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I just nod behind her hand until she finally drops it.
“I got scared for a few minutes, and then I remembered you promised you would never hurt me. You said you’d rather die first.” Taking a chance she won’t knee me in the balls, I bring my hand up between us and rest it against the side of her neck, waiting for her to talk this through. “And, well… you’re still alive.”
“Not for long,” Penny mutters from somewhere back in the yard.
“You didn’t leave me out of the loop to hurt me,” Sidney continues, and I slowly shake my head back and forth, because she’s almost there. “You did it to protect me. You’re taking care of me right now, aren’t you?”
“You really are paying attention.” I let out the breath I was holding, wrapping an arm around her waist and finally pulling her up against me so I can feel her and keep reminding myself this is real.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you what I was doing when I left this morning.Fuck, I should have brought you with me and avoided all this shit.” I pause to take a couple of breaths, glancing around, really wishing we didn’t have an audience right now. “I thought I could take care of it and get them out of here before any of their bullshit touched you this morning. I’ve told you enough over the years that you know how they are. I didn’t want them judging you, judging this place, or making you feel defensive or uncomfortable. I didn’t want them bringing any of their negativity anywhere near you. I don’t talk about them a lot, because nothing else matters when I’m here with you. Not because you’re not good enough to be in that part of my life. Baby, it’s the other way around. That part of my life isn’t good enough to be inyours.”
“I feel like we should be taking offense to this,” Finch pipes up from the porch.
“And I feel like you should shut the hell up before I let my family torch your ass, you disloyal piece of shit,” Sidney fires right back at him, making my dick throb in my jeans as she glares at him.
“Oh, I like her. I like hera lot.” My brother laughs.
“Burn, baby, burn! Looks like the weenie roast is back on!” Ginger shouts, which makes the whole crowd of tourists, including Kenny, let out a cheer.
“I know your brother slept with your fiancée, and that’s why you haven’t spoken to him in six years.” Sidney sighs, and I wonder if we’ll ever get this communication thing down.
“I take it they gave you the rest of my background check.” I wince.
“They left your file open on the table in front of me after they tied me up.” Sidney shrugs, resting her hands on my stomach. “I needed something to do while I sawed through that rope. You should have told me. Especially when Penny and Ginger told you I only slept with Whistle Winston because I knew you’d been engaged.”
“Who’s Whistle Winston?” my mother inquires in a loud whisper. “Is he another character in this witch trial? I can’t be expected to put on a good performance if I don’t know all the actors.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t understand?” Sidney continues. “That you’d been cheated on? Hi, my name’s Sidney Tanner, and my family is fucked up because of cheating.”
“We’re not fucked up; we’re unhinged. Get it right,” Penny mutters.
“I should have told you a lot of things,” I admit, dropping my hand from her neck so I can have both arms around her. “I promise I had every intention of telling you all the things we didn’t get to last night as soon as we woke up this morning. I didn’t intentionally keep it from you. It honestly wasn’t even a thought in my mind as soon as I got into town and saw you again every year. I always felt like I was suffocating in Oregon. And then I’d come here, and you’d make me feel like I could breathe. I wasn’t about to ruin how good that felt talking about shit that didn’t matter.Noneof it mattered when I was here with you.”
“You always say that to me,” she says quietly.
“What?”
My heart feels like it shot up and is pounding right in the middle of my throat when Sidney looks up at me with that look… like I’m her hero.
“When you get back here. You do it every year, and I just realized it. While we’re watchingMostly Ghostly, and I ask if you want to talk more, you always tell me you just want to breathe.God,I always thought you were talking about work being stressful or something.”
I shake my head back and forth, thinking now is a fine time to suddenly be short of breath.
“You’re the only reason I breathe.”
“For someone who doesn’t like talking, you’re doing a pretty good job,” Sidney whispers, and I reach up between us to swipe a tear off her cheek. “God,Tanner women don’t cry. You’re making me a very weepy person.”
“You suck!” Ginger shouts.
“Pussy!” Penny cups her hands around her mouth and yells louder.
Sidney gives them the finger without taking her eyes off me before pushing up on her toes and clasping her hands together behind my neck.
“If we’re going to do this, we have to do it right,” she tells me. “You don’t get to claim ownership of me like you did last night and not give me the same thing in return. You’re mine too, okay?”
Jesus, have any other words in the English language ever sounded better?
“You have to tell me your problems, because I want to fix them too. It can’t just be one-sided. You can’t just constantly be my hero and never let me return the favor.”
