I nod my head, giving him permission, my attention, for as long as he needs it. As cathartic as it was for me—for both of us—to have my side laid bare, I hope we experience the same release with his. I honestly have no clue how some words will make his behavior better, or justify his actions, but I’m willing to hear what he has to say. He deserves that chance.Ideserve it. If for nothing more than closure.
“Thank you,” he says quietly, his eyes darting to the couch and back up to mine again. “I won’t ask you not to speak. If you want to lay into me, or ask me for more on something…you deserve that.”
My chin tilts down slightly in a nod of appreciation, and he begins.
“I’m an idiot.”
The confession is so unexpected, so wide-sweeping, spoken with such certainty, and just so fuckingAaronthat I crack up. His eyes alight at the sound of my laughter, and the tension is instantly half the weight of what it was a moment ago.
“Thanks for clearing that up, kid.”
His eyes darken visibly at my words, but he keeps going.
“Not only did I not see you like I should have for our entire friendship, I didn’t even realize you…had a thing for me.” He waves his hand on that last bit, like he can’t find the words for it, or he doesn’t want to put them in my mouth.
“That’s one way to put it,” I say with a little humor in my voice.Desperately, head over heels in love with him is probably how I’d word it, but no need to nitpick. It’s his turn to feel embarrassed now, not mine.
“Trust me, I haven’t stopped beating myself up over missing what’s been in front of me all this time since the, uh, the double date thing. I think that was the first time I reallysawyou for the woman you are, not the girl I met in seventh grade homeroom.
“And in case I haven’t made it clear yet, Gem, let me start by telling you that I see you now. I see the woman you are. The incredible, beautiful, selfless, unbelievable you that you share with everyone who gets past your impressive, impressive barriers. And I know those are there to keep me safe. Like you’ve always done.” Chills break out along my arms, leaving goosebumps behind, every hair standing on end from the sincerity in his admission. I think I might pass out at his nextwords. “But just so we’re totally clear here—I love you, Gemma Carson. I’m in love with you. And you deserve so much more than I’ve given you. But I’m going to try and do my best to walk you through my head, my biggest regrets, all the ways I fucked this up, and all the ways I’m going to make it better. Because I want a future with you, but I’m not the man you deserve. Not yet. But I’m going to get there.”
Hearing the raw words from him, the simple admissions I’d come to accept would never pass his lips…it moves me. I’m embarrassed to feel a cool spot on my cheek, the breeze of the air conditioning on a wet trail there. One of his hands comes out to cup my cheek in his warm palm, and his thumb wipes away the rogue tear.
“I’m so sorry for the pain I’ve caused you. For this tear, and any others there were before it.” His eyes are shining with regret, but he doesn’t realize for me, this is relief spilling over. For all the reasons I have to still be mad at him, I’ve never felt so full of hope in my entire life. My chest is so full of it, it’s brimming out through my eyes.
My left hand comes up to cover his on my face, just for a second, before he pulls back, fisting his hands and holding them tightly in his lap. I can’t help but wonder if his skin is still tingling, still burning with that touch like mine is.
“No matter how many times I think back, drive myself crazy reliving our timeline together, I can’t make much sense out of it. I don’t have a good reason for remaining blind to you all this time. The only thing I can come up with to explain it is that it was more than a friend zone that I kept you in. It was abest friendzone. I had this space carved out just for you, and it was sacred to me. I don’t know why I never saw you in this light before now—I think I had installed blinders around that best friend zone—every time I stepped into it with you, what we had was so special, so important to me, it was a world of its own. It didn’t compareto anything else out there. I didn’t even see you in the samelightas other girls. It was like you guys weren’t even the same species to me.”
That hurts more than I care to admit. Feels a bit like I just got kicked in the stomach, kind of like that time Aaron was training with the guy who trained Thor and lost focus at the wrong moment. The air whooshes out of me, just like it did to him, only that blow he took that day wasn’t from words. I always knew he didn’t see me in that light when we were younger, but hearing it from his lips doesn’t do much for my confidence in that regard. It solidifies my decision back then to keep my feelings to myself.
“And I’m so fucking sorry, Gem, that it took me seeing another man realizing what I was missing to snap me out of it. To break down those walls I’d put up. To realize how you’re everything I could ever want in a partner. You always have been.” He lifts his hands a little and lets them fall to his lap again, hopelessly.
“But once I saw it… That’s something I couldn’t unsee. And I tried like hell to ignore it, I tried to keep things going with Kayla, to keep our friendship going as normal as I could—” his hand motions between us, “—but every time I was around you, it haunted me. You, your beauty, the chance of not having you for myself, it haunted me. It fucked me up, realizing that, realizing I was losing you. That I deserved to lose you. I’m far from proud of how I behaved this summer—I’m ashamed, I’m mortified, actually. But when everything aligned for me—when I realized why I was acting out, acting up, being a damn prick…that snapped me out of it. I think. Now I just need to make up for it. Prove my worth to you. Make sure you know I’ll cherish you, won’t make those same mistakes again. Whatever it takes to earn your trust, your forgiveness…hopefully your love. That’s what I’m here for.”
His words fill me with a warmth I didn’t know I could feel for him again. But I can’t get past how he treated mebeforeany of that even happened. And I need us to get everything on the table tonight. Finally. So I voice it.
“I have so much I could say on that, Stone. And I have questions for you about that night at the restaurant, the night on my couch,” my eyes flick down to the said furniture briefly. “You acted like a fucking psychopath.” He looks chagrined at that, at least. “But before any of that…I don’t think I’ll ever be able to wrap my head around the way you dismissed me from your life because Kayla asked you to, and then the way you kicked me to the curb outside the trailers…”
His head drops suddenly, and he lets it hang as my words seem to have a physical effect on him.
“It doesn’t add up to me. We’ve worked together every day of our lives for five freaking years. Like I know we had a pretty lax arrangement between us, you were a chill boss, you gave me a lot of leeway in my days, but that’s because I was the best at my job, Stone.”
“You were,” he admits readily, adamantly.
“I know.” My voice is quiet but sure. “It wasn’t a job for me, it was just our life. And you were a fuckingassholeabout it. Like you just woke up one day andvoila,” I snap my fingers for emphasis, “suddenly you were this completedick. What the fuck, kid? How am I supposed to trust you’re not going to wake up on the wrong side of the bed in another month, a year, a decade, and push me out again?”
“I jerked off to you,” he says suddenly, abruptly stopping not only my words, but my intake of breath.
“Wha—?” My question dies in my mouth. He looks up from the spot on the couch he’s been picking at with his fingers and faces me, owning his words.
“I got off to you. For the first time. That morning, the one we woke up together on the couch. I woke up hard as fuck, you were making these noises… God, the way you called my name, Gem, I’d never heard you like that before.” My cheeks heat and I can feel the flush without needing my hands to verify it for me. It’s my turn to drop my head, letting my hair fall in front of my face and cover my response.
I’ve never heard him speak so openly, so filthily. And about me? Suddenly I’m glad the air conditioning is on, we’re not quite in the heating season yet, because it feelsrealwarm in here. He grabs my hand with one of his. One of the hands he used to pleasure himself to, while thinking of me. I wonder if he realizes how many times my hand has done the same? A jolt of awareness shoots up my arm from the point of contact, and my flush deepens, moving down my neck and chest. I force myself to look back up, meet his eyes again.
“It fucked me up. I had all these barriers between us, these lines, and they started to blur that morning. I ran to my bathroom, took a shower, and fucked my hand to the thought of how it felt to be pressed against you. How you sounded when you called my name, when you were grinding your ass on me.” My mouth pops open at his confession, and his eyes track down to it briefly, before darting across the room. He forces a hard swallow and drops my hand before continuing. My eyes don’t miss the way his thumb rubs back and forth across his finger, the one that was underneath my hand, like he misses the feel of it.
“I didn’t even know if you were conscious, if you knew what you were doing, but Jesus, Gem, I’m only a guy. But I had a girlfriend, and I had you in that…zone in my mind. But I was so uncomfortable with all of it. I felt so guilty. That was the day I told you about Kayla. When you guys met. I needed to bring those two parts of my life together, not keep you separate anymore. And yeah, she wasn’t super comfortable with howclose we were. It was kinda hard to reassure her, when even I was starting to worry about how close we were. I mean what kind of boyfriend wakes up with another woman, with his dick halfway up her ass?” He shakes his head, like he’s disappointed in himself, and his eyes roam the room for a minute, like he’s looking for the words he wants to say.
