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“But I was thirty-six when I came to this realization. I wasn’t a child.”
“So what?” I say, voice sharp, feelings sharper.
“So…,” he looks at me steadily. “There’s a difference. I could judge the situation clearly. Well, not clearly… you cloud my vision all the time, but I’m a grown-up.”
“So am I,” I say fiercely.
“You weren’t when your obsession started,” he sighs, my man with the firelight dancing in his silver-streaked hair, his clean-shaven jaw catching the sun from above, his shirt hugging his bulging chest. “You were a child. You’ve had this obsession since then. It’s never stopped. I’d hate myself if I ever took advantage of you… if you woke up one day, years in the future, and thought,He should’ve known better. He should’ve waited.”
“I can’t predict the future,” I say, “but Icanpredict this. That will never happen.”
“How can you be sure?” he says. “Think how it looks to others.”
“I don’t care how it would look to anybody else,” I cut in. “So what if you’re older than me? So what if small-minded people judge us? They can’t understand what we’re feeling. They can’t understand our connection.”
I’m almost crying again. I lean back, gripping the table, fighting off the emotion, but it’s a losing battle since there’s so much inside of me. There is an accumulation of what we’re talking about now, and everything we’ve shared so far.
“You’re right,” he says after a pause. “I don’t give a damn what people think. Just one person.”
He doesn’t have to say he’s talking about Adam.
“You,” he says. “I’d go insane if another man even thought about touching you. When I busted into that hellhole and saw you on that mattress… I was ready to kill them, every single one. To execute them. But your happiness matters to me more. Are you sure, Harper? Are you sure this isn’t just a childish crush?”
My instinct is to yell. The thought of these feelings—the certain flurrying of them—being reduced to a crush is unthinkable, but I keep my voice steady.
“It started that way,” I tell him, “but now that I know you feel the same, I’m thinking about how it would work. A family, a future, me working on my podcast and at the restaurant while you’re…”
“You wouldn’t have to work at the restaurant,” he says, as if it’s obvious.
I sit up straighter. “I’d want to pay my way.”
He smiles with more gentleness than he has yet. It’s difficult to believe he’s the same savage from the car, with his hand on my leg, the day of Eva’s funeral, but I can see the beast behind his eyes, the animal ready to explode.
“You’re my woman. You can pay your way with anything you earn from the podcast, but wasting your energy working a job you don’t have to? If you really, really wanted to, then okay, I wouldn’t stand in your way… but you’remywoman, andI’llprovide for you.”
His trembling voice makes my own emotions tremble. My heartbeat picks up, and my soul feels as though it shivers.
“Okay,” I whisper, feeling like I’m spotlighted beneath his obsession. “Thank you.”
“This is assuming…”
He trails off. I’m about to ask what he is going to say. Then it crashes into me. It’s assuming Adam doesn’t tell us to stop, which he surely will.
“It started as a crush,” I say firmly, “but it’s not that anymore. I want to start this journey together. I don’t want to waste any time. I don’t get why it’s such a big deal, anyway. I’m nineteen. Plenty of people get married at that age, and it’s not like you’re eighty. You’re only thirty-seven,and…”
My speech picks up as I go, the way it does on the podcast sometimes when an idea strikes me.
“It’s not like you’re some playboy creeping on younger women.”
“No,” he says firmly. “I haven’t dated in years. I stopped trying, and when I did date, I never had a type.”
I wrap my arms around myself. “I hate the thought of you dating.”
“I get that,” he growls. “The idea of you with another man, even for dinner, makes me want to do savage things. I never had anything serious. I never had anything, really. I was waiting for you all this time without even knowing it.”
“So, do you believe me?” I ask, his words glowing inside of me. “I’m deciding to be with you and be the mother of your children. Just because I never believed my obsession…”
“Ourobsession,” he adds, and I smile.
