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Not a single thing.
“T,” he says with the smile I’ve only ever seen him use on me. Not the practiced one he gives to clients and service people and even Ellie and Jace—it’s a warm, sweet smile that touches his eyes and crinkles the corners of them.
In that moment, I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I am in love with him. I am in love with Brooks Gentry.
And, yet, I still don’t know what to say to him. I can’t find the words.
He meets my gaze and there’s so much warmth there, just for me, that my chest squeezes. The rain is falling hard on his face, pasting his dark, unruly hair to his forehead, making him squint, but I can’t let him in. I do that, and it’s all over. I will succumb to his strong arms, his intoxicating smell, his everything… and that will be bad.
Won’t it?
Now, I’m not so sure.
“Brooks,” I finally manage, looking around. “I know you are not about to apologize for the way things ended.”
He folds his arms defensively before dropping them again. “I don’t think I need to.”
“You don’t? Because you’re always right?” I start to push past him. “I do have to go. I’m looking at apartments, and I’m late.”
I start to brush past him.
“Wait.” He grabs my wrist. “I’ll admit I was wrong. But you were wrong, too.”
I gasp in indignation. “How… ?” I start, as a door to my neighbor’s place opens. I don’t want to do this here, where my neighbors can hear us get into this. “I don’t want to get into this here.”
“We have to get into it.”
So of course, it is an argument. And it’s a war he’ll ensure I lose, with that silver tongue of his.
“Fine. Okay,” I say, grabbing him and pulling him inside, then looking up at him. He’s soaked, a drowned rat. But it somehow makes him look hotter than ever, with his shirt pasted to his body, his skin glistening. “I’m here. You’ve got me. What do you want to say?”
“It’s been a week.” He laughs, looking like he hardly knows what to say, though knowing Brooks, he’s had this whole thing planned out. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking.”
“That can’t be good,” I say before I can help myself.
“Right. But in this case I think it was a good thing. I’ve never had this much time off by myself just to think before.”
Part of me wants to be mad he had all that time to think and never once reached out to me, but that wouldn’t be fair. He needed this time to think. I did, too, even if I didn’t want to accept it at the time.
I brush my hair back with both hands. “And?”
“I was insulted.”
I raise an eyebrow. I knew this wasn’t going to be an apology, but is he asking me for one? Because it isn’t happening. I fist my hands at my hips. “By me?”
Rivulets of water drip from his hair, down his temples. He scrapes his hair back with one hand. “You were all too eager to ship me off. To get rid of me. After—”
“I wasn’t getting rid of you. I said that we could—”
“A long-distance relationship is the kiss of death. Your way of putting distance between yourself and the hard stuff. Which is admitting that you could be happy, if you just took the risk.”
“The risk…” I repeat.
He nods. “You don’t think I’m scared, too? I come from just as broken a home as you do. I know that things fall apart. But they don’t have to. If we’re both committed to making it work—it will work. And I am. I never want to lose you, T. Ever. So me being where you are not is not an option. Do you understand that?”
The tears spring to my eyes so easily, I can’t blink them back fast enough.
His warmth surrounds me, his eyes, full of earnestness, strike my heartstrings in just the same way he’s able to hold juries rapt. And just like that, I’m crying. He advances on me, folding me into his arms. He’s wet, and yet his body heat is all I feel; I’ve never felt anything more wonderful.
This is all I’d dreamed of him doing. All week, I’d imagined him coming back and comforting me, because he’s the only one who really understands. He knows what I’ve been through, the fear that has plagued me, every time I even thought about having a relationship with the opposite sex. I trust him.
But if I let myself fall too deeply into his embrace, I’ll never climb back out again.
“I know how hard we were both going for that partnership,” I tell him, my voice too thick.
“The partnership doesn’t matter to—"
“Let me finish.” He’s not the only one who’s been practicing lines, although mine were all hypothetical. I never thought I’d get a chance to say them to his face. “I’ve thought about it a lot, too. You don’t spend your life fighting through years of education and law school, just to give your career up.”
