The Lost Fisherman (Fisherman #2)(79)

“You kept the truth from me when it could have been the thing that gave me my memory back.”

“Angie gave you the truth. It didn’t give you your memory back.”

“Why keep the truth from me? Why do it after you already knew I was in love with you?” Fisher stayed a few feet behind me.

“You wouldn’t understand, and it doesn’t matter now.”

“Well you drove to my house because something must still matter now.”

“It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have texted you. I shouldn’t have driven to your house.” I picked up my pace again, but not to a run. “I thought I needed some sort of closure, but I was wrong. Being away from you is all the closure I need.” I batted away the tears and made sure he didn’t catch up to me, didn’t see my tears.

“Say it. If you don’t say it, you know you’ll regret it.”

Screw my tears.

I whipped around. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted you to remember us and how you felt about me all on your own. And I wanted to be there when it happened. I wanted to see the look on your face. And I wanted it to convey the feelings I had when I realized you were falling in love with me for the second time without ever remembering the first time. I wanted to know if you felt this sense of awe and fate like it was impossible for us to not fall in love at every possible opportunity.”

Fisher deflated. He couldn’t even look at me.

So I turned and continued my journey home.

“We messed around on the pool table. In your bedroom. My closet. My bed. The downstairs kitchen. My workshop.”

I halted at his words, but I couldn’t turn around because I wasn’t sure if I was really hearing what I thought I was hearing.

“And we slept on the screened-in porch one night after I went out with Rory and Rose. You tripped at one of my job sites and ended up with a nail in your hand. I carried you to the truck. And the whole way I smelled your hair. And I thought … if I could spend the rest of my life smelling her hair, I’d die a happy man. Did you know that? Did you know how much I liked the smell of your hair and the floral scent of your skin, and whatever you put behind your ears and down your neck? Yeah, that shit drove me crazy insane.”

I couldn’t turn around. Or blink. I could barely breathe. But I could cry. And I did. So, so much.

He thought. If he thought. He knew. If he knew. He remembered … everything.

“Five years ago, I loved you and you loved me. It was really fucking messy … but we were real. It just wasn’t the right time. Our timing seems to always suck. And I’m sorry about that. But you’re here. And I’m here. And my best friend from high school is in town for the next two weeks, and you should come play pool with us.”

I turned a degree every second, like a ticking clock, until I faced him—that gleam in his eyes.

“I love you today.” He shrugged a shoulder. “And I’m going to wake up and do the same thing tomorrow.”

I had so many questions. Did he have sex with Angie in Costa Rica? That was my biggest question, or so I thought. But as I inched my feet in his direction, I realized it didn’t matter. If I wanted to cross that threshold back into his life, it couldn’t matter. If I accepted his love and gave it freely back in return, there were Biblical rules about love I’d have to follow.

It was never jealous or demanded its own way.

It wasn’t irritable.

It didn’t keep record of being wronged.

Love never gave up.

Never lost faith.

Love was always hopeful.

And it endured through every circumstance.

However, before I could take that final step back to him, there was a question he had to answer.

“Were you ever going to come for me?”

Fisher smiled that glorious, unmatchable grin, and it instantly sent a new round of burning tears to my eyes. It blew my heart up like a balloon, and it rattled my stomach, sending those familiar, tiny wings aflutter. “I was thinking about it.”

“I found my lost fisherman,” I whispered as I took that final step and wrapped my arms around him, our lips reuniting after too long apart.

When we pulled back an inch and gazed at each other, he grinned again. “I told you, all you needed to do was go knock on his door.” He wiped his thumbs along my cheeks. “Don’t cry. I don’t want Shane to think I made my girl sad.”

“You remember.”

He grinned. “I remember. I just had no idea the memories of us would be so … NSFW. And when it happened, when I remembered the feeling, it felt indescribable, in some way like the universe was laughing at me. How could I have not known? Not like my brain forming the memory, more like my soul tapping on my heart and saying, ‘Yo, dumb ass, remember her? We love her. ‘We will always love her.’”

I rested my forehead against his chest and laughed. “Not safe for work …”

“No joke.” He took my hand and led me back toward his house. “You know, I can’t play pool anymore without getting an erection. Do you have any idea how awkward that is when you’re playing against a dude?”

I giggled.

When we reached the basement, Fisher released my hand and grabbed a beer. “Shane, this is Reese. Sorry we disappeared. She’s a little skittish.”