Page 77 of Want You

Nathan was on his feet seconds later, hands held out in that way people gesture for someone to calm down. “Nothing. Fuck.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t cheat on you. You’ve seen all my tests. I fucking love you and I need you to remember that when I tell you this, but I need you to just listen okay.”

A flustered Nathan was an odd sight, but Octavia finally nodded, she wasn’t about to go sit down again though.

“The night we met. The night my brother was in the accident…he had been on his way to a date.” He stopped talking and just looked at her as if she was going to finish the story.

“Okay.”

He took a deep, stuttering breath, and she watched him as he broke in front of her.

“Scottie was on his way to meet a redhead in a blue dress at The Emerald Hotel.”

The world stopped spinning, jerking to a halt before reversing course and spinning faster than ever. Scottie was Blaze…Blaze was Nathan’s brother.

Octavia’s back hit the wall and she sank to the floor as texts whirled around in her memory. Her excitement about meeting him. How sure she felt about it. Hours of conversation. The disappointment that nearly took her out when he hadn’t shown up. The brief euphoria Nathan had given her before having to leave because of an emergency. Leave because her date had been hit by a fucking bus.

“What the fuck?” She gasped, her attention settling on Nathan who was now sitting across from her with his back against the bed.

She took him in. He looked heartbroken, as if his entire world had imploded in front of his eyes. Octavia had seen so many movies where heartbreak was acted out and not a single one of those actors had gotten it right, because looking at him physically hurt her. It hurt her because she loved this man.

Blaze, or Scottie rather, had only been a possibility. A man she maybe could possibly one day fall in love with, and it suddenly hit her that maybe Nathan wasn’t going to be able to love her knowing that. Maybe he was going to end this out of some obligation to a brother he always felt got screwed over.

“Nathan,” she said, his name a plea.

His brown eyes, bottomless pits of hopelessness, met hers.

She didn’t even know what to say, because in that moment she didn’t want to lie or make walking away from her easier, so she said the only thing that made sense.

“I love you. This doesn’t change that. Not for me anyway.” She swallowed down the sob that threatened to overwhelm her, pushing aside her fear of his response. “You told me that if I was going to walk away from this”—she gestured between them—“for some guy on the internet it would ruin you. I am so sorry for what happened to Scottie, Nathan. And I realize things would have been different if that hadn’t happened. But it did and I met you and fell in love with you despite everything. So I understand if you need more time. But missing out on meeting Scottie didn’t ruin me. You ending this because you feel guilty…that may.”

Nathan slid across the carpet and pulled Octavia into his arms, and then they sat like that until their tears had stopped and their breathing had almost returned to normal.

“I had prepared myself for you to end it,” he said, his words floating against her neck. “I had convinced myself that I was about to lose you.”

Octavia sat back and took his face in her hands. “I’m not going anywhere, Nathan.”

“Bu—”

“No.” She laid a finger over his lips “There is no but. This doesn’t change how I feel about you. It doesn’t change the weeks of falling more and more in love with you. And not just because you’re ridiculously good in bed.” A tiny smile appeared on his tear-stained face. “I love you because you’re a beautiful person and I don’t doubt how you feel about me. Okay, so I did panic when I hadn’t heard from you, but now that I know, those feelings seem irrelevant.”

“No, those feelings were valid, Autumn. I’m sorry I didn’t come to you immediately. I didn’t handle it well. I started thinking back to how resistant you had been in the beginning, not just because of my profession but because of this guy on the internet. And then I thought well, she’s going to feel bad for him and maybe she’ll walk away and they’ll see if what they had online was real and then it will be because my brother is amazing and Octavia is impossible not to love and then I was on my knees puking into the toilet…” Nathan trailed off when he saw Octavia shaking her head.

“I love you, Nathan Albertson. This is just a slight complication, not a derailment. Let my words of affirmation be louder than whatever your imagination is conjuring up.”

“It’s going to be awkward at dinner.”

She let out a sad laugh. “Well, maybe we can do an introduction before? And we don’t have to let everyone know that while you had me pinned against the wall with my leg thrown over your shoulder, your brother was receiving lifesaving care.”

Later on, after they’d gone in circles apologizing, laughing, crying, whispering I love you across one another’s skin, they fell asleep holding onto one another for dear life.

CHAPTER 39

NATHAN

Nathan knew in his bones that Octavia loved him and there was no way she was going to meet Scottie and announce that this thing between them was over. And yet as he drove them to his place, he couldn’t seem to stop his imagination from coming up with wild scenarios of how awful, for him, this introduction was going to go.

“Hey,” Octavia murmured, reaching across the centre console to take the hand he was tapping out an erratic pattern with. “It’s going to be fine. Scottie is going to love me in a non-romantic way. Besides, I could never date a gamer, I’m a little annoyed he withheld that.” She laughed but the words “I could never” played on repeat in Nathan’s mind.

“Yeah, but you also said you’d never date a hockey player.”