She smiles, her face forward, and I swear her cheeks darken with a blush.
“Ah… yeah. Okay. We can try it,” she says.
I squint at her. “Tell me you were actually going to let me sleep all alone in my apartment,” I tease her.
“Yeah, fuck that, no, I wasn’t,” she admits.
“So, what’s wrong?” I ask.
She kicks sand, shoulders rounding forward. “I don’t… I mean, I guess I never even considered that you’d truly want me, let alone want to build a ‘happily ever after’ with me.”
I turn toward her with furrowed brows. “Why does that surprise you? I told you this morning I didn’t want to lose you. Nowthissurprises you? What’s the difference?”
For a few seconds, she doesn’t speak, and it takes me stepping closer for her to come back to reality.
“The difference is the happy part,” she says. “Maybe I just keep thinking I don’t deserve to be happy.”
“Everyone deserves to live happily,” I say.
“Hmm… do they, though?” she asks, eyeing me.
I snort. “Okay. Fair. But you do, Gemma. You deserve happiness after all of this.”
Her head hangs, hands shoving into her pockets again.
“Hey.” My fingers graze her cheek, and I tug her chin so that she looks at me. “What’s really going on?”
Because I’m confused as hell.
Her throat bobs, eyes searching my face. “Bonnie, I never thought you’d give me a chance, let alone a shot at a real relationship with you. After everything I’ve done… I thought we’d always be this cat-and-mouse game. I thought after you moved into your new apartment, you’d have a chance to truly think about this, and you’d push me away over time. I mean, this… the last couple days have been everything, but I… I’m hesitant because I don’t want you to run. I keep waiting for the moment when you realize… I lied to you. For weeks.”
I sigh as I take it in, as I try to perceive what she means, the shock of me talking about a future with her when she didn’t think I’d be open to it.
“You’re scared,” I realize.
“I’m not scared of loving you, Bonnie,” she says, shifting on her feet. “I’m scared one day, you’ll wake up and think ‘what the hell have I done? Why didn’t I run? How could I forgive her?’ And then, I’ll never be able to find you.”
Fuck, this hurts.
“Okay, where is the anxiety worm in your head because I would like to have a private word—” I lift up on my toes and tap her forehead. “Excuse me. No more doomsday scenarios.”
Gemma laughs and takes my hands down, and I cave at the sight of her beaming nervously.
I hate that she feels like this.
“Seriously, though, I don’t want us to be a game,” I say. “I want this. I want us. I want to build on what we have and see where it takes us. Last week, I was pushing you away because all I could think about was the fact that I wanted you to be the last person I ever kissed. I told you before that I knew we would be something real—”
“That was before you knew who I was,” she interjects.
“And finding out who you are only makes me want this more,” I tell her.
Her brow lifts, and I repeat back what I just said in my head.
“That sounds really fucked up, doesn’t it?” I ask, halfway joking.
“No more fucked up than anything I’ve ever said,” she says.
“God, that’s what I fucking love about us,” I tell her. “I love being able to be all of me and not worry about you judging me. I don’t have to hide anything. And I want thatall the time. Gemma, I want to be your happiness. I want a future with you. I don’t just want a few weeks of sex and giggles. When I think of my new apartment—when I think of myfuture—I can see you in it, and that means something. Since you walked back into my life, that’s what’s been scaring the shit out of me. Because I knew we were never just a one-time fling. Yes, our beginning was every shade of fucked up. I don’t care. I told you, I wanted you to be my stalker. I fucking fantasized about it. There were times I looked at you, and I begged the universe for you to be the same person.”
