meet. I realize it sounds ridiculous. Trust me, I’ve been told, and told myself, how ridiculous it was to compare every woman I met to you, someone I never even dated.”
Her gaze locks on to mine, searching for something. And when she finally speaks, her voice is barely a whisper, but it’s enough to send a shiver down my spine.
“I never knew.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I chuckle. “Tell you? When? In high school? I couldn’t talk around you, and you were either dating seniors or seemed completely uninterested in any of the rest of us. But honestly? I never wanted to pursue anything. I knew it didn’t matter. I wasn’t planning on sticking around. We both had big dreams, and I wasn’t going to risk holding either of us back. Honestly, high school me didn’t think it was as big of a deal as my college and Army friends did. Turns out, not everyone had a crush on a girl their entire middle and high school years and never did anything about it.”
“It is a big deal,” she says.
I let out a low chuckle. “Are you saying I had a chance in high school?”
There’s a twinkle in her gaze now. “I mean, no, probably not. But not because of you. I was so focused on getting out of town and making something of myself that I put zero thought into connecting with the people around me—even my sisters.”
A weight lifts off my chest as she admits that, and for the first time, I understand why she always seemed so distant. Kelsey, always driven, always with her eyes set on something bigger. I can’t help but marvel at how much she’s changed—even though that drive in her is still the same.
“And now?” I ask softly, brushing my thumb along the curve of her cheek again. “Because I’m not going anywhere, Kels. Not this time.”
She looks down at our hands, her fingers lightly curling around mine, then back up at me, her lips pressing together like she’s holding something back.
“Why does this feel so…easy?” she finally asks, her voice barely audible.
“Because we’ve been waiting for this,” I reply, my voice steady. “For a long time, and in different ways. We just didn’t know it.”
Her eyes soften at my words. “You really think we can make this work?” she asks. “Even once we’re back in Wild Bluffs?”
“Iknowwe can. You were the girl I compared every other one to for the last fifteen years, and now I know you’re the woman no other can compare to. I tried to tell myself how irrational it was to have my baseline be a girl I was classmates with growing up, but it didn’t work.And now I know the real version of you is even better than the one my adolescent brain concocted. So giving up on us isn’t an option. Not for me.”
“Okay, Puff,” Kelsey says with a smile. “Then it’s not an option for me either.”
And just like that, everything feels possible. Now, I just have to figure out how to break the news to Trent without losing my job.
Chapter twenty-five
Carter
