Page 102

“What did you say?”

She tenderly cups my jaw and looks up into my eyes. “I said that I love you.”

“Jesus.”

“That’s not exactly the reaction I was hoping for.”

I crush my mouth to hers, tears mixing with the water dripping down our faces.

It’s grief over Scout.

It’s complete and utter elation over what she just confessed.

It’s fear about our uncertain future and if she’s really going to leave again.

There are so many thoughts floating around my mind, and I can’t grab hold of any of them.

“Gav?”

“Mmm?”

“I’m so sorry.”

Sorry for leaving the first time.

Sorry for coming back and everything it’s stirring up for me and in town.

Sorry for loving me.

“Don’t apologize for anything,” I reply. “We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be right now. And by the way, I love you, too.”

“I thought you hated me more than any other person on the planet,” she teases.

“Love and hate are very interconnected.”

“So are fear and arousal,” she says.

“Is that so?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

But instead of reaching down and touching me, she turns the water off and we step out of the shower hand-in-hand. She dries both of us off and then leads me to the bed where we crawl under the blankets naked.

The fireplace in the room is lit, and it would be cozy and romantic if my insides weren’t completely fucking broken.

Ashley nuzzles against me, wrapping her naked body around mine, but neither of us make a move to do anything other than cuddle.

I loved spending time with her in high school, but I was a horny teenager. Getting inside her wasn’t ever far from my mind.

Hell, it’s still not.

But the intimacy of just being close to her, of touching her skin without the demanding pressure to perform, of enjoying the ability to justbe…

It’s everything.

Everything I didn’t know I needed.

Everything that I’ll never be able to let go of.