All I Ask(59)

Now it’s my turn to stay silent. All of this feels like too much. Tonight was meant to be a date and now we’re deep into talking about the past and what we could have in the future. I never expected that there even could be a future.

I’ve spent so much of the last decade telling myself this would never happen. None of it. I would never see Derek again, talk to him, and then I stopped allowing him to enter my mind. I focused on being the best mom I could for Chastity. Everything I’ve done has been for her.

Now, I’m at this bizarre crossroads and there are so many more potholes and construction signs up. There’s Chastity, my family, his family, Everly, the fact that our past is murky, and I don’t need murky.

I need clear.

I need to feel secure because for so long, I haven’t been.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks.

“Us. What any of this means and if we’re still stupid kids trying to fulfill some destiny we defined.”

There’s no point in lying, and it’s better if we get this stuff out now so I can move on with my life and stop driving myself crazy.

“Me too.”

I tilt my head toward him. “Well, that’s not all that comforting.”

Derek sighs and sits forward. “What can I say? We’re both a little gun-shy and for good reason. I broke your heart when I stopped talking to you, and you were always between Meghan and me even after I did that. It wasn’t your fault, but in some ways, I’ve been in a relationship with you for years.”

“Why did you stay? Why didn’t you find a way to talk to me?”

His head drops and I know this is probably the last thing he wants to talk about. “I loved her, in my own way. She gave me Everly, and for that, I wanted to try. After a while, it was just what I thought I needed to do. She worked a lot, so did I, and we became…roommates. Also, God, this is going to sound bad,” Derek warns. “I knew if I saw you again, I’d struggle with the idea of staying with Meghan and forgoing all I was doing for Everly. If you were single, that would’ve been all I needed to know and I would’ve left my wife.”

My heart stops and everything around me turns hazy. All of my life I’ve wanted to hear that from him, and it’s bittersweet in every way.

“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

The breath escapes his nose and he leans back in the sand again. “I would go with both because it’s pretty pathetic and also a little romantic.”

I don’t know what he finds to be romantic about spending years married to someone who he wasn’t really a husband to because he was too chicken, but I’ll let him have this one.

“Did you buy the house?” I ask, switching topics to something safer.

He laughs. “I told you I was going to put an offer in.”

“Are you trying to torment me?”

“Not in the least.”

That’s what he’s doing by loving that damn house. “Why do you want it then?”

Derek turns toward me, his expression is serious, and I feel like this is one of those moments I should pay attention to. “Because you like it.”

“That doesn’t make sense! Clearly, you want to torture me by making me know that you now own my house.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Tea. It makes perfect sense. If you felt that way, standing there, then there’s a reason. I don’t have to know what it is or why. Whenever it comes to you, it’s been right. Look at tonight, you can’t tell me you don’t feel it.”

The moonlight shines down on his face, showing me his eyes. There is so much emotion in them, I can’t focus on one. “I don’t know what you feel. I don’t know what I feel,” I confess.

“When I do this…” He lifts his hand, pressing it to my cheek. “What do you feel?”

Everything.

“Warm.”

I feel his heat, the warmth that emanates from him, thawing my heart from the years I’ve kept it frozen. A fire inside of me that was just dwindling embers is kindling back up into a flame.

Then I remember that heat can burn you, scar you, and leave you exposed and raw.

“And what about this?” Derek leans in and I don’t move a muscle. His mouth inches closer and I don’t know what to do. If I let him kiss me now, there’s no drinks to blame it on, I’m stone-cold sober. However, his lips don’t touch mine, they press against my cheek. “What do you feel there?”

I release a shaky breath as I try to slow my racing heart. “Nervous.”

“Do you know what I feel when I touch you, Teagan?”

My head moves side to side.

“I feel content. I feel like everything makes sense in a world where none of this should.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

His lips inch closer and I know that he is going to kiss me, not on the cheek, not on the nose, but he’s going to kiss me, own me, claim me as his and I don’t think I have the wherewithal to stop him.

“We make sense.” His voice is soft, as if he doesn’t want to disrupt the moment. “What do you want to feel, Teagan?”

My pulse is racing and every muscle in my body is pulled toward him.

I look up in his eyes as he waits. “Tell me something real,” I say with fear and hope.