Truly, Madly, Whiskey(24)
She drew back far enough to see his glistening eyes, causing hers to tear up again. He brushed her hair from in front of her face and kissed her forehead. His gaze turned regretful.
“Everything I did last week, baby. Jesus. I’m so f*cking sorry. What I said. The way I pushed. Fuck. I’m so sorry. You must have been terrified. Crystal, I’m not going anywhere, and I don’t expect a thing from you. If you want this, if you want me, I will be the man you need me to be. I’ll go with you to therapy. I’ll talk. I’ll listen—”
“Bear,” she interrupted, unable to hold in her feelings any longer. “You are the man I want.”
His jaw tightened again.
“I don’t need to go back to therapy, but I love knowing that if I ever do, you’d be willing to go with me. That means more to me than you could ever imagine. The reason I went to see David was that I do want to explore whatever this is between us. I want it so much it’s practically all I think about. You’re all I think about. And in my head, I worried that I’d freak out if we got close, not out of fear of being intimate, because I’m not afraid to be intimate with you. I backed off out of nervousness. I had finally found someone I wanted to move on with, and I worried I’d freak out, even though I wasn’t scared. That’s why it took me so long. And it might have taken me even longer if you hadn’t finally kissed me. I promise you, I’ve dealt with the actual…incident. It was all those months of wanting and worrying, not the assault, that made me freak out.”
She swallowed hard, gathering the courage to tell him the rest of the truth.
“I haven’t been intimate with a man since before the attack. I have a hard time trusting, and until you, I hadn’t met anyone who made me feel anything.”
His brows knitted, and guilt circled her like a vulture. In addition to tricking everyone into thinking she was some kind of biker chick, she’d led them to believe she was into meaningless flings with edgy men.
“I know none of it makes sense, given what I’ve led you to believe, but it does to me,” she said, grasping for the right words to explain away her lies.
“When I was growing up, I was Chrissy, a girl who loved school and life, but when we moved to the mobile home, the neighborhood was rough, and I became hard around the edges. I learned to fight and talk back. A girl can take only so many catcalls before she snaps. Then, at college, I wanted to pretend that part of my life didn’t exist, so I became Chrystina. The smart, sweet, slightly preppy, academically oriented girl next door. I had a few boyfriends and dated each of them for a while, but for one reason or another they didn’t last. But after that night, I wasn’t the same person anymore. I didn’t want to be the girl everyone liked, because, well, look what that got me. And I didn’t want to go back to being Chrissy, because that was a lost girl who missed her father, had a hot mess of a mother, and wanted to be someone else. So I became Crystal. All of this”—she waved toward her clothes—“and this.” She lifted a lock of hair. “My hair, the attitude, all of it, including the stories about one-night stands, was meant to keep people away.”
“Jesus, baby. You’ve been running or hiding for years.”
She nodded, feeling the sting of tears simply because he understood and he was still right there. He wasn’t judging her or telling her how she should have handled it. He was holding her and still looking at her like she was the gasoline to his engine—and she wanted to be.
“But even my best efforts at keeping people away didn’t keep Gemma away, and they didn’t keep you away.”
“Or my brothers, or Dixie, or Tru and the babies,” he pointed out. “You’re part of us, and it doesn’t matter what you call yourself or what color your hair is.” He arched a brow and a soft laugh escaped.
God it felt good to laugh.
“Dirty blond.” She tapped his chin. “You can make as many naughty remarks as you want about that, but not right now please.”
A hint of a laugh fell from his lips, but she could see he wasn’t taking this any lighter than she was.
“You never told Gemma?”
“No. And I feel horribly guilty about that. She’s always been honest with me about everything. I feel bad about lying to you, too. I’m sorry, Bear. I’m sorry I led you and everyone else to believe that I was someone I wasn’t. By the time I met you, I was in too deep. But you need to know, I didn’t have one-night stands, and before we met there were a few boring first dates, but not a single one since you first put your arm around me and decided I was yours whether I liked it or not.”
She smiled, and just as quickly her smile faded. “And with Gemma, I had finally found a real friend. Every time I thought about telling her, I couldn’t figure out how. But I want to. I need to. Just not yet. I know it puts you in a tough position, since you and Tru are so close, but I would really appreciate it if you could keep this between us.”
He gritted his teeth and gently ran a hand down the side of her face. “Whatever you need. Whenever you need it.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“What happened to the * who did this to you?”
“Nothing. I had panic attacks for two days straight, so I packed up my stuff and left. I tried to tell my mother, but she was drunk, and basically made me feel like I’d somehow asked for it, and—”