Mine. Mine.Mine mine mine.
I remember the way my heart beat faster seeing her there, how it jolted when that single word flitted through my mind. It waspossessive, and I couldn’t understand why on earth I had thought it—about a complete stranger, no less. But there’s always been something about Joss, and something in me knew it wanted her from the start.
I don’t look away, just letting the word hang heavily between us. I wish I could read her mind because I sure as hell can’t read her expression. I don’t think she was expecting the earnestness—neither was Jaz if the look on her face tells me anything. It’s softer, almost knowing, like she’s in on some secret. I’d love it if she’d explain it to me, because I feel like I’m adrift after that confession, and I need something to pull me back to shore.
Joss glances away finally to look at Jaz, jutting her thumb my way.
“Knew it. He was a possessive caveman from day one.”
Paul laughs and runs a hand down Jaz’s arm, drawing her attention away from whatever look she was exchanging with Joss. I feel Joss trail her gaze from where our hands are intertwined between us, up the length of my body, until she reaches my face. My breath hitches at the way her lips part and her tongue runs across them.
Jaz and Paul are talking now, giving us a moment. The heat of Joss’s body infiltrates my space as she leans close. Is she…?
She brings her mouth close to my ear. A small shiver of disappointment runs through me when I realize she’s not going to kiss me. But then she whispers words that are just for me. “I don’t think I would have chased you down if you were anybody else. I think part of me felt like you were mine too.”
I can’t find enough air in the space between us, and I don’t know how to respond. I pull back just enough for our eyes to catch and hold, more being said in the silence than we’re ready to say outloud. Trying to silently scream across the inches between us that this doesn’t feel fake.
Jaz shatters the moment when she asks Paul what he first thought when he saw her at Harbour Grounds, and we launch into more easy banter as we make our way through our meals.
By the time dessert rolls around, I’m stuffed. Paul must be feeling the same way as he stretches and groans across from me. “We have about half an hour before we need to be at the Opera House. What do you say we walk off that dessert and stroll through the Botanic Gardens for a bit?”
It sounds perfect to me, but I look to Joss for confirmation. She’s the one in heels. She gives a lazy nod, and I can’t help but lift my hand to swipe a tendril of hair behind her ear.
We aren’t acting any differently than we usually do, but in the context of this double date and the restaurant’s romantic atmosphere, every touch feels like more. Every look feels like more. There’s so muchmoreto be had with Joss, and I can’t decide whether that exhilarates or terrifies me.
The walk to the gardens doesn’t take long, and though I’ve been in the city for a few months now, I haven’t made my way down here yet. I’m disappointed to see that the bats that used to cling to the trees in droves are gone now.
When I was here in college, you’d walk through these trees during the day and they’d be completely black from all the bats that covered the branches. At night you’d hear them swooping around and see them as they flew through the skies. It was majestic. When I ask about them, Paul tells me they were relocated shortly after I graduated.
I reach for Joss’s hand as we continue our walk, bringing her closer, unable to keep from touching her in some way. She looks up at me, grey eyes shining bright under dark lashes. Her beauty stops me in my tracks. Stops my heart too. The lights in the garden are soft, meaning that most of what I see of her face is thanks to the glow from the moon above us.
There’s a moment when I almost just say “fuck it” and kiss her, and a similar one in which I see that same desire mirrored on her face. But then she turns to keep walking, dragging me behind her, and it’s gone.
What she doesn’t know is that the more she pulls me along, the more I realize I might just follow her anywhere.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Joss
After our non-date last week, Wes and I have moved forward, business as usual. We haven’t talked about Brenna since the night on the balcony, the shower debacle is well behind us, and we did not kiss under the moonlight, so I’d say we’re doing just fine. Totally fine.
But each flight of this trip, each subsequent night in a hotel, each new airport I’ve walked through has been filled with thoughts of it all.
The irony isn’t lost on me that we both have abandonment issues when it comes to relationships. Or that we manifest our desires for a future in completely different ways. His way of coping is to reject any form of long-term relationship, preferring not to open himself up to get hurt. My way of coping is to reject any form of casualrelationship, only wanting something if I know I can trust the other person to never leave me.
How well has that worked out for you, Joss?I practically roll my eyes at the thought. Not well, obviously. Eric being case and point.
I don’t want to see Wes, this amazing man, go without love because some vapid woman couldn’t love him for the right reasons. Especially after experiencing whatdatingWes would be like. And that wasn’t even the real thing—yet, his words continue to pop up in my head any chance they get.
My only real thought was “mine.”
The possessiveness of those words should probably bother me, but instead there’s a flutter in my stomach every time I remember his confession. This man. A man who doesn’t want a girlfriend, doesn’t want a relationship. His first thought at seeing me, even when he thought he never would again, wasmine. Bloody hell. I really didn’t expect to like that so damn much.
I have spent way too much time thinking about this. Thinking about me and him. Us. Could there be an us if we weren’t both so screwed up from our pasts? I keep pushing those thoughts away, unwilling to entertain the possibility of being rejected by Wes. Worse though are the thoughts of him leaving and never coming back when his time here comes to an end. It’s already been three months and they’ve gone so quickly—nine more doesn’t seem like enough.
As I stare out a hotel window in New Zealand, taking in the flow of late-night flights at the airport in the distance, I’m jolted by the thought that I’d rather be home. Wes and I have been texting back and forth nonstop about plans for this weekend, and each ping of my phone has me grinning like a schoolgirl at the small lit-up screen.
Me
