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“I promise,” he says. That smile again, this time unfurling slowly. “I’ll grow on you.” “Yeah.” I snort and roll my eyes. “Like a rash.”
time moves on and things change. You can either change with them or resist and get stuck. I chose to let it all go. To become someone different. Not someone better or worse. Just different, and that’s okay.”
“I have lots of boyfriends.” His head snaps up, eyebrows slashing together. Laughing at his expression, I clarify. “Book boyfriends, that is.” I gesture to the paperback, now safely tucked away in my bag. “Much more reliable than real-life boyfriends. They’re there when I need them and go away when I don’t.”
Once, many years ago, I tried to pull myself up by dragging someone else down. It’s a decision I still regret. I won’t ever make that mistake again.
It’s dreadful, seeing how this one moment of failure pains him. It’s a bruise he can’t help poking. Sometimes things hurt so badly it almost feels good to relive them.
He picks up a single lock of hair from my shoulder. It blazes scarlet in the late morning light. Running it through his fingers, Ethan bends his head so I’m staring straight into his smoky eyes. He says softly, “You’re no ice queen. You’re pure fire.”
“Has it occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, I hoped you would call me? Maybe you aren’t the only one who’s scared, the only one with something to lose.”
“Do you like me better this way?” I ask tentatively. Without hesitation, he answers, “I like you all ways, happy and sad. I like all the Tiffany’s past, present, and future. I’ll take them all.”
“I haven’t had a lot of things I could call mine. Medicine was my parents’ and my brother’s. Baseball, maybe, but I lost that. But you, you’re mine, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose you. Not today. Not to that guy.” He points to Rafe on the ground. “I will fight anything, or anyone, that comes between us. Nothing could keep me away from you. Nothing.”
