A humorless laugh escapes my throat. “I’m naive but I’m not stupid. I know what the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech really means. It’s fine. I don’t hold it against you. But men don’t break things off with women they’re actually interested in. We weren’t a good match. I get it.”
“Helen, look at me.”
Reluctantly, I do. Thad looks at me solemnly, his eyes full of meaning. “I meant everything I said to you. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re perfect.”
It actually physically hurts me, to be coddled this way. “Thad, come on?—”
“You’re the first person I want to talk to every morning. I used to hate waking up and now all I do is think about what I’m going to text you that day or when I’m going to see you next.” He takes in a deep breath, almost like it’s freeing to get this off his chest. “I fucked up. I shouldn’t have let you go.Iwas the problem. Not you.”
I stare at him, trying to process his words. “So you were interested in me, but you thought…youweren’t good enough?”
Thad nods.
“Even though I was a thirty-one-year-old virgin who’d never had a boyfriend or kissed anyone before, and I sing dorky old musicals in the shower, and I can’t swear without flinching?”
“I like all of those things about you,” Thad says.
I frown at him. “Like, as in present tense? As in, you’re still interested in me? Romantically?”
“Like, as in present tense. As in I’m in love with you.”
Thad says this simply, as if it’s obvious, as if he hasn’t just detonated an emotional nuclear bomb in my kitchen. He says it so matter-of-factly that I can’t believe this is actually a romantic expression of love, so I rack my brain for some other explanation. “You love me like a good slice of pizza?”
“I love you, Helen,” Thad says simply. “Not like a slice of pizza.” He takes in a bracing breath, and for the first time I see something in his quiet, guarded expression that I realize isn’t him holding me at bay. He’s been holdinghimselfback, only I was so caught up in my own head that I didn’t notice it. “I know I hurt you, and I made all the choices for us before. I don’t want to bulldoze you or try to force you into something you don’t want to do. If you’re set on dating Barry”—his voice tightens at the name—“or anyone else, I’ll accept that. I meant what I said about being your friend, if that’s all you want from me. But you should also know that I’m in love with you. And I always will be.”
For a long moment, I can only stare at him. I bite my knuckle, tasting the various veggies I’ve been cutting, as I think over what he’s just said. “You’re in love with me. But because you’re allegedly so terrible, you just want to be friends. You’re never going to try to kiss me, or have sex with me, and you’re going to sit by and watch me date other people?”
He swipes his hand over the back of his neck. “I guess so. If that’s whatyouwant?—”
I hold up a hand, silencing him. “I understand.”
And I finally do. I finally understand what happened between us, what’s happening between us.
This idiot thinks we’re in a film noir. I’m the good girl, the counterweight to the femme fatale, held up on a pedestal so as to not be corrupted by the antihero. The good girl may not get her happily ever after, but at least she’s safe; and in leaving her alone and chaste, loving her always from afar, the antihero proves to himself he’s a good man.
Little does he know, I’m about to show him this isn’t a film noir.
It’s a romance.
Chapter 50
Helen
After a strained couple of minutes of dancing around the awkward conversation we just had, I excuse myself to go back to my room. When I return, Thad is finishing adding all the ingredients for the gumbo into the pot, his back turned toward me. At my reentrance, he glances back over his shoulder. “Hey, we have a little time to kill while we wait for everything to set. Do you want to?—”
He stops, doing a double take back at me, and I hold my breath as I wait for his response.
I’ve tousled my hair and put on lipstick, but that isn’t why Thad is staring. I’m wearing the sheer red panties and the same white tank top from the sexy selfie I accidentally showed him on the road trip.
And nothing else.
Thad looks almost afraid as he takes all of this in. When he meets my gaze, his expression is grim. “What are you doing?”
“I’m seducing you,” I tell him with more bravado than I feel. A few minutes ago I was absolutely certain this was the right call, but it’s hard to hold on to certainty in sheer red panties.
Thad seems to be exercising Herculean effort to keep his eyes on my face, and that at least is a confidence booster. He swallows. “Why?”
“I need you to understand that I’m not who you think I am.” I advance a step toward him, and he presses back against the counter, trapped. “You’ve been acting like I’m Lola, but I’m not.”
