Chapter Twenty-Five
Mia
He was staring at me like I had all the answers already. As if I had the first clue what he was thinking. Frustration rushed through me, and I clawed at it in a desperate attempt to keep it inside. My temper couldn’t help me now.
I toed my shoes off and sat on the edge of his pristine bed. “You said you were ready to talk. So talk.”
Luke sighed and rana hand through his messy hair. He was tired, I could tell, but so was I. Tired of waiting and wondering. Of guessing games that led nowhere but heartache. “Come on,” I said softly. “Whatever you have to say can’t put us anywhere worse than we’ve been before.”
“I know that.” He kicked his boots to the corner of the room and cringed at the mess.
It was comedy gold, and laughter bubbled outof me, breaking the smog-like tension. “Pick them up,” I said. “We won’t get anywhere with your eyeballs twitching the whole time.”
He gave me a flat look but sloped over to the boots anyway and placed them in the wardrobe. “I don’t usually bring my shoes upstairs.”
“I know.”
He came back to the bed and sat beside me, his shoulder nudging mine as he reached out and took my hand, watchingour fingers twine together like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. “I have so many things I want to say, but the words never come when I need them. That’s why we always end up fucking, and why I wrote you that pathetic letter in the first place.”
“The letter isn’t pathetic. I was just too caught up in myself to understand why you never gave it to me.”
“I was scared.”
“I know.” And I knew he still was. That whatever his heart felt was so terrifying he’d almost always opted for silence instead. “We don’t have to see each other anymore if it’s easier for you. I mean, we can’t totally avoid—”
He cut me off with the most chaste kiss we’d ever shared, then pressed his finger to my lips. “Don’t. I don’t want that.”
“Whatdoyou want?”
“I want you to knowI love you, and tell me you love me back.”
“That’s easy.”
“Is it?”
“Of course it is. We’re halfway there with that sentence. The tough part is meaning it.”
“I do mean it.”
“Do you?”
He squeezed my fingers so hard my bones protested. “Yes.”
“I love you too. Just in case you hadn’t figured it out yet.”
“I’ll never figure you out.”
I laughed softly. “Perhaps you’renot meant to.”
A companionable silence fell over us for a while. I leaned against him and absorbed the first certainty I’d had in a decade that he really did love me. But pessimism was an evil mistress, and the reality that love had never been enough was hard to ignore.
I shifted on the bed, turning to face him. “You really hurt me.”
“I—”
I covered his mouth with my hand. “It’snot enough that you know...you have to let me say it.”
He nodded.
