“Lisa helped me,” Ian supplies as he sets the pot of ramen on the milk crate before standing upright again and shoving his hands in his pockets. “We can take the covers off your pillows when we’re done, and I promise to put everything back where it was before, but?—”
“Chewbacca throw pillows,” I say, too dumbfounded to care that I’m stating the obvious as my gaze sweeps my living room and I realize what this is. “You’ve recreated your dorm room.”
I scan the rest of the space, cataloging the changes. Red chili pepper lights frame my window, and my sofa has been shoved to the opposite wall and adorned with a bedspread that looks like a slice of pepperoni pizza.
I have no idea what to say or how to respond when Ian grabs a vase of daisies off my end table and sets them on the side table next to me.
“These are for you,” he says. “I wanted to pick them myself, but the security guard at the college said—” He stops and shakes his head, endearingly nervous. “Never mind. They came from a florist. I’m sorry.”
I’m not sure whether he’s apologizing for the flowers or for rearranging my house. Neither of those things upsets me in the least, so I suspect it’s not that at all.
I study him for confirmation. He takes a step closer, green eyes shimmering as he reaches for my hands. “Sarah, I want a do-over,” he says. “A second chance to make things right with you.”
It takes me several breaths to find the ability to speak. My senses are flooded with the smell of Picante Chicken Top Ramen and the hum of my favorite soundtrack and the realization that Ian Nolan is standing in my living room asking for another shot.
I swallow hard and gaze into those familiar green eyes. “You think redecorating my house and cooking noodles is going to make everything okay?”
He shakes his head, a determined expression on his face. “Not even close,” he says. “I just wanted to render you speechless long enough to deliver my apology.”
Mission accomplished. I don’t say this out loud, but he must sense it anyway. Good Lord, he’s even tacked up a poster of dogs playing poker. How did he find all this?
“I used sticky strips so there won’t be holes in your walls,” he says, shaking me from my thoughts with this very Ian-like bit of information. “The only thing permanent is the way I feel for you.” He grimaces and shakes his head. “Fuck, that sounded cheesy.”
A stupid wave of tears rushes to my eyes, but I blink hard so he won’t see. “It didn’t. Keep going.”
“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m out of practice and self-conscious as hell, but I’m trying, Sarah. I’m trying to be the kind of guy you deserve.”
“What kind of guy is that?” My words come out a soft croak, but he’s prepared.
“A guy who knows how to express his feelings,” he says. “A guy who can admit that he has feelings and who doesn’t run away from them like a scared dickhead.”
“You’re not a scared dickhead.” I don’t know why I’m defending him. He did run away when things got scary. “You’re a guy who’s been through a lot.”
“That’s no excuse,” he says. “Letting myself experience love might have been what hurt me all those years ago, but not experiencing it is what’s holding me back. What almost caused me to lose the most important person in my whole life. Sarah, I love you. I love you more than anything and I almost goddamn missed that.”
“You—what?” My heart starts to bang on my ribs like a chimpanzee stuck in a cage. “What did you say?”
“I love you,” he says, squeezing my hands so tightly I flinch. “Sorry,” he says, lacing his fingers more gently through mine. “It’s like I’m learning to be a fucking human again. This might take practice. And patience.”
I manage a weak smile. “Patience I’ve got.”
He takes a shaky breath, and the tenderness in his eyes floods my chest with feeling. “I know I got caught up in facts and figures and started thinking of marriage as a logic-based proposition,” he says. “But I didn’t understand that none of that is worth a damn without love and passion and romance.”
Here come the tears again, and I’m having trouble fighting them back. “You can’t just turn it off and on like a spigot, Ian,” I tell him. “You can’t decide to feel love one minute and to shut it off the next. It doesn’t work that way.”
“I know that now,” he says. “I was afraid to feel grief and fear and loss, but I didn’t realize that cutting those things out meant I missed the other stuff, too. Joy and happiness and love—all the things I got to feel with you.”
“God, Ian?—”
“Falling for you—losing you—that’s what it took for me to realize nothing else in my life means jack shit if you’re not with me,” he continues. “You make me a better person, Sarah. The kind of guy who feels things. You’re the sweet to my sour. The chili pepper lights in my darkness. The sriracha in my ramen.” He winches and shakes his head. “This isn’t supposed to be coming out so cheesy.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. I know it’s wrong to laugh at a guy who’s pouring his heart out to me, but this is all so surreal. The makeshift dorm bed, the noodles cooling on the milk crate table. I survey it all, then look at Ian again.
“What would you have said to me that night?” I ask. “That night all those years ago when you planned to finally ask me out.”
“I would have told you that I loved you,” he says. “But I wouldn’t have meant it.”
“What?” I stare at him, not sure how to take that.
