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“I guess you could say that. I love you. And I didn’t handle it well.”
“No, you didn’t, but that’s what people do, right? Mess things up and make mistakes?”
Brushing the tips of my fingers over her cheek, I’m floored by her generosity. My heart rises, and my hope burns a little brighter.
“And the other thing?” I prompt, swallowing nervously.
“The other thing?” A silky smile, dancing at the corners of her full lips has her looking like a temptress. “You mean the thing when you said you love me?”
“Yeah,”
“When you said you’d never let me go?”
“Yeah.”
“That there was going to be no fight. Just you claiming me?”
“I vaguely recall my side of the conversation, Lizzie,” I growl, brushing her mouth with the pad of my thumb. “It’s yours I need to hear now. Whether you’re staying. Or… or not.”
Lizzie shakes her head and rolls her eyes.
“I don’t know when you’re going to get it into your head, Caleb, but I’m not going anywhere. I’ll sell my place in the city if you want. I’ll buy a car here. I’ll buy my own graveside plot here. I don’t care what it takes. But I will convince you one day that I’m not leaving. I was never leaving. I went to get my things from your place because I wanted to move them into mine. Permanently. Not to hightail it to the airport.”
Relief starts to curl my toes. But…
“What about David?”
It’s my last anxiety. The man who is everything I’m not. The sleek clothes, the car, the underwear incident that Jace had mentioned. Somehow, I’d forgotten all of it last night. Maybe deliberately. Now, I need answers that I’m scared to ask for.
“David?”
“You’re not going back to New York…” I check, “…to be with him?”
Lizzie waits just long enough to have my heart beating a mile a minute before she confesses.
“My friend, David Carson.” She pauses to watch me with significance. “Husband to my late and wonderful friend Nicholas Carson. That David?”
What!“Wait, David is…”
“My male friend’s widower,” she finishes.
I was going to say ‘gay’, but I suppose that works too. Oh, man…
“Is there any part of our relationship that I haven’t gotten completely and totally wrong?” I ask, pinching the bridge of my nose.
Lizzie pretends to think about it as the clock strikes three o’clock on the wall. She purses her lips.
“Hmm, I don’t think so. But like I said, that’s how people operate, right? We just shake it off, move on, and continue to love.”
And there it goes. One simple word and my heart is thrumming like a jackhammer again. It practically rattles against my ribs.
“Love?” I prompt.
“Oh,” Lizzie places her hand on her chest, leaning back from our embrace to stare up at me in fake shock. “You think I’d have done all this for a man I wasn’t entirely and completely head over heels for? You have a very high opinion of my—”
I don’t let her finish her sentence. I’ve heard all I need to. Enough, at least, for me to kiss her with a ferocity I can’t contain. To taste the words right off her lips and claim her sweetness.
By the time we break for air, we’re both panting and warm to our toes.
