“Only if you turn around.”
"Fine.” His jaw bunches, but he obeys.
I reach for the garment bag holding my red sequined dress and pull it off the hanger, hastily stepping into it and sliding it up my hips. I really should be wearing shapewear, but fuck it.
“I told you all of that. That I was sorry. That I was trying to make it right.“ I pull the front of the dress up and slide my arms into the long sleeves. “I told you I was still furious that you refused to listen to me that night or let me share my side of things, but that I still wanted the chance to explain. You can turn around.”
He’s slow to respond to my last statement, and when he finally rotates to face me, his eyes are wild as they fall on my face, my lips, on the expanse of cleavage on display above the low, unfastened top of my dress.
“I told you that I f-fell in love with you that night and that I didn’t want to throw it all away.” I lift my chin. “I gave you my number and begged you to call me. Begged, Wyatt.”
His Adam’s apple bobs above his snowy white shirt collar.
“And I didn’t. I showed up the next year with a girlfriend.”
“The worst possible girlfriend.” I dip my head in acknowledgment.“And then last July, you said…”
Oh god, I can’t. It hurt so much to hear him deny what we were. I can’t do it again. And now he’s not saying anything. His silence fills the whole damn room as the blood drains from my cheeks, and now I’m the one spinning to face the wall.
“Zip me up, please,” I say in a strangled voice. “This is what I needed you for.”
There’s a pause before he moves forward, but he doesn’t reach for the zipper right away. Instead, he stands so close that I can feel the heat radiating off him. I’m breathing shallowly, trembling with the effort of keeping my emotions in check, and that’s before his finger ghosts down my spine, tracing the exposed line of my back.
I shiver, my nipples pulling tight inside my bra and my knees turning to water. Yet he still says nothing.
“Zip me up, Wyatt. I can’t—” I shake my head. “Just zip me up, and let’s get through tonight, and then we can go back to hating each other again.”
Instead of doing what I ask, he fits his hands into the dip of my waist—still exposed in the open back of my dress—and for a moment, I let myself relax into his touch. I enjoy those strong fingers gripping me, his thumbs sliding back and forth across the skin of my lower back. He’s holding me so firmly that I can almost believe he’ll never let me go.
But he will. He did then, and all these scraps of truth won’t change anything. Not our past, and not our future. He turns me into my worst self, and I bring out the worst in him too.
“Zip me up.” My voice is sharp, and I steel my spine along with it. “Then please go.”
My body is rigid as I hold myself perfectly still, trying not to spill another tear over this man. I almost break when he makes a low noise in his throat, but he finally does what I ask. His fingers move to that fucking zipper that sits too low for me to reach on my own. That zipper’s the reason this all came pouring out, and I wish like hell I’d chosen literally anything else to wear. If I’d been able to dress myself tonight, maybe my heart wouldn’t be breaking all over again at our unchangeable history.
Still killing with his silence, Wyatt finally slides the zipper up my back. If I had a romantic notion left in my body, I’d think he was taking his time with it knowing it was his last chance to touch me. But he finishes the job, and when he fastens the tiny hook at the top of the zipper, his fingers brush the nape of my neck in a featherlight touch. Then he’s gone without a word, leaving me like a two-thousand-piece puzzle that’s been upended, with my hope and fear and frustration and love in a hopeless jumble on the floor.
Eighteen
Now
Wyatt
* * *
I know I’ve made a mistake the second I step into the hallway.
What am I doing? Why the fuck am I leaving her like that? The last thing I want is to go another year with all this shit unresolved between us and risk starting the cycle all over again.
I spin on my heel, fling the door open, and walk back into the office to find CJ hastily swiping at her eyes.
Fuck, she’s crying.
“I can’t keep doing this, Wy,” she says with a sob that rips right through me. “I can’t keep fighting with you and pretending that I’m okay afterward.”
I grab her by the nape of her neck, sliding my fingers into her soft hair and brushing my thumb over the tear that escapes and rolls down her cheek.
“And I can’t keep pretending that I didn’t fall in love with you that night, too.”
