Punching me in the gut would have been kinder and I struggle to swallow down the lump in my throat as I nod, my chest aching. It makes sense why she would want to be cautious after what happened the last time we were together but that doesn’t make the pain fade away.
“Right.”
“Please don’t be upset, baby,” she whispers, pulling her hand from my grasp and turning to me to cup my face between her hands. I meet her eyes and they beg me to understand and as much as my mind gets where she’s coming from, I can’t help but feel like I just got rejected. “The way I feel about you hasn’t changed, at all. I just don’t want to go back to that place where I can’t stand on my own two feet.”
“How do you feel about me? Because you haven’t said the words.”
Jesus Christ.
I sound like a goddamn girl right now.
She scowls and shakes her head, staring up at me like I’ve lost my mind. Then again, maybe I have.
“Well, you haven’t said it either.”
She’s got a point.
“Besides, you and I… it’s always been more than three little words could sum up. You know that but if you need to hear me say it, I will.”
I shake my head and blow out a breath as I drop my gaze to my lap. She’s right. Our connection has always been something special and if the fact that we’re back together again after ten years apart doesn’t tell me how she feels then I don’t know what will. She sighs and I lift my gaze to hers as she reaches down and grabs my hand, pressing it against her chest.
“You feel that?”
I nod.
“It’s always been yours, Wyatt. Always. Even when we were apart and trying to move on with our lives without each other, my heart still belonged to you.”
Slipping my other hand into her hair, I claim her lips, desperate to feel her and she moans as she climbs off of her chair and straddles my lap, never once breaking our connection and when she finally does pull away, she smiles down at me. The sun shines around her, illuminating her like an angel and I brush my thumb over her cheek, wondering how I got lucky enough to not only get her once but twice.
“I love you,” I tell her and her eyes shine as she leans down and steals another kiss, something between a sigh and a moan slipping between us and I wrap my arms around her body, pulling her closer. When she pulls away this time, her smile is brighter.
“I love you, too.” She cuddles into me, tucking her face into my neck and I take a deep breath as I stare out at the ocean and rub my hand down her back.
“You think we could talk about something else?”
She jerks up and meets my gaze again. “It’s about when I left, isn’t it?”
I nod and she chews on her bottom lip for a second before repeating the gesture. The last thing I want is to put that apprehensive look in her eyes and I understand why she hates talking about this stuff but we need to in order to move forward.
“Why did you write me that email?”
She deflates for a second before straightening her shoulders with a nod and that strength I’m quickly becoming very fond of flashes in her eyes. “Honestly… I don’t know. I remember thinking the man who killed my parents was after me and that I had to get away… Maybe I thought I was protecting you by making sure you didn’t follow me…” She shrugs. “Like I said, everything around that time is super fuzzy and I can’t tell you what was real and what wasn’t.”
“Okay,” I whisper with a nod. That makes sense, I suppose. If she thought she was trying to protect me, I don’t think there is any length Piper wouldn’t go to. I remember her saying she would see my dead body in the house and I scowl up at her. “Why would you need to protect me if you already thought I was dead?”
“Oh… no. The two delusions never existed together. I either saw him or I saw you but never saw both of you in the same room. I think at one point, I thought he had been the one to kill you and I felt this overwhelming hopelessness because he had taken my whole world from me again and I started thinking what was the point of even living anymore.”
My heart jumps into my throat as my eyes widen. “Please tell me you didn’t try to…”
“No,” she says, cutting me off. “Never. I might have briefly considered the idea but by the next morning, I was seeing him again and I thought you were alive. Or, at least, I think I did. My memories are not a good indicator of the truth.”
I nod, squeezing my eyes shut as I try to banish the thought from my mind. What the fuck would I do without her? My mind drifts back to the man I was just three weeks ago, before she walked back into my life and it feels like an entirely different person. I need her so I don’t even want to consider the possibility that she could have ended it all...
“Why didn’t you come back after you were better?” I ask, shifting gears and she chews on her bottom lip, staring down at her fingers as she twists them together.
“I did.”
“What?” I nudge under her chin with my finger and force her gaze to mine. Tears swim in her eyes and she sucks in a breath. It breaks my fucking heart.
“After I got out of the hospital, I got my own apartment and started the business with Eden. When I finally felt like I was secure and I was confident that I could handle everything, I wanted to find you. I looked you up on Facebook and saw that you had joined the Devils so I went to the clubhouse to find you. When I got there, you guys were having a barbecue and there was this woman sitting in your lap. You looked happy and I…”
The tears spill down her cheeks and she clamps her mouth shut as she drops her gaze to her lap again.
“What girl, baby?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. She had blue hair and tattoos all over her body.”
“Cleo,” I whisper, closing my eyes and shaking my head. Jesus, what would have happened if she had talked to me that day? Where would we be now? Would I have even listened to her? I can’t believe she was so close and I never even knew because I was focused on Cleo. I knew that was a bad idea from the start.
Goddamn it.
“I thought about going to talk to you but I was already nervous and when I saw you with her… I thought you were moving on with your life and I should try and do the same.”
I nod, everything coming together in my head. “So you sent the divorce papers?”
“Yes.”
“Pip, baby,” I breathe as I grab her face and press a quick, demanding kiss to her lips before pulling back. “That girl was no one. We hooked up sometimes and she just started bartending for the club but she and I were never together. I was never able to move on from you.”
She nods. “I know that now but back then, I thought I was doing the right thing. I loved you and I wanted you to be happy after everything I had put you through. You know, that whole ‘if you love someone, set them free’ thing.”
“For the record,” I tell her, stealing another kiss. “Don’t set me free again. Ever.”
“Okay,” she whispers, a soft sob slipping out of her lips as the tears fall down her cheeks. I brush them away and pull her to me again, determined to kiss away the pain of our past. She melts into me, clinging to my shirt as she kisses me back with the same desperation I feel coursing through my veins. I want to wash it all away, make the past ten years disappear because the ache I feel thinking about everything we could have had if things had gone just a little bit differently makes my stomach turn.