I swallow, my throat tight, tears springing to my eyes.God,those words hit even harder now than they did then.
Does he even remember that night?
Or was it just another moment to him, something said and forgotten, while it lodged itself into me and never left?
I stare out the window, pulse racing.He probably doesn’t remember.And I’ve held onto it like buried treasure. Rare. Valuable. Special.
Because those words,I love you,are words he’s never spoken again. Not to me, anyway.
I try to shove it all away. Compartmentalize the fuckery that tonight turned into. Jesus, I just dove headfirst into something I wasn’t even sure about.
Now wehaveto get married. We told everyone we were.
Correction:Itold everyone we were.
I pull my gaze from the window and fix it on the side of Matt’s face. The hard set of his jaw. The faint lines at the corners of his eyes from years of laughter. The crease in his forehead that tells me he’s somewhere else entirely.
His dad.
Oh, shit. I almost forgot about that.
Maybe this isn’t about me and what I said. Maybe it’s about his dad. Maybe it has everything to do with him.
“I saw you,” I say, breaking the silence. “With your dad at the bar. You looked pretty pissed. What’d he say?”
He glances at me with that same indifferent frown and shakes his head. “Nothing. Not a big deal.”
Cool.He’s gonna be like this.
I poke harder, which I don’t usually do, but I can’t sit in this torturous silence anymore. “You were looking at me. Right before you said something. Before you walked away from him. Was it about me?”
“Nah. No, babe.” We stop at a red light, and he steals another glance, this one paired with a forced smile. “It wasn’t about you.”
He grabs my hand, lifts it, and presses his lips to my palm. It’s soft and warm, intimate in a way that doesn’t make sense for whatever we are.
And I like it.
I like it too much.
He laces his fingers with mine.
He’s lying.
“Okay,” I say, keeping my tone light. “I’m here if you need to talk.”
“I know you are,” he says. “Tomorrow.”
He gives my hand a squeeze.
Fucker.
He’s so hard to be mad at. Even when he’s holding something back. But if he’s not telling me something, he has his reasons. I trust him.
I remind myself that he’s not only grieving but has a lot on his plate right now. And whatever happened with his dad, it’s eating at him more than he will ever admit.
His phone dings with a text from Jensen.
I reach for it. “Do you want me to read that?”
