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He sighed, spreading condensation around his glass with his thumb. “I just said that to get a rise out of you.” His gaze was fixed on the glass in front of him. He was doing everything in his power to avoid looking at me. “I wouldn’t. I could never do that. I felt terrible as soon as I said it.” His eyes darted up, meeting mine briefly before staring back down at the table. “I’m sorry for saying it.”
I was seconds away from breaking, and I knew I had to do something. Had to say something to fill the cracks already forming in my heart. “Apologynotaccepted,” I said, trying to force hostility into my voice, when all I felt was hurt. “Why does it even matter? I’m seeing someone. So what? How does that even affect you in the slightest?”
“You’re pretending to date him to make me jealous. It’s a big deal to me.”
“Even if I were, why would it matter? You have her. She has you, Gray. You’re hers. You win. Why the hell would it hurt for me to pretend?”
He reached across the table and took my hand. “You know why.” The look of pure passion pouring from his eyes was overwhelming.
“You want me to call this off? To tell you that I’m doing this because I’m jealous? Because I can’t stand to see you with her? Because every time she touches you, I want to throw you over my shoulder like a caveman and carry you out of this bar? Is that what you want me to say?” He nodded, his eyes never leaving mine. “Then give me a reason. Just one. I don’t need seventeen of them this time, just three words. Say them and it’s done.”
“I—Kent, I can’t.”
I shook my head. “The only person standing in your way right now is you.” I rubbed my thumb against the side of his hand, not giving a damn who saw. It didn’t matter.Theydidn’t matter. Because, as I looked into his eyes—as I saw the tears pooling in them—I knew he wanted this as much as I did. He was just being stubborn. All he had to do was say the words. “You feel this. I know you do. I’ve seen it, Gray. I know that look because it’s the same way I look at you. I’m home, and I’m not leaving again. We can be happy, you’ve just got to stop fighting it. Please, just let us have this.” I squeezed his hand harder. “Please?”
“You can’t say stuff like that.” A tear fell down his cheek. “Please don’t say stuff like that.”
“Why not? Why can’t I say it if it’s true?” Nothing in that room mattered more to me than the man directly in front of me. The man who was waging a war between his head and his heart. “It doesn’t have to be okay. It just has to be true. Remember?” A hint of a smile quirked in the corner of his mouth.He remembered.“Truer than Texas, Gray. Truer than family. Even truer than God.” My thumb brushed back and forth against his palm, and he jerked it away, shoving his hand into his pocket. “You’re scared right now, and I get that—believe me, I get it—but you’ve got me, Gray. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”
“Kent, please.” He pulled his hand back out, and there was something in his grip that was too small for me to see. He tapped it against the table, twirling it in his fingers.
“It’s true, and we both know it. They stole twenty years from us. How much more are you going to let them take?” I touched my hand to my heart,thump-thump-thumpingit against my chest. “Number seventeen, Grayson. All this time. Do you hear me? I love you. I never stopped.”
He made an awful sound. It was like he was gasping for breath and suppressing a wail at the same time. He stared down at his hand, watching as he tapped something against the table.
“Gray?” He looked up, his expression pained. “It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you,”
“You promise?”
“We’re going to be so happy, baby. I swear it.”
He whimpered, flinching as I said the words. Then every trace of resistance left him. He wanted this. He wanted it just as much as I did. Gray closed his eyes and his lips parted. As he leaned forward, there was the sound of metal dinging against wood. We ignored it, our focus on each other.
Someone squealed nearby, pulling me out of the moment. I looked up to find Sarah Thistle staring down at the table. Her eyes had doubled in size.
“Gray?” It was the first time I’d ever heard her call him by his actual name. Not Bun-bun. It felt like an insult. Like it wasn’t hers to say.
Because it wasn’t.
I followed her line of sight and realized that she was staring at an object next to his hand. When I looked at Gray, he was still staring absentmindedly at me. He crushed his bottom lip between his teeth and gnawed.
Then I saw it. It spun around as if it were doing perfectly practiced pirouettes against the table. A ring. One that was supposed to be mine. He must have let go of it when he leaned in to kiss me.
“Bun-bun?” Sarah said, shaking us both from our dazed state. Gray and I both glanced up at her, unsure what she was talking about. “Is that …” Her eyes widened as she stared at the ring. “Yes, of course, I’ll marry you.”
As she leaned down and threw her arms around him from behind, his eyes were wide and focused directly on me.
I didn’t,he mouthed, and then,I wasn’t.
Judging by the look of shock on his face, I didn’t think he’d actually meant to pull the ring out. But even if he had fished it out of his pocket to hold on to like some sort of touchstone to guide him through our difficult conversation, the fact remained that he had brought it with him that night. He must have planned on proposing, even if he hadn’t meant to do it in front of me. Worse than that, he wasn’t stopping it. Armageddon was upon us, and as the world crumbled at our sides, he said nothing. Instead, he reached for the ring, curling his fingers over, hiding it away.
I can’t,he mouthed.I’m so sorry.
“Two-liter,” I whispered, shaking my head. “Gray, no.”
He turned his palm up, his fingers uncurling like a blooming flower.
The tears that had been forming in his eyes were now falling freely, and as he gave her my ring, all he could manage to do was mouth that he wassorry, sorry, sorry.
