“And then you broke every wine bottle in my parent’s cellar. Yeah, I remember,” he says. “Is this your way of apologizing? Is this like Step 7 in AA or something? Do youhave to go around and ask for forgiveness from everyone you screwed over?”
I shake my head. “It’s nothing like that. I’m not asking you to forgive me, and I can’t forgive you for what you did to Lily.” I want to, but maybe that type of strength is out of my control.
His jaw locks, and I sense that he’s about to slam the door back in my face. “But,” I say quickly, “one of us should have been the bigger person and stopped it before it got out of hand.”
“You mean before you and your father made sure I wouldn’t get accepted into an Ivy League,” he growls. “Thanks for that.”
“Look, you don’t have to be my friend or anything. You can hate me all you want, but I came here to tell you that I’m sorry.” The words are hard to produce, and I don’t feel exactly better by saying them. I’m not searching for that relief. I just know that this is right. And this is what I have to do. “I’m done,” I say. “Whatever shit we had in the past, it’s the past for me. You want to carry it around, fine. Regardless, I want you to have these.” I remove two white envelopes from my back pocket.
His eyes glaze over them with curiosity and then he snorts. “Are you buying my forgiveness with tickets to Wrigley Field?”
“You told me that you couldn’t get a job and compete with Ivy grads,” I say. “That should help start your career. Greg Calloway and my father wrote references for you. I know there’s lots of bad energy with the companies, but Fizzle and Hale Co. are still world-renowned. It still means something.”
Aaron stares at the letters and shakes his head. “I don’t want your fucking charity, especially if you’re only doing this to make yourself feel better.”
“I’m doing it because it’s right,” I say with irritation. “Burn it if you want. And I promise, you won’t ever have to see me again.”
I turn around and descend the stone steps. Lily waits in the car for me, tapping her hands to the dashboard and singing aloud to whatever song blares through the speakers. I immediately smile.
“Loren!”
I look back. Aaron’s face has softened into something less hateful. Almost like the first time I met him, when he was just that nice lacrosse kid inviting me to his party. “I’m sorry too,” he says.
Hearing the words are almost as hard as saying them. I see him terrorizing Lily for months, cornering her in the halls. I realize how difficult it must have been to listen to me say the same thing. My throat closes up before I can speak. So I just nod.
I set my sights on Lily again.
She is my past, my present, my future. So when I open the door and slide into the driver’s seat, I’m not surprised that it feels like I’m returning home.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
LOREN HALE
My nerves rocketthe closer we reach our house in Princeton. I can’t stop fidgeting, and Lily keeps giving me weird looks. I spout off some story about a new client for Halway Comics.
Our apartment feels abandoned when we walk inside.
“Rose!” Lily calls out. She doesn’t know that Rose is staying over Connor’s tonight, that I have specifically vacated this place for us.
“She must be working late,” I say.
“She works too much.” Lily heads to the kitchen. “Maybe we should cook her dinner…” She thinks about this, probably remembering she can’t cook. “Or order her dinner and bring it to her office? She’d like that.”
She would. If she was at her office.
“I’m sure Connor already had dinner delivered to her,” I say, hooking my fingers in her belt loops.
“True. He’s been spending more time with her lately, hasn’t he? I think he’s worried another Sebastian will Jedi mind-trick her.”
I’m surprised she’s not focusing on the fact that I’m tugging her into my chest. It’s becoming easier and easier to touch Lily without her jumping my bones like a wild animal. The horny, insane part of me will probably miss her crazy sex drive. But the part of me that loves her, the one that I choose to listen to, is so fucking proud of this girl.
“How about we call it a night?” I say and slip my hand down the back of her jeans.
She gasps a little and grabs onto my T-shirt. “Is that code for what position we’ll be taking?” she asks with a delighted smile.
“I don’t speak in code. You’ll know exactly what I want.” I squeeze her ass. “Me. You. Bedroom. Now.” My teeth catch her earlobe lightly, and her breath deepens. And then I press feather-light kisses on her neck. At the fourth one, she squirms with laughter.
“Okay! Okay! Okay!” She throws her hands up in surrender. “Do not tickle me with your kisses! That’s a dirty game.”
