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At the end of the night, Gillian showed up after work as planned. At least that was a positive. They’d even texted a few times throughout the day and she seemed fine, but something told him she might not be.
The minute she was in the door, he said, “I’m sorry about last night.”
“What are you sorry about?” she asked.
“Come sit and let me explain. You deserve to know it all,” he said.
“I do. I just wonder why I haven’t known before now.”
Which was exactly what he thought might be the problem.
“I’m not one for talking about my feelings. Not like you think. But I know I should have or told you more of what was going on and I didn’t.”
“At least you are willing to admit that now.”
“I pushed you to say things about Mike. To move past your feelings with your old relationship,” he said.
“You did,” she said. “And you didn’t do the same when you think about it. It sounds to me you lost just as much as him in the end.”
“To an extent. I lost my best friend. My health suffered. Time in my life went by without me knowing. I missed things with my family. I wasn’t here for my sister when she needed it either. Money can’t replace all those things.”
“No,” she said. “It can’t.”
“All those reasons are why I came home,” he said. “But as Dean said, I’d been talking about it before. Then there was the selfish part of me that was hoping if the company sold, it just ended. I could walk away not a failure. In the end it felt like I failed a bunch of people, including myself.”
“Then you’re the one with the problem, Rick,” she said. “It doesn’t seem Dean feels that way.”
“Not now. But he’s right. Back then, his life was crashing around him and I was leaving on top of it. He’s not broke, I’m sure, but he doesn’t have what he worked so hard for and he lost what he had. He comes here and sees I’ve got what I’ve been missing so much of.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“You. I came home because I needed to find you.” He moved closer to her on the couch, pulled her under his arm. “I was an idiot in a lot of ways and I hope you know I didn’t mean to hurt you by not telling you everything.”
“I know,” she said. “I went to see Whitney when I left here last night. I was upset and hurt as you said. I know you saw it. I have a hard time hiding my feelings.”
“You wear your heart on your sleeve. It’s not a bad trait.”
“I suppose not,” she said, snuggling some more. “Whitney said she knew we would work it out but reminded me that we had to talk. To learn from our mistakes. There was a tiny part of me that was upset because Mike never told me everything he was feeling. It made me guess and doubt so much of myself. And then I told myself I wasn’t going to compare anymore and there I was doing it again.”
“You had a right to do that and I’m sorry. I don’t want you to doubt me or think I’m not being honest with you ever. If you’d asked, I would have told you.” He held his hand up. “And you’ve brought it up before about wondering the reasons I’ve moved back. They were all true. No lies. I just omitted the guilty feelings part. I missed Dean and what we had, but told myself it might be for the best, no matter how much it hurt.”
“I’m glad he reached out to you,” she said. “I feel like we both have some closure from our past.”
“We do,” he said. “So the next question is if you are ready to move on to our future?”
“I’ve always been ready to have a future with you,” she said, looking up at his face.
He kissed her on the lips. “Then stop trying to measure time and let it fall into place. We’ve both wasted way too much of our lives. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” she said.
George jumped up on the couch and tried to get between them. “Even George has said enough is enough. It’s about us now.”
“What a smart puppy you’ve got!”
Epilogue
Two Months Later
