Her head snapped up. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I wanted to see you.”
She was ripping my fucking heart out. “Why?”
She dropped her head again.
“Why, Ailee?” My lungs ached. I couldn’t breathe. She looked so defeated, standing there twisting her hands, looking at the floor. “Fucking tell me.”
With a sniff, she raised her head, and her blue eyes—bright with tears and something else I couldn’t identify—sought mine. “Because I miss you.” She was shaking her head before I could respond. “I miss you so much, Tyler. But I don’t know how…I don’t…”
She was killing me. Fucking killing me. I reached for her, gritting my teeth against the pain. “Ailee, come here.”
She shook her head.
My arm fell back to the bed, and I slammed my head into the pillow. “What do you want from me, Ailee? Huh? I’m doing everything I can here.”
Silence greeted my question. And then, “I just want to be with you.” The words were spoken so softly, I barely caught them.
I raised my head.
She was staring at me, her beautiful face a mask of pain, tears flowing down her cheeks. “I just want to be with you, Tyler.”
Pain tore through me as she cracked open the hole in my chest with only words, even as the slightest light of hope filled it. “Then be with me, Ailee.Allof me. Just…be with me.”
She wiped at her face, but it was a losing battle.
“Please, come here. Or you’re going to force me to hurt myself getting out of this bed to come to you. Because I can’t lay here a fucking second longer and not touch you.” I raised my arm, offering her my hand.
Stepping toward me, she took it.
Such a small connection, but I felt the touch of her fingers all the way to my bones. It wassomething. I wrapped my fingers around hers. “I’m so sorry, ‘lee.”
She frowned. “It’s not your fault you’re in here.”
“Not for that. I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess that’s my life. I’m sorry I’m not a normal guy. You deserve normal.”
She shrugged. “I had normal. It was boring.”
That hope in my chest brightened a little bit more. “What are you saying?”
It took her a long time to answer. “I’m not exactly sure, to be honest. I just know I’ve been…not happy without you around.”
“Well, I’ve been fucking miserable,” I told her. “But it was a good thing for you to send me away.”
Her eyes found mine. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I needed that time to get my head together. So to speak.”
Ah, a smile. It was small and teary. But it was there.
“Having a chance with you was the best fucking thing that ever happened to me, that happened at the worst possible time. I wanted to be with you all the time, so I could forget about all this other stuff going on with me. Or, at least, try to. However, when you left me, I had to face it head on. It forced me to swim or drown. I chose to swim. And I did it for me. Not anyone else.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“It means I still want to be with you all the time, but now my only motivation is to get you naked in my bed.” I meant it as a joke—kind of—and it worked.
Her laughter was one of the best things I’d ever heard, second only to her moans when I was deep inside of her.
I squeezed her hand, tugging her a little closer, and took her other hand. “Look at me, Ailee.” When her eyes met mine, I laid it all out there. “I know it’s not going to be easy. There’s a lot of shit going on here. And I’m not going to lie and pretend there isn’t. But this thing between us, ‘lee, it doesn’t happen all the time. It’s fucking rare.” I didn’t want to say this last part, but it was something that needed to be said. “If you don’t want to deal with my baggage, I stand by what I said at your apartment. I get it. I totally do. And I wouldn’t blame you. But, I’m asking you, Ailee, to give this a chance. Give us a chance. Because I fucking ache for you. Constantly. Just to look at your face. Or feel the touch of your hands on me.” I rubbed my thumbs over her knuckles. “To hear your voice.”
