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“I don’t know why I came here,” I admitted. “I missed you—”
“I’m not seeing anyone,” he blurted out. “The storm guy isn’t... I haven’t... not since you.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him properly or even what he meant.
I shook my head. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Me either,” I managed to say, my chin wobbling. I sucked back a breath and faced away from him. I wasn’t any good at talking about feelings and shit. Never had been, which was the reason for this whole mess. “Fucking hell.”
Paul’s hand touched my arm. Firm, warm. Familiar. “We will talk,” he murmured.
I nodded because that was all I was capable of doing. I noticed the girls were silent then and staring at us. “Found the nebula,” I said, my voice stronger than I expected. I stepped back away from the telescope, away from Paul.
I needed some space and time to process what had just happened.
He wasn’t seeing anyone. Hadn’t seen anyone since me.
What did that mean? That he’d been too busy? Or that I’d left as big a hole in his life as he’d left in mine?
As the three women took it in turns to gasp and marvel, I practiced some measured breaths and even took a few sips of water.
Paul folded up the picnic blankets and stashed the food containers into his backpack. I walked over and handed him his water canister.
“Hey, just real quick,” he said quietly. “When you said you shouldn’t have come here, what did you mean? Cause it kinda sounded like you knew I’d be here.”
Well, shit.
“Uh...”
He stood up straight and cinched the backpack drawstring. “Yeah.” He pointed between us. “You and me? We’re gonna talk.”
CHAPTER FIVE
PAUL
I couldn’t lethim do this. He was still the same old Derek. Still gorgeous, still the brooding, sulking type, still closed off and still unable to talk about anything important.
Like emotions and feelings.
And the truth.
I couldn’t let him derail every-fucking-thing again. Not like last time.
Did I blame him for our relationship imploding?
Not entirely. Because I was the one who’d walked away.
But his inability to talk about how he felt, what was troubling him, what hurt him, was a huge blinking neon fucking warning sign.
I knew he had his reasons not to trust people. I knew the stories about his fucked-up childhood and his fucked-up father, but what I didn’t know was how to help him.
How was I supposed to help him when he refused to admit he needed saving?
Now here he was, five years later...
Here we both were. Five years had passed, yet we were both stuck grasping at dry sand. The harder you held on, the harder it was to hold.
I couldn’t let him do this again.
