“I know,” she smiled, leaning in again.
I squeezed the tops of her arms, lifting her off my lap and stared her down.
“I love you.”
Her arms crossed defensively. “I heard you.”
“Why won’t you say you love me?” My jaw was clenched too tight for it to come out as a whine, though I was surprised it didn’t.
Her eyes flared, her mouth parted, and the way she looked at the floor had my belly twisting in on itself.
“Marnie, answer me. Do you love me?”
She sucked in her bottom lip; she needed to stop it quivering.
“What the fuck, Marn?”
She held out a shaky hand to me. “Jupiter, let’s go to bed, please. We don’t need to talk about this now.”
“Oh, yes we do!”
“Jupiter…”
I sat back. My world was in danger of shifting. As if I could stop it, my fists clenched and rammed hard into my armpits.
“No! Tell me! I want to know.”
She started to push her toes back and forth along the floorboards, focusing on her feet instead of my face like I wanted. It felt like I was waiting an eternity for her to speak, longer still when her eyes filled with emotion and her hands began balling into fists.
My heart stopped.
“Do you… do you not love me?”
“It’s not that simple, Jupiter.” Green eyes swimming in fear shot up to meet mine.
“Why isn’t it?” I snapped, harder than I meant to.
Our first date had changed on a dime. Back and forth her feet went again; my eyes never left her face, and I was about to speak when she cut through the tense silence with a whisper.
“I’m worried…” A single fat tear fell down her cheek and splashed on the floor. “I’m worried that if I say I love you… if I say it, then everything will backfire and I’ll lose you again; that you’ll leave me again,” a loud sob caught in her throat. “The last few weeks have been amazing, and I didn’t want them to end.”
She looked away, and another tear fell.
My heart cracked imperceptibly. I almost brought her into my lap again, but then something stopped me. Whatever it was I wish it would also stop the past which was now hurtling back at light speed to haunt me, right alongside Emerson’s words.
Yep. Pretty sure my ass was about to be bitten. I fucking hated it when Emerson was right.
I took a deep breath and reached out for Marnie’s hand, but she snatched it away before I could touch her.
“You left me on the porch.”
“We were kids, Marn.” I tried to use my best calm voice, the one I used with Grey and Gabriella, because if I stayed calm then I hoped she would too. Or at least lessen the snarl that was now present in her tone.
Suffice to say, from the way she was glaring, it didn’t work.
“We didn’t break up because we were kids!”
I sighed, but it was pointless hoping she’d let this drop. “The reason doesn’t matter. What matters is I love you, and I hope you love me.”
