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“Yeah, well…” I forced a grin, trying to sound playful—not so desperate and begging. “That could be your birthday present to me, right there. Telling the world we’re together.”
“What?”
“Why don’t we just tell everyone we’re, you know, exclusive?”
“But…” She fumbled a moment, clearly not prepared to get any pushback from me.
“We are exclusive,” I said slowly. “Aren’t we?”
“Yes. Of course. But I haven’t even told Gracen yet.”
“So tell Gracen,” I encouraged. “You said he’s going to be there any moment, right? You can just give him the news, then skip out on whatever you two had planned together, and come with me.”
Gray would understand. He was an understanding guy.
But Bella sounded like she was cringing when she hesitantly start
ed, “Fox. I—this—it’s just so sudden. I didn’t even know you wanted…”
Except she did know, and that’s why she didn’t finish the sentence.
“I do,” I said anyway, and my quiet voice hung in the air between us. “I want us to be public. I want to stop hiding. I’m tired of lying to every-fucking-one in the entire family. That’s not me. And I hate doing it.”
She released a sharp, shaking breath.
I waited, letting her have however long she needed to answer because there was no race here. I didn’t need to push her for any immediate declarations. I was in this for the long haul. But I was going to stop backing down from letting her know what I wanted as well.
I was a year older now. Wiser, and all that shit. And I’d never get what I wanted if I didn’t even make it clear to her exactly what it was that I did want. So…
I made it clear.
“I want to be in an open, romantic, committed, dating relationship with you. One that everyone knows about.”
“Oh…” she said breathlessly.
And that was it. No declaration of her own to let me know if she felt the same or even if she felt differently. Just…
Oh.
I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the steering wheel, certain I’d messed up and scared her off.
At the beginning of our affair, I had gotten why she was so reticent about letting anyone know what we were doing. It was fresh and new; who’s to say we would even mesh that well? We didn’t need our families right up in our business every step of the way, making it ten times harder to navigate the beginning of a relationship.
But that had been months ago. And we were still together. I’d grown to fucking love Isabella Lowe like I loved no one else. She was it for me. I didn’t care who knew what I felt for her. And hiding it was becoming bothersome. Really damn bothersome.
So I no longer understood her reasoning for keeping everything between us under wraps.
I mean, she hadn’t even told Gracen about us yet.
Those two were freakily close. They’d shared everything since birth. I loved Bentley and all, but she was in no way my confidant, and she never would be. I’d confide in her husband before I would her, nine times out of ten. But it was like breathing for Bella and Gracen to be each other’s best friend and go-to secret bearers. And if she couldn’t even tell him about me, then—
Then I wasn’t really sure what that meant. Maybe her reason for secrecy wasn’t about our nosy families. Maybe it wasn’t even how shaky and uncertain she was with herself since her fiancé had cheated on her and given her trust issues. Maybe it was just me. Maybe she didn’t love me like that. Maybe she didn’t want what I wanted. Maybe she was just messing around with me because the sex was good and that was all she needed until someone else came along who would actually sweep her off her feet and—
Jesus. I was beginning to panic.
This conversation was not going to end how I wanted it to. Was it too late to jump ship now? Use the out she’d handed me only seconds ago?
Maybe if I was like, just forget it, she’d be all, okay, and we’d never have to talk about it again, and I could stop being a damn idiot.
