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Drake had rented us a room in the hotel where Reed’s event was held. The boys were down in the living room having a beer to celebrate just how well it had gone, and Eden and I were hidden away in the bedroom with an incredibly large Romano’s pepperoni pizza.
A two-hundred-thousand-dollar pizza.
And it was fresh!
Drake had flown them in to make several for the event.
“I don’t even know where to start, Eden,” I told her with a heavy sigh. “Brian—”
“I know,” she cut in, saving me from having to say the words. She placed her pizza down and dusted off her hands. “I need to say this before anything else.”
I was already shaking my head.
I knew what she was going to say.
“Eden…”
“I’m sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry for?” I questioned, my brow pulling tight between my eyes. “I’m the one who stopped calling. Who stopped letting you in. Who just pushed you away…for him.”
“And I let you,” she responded, tears dripping down her cheeks. “When Brian showed up demanding to know where you were, cursing and threatening to burn my house down if I didn’t tell him—”
“Wait! He what?”
She wiped at her cheeks and let out a dark laugh. “Yeah. He took it back pretty quickly when I reminded him how well known I was for my softball swing. Not just power, but aim… especially at round balls.” I couldn’t hold back the giggle that left my mouth as I imagined the look on his face. “Anyway, I went in and asked the nurse, the one who was always trying to help, how you were. She said you were doing well. And I didn’t want you feeling like you needed to come back to see me. I didn’t want you to have to face him again.”
“I didn’t want you to have to see me,” I whispered, realizing now we were both trying to protect each other in a way that meant he still won. I was still without her. She still didn’t get to see me happy. “Jesus Christ, we should’ve just communicated.”
We were both hurting and out of our depths in a situation neither of us had created. We were trying our best to protect the other, but we were simply making it worse.
“Never again,” she murmured, reaching out and taking my hand.
I shuffled across the bed and leaned into her, resting my head on her shoulder and once again enjoying the feeling of safety and comfort in her arms. Eden was home. “How did you find me?” I whispered, suddenly struck by the thought that I wasn’t even anywhere near Boston right now, let alone Brighton—the town I used to live in with Brian.
Where I assumed she’s still living.
“Drake called,” she answered, followed by a sweet, gentle laugh. I shuffled back to my side of the bed, and we both took another slice of pizza. “He was really ready to go in to battle to get me here, but all he had to do was mention your name, and I was already saying yes.”
I glanced up, able to see down the hall from where I was sitting.
Drake stood at the end of the hall, his shoulder leaning into the wall, just him focused on me. I didn’t look away as Eden went on. Holding his stare as she told me how he’d called, how he’d sent his private plane, and how he explained how much she meant to me—all in less than forty-eight hours since I’d shared about what happened with us.
And how much I missed her.
It was almost a kind of a blur, her words filling the background as everything else around Drake and me seemed to fade away as though I was in some kind of movie.
Some cliché love story.
Our cliché love story.
And I didn’t want it to end.
DRAKE
“You want to go have a look at the Mob Museum?” Drake mused as we stepped out of the parking garage across the street. “You trying to figure out if I’ve got family immortalized inside?”
I shoved him and began walking toward the large, almost out-of-place-looking building, but he soon caught up, and I let him hook his finger through my belt loop despite his soft laughter.
