The Crush (75)

It wasn’t enough, but it was so much more than what we’d had. I would’ve given anything, paid any sum of money, for the power to make her appear next to me. It made me think about all the moments I’d wasted. Years of her hovering on the edge of my life.

“Do you know when I first wanted to kiss you?” I asked.

Adaline didn’t answer. She simply pulled in a shaky breath.

“I was home for spring break. I think it was my junior year.” I closed my eyes and pulled the memory to the front of my mind. I’d never told her this because it only made the time we wasted that much worse. It made my choice not to explore something with her that much worse. “Noah and I had just come home from the Wolves training facility, and Molly ordered pizza for dinner.”

She hummed. “I was doing a swimming lesson with Luna.”

I smiled. “You were wearing a red one-piece swimsuit. It tied in a little bow behind your neck.”

“You remember?”

I groaned. “You looked like my Baywatch fantasy come to life.”

Adaline’s laughter was full of delight. “Shut up.”

“I stayed for dinner when I saw you there,” I added. “You brought Luna inside, and you were all bundled up in this big fluffy white towel, laughing with her about how she never closed her mouth when she tried to swim.” I rubbed at my chest, the memory was so vivid, so clear, and I hated my past self for thinking it wasn’t as important as it was. All the moments mattered when I looked back at them now. Every small, seemingly insignificant thing created the foundation for where we are now. “I was standing at the island, and you came to get something out of the fridge.”

“Apple juice,” she said quietly. “Luna always wanted apple juice with pizza.”

“That’s right.”

“That made you want to kiss me?”

“You smiled at me when I moved out of your way. I remember thinking you had the prettiest smile I’d ever seen. And I wanted to kiss you.”

“Oh, Emmett.” She sighed. “That was so long ago. A full year before the draft.”

“I know.”

Adaline was quiet for a minute. “Why did you shoot me down when I came to you?”

Despite her pause, she didn’t ask the question tentatively. No anger or frustration was coloring her tone. It was a genuine desire to understand.

“I guess it’s the same reason we’re here now, after all these years.” I ran a hand through my hair and let it drop. “It always felt like there was a choice to be made if we went down this road. At the time, I didn’t see how I could make it work.”

“And we went down this road anyway.”

“We did.” I sat up and sighed. “After all those years, I couldn’t shake those moments when I didn’t act. In the spring, when I knew you were single, I felt like I had to try.”

“So you did come to Oregon for me, you liar,” she said lightly.

I laughed under my breath. “If I admitted it right up front, what would you have done?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I think … I think it was easier for me to look at that weekend as scratching an itch. Indulging in something that I’d always wondered about. And I thought you were looking at it that way too…” Her voice trailed off. “I think I would’ve been scared if I’d known how serious you were. I put you so far out of my mind when I started dating Nick. I couldn’t leave you in the back of my heart, couldn’t think about those moments because I was in a relationship with someone else.”

It was torture to ask more. When she wasn’t in front of me to act on any of what we were feeling.

Yet I asked all the same. “What moment would you have thought of?”

She went quiet, but not for long. “It wasn’t even between you and me. Sometimes, I think it’s when I knew I could fall in love with you. It wasn’t just attraction. It wasn’t a harmless crush even though I felt both of those things.”

My brow furrowed. “Tell me.”

“We were at the beach house on the Fourth of July before you went back for your senior year. After dinner, you and Lia and Molly were cleaning up the dinner dishes. I was on the couch with Luna and Asher, and Molly started crying, but she didn’t want anyone to see.”

“Her miscarriage,” I said quietly.

“Yeah. Do you remember what happened next?”

I hadn’t thought about that night for so long. “I asked Lia to turn some music on. And then I took Molly’s hands and danced with her in the kitchen.”

“It was the first time I’d seen her smile in a week,” Adaline said. “You sang to her and twirled her around, and when the song was done, you wrapped her up in this great big hug, and I remember thinking that you must give the best hugs in the world. You were holding her so tight.”

“And did my hugs live up to the hype?” I asked.

She sighed. “You did. I’d go for one of those hugs right now.”

If I hadn’t made the choices I’d made, I could’ve given her a million hugs by now. Two million kisses. Could’ve memorized all the ways she liked to be touched. Instead, I still had all those things to learn.

And I would. I’d learn them all. I’d know all the best ways how to love Adaline Wilder, because it was what I was meant to do.