Good for You: A Novel (48)

“Are you sure?” he said.

“Please,” she said, pressing her mouth against his neck. “Now.”

Yet again, Wyatt carried her upstairs—but this time, Aly remembered everything.

The way he pulled her shirt over her head, then tore off his own. How her skin felt electric as their limbs tangled together. How he bent over her on the bed in reverence and kissed every inch of her until she couldn’t take it another second. The way they both cried out when he entered her, and immediately found a rhythm so good, so satisfying that Aly marveled as she moved beneath him. Now she understood the difference between having sex and having someone make love to you. When she came, she didn’t think about how her face looked, and she didn’t squeeze her eyes closed. Instead, she stared up at Wyatt, who was staring back in wonder, and she held his gaze until he had finished, too.

Afterward, they lay side by side on the bed, breathing hard and staring at the ceiling. Only then did Aly’s fear begin to resurface. Was he going to tell her he shouldn’t have? That he’d somehow betrayed Luke or made a terrible mistake?

But instead of saying anything like that, Wyatt leaned onto one elbow and kissed her tenderly. Then he whispered, “No matter what happens next, I want you to know that I’ll never hurt you, Aly. I promise.”





TWENTY-FOUR


“Aly?”

“Yeah?” she said.

It was early the following morning, and Wyatt had just stirred beside Aly in bed. She hadn’t expected to literally spend the night with him, but after they’d scarfed down sandwiches he’d thrown together for dinner, they’d immediately gone back up to her bedroom. Once they’d finally exhausted each other, they had fallen asleep side by side. If she’d dreamt, she couldn’t remember it, and she’d awoken feeling downright refreshed.

“I need to tell you something,” said Wyatt, who was still lying beneath the covers.

Her stomach sank—so much for refreshed! How foolish she’d been, to spend the evening convincing herself that the other shoe wouldn’t drop. It always dropped.

“Are you going to tell me why you were so rude to me when we met in New York all those years ago?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Because that was so weird. I hated you after that.”

He grimaced. “You want the truth?”

“You know I do.”

“I thought you were beautiful, and if you hadn’t been Luke’s sister, I would’ve asked you out immediately. But you were, and I didn’t want to creep on my best friend’s sister.”

She laughed. “Yet here you are. Creeping.”

“Little bit,” he said. His expression shifted. “That’s not what I was going to say, though.”

“Is this about Luke?” she said, because she’d just recalled what Wyatt had said about her brother the other day: I never should have let it happen. I still don’t understand why he chose to go anyway. She’d been too inebriated to dwell on it then. Now it struck her as curious, maybe even ominous. Did Wyatt know something he wasn’t telling her?

Now he looked upset. “Sort of,” he said.

“Wyatt,” she said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, “just tell me. The longer you make me wait, the more my imagination is going to spin out of control.”

He glanced across the room, away from her, and her stomach lurched again. Then he said, “My sister died when I was thirteen.”

Aly startled. “I . . . don’t even know what to say. I’m sorry. I had no idea.” Her chest flooded with guilt. Of course he’d understood her pain. He’d lived through it.

“It’s okay,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I don’t really talk about it.”

“I’m so sorry. Thank you for telling me.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. “I am, too. I just thought you should know why I’ve been moping around. Obviously, losing Luke was awful all by itself. But it also brought up some old issues for me. Then when you got here, and I saw how you were struggling . . . It’s just been a lot to handle. I’m sorry, Aly. I know I’ve been weird. I’m trying not to be, but it’s hard sometimes. And now we’re doing this,” he said, smiling softly at her. “I might get even weirder.”

“It’s okay,” she said, throwing her arms around him. She wanted to kiss him until he forgot; she wanted to weep. What was wrong with this world, that the best people were taken too soon? “What was your sister’s name?” she asked.

“Ruby. She was eight. She had pediatric glioblastoma—it’s a type of brain cancer. They have better treatments for it now, but back then . . . nothing worked.”

She hugged him. “Oh, Wyatt.”

“I know,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I know you get it.”

“Do you have any other siblings?”

He shook his head. “My parents weren’t control freaks until after everything happened with Ruby. At first, they just wanted to keep me . . . alive, I guess. But it wasn’t long before they started wanting to orchestrate every last detail—who I dated, where I went to school, what I did for a living, even which apartment I chose and what kind of clothes I wore. My mother called me twice a day, no matter what, just to check in.”