“You’re sure?”
I nod. “Yeah, baby, I’m sure. Now, pick a movie before I change my mind. I’m still trying to forget thatLegally Blondeever exists.”
She tosses her head back and laughs, and I lean down, stealing a kiss.
“On second thought, gonna need you to distract me with your mouth because I just realized you’ve got me watching movies that came out before you were fucking even born.”
Christ.
“Not my fault you’re ol?—”
I promptly shut her up by sealing my lips over hers and showing her just how fucking old I am.
CHAPTER 48
MAISIE
I thinktoday might be one of those pieces of himself that Wilder’s trusting me with.
Not with words. But by allowing me to be here with him.
He didn’t want to face it alone.
Because he’s afraid, even if he’ll never say it out loud.
After what he told me that night at the diner… I think I’m beginning to string all of the fragments together to paint a picture that, even though I can’t fully understand yet, I know is painful for him.
Yet he’s here, doing something incredibly selfless, and I wish he couldseethat.
As we walk across toward the entrance of the building, I reach for his hand and slide my fingers between his, squeezing tightly. Mostly because I canfeelhis unease weighing heavily in the pit of my own stomach.
And… because I’m a little worried that he might run.
I’m pretty sure he’s thought the same thing a hundred times since he pulled into the parking lot. His knuckles were blanched white from how tightly he was gripping the wheel, his eyes fixed on the two-story house in front of us with a look that said he was considering fleeing.
“Wilder… you don’t have to do this,” I say softly, a quiet whisper that can barely be heard over the sound of children playing somewhere in the distance. “We can leave.”
He comes to a stop in front of the fence and squeezes his eyes shut, his throat working as he swallows hard.
But he shakes his head. “No.”
When he opens his eyes and they land on me, my heart squeezes so tightly that an ache begins to form beneath its cage. He looks… haunted. And it’s heartbreaking.
“I said I was going to do it, and I am. It’s just a house,” he finally says as he rolls his shoulders. “Just a fuckinghouse,” he grits out, like he’s trying to convince himself.
It is just a house, but to him, it represents something more. Something that is beyond four walls and a roof… and that’s filled with obvious pain.
I turn to him, and even though it’s reckless—we’re in broad daylight in a place where anyone could see us—right now, I know that he needs this, even if he doesn’t know how to ask for it.
I drop his hand, rising on the tips of my toes to frame his sharp jaw with my hands, holding him so he can’t see anything but me.
“It is a house, Wilder. It has a roof, walls, doors. Everything that makes it a physical place. But it still holds a story, and sometimes stories carry pain the same way that scars do. You don’t have to pretend with me. Okay?”
His eyes burn into mine, intense emotion that he clearly doesn’t know how to handle rolling off of him in visceral waves, his chest rising and falling rapidly like he’s tiptoeing a line only he can see.
But then, after a brief moment, he nods and sucks in a deep, uneven breath.
I give him a soft smile as I sweep my thumb along the edge of his jaw. “You can do this,Coach.”
