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He reached down to pick up the magazine by his side. Its cover was wrinkled and water-splattered. Either he’d dug it out of the garbage or he’d read it. Several times, from the looks of it.
Wordlessly he turned to a dog-eared page of the magazine—her article. Julie winced and looked away. Her article in his hands was the ultimate vulnerability. As though he just had to make a fist in order to crush her.
Hell, this man could crush her with a word.
And then he began to read.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been doing something I’ve done an awful lot of. I’ve fallen in love.
Then I went and did something crazy. Something wonderful. I stayed in love. I stayed past the first kiss, the first inside joke, the first fight.
But I did it all wrong. I played it like a game, and I broke someone’s heart.
And broke my own in the process.
Julie blinked against a new rush of tears. Writing the words had been hard enough. Hearing them from his mouth …
“Don’t,” she said quietly. “Please.”
But he read on as though he hadn’t heard her protest.
Does it hurt like hell? Yes. Do I miss him more than anything? Yes.
But would I go back and fall in love with this guy all over again, even knowing it would end badly?
Absolutely.
Because despite what I’ve been writing all these years, the best part of love isn’t about the giggles or the flirting or even the toe-curling first kiss.
The best part comes after all that. It’s that realization that he knows you can’t cook but pretends to let you try. It’s hating baseball but watching it anyway because it makes him smile.
Real love—the kind that matters—is giving your heart to someone even after he tries to hand it back.
And it’s knowing that you’d give him your heart over and over again. If only he’d ask.
Mitchell’s fingers flexed slightly around the pages as he broke off.
They sat in strained silence for several moments, and Julie hardly dared to breathe.
Hardly dared to hope.
“Did you mean it?” he asked finally, his voice sounding gravelly, not at all like the smooth, confident Mitchell she’d come to know.
“I meant it,” she said softly. “The only way it could have been more heartfelt is if they’d splattered my blood over the page.”
“A lovely visual,” he said casually.
She tried to roll her eyes at his lame attempt at humor, but instead she watched as her hand found his on the park bench. “Mitchell. Would you … do you … just … please, please tell me if I’ll get another chance.”
“Another chance at what, Julie?”
She forced herself to look him in the eye. “You. Us. A relationship with someone I care about.”
His hand slowly reached out and he ran a thumb over her cheek. “Care about?”
Julie closed her eyes briefly at his gentle touch, not daring to hope.
