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My palms grabbed the back of his neck, my fingers slipping in his soft hair. “Lucas, you don’t have to apologize for that.” And heshouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. “I blindsided you in an attempt at making you understand what I felt for you. It was too much, too soon.”
“It wasn’t. That’s why I need you to hear this, Rosie. Because you—” His features pinched. “Because you were everything. Youare. Don’t you see?”
“Then…” I trailed off, terrified of asking. Because I’d played with the question so often that I no longer knew what to expect. “Why did you leave like that?”
“I was convinced that I was doing the right thing.” A muscle in his jaw jumped. “I never doubted that you wanted me, but I didn’t think you always would. I thought you were settling, Rosie. And if I didn’t believe I was the man for you, why would you?”
His words broke my heart all over again, because how could this kind, thoughtful, and selfless man ever think that of himself?
“I left Spain a shell of myself, and I’d been that way for a while before that. The rug had been pulled from under my feet, Rosie, and I was left without the single thing I knew how to do, without the person I knew how to be. I couldn’t offer you just that, Rosie.” He shook his head. “You deserve someone who challenges you, who shares the weight on your shoulders, someone who lays the world at your feet. And I… could barely manage to walk without cracking under my own weight. So how was I supposed to do any of that for you?”
I rose to my tiptoes, and kissed the corner of his mouth, telling him I was listening, I understood.
“But then,” Lucas continued, and his voice cracked with barely contained emotion. “Then, I read your book. The one you wrote while we lived together, were together. The one born from our dates.”
My lips parted, my heart raced in my chest. “Lina sent it to me, told me to read it. And I…God. Everything I didn’t believe of myself, everything I couldn’t possibly think you saw in me, was there. I saw myself through your eyes. Youlovedme. And knowing someone like you could love me when I wasn’t whole only made me want to do more. Be more. It made me want to become a better man formyself. A worthy one, for me and you. To prove you right. It made me want to earn that love you were willing to give me, Rosie. And that’s what I’m doing. Or trying to do.”
There was something else in his gaze, something fierce, passionate, something I had only gotten small glimpses of in the time I’d known him.
“I wasted so much time pitying myself, thinking of what I had lost, that I didn’t see what I still had. What I could have.” His palm moved to cup my face. “I’m back to physical therapy; I’ve only done a few sessions, but I’m committed. I’m also talking to someone about my panic attacks, learning to process what happened. I finally told everyone about the accident, apologized for being an idiot, and I… thought about you, Rosie. Every day, every night. Until what you said that night with Alexia and Adele, in Lina’s studio, came back to me. It was an itch, a buzz in the back of my head. And… it suddenly made sense. I think it always had.”
“What did?”
“Culinary school. I was just too blind to see it. Too stubborn and hopeless. I still believe I’m too old for it, and I know I might fail, but I’m determined to try. Because it’s what I want, the thing, beside you, that makes me dream of a future again.”
Tears rushed to my ears, happiness swelling my chest.
He continued, “I got in touch with Alexia and she’s going to help me with everything. I will apply to school, Rosie. Here in New York.”
I jumped into his arms, bringing my face to his neck, and he laughed. He let out a deep and honest laugh.
“It will take some time to get everything ready: the paperwork for the visa, the school application, everything,” he said in my ear. “So, I really hope you’re open to do long distance with me,ángel. I’m praying that you will because—”
“Yes, Lucas.Yes.” I moved so I could plant a kiss on his lips. “I’ll visit you in Spain as often as I can, write from there. And the rest of the time, we’ll do long distance. Even if I’ll miss you every day. For as long as we have to.”
He laughed again, and it was a glorious sound. “We’re talking long months of phone sex,ángel.”
I grinned. “Can’t think of a better way to use our phones.”
Lucas’s eyes filled with a kind of wonder that left me breathless, the kind that had the power to change a life. He placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me around. I felt him lean down and then he said, “Good, because remember I said this could get awkward if you didn’t want me back?”
He pointed at the screen where the countdown had been.
I blinked, a new rush of happy tears making it hard for me to see what was displayed. And right there, right in front of me, it read,
Rosalyn Graham,
Will you be my best friend?
My roommate.
My Dancing Queen.
Myexperimentlife partner.
My heart.
Will you be mine, just like I’m completely, hopelessly yours?
