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“I’ll chip in for gas if we swing by my place and you give me ten minutes to pack.” Denise turned sheepish. “I don’t have a car,” she said. “And she needs a hug.”
48
Hayley hated that she was happy to see Nick’s car. It was a reflex, a calming as she spotted him coming down the street from her seat on the porch, as if he were about to pick her up for milkshakes. This was not the time to be sentimental. If he was here, he wanted something. She would not, must not, make any decisions based on what Nick Freeman wanted. She needed to shut down whatever he had planned before he got out of his car.
Hayley’s determination lasted halfway down the front steps, and then she stood in disbelief and watched her best friend open Nick’s passenger door.
“Sorry!” Denise rushed to get her bag from the backseat. “I should have just taken the bus, but you know how buses creep me out.” She jogged up and hugged Hayley hard. “Sorry, girl. I love you.”
“Love you too.” Hayley looked over Denise’s shoulder at the car and tried to put the two together. “How …”
“He came to me,” Denise said. “He’s not boring, that one.”
Nick, still in the driver’s seat, raised his hand in a tentative wave.
“He came to get you?” Hayley said in disbelief.
“Not even close. You should go say hi.”
Hayley looked at her reproachfully. “I don’t know what he told you, but I’m not ready to say hi.”
“Then go tell him that. He’ll go away, and we can talk about how much we hate him.”
She was fine until about three steps from the car, when her heart started pounding. Nick took off his sunglasses and rolled down the window. “Hey,” he said.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said.
“Okay,” he said. “CanIsay something? Three things, actually?”
Hayley had practiced refusing him dozens of times, but she hadn’t anticipated him being so calm.
“Three things,” Nick said. “Then I’m gone. Forever if you want.”
She didn’t want him to be gone forever. She wanted him to be here, with her, always, but letting him in now would be just another decision made for the wrong reasons. “Go ahead.”
“One,” Nick said. “I’m sorry. I should’ve just trusted you, but all I could see was what Kevin thought of me. I was afraid you saw me that way too. You never gave me any reason to think that, but I guess I’d spent so long expecting to get hurt that it was easier to focus on the pain. I should have believed in you. You don’t deserve anything less than that.”
“I’m sorry I called you a cripple,” Hayley blurted out.
He shrugged. “I deserved it.”
“No,” she said firmly. “Never. Kevin was wrong to treat you that way.”
“And I was wrong to treat you like a prize,” he said. “It was hard for me to believe you’d choose me, and when I thought youwouldn’t … I tried to hold on too tight. But it’ll always be your choice, Hayley.”
She crossed her arms. “Two.”
“You’re not a failure,” he said. “I don’t know what you’re blaming yourself for, but I really don’t think Icarus or Kevin was your fault. Certainly what happened between us wasn’t your fault. Sometimes your dance partners aren’t worthy of you.”
She gripped her arm to stop her hand from trembling. “Are you?” she asked.
Nick looked down at the steering wheel, thinking. After a moment, he said, “I wasn’t ready for you.”
Was he ready now? How could she be sure?
How could she know she was ready for him?
“Three,” she said.
