Page 79 of Love On and Off Set

“Yeah, thanks.” Yet he stood at the sliding glass door to the patio and stared out.

“What’s wrong?” I wanted to go to him. To touch him. Offer reassurance? I couldn’t though. Wouldn’t. Because I didn’t have the words. I no longer could discern what he needed by a mere glance. Those days were long behind us.

“Those words were for you as much as they were for Izzie. For Norah. For…” He sighed. “I never stopped, Freddie.”

His words hit me like a two-by-four to the solar plexus. “For me?” I croaked the words out. Then I cleared my throat. “You’re saying…?”

Finally he turned, pinning me with those luminous light-blue eyes. “That I love you? That I never stopped loving you? That letting Jakob talk me out of being with you was the biggest mistake of my life? Yes. Yes, to all of it.” He let out a breath. “And I don’t expect you to forgive me. Or to even understand. I was young—fresh off the Nebraska farm. And I wasn’t ready to come out. I’d told my family, and that’d been catastrophic. To turn around and just step all the way out of the closet so soon after arriving at Stanford? Felt impossible. But I was ready to do it—for you. Then Jakob convinced me I would be making a big mistake.”

“To what end?”

“Huh?”

“What was Jakob’s motive? I barely remember him. Did he want you for himself?”

“I think…” Andreas rubbed his forehead. “He just didn’t know how to not stick his nose in other people’s business. I think he really believed he was giving me good advice. By the time I realized I was wrong to listen to him, you were gone. I didn’t have your address in Canada, and your California phone had been disconnected.”

I will not point out that thing called the internet, and how easy it would’ve been to find me, because I probably wouldn’t have listened anyway. I’d been too prideful after having been so badly hurt. “And now? Why are you telling me this?”

“Seeking absolution? That was my first thought when I laid eyes on you last week. That I needed to earn your forgiveness. That I needed to find a way to make this up to you.”

“It’s not necessary, Andreas. I haven’t hated you for the past seven years.”

He arched an eyebrow.

Be truthful. You owe him that much. “I, uh…” I swallowed. “I haven’t carried a torch for you…but I also haven’t been with anyone else.”

His jaw dropped.

Well, I deserved that. I’d have had the same reaction, had our positions been reversed. “So, you’re saying…?” I swallowed hard. Because sometimes a guy just needed things spelled out for him.

“Every word I said was meant for you.” His shiny eyes held me captive.

Captured.

Slowly, with trepidation unlike anything I’d ever felt, I extended my hand toward him.

He stepped toward and grasped it. “Forgive me?”

I nodded. “I don’t know if we would’ve made it. But I would’ve wanted to support you after your injury. And I’ve always wondered why you didn’t continue with your studies.”

“Money. Out-of-state school. Without the football scholarship, I was fucked.”

“Ah.”

“Maybe one day…”

“UBC has a good physics department. It’s expensive, though, for foreign students.”

“Ah.”

I squeezed his hand. “There are ways around that. But, for now…” I cleared my throat. “Come to bed with me?”

He gave me the shy smile that always made my insides flutter. “I thought you’d never ask.”

With care, I guided him upstairs to my bedroom. I didn’t utter the words that I’d forgiven him—that was a given. Although maybe I’d find a way to express the words without being overt. Or maybe I’d discover he needed directness. He was a man who embraced words, even as he’d preferred science.

How he’d ended up in acting still didn’t compute for me. After today, though, I had no doubts he was doing something special. His ability to sink into someone else blew my mind. Except he wasn’t another person. He was speaking from his heart…to me.