Love in the Time of Serial Killers(91)

“I like your bracelet,” I said.

He glanced down at it, then gave it a nervous little tug. “A kid at school made it,” he said. “I was touched that he gave it to me, until he got busted the next day for selling them around school for Shark Bucks.”

At my expression, he added, “School currency, to be earned for good behavior. The principal doesn’t see running an underground bracelet-selling ring as good behavior.”

“Sounds entrepreneurial to me,” I said. “And you should still be touched that he gave it to you. Unless he busted your kneecaps for Shark Bucks after?”

Sam shook his head. “So why are you here?”

“I wanted to see you.”

He rubbed his chest through his shirt, looking suddenly as tired as a guy whose sleep I had disrupted. God, I couldn’t seem to get it right. Maybe I should’ve written him a letter, something where I could think through everything I wanted to say and make sure I got it exactly the way I wanted, without the distraction of the way he looked in that T-shirt or how sweet it was that he obviously cared so much about the kids he taught.

“Phoebe,” he said. “I know your brother’s moving in next door. I figured that would mean I might see you again . . . I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was a relief in a way, the idea that I’d see you again. But if this is going to be a thing where every time you’re in town, you want to hook up . . . I just. I can’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

I drew my brows together. “You think I’m here for a booty call?”

That red slash across his cheekbones, another part of Sam I’d missed. Who was I kidding—I’d missed all of it.

“Maybe that was presumptuous,” he said. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No,” I said, taking a step toward him. “I’m sorry. That’s part of what I came here to say, and I don’t even know where to start. I’m sorry for waking you up tonight, for one thing, but most of all I’m so sorry, Sam, for the things I said and the way I treated you that day at the park. I was scared, and lashing out, and I hate that I hurt you.”

He shrugged, a jerky gesture that wasn’t completely natural. “You already apologized for that,” he said. “Several times. But you feel how you feel, Phoebe. You don’t need to be sorry for that.”

“But I don’t feel how I feel,” I said, my voice coming out ragged. “Or I guess what I mean is that I do, but I lied to you, or I lied to myself.”

“It’s late,” Sam said, “and I’m pretty beat. I don’t think I follow what you’re saying.”

“I love you,” I said. The words weren’t nearly as hard to say as I’d thought they’d be, so I said them again. “I love you, Sam. I don’t know exactly when I started loving you, but definitely by that day in the park. I just didn’t recognize it, and I was scared to examine it too directly, to confront what that might mean. When I said I didn’t think I was capable of love, that wasn’t a lie. With the way I grew up, my relationship history”—here I hiccuped a little, an almost desperate-sounding laugh—“if it’s not too generous to call it that, just the way I am, I didn’t think love was for me.”

He’d braced himself against the piano with one hand, and his finger slipped and hit one key. He was utterly speechless, just staring at me, but I chose to take that as an encouraging sign. At this point, I had no other choice.

“And now in two days I’m about to deliver the second-biggest presentation of my life, and I realized I want you there. I need you there. Which, obviously, is a huge ask, since I didn’t send a save the date or anything, and you have work, and probably no interest in coming to North Carolina to watch me talk about a genre that freaks you out . . . but it’s not even about that. It’s just that I need you in my life. Which, by the way, is a sentence that would’ve literally shriveled my insides to even think about saying a few months ago. But now I feel like I’ll shrivel up if I don’t say it. Even if you don’t feel the same way about me anymore, or have moved on with Jewel or someone else, I had to say it. So, I just drove for ten hours, got pulled over once, narrowly avoided spilling coffee all over myself, and showed up on your doorstep at the most asshole hour possible, to say it. I love you. I need you in my life. I’m sorry.” I took a deep breath, my first for the last few minutes. “Not necessarily in that order.”

This time Sam half sat on the piano, depressing several keys before standing back up. “Wow,” he said.

“Good wow?” I asked hopefully. “Or bad wow.”

I’d known before coming here there was a chance of rejection. I’d steeled myself for it, told myself that if Sam said it wasn’t going to work, I’d say I understood with some semblance of dignity, and then I’d go next door and cry myself to sleep. It was important to me to convey the way I felt to him, no matter what the outcome.

“There’s just a lot to unpack,” Sam said. “I should’ve made coffee. What was that part about Jewel?”

A little chagrined, I said, “Uh, Conner told me. That she’d come over once.”

His forehead wrinkled, then cleared. “To pick up an old violin I helped refurbish for the shop,” he said. “She was here for maybe ten minutes. I’m not interested in dating anyone else.”