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I assume she’s so used to having it back while she works.
I take a few steps around the island, so slow as not to scare her off. “After every time I see you, I’m kicking myself for being a fucking idiot. Or an asshole. Or…I don’t know.”
Laney rolls her eyes. “You’re not an asshole, Mason.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
We are both quiet.
Laney turns around and opens the fridge again. “You wanted beers, right?”
She bends into the fridge to retrieve the beers, and I seize my moment.
I close the distance between us, lean up against the freezer door, and look down at her. “Laney?”
“What?”
I grab the refrigerator door and start to push it shut.
Laney does not resist, backing away from the closing door into my chest. She looks up at me, a flick of terror in her eyes.
“I want to tell you something.”
“What do you want to tell me, Mason?”
I swallow.
It’s not just one thing. There are millions of things I want to tell her.
I want to tell her how much I still want her, how much I think about her, how the thing I’d like most in life isher.
The number of times I’ve pictured us in a little bungalow outside the city. A house, a white picket fence, a couple of children playing on the lawn while we sit on a porch swing, just as much in love as the first time we met, because I loved her thesecondI saw her.
I say none of that. “I went to California to forget about you. About us.”
“Mason–”
She starts to draw away.
But I don’t let her. I grab her by the arm and pull her back toward me, hoping I haven’t hurt her. “Please, just listen.”
Laney’s whole body braces, but she does not try to get away. Not again.
“I wanted to move on. Tried so hard to find someone else. But I couldn’t forget about you, Lane…”
“Don’t do this, Mason, please. It’s not–”
“I know you think I didn’t love you–”
“That’s not–”
“But I couldn’t find anyone who compared to you. I tried so hard. And any time I would get remotely close to a good thing, I’d run the other way. Because she wasn’t you. And even if it could never be the same, if all I could do was settle, what if she left me like you did? When all I did…” My voice breaks.
I lower my gaze.
I didn’t come in here to cry to her. I know what she thinks of me. That I’m some unforgivable piece of shit.
When all I did was love her.
