“I don’t want you to give up music!” My horrified squeak echoes through the room. There are great acoustics in here. “Why would I want to tear your heart out of your chest?”
“My heart would survive. There are always other things. I could start my own label and give people like me a chance when they never would have had it otherwise. Fund music scholarships. Make a teaching app. Keep writing songs for other people to sing. Be in the game that way.”
I have nothing. He’s basically going straight to theI want to be with you, and nothing else matters,but it’s too much. It’s too soon. It’s tooforeverwhen we’ve barely taken the first few fumbling steps.
Of course, I’m here for it. My entire body is here for it, from the cramping in my gut to the pressure in my chest to the hot sting in my eyeballs.
This man.
This man has freaking magic powers beyond music. But I still want to be cautious. I want to take things slowly. I want to be rational. I recognize self-doubt is like a garden that continuously needs weeding and tending, like all other life areas. I want to make this make sense. I want to force it into a box where rules are observed, and things happen in a natural flow and a reasonable timeline.
However, in the same instant, I don’t want to be rational at all.
I don’t want to becareful.
I want to be spontaneous. I want to be wild. Adventurous. I want to sayfuck itto the doubt and my need for everything to be tidy and rational and just step off the ledge with Wilder.
It’s not love he’s feeling. I know that. But it could happen if I let it happen for him.
Why in good freaking goodness would Inotlet it? File this underfear, the ultimate idiocy.
“I’ve filled my life with music and that whole lifestyle for years,” Wilder says, breaking the quiet. “It was more than enough at one point, but I’ve seen the world. I miss home now. A home I haven’t ever fully set up for myself. A home that’s still a mythical thing. I want a family. I want the things in life that other people take for granted. I want stillness and quiet and solitude. I want the small things, the sweet moments, the private falling. I don’t know how to answer your question about why you and not someone else. I don’t know how to prove to you that I’m real or that I mean these things. I can’t ask you to trust me because you’re right. This is still so new, and that would be crazy. I can only be honest and hope you find me sincere enough to give me a few more moments, one more night, another day.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you.” I hate that he thinks that. There’s no way I’m going to let him take responsibility for my share of the load. “It’s that my head likes to whisper intrusive things like that and carve doubt into my confidence, so it’s all Swiss cheesed to the max.”
“I like cheese.”
“I like cheese too.” When I burst into surprised laughter, his intensity softens, and the wariness fades out of it. My heart flips three times—physically impossible, I know, but I get why people say it.
The right side of Wilder’s mouth turns up. He drops his hands from my shoulders and takes mine, linking our fingers together. I shiver at the rough, delicious texture of the calluses on his fingers, but it’s the way he never stops making eye contact that makes my belly explode into butterflies.
“I like your songs. I like being with you. I like being with you in ways I never thought I could like being with another person. I love the way you smell. Just you. I like your brain, and I like your dog, your cats, and your mom. Why you and not anyone else? I can’t answer that without science experiments, talk of the supernatural, or something about fate. Or without music. I’ve never written a love song in my life, but I’d give it a damn good stab if you’d let me explain through music.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’m sorry.”
“No, you don’t have to be sorry. I get everything you’re saying. I get that overthinking and self-doubt are big things. I’ve done more than my fair share of that in the past. I still do. I’m just a person. Absolutely just another human being who is flawed and imperfect and still struggles, but thisjust another human beingwants to be with this particular wonderful and amazing human right in front of me. Thisjust another human beingwould love to kiss you.”
I nearly choke when I inhale. “Just so you know, seeing you rock every single instrument in here is incredibly sexy, but it’syouthat I want to kiss. Not your talent. Not your career. Not your history. Justyou.”
His eyes darken fractionally as they flood with emotion. When he pulls me into his arms, my hands press flat against his sweat-slicked chest while my heart takes off straight out of my chest, leaping and tumbling like it’s trying out for a gymnastics competition. “I know,” he whispers.
Did I ever stand a chance against this man, but doubly so now, when his eyes take in every detail of my face and body, sweeping over me, but coming right back and slowly blinking in amazement and awe like he’s found what he traveled the world searching for?
Yeah, no.
No, there was zero chance. Ever.
“I have an important question for you.” His voice has gone husky, but not just from all the use he gave it in here. He’s trained to sing for hours. It’s emotion thickening his tone. Want. Need. “Can I sweep you up, old-fashioned romantic style, and set you down right on the piano and kiss you until you’re senseless?”
“I’m afraid we might go past that and get overexcited. The piano looks expensive. What if we break something? I don’t think this finish was made to uh… get wet.”
“I’ll buy it.”
I stroke his cheek while my insides just plain stroke out and turn into useless goo. He leans into my touch, then turns his face and kisses my fingertips.
I’m so finished. I was finished ages ago, but this isfinishedfinished.
“The couch in there looks so much cheaper,” I whisper and groan at the same time. I’m pretty sure it’s more groan than breath. “Leather also wipes off.”
