“Hey, I’ve been looking for that,” he grunted by way of greeting. His heart threatening to pound its way out of his chest, he dropped his backpack to the ground and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
When he didn’t immediately approach her, her smile faded, and with an effort Geo kept his face stony—damn if he was gonna make this easy for her. “What’re you doing here?”
“Waiting for you.”
The soft answer shimmered between them like a fragile bubble, until it was popped by the sharpness of Geo’s one word—“Why?”
She bit her lip. “Because I wanted to show you the sign I made.”
It was only then that he noticed the piece of posterboard lying on the bike’s seat, and even as he watched, she grabbed it and held it up.
There was no embellishment on it, nothing fancy, just the simple block letters: I’M SORRY.
Already shaking his head, he spun away, the pain and uncertainty he’d suppressed for the last three weeks crashing down on him with the force of a tidal wave. Gritting his teeth, he forced out, “Sorry for what?”
“For everything.” Her voice was whisper soft.
He whirled back around to face her. “I want to hear you say it,” he said fiercely. “What are you sorry for? Packing up my shit like you were getting rid of a transient sleeping on your porch? Throwing my ass out of your house like an unwanted pest?”
“Yes, to all of those things.” Tears glistening in her eyes, Lani let the sign drop to the ground. “Especially for—” she swallowed “—for letting my fear get the best of me.”
The simple honesty blunted the edges of his anguish a little. Of course he’d known her actions that night arose out of fear, but hearing her admit it—
He blew out a long, slow breath. “I would’ve talked about it with you, you know,” he said more quietly. “We could’ve worked it out. I thought, silly me, that we were in this together.”
“We are in this together.”
“Are we?”
“I want to be.” She took a step closer. “Despite the way I acted, I want to be in this with you. Whatever the future holds for us, I want us to decide it together.”
With nothing more to lose, he said harshly, “I can tell you right now what the future holds. It holds four more years of this.” He waved at the airfield behind him. “This isn’t a job I can just quit, you know.”
“I know.”
“You need guarantees? I can’t give ’em. You want to count on me? You won’t always be able to. It’ll be life with Rhys all over again, Lani, except this time you’ll be doing it with a child.”
She flinched, but said, “I know that, too.”
“Yeah, I know you know.” Exhaling, he tilted his head back to the sky, his eyes starting to sting. “And God, for some reason, I still thought maybe we had a chance. Stupid.”
Lani’s boots made clicking sounds on the asphalt as she approached him, stopping so close he could feel her warmth. “I want that chance with you, Geo.”
He shrugged. “Funny way of showing it. Nothing says ‘I want to try’ like packing up your boyfriend’s things and leaving them by the door.”
“Not my finest hour, I admit.” Her voice was soft. “But let’s flip this around. You need guarantees? I can’t give ’em either. You want to count on me? Well, I hope you know that you can.” She paused. “Most of the time. Kinda goes back to that ‘guarantee’ thing.”
Geo couldn’t help but snort at that.
With a watery chuckle, she took his hands in hers, her own fingers ice-cold. “But if you want to be loved? You are. Completely. The no-guarantees-asked kind, the we’re-in-this-together-even-when-one-of-us-screws-up kind.”
When he shook his head, she reached up and cupped his cheek. “I love you. With everything that I have. And I know you love me.”
A kernel of hope sprouted in Geo’s chest even as he grunted, “Hmph.”
“You know how I know? Because nothing says ‘I understand you’ like grabbing up the things your girlfriend packed and leaving without a fight.” She crinkled her nose. “Well, when your girlfriend is Lani, that is. I can’t speak to any other girlfriend you’ve had, or boyfriend, for that matter. All I know is Lani’s not easy to understand, but somehow you understood what she needed that night. You must really love her.”
He grunted again, the hope taking cautious root. Still, he didn’t say anything, and she squeezed his hand again. “This morning I was lying in bed, wondering when I’d gotten so selfish. I’ve been acting like my needs are the only ones that matter. Worse, I’ve been superimposing my past with Rhys over the idea of a future with you.”
Geo waited while she wrestled with her thoughts, his heart thumping painfully in his ears.
“Every time he left, I considered it an abandonment,” she said. “I blamed him for loving his job more than me. He was a part of something that had its own language, its own traditions, a culture that, as much as I wanted to, I’d never completely understand.”
He rubbed her fingers gently, and her lips trembled a bit as she went on, “But you’re not Rhys. I’m not the same Lani I was back then, and it’s so fucking unfair for me to compare my life with him to what it would be with you.” A single tear slid down her cheek. “I love you. I’m proud of you, of the way you serve your country. The way you and Bosch keep people safe. And if you’ll have me, I want to try and make this work.”
Before he could say anything, she let go of him. “I’m gonna walk for a while. That way.” She pointed to the beach. “Come find me and we’ll talk some more. If you want.”
Despite wanting to charge after her, Geo forced himself to wait until she’d disappeared. Anger and pain still coursed through him, along with uncertainty, because everything he’d said was true. She couldn’t count on him to be there for her when she needed him. The birth of the baby? No promises. Anniversaries, illnesses, deaths in the family, on and on and on. For the next four years, he couldn’t make her any fucking promises.
Except one...
Grabbing up his backpack, he headed in her direction. When he reached the sand, he toed his sneakers off, his lips quirking when he saw one cowboy boot, then the other a short distance away, as if she’d been leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow.
A wave of pure love weakened his knees. How much courage had it taken her to come to him like this, to recreate a scene that several months ago had led to heartache, and an ending? More than he’d ever know. Despite himself, the tiny kernel of hope grew.