I rub my sternum, extremely aware of how naked I am and how wrong what we just did was.
Because I’m engaged, and married, and ripped right in half.
I try and fail at hiding my body with my hands.
“That—” It’s hard to breathe. “That shouldn’t have happened. But I-I wanted it. I couldn’t stop myself. And I ... I just—” He’s only inches away from me but there might as well be a gulf between us. It hurts to look at him. “Please wait.” It sounds like a beg—it is. I want him to wait for me to tell Jonathan. I swipe the unshed tears from my eyes. “Please.”
“For you to decide if you want to marry someone else?” He squeezes his eyes shut and drags frustrated hands down his face. I am somehow more naked. “That what I’m waiting on this time, Rue? Or am I supposed do what you say and not ask any questions? Or—” His anger permeates the pause. “Is this like the last time you told me to do something that turned out not to be what you wanted at all?”
I spread my fingers wider across my skin. “It’s not like that.”
Magnolia leaves rustle with an ominous breeze and thunder rolls. He takes a step back, grabs the towel from the hook and tosses it to me, avoiding my gaze.
I hug it to my chest, trembling. He’s right here and he’s waited for me for eight years, but I see him retreating. Like we’ve spent all this time going in the wrong direction to get to each other just to show up too late. I refuse to let that be how we end.
He turns toward the shed—he’s leaving. It guts me.
“I miss the mornings,” I blurt, hugging the towel a little tighter to my chest. He stills and his jaw clenches, but he doesn’t look at me. “The ones where we’d oversleep because we’d been up too late. And I had to scramble to get ready before Mom got to the store or she’d say something annoying through the door.”
“I know what you two are doing in there,” she’d call when she showed up at Old Vines.
I’d shout for her to go away, then Nash and I would duck under the covers and keep doing what she thought we were.
The sheets were blue, and the quilt was tattered. They both looked perfect wrapped around his skin.
“And I miss the way you looked at me when we’d walk around Fontain, doing nothing at all,” I continue. “And how you always wanted to share a wineglass. And fight with me without ever getting mad, even when I was wrong.”
He’s back in front of me now, eyes all over my face, hands in my wet hair. I could kiss him as easily as he could kiss me, but I know it won’t happen because I’m crying again. “And if you could just wait, Nash. Just please, wait. A little longer. So I can do this the right way. So maybe I won’t have to spend the next eight years missing you so damn much.”
He drops his forehead to mine.
“I’ll wait for you for the rest of my life, Rue Conway.” He rubs his thumbs on my cheeks to catch every tear that falls. “But you need to know, all you ever had to do was tell me not to take the job.”
He’s right. I messed us up and now I’ve made a colossal mess of everything else.
“I also need you to know I don’t care where I live, and I care even less about your fiancé.”
I laugh a watery sound. “Okay.”
He kisses my forehead, as chaste as it is comforting, then takes a single step back. “And you’re staying in the house.”
I can’t grasp a single thought to translate to words, so I nod, another rumble of thunder filling the sky. He’s in and out of the shed with my suitcase in hand before I move.
Inside, wrapped in a towel and dripping water on the wood floor, I don’t know what to do.
“We can’t go to the beach,” he says. “Supposed to rain all day.”
The beach and gold are the last things on my mind. “Okay.”
“Guest room is down the hall—sure you already know.” He gives me a knowing look. “Help yourself to whatever you want.”
“Okay.” I silently watch him feed Frank and grab his keys. “Where are you going?”
“Clear my head.” He glances at me as he slides his feet into flip-flops at the front door. “Figure out how to handle the fact the woman who drives me the craziest in this world has been sleeping in my backyard without me knowing.”
I pinch my lips between my teeth, and his tug to one side.
He stops in the doorway, his hand wrapped tight on the doorknob. He glances at his truck in the driveway then back to me. “In case you weren’t listening, I’m still in love with you.”
