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“Just because I can plow through by myself doesn’t mean I want to,” I said. “Fuck, Shay. Let me need you, okay?”
“Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t want anything to do with you and that’s why I invited you to dinner or brought you bread all those times. And securing a line of credit forty-five minutes after you gave me a back-of-the-envelope proposal for a wedding venue was one big mixed message.”
As her body quaked beneath me and she sobbed out her release, I said, “This is where you belong, Shay. This is the home and we are the family you’ve always wanted.” I shook my hand free from her shorts and leaned down to press my lips to the dandelion seeds inked on her shoulder. The ones that wanted nothing more than a place to grow and bloom. “You belong here and you belong to me.” “What part of that is supposed to scare me?”
“High school sweethearts” was Noah’s explanation to all their questions. It rolled right off his tongue, just the way it had with Christiane. I didn’t know how he did it. “Always known she was the one.” When that wasn’t enough, he was quick to add, “Didn’t waste a minute when she came back to town. I’d already wasted too many waiting for her to come home.”
He always thought he was too rough, too aggressive. He thought I was small and fragile despite the fact I was neither of those things, but there was something surprisingly wonderful about someone doting on me that way. I felt perfect and precious when he rubbed cream into my skin or frowned over a bite mark he’d left on my inner thigh. I felt like I’d been waiting a very long time for someone who knew how to shatter me and also wanted to pick up all the pieces. And I felt an unpleasant sense of relief in discovering that person was my husband.
She didn’t look fine. She looked like she needed a warm blanket, a stiff drink, and a steady stream of reminders that her ex was full of shit. She looked like she needed to be held and adored for days.
