I lean in to kiss her, but before I do, I rest my forehead against hers and just enjoy being this close to her.
“Are you gonna kiss me, or do I have to do it?” she teases.
A smile tugs at my lips. I open my eyes and look into hers. “Be patient, Catnip.”
“What are you waiting for?” she asks.
I consider for a moment whether or not I want to answer. I don’t want to wipe the easy smile off her face, but I don’t want either of us to lie to ourselves about the significance of this moment, either.
Finally, I tell her, “I figure if this is going to be the last time I ever kiss you, it better be a good one.”
Her face falls and it hits me in the gut. “Hunter,” she says softly, her hand rising to cup my face.
I lean in, closing the small distance between us and tasting her lips. Maybe because I said that, the kiss is a little needier, a little more bittersweet. It tastes like fractured innocence. It has the tang of salty tears and heady regret.
All I wanted was to build us a ship that couldn’t sink, but I know I splintered a lot of wood in the process. I know what it could cost me.
Cost us, because whether she ultimately chooses to be with me or not, I don’t think anyone could ever love Riley more than I love her. It’s not possible.
My lips leave hers, but our faces stay close. Riley blinks up at me, her eyes full of sadness I know I put there.
I caused all of this, and I fucking hate that.
Swallowing, I look at her pretty face, drag my thumb across her full bottom lip.
Words usually come pretty easily to me, but right now I’m struggling with what I want to say, how I want to say it.
“I want you to know that meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Those words are harder to get out than I thought they’d be, so I stop, even though I don’t mean to.
“Hunter,” Riley says, her eyes filling with tears.
I shake my head. “Let me say this.”
Her brow furrows. A big tear sneaks out of the corner of her eye, but she nods.
I use my thumb to wipe that tear off her pretty face. “I know I hurt you. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. Certainly the most selfish thing I’ve ever done, and it has a lot of competition there, but…” I glance down, then look back at her. “When we were in middle school, you didn’t scare me. Maybe it’s because I didn’t know enough to be scared. I was young, I didn’t know anything.”
I look down.
Riley caresses my jaw, a comforting gesture I don’t deserve.
Meeting her gaze again, I tell her, “I’ve done a lot of shit to you over the years, Riley. It’s crazy that you still care about me at all, let alone love me like you do.”
At that, she can’t help interrupting. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.” I caress her face, too, before getting back to what I wanted to say. “I never stopped thinking about you. I lived on the other side of the world, you weren’t even part of my life anymore, but still… you were there. And I kinda knew it was crazy. I even convinced myself you were only preserved in my memory, that if I came back, it wouldn’t be like that, you know? You were almost a fantasy, like a book I never got to read the end of.”
Riley sighs, but she doesn’t interrupt me.
“And in my head, you’ve always been mine,” I tell her. “When I found out you were with someone, I didn’t know any details. I didn’t know if it was serious, if you loved him, if he treated you the way you deserved to be treated. I didn’t know anything, but I didn’t need to. I knew all I needed to know. Someone else might be taking up space in your heart, space that I thought belonged to me. I had to come back. I had to know if that connection between us was still there, or if it was some dead-end idea I just couldn’t let go of. I had to find out once and for all if you were mine.”
For this next part, I take her hand and cradle it in mine.
“But I needed the truth. I’m not someone who lies to himself. I don’t want to live like that. I’ve done it before, and it only leads to heartache and disappointment. You were there, you know I convinced myself that my mom gave a fuck about me, and that wasn’t true. I needed it to be true, but it wasn’t.”
Riley’s eyes fill with tears again. She pulls her hand from mine and hugs me.
I hold her close, running a hand down her back. “You’ve always been there for me more than anyone else in the world, Riley. You’ve loved me at my worst.”
She hugs me tight, then peels herself away from me. She looks up at me, her big eyes shimmering with tears she hasn’t shed yet. “Hunter, I don’t want to interrupt, but your pain is killing me. Can I just stop you here?”
I meet her gaze.
“I love you,” she tells me, almost desperate to end my suffering. “And you love me like… like I’ve never even dreamed of being loved.” Her blue eyes seem to brighten. Maybe it’s the tears or her belief that her next words will cure me of my sadness. “Hunter, I don’t want to break up.”
She looks up at me, anticipation written all over her lovely face. I know she’s waiting for my relief, my happiness, for me to grab her and squeeze her and give her one of many more kisses she’ll get from me.
Her brow furrows with confusion when none of that happens.
When I still look at her like she holds the answer to a question that hasn’t been asked yet.
“There’s more,” I tell her.
I don’t know how to say this next part. I don’t know how she’ll take it.
I don’t know how to explain I put her through pain she didn’t have to go through because I needed the answer to a fucking question. Because I needed reassurance that if I sunk everything into her, I’d never lose her, no matter what.
I roll my shoulders, trying to work out some of my growing tension.
I don’t know if she’ll understand.
Her voice tentative and filled with dread, she asks, “What… what do you mean, there’s more?”
I draw in a deep breath and let it out. I look into her eyes.
Then I tell her, “I was never really with Valerie.”
Chapter Seventy
Riley
I stare at Hunter, uncomprehending.
“What?” I ask, scowling.
He looks tense. Worried.
I don’t understand what he’s doing.
“We were never really together,” he tells me.
His words don’t make sense. On the face of it, simple.
But I was there. I know what he’s saying is absolute, utter bullshit.
Shaking my head, I look away from him. “Why are you doing this? I just told you I forgive you. Why are you lying?”
Hunter grabs my hand, pulling my gaze back to his. “I’m not lying. I never slept with her. I never even kissed her. We were never together like that. When you came to my house that day, when you told me where your line was, of course I wasn’t going to fucking cross it, Riley. I’m not an idiot. I had too much invested in you to throw it all away on something that didn’t even matter, but you gave me an opportunity to see if we could’ve gotten through it if I had. I didn’t have to actually betray you with her, I just had to let you think I did.”