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“Years. I met Charlie when I started managing Blue. He’s painted a lot of covers and concert posters, which he showed me on his computer. I bought the Killers one first, but I went back for the Never Again. It’s so beautiful, I couldn’t resist hanging it up.”
I kissed her temple. “I love you, Tali. Every step we’ve taken has moved us toward each other. I mean, you have a fucking painting with my face on it hanging in your house.”
She twisted to look at me. “So why didn’t I tell you about the wedding?”
I let her go so she could face me. She did, but she also took my hands and placed them at her waist again. Her palms pushed up my chest, stopping at my neck.
I gripped the curve of her waist. “Were you just going to disappear next weekend? Tell me you had a business meeting in New York?”
“No. I would never do that. I was going to ask you to come, and clearly I made a misstep by not asking you before we went out with Nina tonight. That was poor judgement, but I always intended to ask you.”
“When?”
She blinked, then looked away. “I’m worried for you, okay? My entire family knows about what went down with all of us. There will be questions and pressure. I’m not sure my brothers will be very kind, at least not at first. It could be a lot of stress, and I hate to put you through that. It was cowardly, but I was putting off asking you until I talked to my dad tomorrow. He’s been putting in a good word for you with my brothers, so I wanted to see how it was going. To reassure you…and myself.” Her eyes flicked back to mine, and it killed me to see them watery. Her fingers pressed into the sides of my neck. “I would love nothing more than to take you to Nina’s wedding. You know how important my family is, and maybe you don’t know how important you are to me, but I’m telling you now.”
I hauled her body against mine and buried my face in her neck. “I thought you were ashamed of being with me. I’m sorry.”
She stroked my hair and let me hold her. “I wouldn’t be with you if I was ashamed. Even if I wanted to keep you a secret, my family would suss you out in no time. But I don’t want us to be a secret. I want to dance at my cousin’s wedding with you. I want to hang out in my parents’ kitchen with you. I want to introduce you to all my nieces and nephews, and—”
I kissed her. I loved her, and I kissed her because I believed every word she said, feeling them all the way to my gut. There was a shame I carried from being an addict that was hard to shake, no matter how long I stayed clean. Didn’t mean Tali felt the same shame.
Turned out, I wasn’t chasing her. If I was chasing anything, it was my old demons, and I was chasing them away. Tali was here with me, just as sure as I was here with her. Sometimes, my demons got in the way of seeing that.
“I shouldn’t have reacted without waiting for an explanation,” I said.
“You shouldn’t have, but in your shoes, I’m sure I would have been hurt. It’s probably sort of like when I saw you with Claudia. It was salt in a wound that had never healed.”
Losing Tali had been hell, but losing her family at the same time had added to the misery. So yeah, she was right. There was a wound there I was just getting around to acknowledging.
“Are you going to ask me, Stripes?”
She raised her eyebrow, giving a little laugh. “Will you come to my cousin’s wedding with me, Jude? We’ll have to stay in my parents’ house and sleep in separate beds and I’ll be wearing a very hideous bridesmaid dress. Does that entice you?”
“Every bit of what you just said entices me, minus the separate beds. Not sure I can live with that.”
“You’ll have to discuss that with my father.”
I kissed the tip of her nose. “Separate beds it is.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yeah, Stripes. It’s a yes. I’d be honored to go with you.”
“My brothers are probably going to be assholes, like on a much grander scale than they were the first time,” she warned.
“I’m completely prepared for that. Gotta get through the bad parts to get back to the good.”
Her arms looped around my neck. “This is what I want with you.”
“Fighting?”
“Sure, if we have to. I’m not afraid of that. We both know how to fight fair, and as long as we agree not to walk away, then we’ll be fine. We’ll be great.”
I ran my hands up her back, squeezing her nape and moving into her silky hair. “I’m pretty sure I was bluffing in the car. If you would have let me leave, I probably would have gotten a block, max, before I was back here, pounding on your door.”
“So, we agree. We’re not going anywhere.”
I dipped my head, brushing my lips over hers. “Yeah, baby. And you don’t have to protect me. I’m not fragile. I can take a whole lot of adversity. I’m not going to break. We both have baggage, and some of it’s matching, but as we unpack it, you’ll see I’ve got fireproof suits stocked away. I can withstand heat without melting.”
