Page 16 of Love.V2 (Occupational Hazards #2)

Dylan

"No, Tess. I don’t want to leave.”

In all the months Tess had been gone, it had occurred to me, of course, that there might be someone else. I spent days and nights tormented by the thought of her with another man, one who would be home by five, and notice when she started withering away before his eyes.

A better man than me.

If that were the case, I told myself I’d deal with it. I could step aside and just be happy she was happy. Back in Nashville, when I’d had nothing to lose and my only plan was a lot of groveling and hoping she gave me half a chance, it all sounded so simple.

But there were variables I hadn’t considered. Like how now, even though she hadn’t been with anyone else, a glance at the box of condoms on the bed was enough to flatten me.

No, she hadn’t been with anyone else, but she could have. Any single thing could have gone differently in the last six months, and I’d have lost her forever.

It was the adrenaline shock of almost rear-ending someone. The shaky, baffled breath after a near-death experience .

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Tess ventured, killing me. “This is a lot. Maybe we should take some time.”

She was huddled in a little ball, pulling the sheet over herself. Looking at her cut me open. How did she see everything and still not understand how she could end me with a single look?

“Fuck, no.”

Tess’s head reared back, and I cleared my throat, as surprised as she was at my outburst. Aside from that first ambush in her office, I’d been so careful not to spook her.

“I mean,” I began, weighing my next words.

The Tess who had lived without me for six months was a wild animal.

When I talked to her, it was soft. I sat slowly, carefully, across from her in the conference room.

Even though I wanted to grab her and yell at her for leaving and beg her to come back until I was hoarse.

Now, it occurred to me it hadn’t gotten me anywhere. Not for the past few weeks, when I’d been quietly courting her with caffeine, and not last year when I’d watched her go to bed alone, shoulders hunched, too many times without saying anything.

If I had, maybe we wouldn’t be here.

“Actually, I did mean that. Fuck, no.” I paced, hands on my hips. Her apartment only allowed for a few steps in each direction. “We’ve taken six months of time, Tess. I don’t want more time away from you. I won’t run away, and I won’t stop fighting for us.”

A sigh hissed out of her mouth as she searched for her clothes. When I saw how she kept the sheet clenched to her chest, I tossed a shirt from the end of the bed and turned my back. As if I didn’t know her skin better than my own .

“This is too complicated, Dylan.”

“It’s not complicated at all, Angel. I still want you. Do you still want me?” The question had been living under my skin for weeks. That yes or no I’d been trying to drag out of her with every look, every exchange.

When I turned around, she stared at the box on her bed. “It is complicated.” She sounded defeated. “We’re freaking out over a box of condoms I’ve never even used before. It’s…the definition of baggage.”

“What you call baggage, I call the best years of my life.” She looked away, biting her lip. I dropped to my knees, threading my fingers through hers. I’d always loved how delicate they were. Perfect for holding a brush or smoothing a precise line of charcoal. Now they felt cold.

“I’m freaking out because it’s a reminder that I almost lost you.

I almost screwed this up so badly that you could have moved on and had a completely different life without me.

And I would have found a way to be okay with that because I’m the idiot who didn’t hold on to you when I had the chance.

But, there still is something here. You were willing to give this a shot earlier tonight. ”

Her brows snapped down over her eyes. A spark of something flashed there.

Anger or regret. Whatever it was, I hadn’t seen that light, that fight, in a long time.

“Only because you were making it seem so easy! Just talk to me; give me one chance . Like we could somehow pick up where we left off. Obviously, it’s harder than that. Complicated. ”

She spat the word like it was poison, and I realized my approach to this had been all wrong.

I’d treated her with kid gloves, scared she’d hiss and claw at me or, worse, run away.

Now I realized I wanted her to scratch at me.

Bite, maul, chew me up and spit me out. Anything but that blank apathy she’d given me for the last gasping months of our dying relationship.

Not many people had seen Tess mad before, but I had. No matter how quiet and agreeable she appeared on the outside, she felt just as strongly about things as everyone else. Maybe even more so. I wanted her to let it out all over me. To let me in.

“You’re right. It was ridiculous to think we could just start at the same place we were and get a different result.”

“Right.” The spark died. Her gaze dropped to her hands, fingernails already picking at the skin of her thumb. I’d have to get her those colorful Band-Aids like I used to when she was stressed and picked her nails before exams. She thought I was giving up? I was only getting started.

“We have to start from the beginning.”

Her fingers stilled. “What?” She was looking at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was, but she was right. We couldn’t pretend the last six months had never happened. We couldn’t build on a cracked foundation.

“Start over. From scratch. Isn’t that what you’re trying to do here, anyway?” I tilted my head to the walls around us. Her eyes floated across the room, taking in the multicolored prints and the wall full of little potted plants.

“I get it, Tess. Baggage. There are things I love about our baggage, but it started piling up towards the end there. What if we just wiped it away?”

“Like a fresh start? ”

“Exactly like that,” I agreed, as if I couldn’t hear how incredulous she sounded.

We hadn’t been good at the end of our relationship, but we were fucking incredible at the beginning.

“I’m a different person since you left. Hell, I’m a different person since I met you all those years ago.

What if we tried again, right now? The people we are in this moment? ”

Her face twisted in confusion, but it felt right as I said it. I loved Tess. What would I do to go back and fix the mistakes I’d made over the last few years?

Anything. I’d give everything up.

Except her.

But the longer she stared, the rightness, that conviction in my chest, wavered.

Maybe it was a ridiculously stupid idea.

But maybe, if we just tried to start over, we could get to a place where we could hash it out.

Find a space where we were happy, and comfortable, and able to speak about our—my—mistakes.

“Tess?” She’d been quiet for too long. That confused look on her face had morphed slowly into something like stricken surprise. She blinked, eyes refocusing.

“I’m not going to some frat house to tap a keg.”

I practically deflated in relief. My fingers squeezed hers. “We can go where someone else taps the keg.”

“And what does it even mean, fresh start? Do we…pretend we don’t know each other? What do we talk about?”

“Whatever people talk about on first dates.” My pulse raced. She wasn’t. Saying. No .

“I haven’t been on a first date in about twelve years, I have no clue what people talk about. I’m going to have some very interesting questions for the AI search later,” she mumbled, staring down at our hands. I laughed despite myself.

“Yes? Are you saying yes? Because I need to know there’s still hope here. After everything—tonight, these last weeks, this last year. I need to hear it, Tess.”

That little furrow re-appeared between her brows. Her nose scrunched the way it did when she was worried.

“Before we decide to start fresh, can I ask you one thing?”

“Of course.” Let me in. Let me in the way you haven’t in so long .

“I know I didn’t…get with anyone these last few months.” Her fingernails plucked at the raw skin again. Her shoulders curled inward, bracing for impact. “Did you?”

The air in my lungs escaped with a long sigh. “I thought you’d ask me a hard one.” I ran a soft finger over her sharp chin, nestling my thumb in the indent there when she finally looked up at me. “I haven’t looked at another woman since the day you walked into English Lit 102.”

The smile hesitated as it crossed her face, eyes melting into a shining gaze I didn’t feel like I deserved.

“Okay, then.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

** *

“Gracie, I don’t have long, I’m about to walk into a…meeting,” I hedged, hesitant to reveal where I was really heading. My little sister was a romantic.

“You are literally always about to walk into a meeting. Every minute of your life is a meeting, even on Saturdays, apparently,” my sister complained. I shifted the phone to my other ear as I shuffled past someone on the busy Chicago sidewalk. Guilt bit at my conscience.

I’d made a lot of changes since Tess had left me, but Gracie and Grant had their own stuff going on with school. They didn’t see firsthand how much I’d changed.

It was hard for them to get used to the fact that I prioritized things other than work now.

That they’d ever had to question where they stood on my list of priorities sank a rusty, clawing weight straight down my esophagus and into my stomach.

It made me think uncomfortable thoughts about my relationship with our dad.

Screw playing it safe.

“If it makes you feel better, it’s really a date.”

Gracie’s high-pitched squeal was loud enough to cause radio interference. I expected a plane to come plummeting out of the sky at any moment. “With Tess? ”

“Who else would I go on a date with?” The thought burrowed that spiky weight further into my gut. A couple of months ago, Gracie had cautiously asked if I wanted to move on.