Page 232 of Wait for Him

Calm the fuck down, dude.

And then there's the cello.

Jesus Christ, the cello.

I had no idea she played. Ten years of knowing this woman and somehow she never once mentioned that she could sit down with an instrument and completely fuck me up emotionally.

The first time she played for me, she almost didn't. She kept brushing it off, saying she was rusty, that she hadn't played seriously since college, that it wasn't a big deal.

Then she put the bow to the strings.

I cried.

Actual fucking tears.

Didn't even bother pretending I had something in my eye. There was no point. She saw me within thirty seconds and got that little smile on her face.

"Are you crying?"

"No."

"Jackson."

"Shut up and keep playing."

So she did.

And fuck.

Watching her play might be one of the sexiest things I've ever seen, which feels mildly inappropriate considering I was also having a deeply emotional experience at the time, but both things can be true. Her eyes closed. Her whole body moved with it. She wasn't thinking about me or work or James or anybody else. She was just playing.

I'd never seen her like that.

Then she finished, looked up at me and asked what I thought.

I showed her.

Enthusiastically.

In our bedroom.

You get the point.

I don't know what she'll do next. Maybe she'll go back to law eventually. Maybe she won't. Maybe she'll teach. Maybe she'll play cello. Maybe she'll spend six months spoiling babies that don't belong to us and terrorizing their parents with unsolicited advice she learned on Google fifteen minutes earlier.

I don't care.

For the first time since I've known her, Rose isn't choosing her life based on who needs her. She gets to figure out what she wants. And whatever that turns out to be, I'll be right there holding her hand and pretending I'm not staring at it.

And selfishly, there's another part of this that I don't bother pretending isn't important.

She's mine.

I can just say that now. Out loud, if I want to. I don't have to shove it down or remind myself she's Bennet's sister or somebody else's girlfriend or my best friend or whatever other reason we came up with over the years for why wanting her was a terrible fucking idea.

She chose me.

I chose her.