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“How do you know all of this?”
He’s leaned back on the bench, his arm thrown over the back, and I’m sitting sideways, my legs in his lap while he draws mindless patters on my skin with his fingers. “Know about what?”
“Money. Business. Creating a brand. Did you go to college when I wasn’t looking?”
We both pause, because my words remind us that there were a lot of years between us, a lot of gaps that I was very specific I did not want filled in. “I did a lot of things when you weren’t looking,” he says. My heart squeezes a little, but before I can lift my legs and set my feet on the ground, he stops me.
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know.” I glance purposefully at my phone. “I need to get to class.”
His hands tighten on my legs, eyes burning bright when I look up at him. “Don’t leave like this.”
“I’m not leaving like anything, but you’ve taken your thirty-five, mister, and now I have to go.”
I keep my voice light, even though my stomach is heavy and my chest hurts. Mal knows what I’m doing and he holds my legs a second longer, eyes searching. He looks like he’s going to say something, but then his hands are gone and he’s standing when I do, gathering up garbage and throwing it in a nearby trashcan while I grab my books.
Because I hate that our perfect morning got ruined, I hold out my hand. “Walk me to class?”
He doesn’t hesitate to close his much larger hand around mine, not linking our fingers but cradling my palm against his the entire walk. When I point to my building and stop, he leans down and kisses me, hard, and the urge to hold on tight slams into me.
“Tonight?”
The fact that he asks breaks my heart a little. This is the vulnerable side of Malcolm, the one I always forget exists. So I push to my toes and kiss him again, spending longer than I should when I need to get to class.
“Tonight,” I promise, and then turn away to walk inside the building. When I get to the door, he says my name. Still standing where I left him, he offers me an intense stare.
“I can’t go back and change those years and anything that happened. Fuck knows I would if I could…but I can’t. And I’m here now.Weare here now,” he emphasizes, his words nearly as intense as the flame in his eyes. “I’m not letting yesterday take that. Do you understand?”
I nod, and then I slip inside the building without saying anything else, because being loved by Malcolm Brady is almost as difficult as being in love with him.
