Broken Juliet(22)

“How did you get out of there?”

“A delivery driver found me a couple of hours later and called an ambulance. When I woke up, I was in a French hospital, tubes everywhere, dosed up on morphine. Elissa and the company manager were there. They told me I’d been out for a couple of days. Elissa was f*cking furious. She’d been lecturing me for months about my drinking and self-destructive habits. When she was done yelling, she started sobbing. I’d never seen my sister cry like that before.”

“Of course she was upset. She could have lost you. We all could have.”

“But the ironic thing is, the way I was living … it was like I was already dead. It took the accident to bring me back to life. While I was recovering in the hospital, I had a lot of time to think. It occurred to me that, for most of my adult life, I’d had this thing for self-sabotage. When I broke up with you the second time, it was me slamming into the barrier of my goddamn issues. I knew if I didn’t do something to fix them and find a way to get you back, my life was pointless. So, yeah. I decided to live. As soon as I got out of the hospital, I tracked down a therapist who specialized in abandonment issues and climbed the f*cking painful hill of recovery. Three years later, here I am. Scarred, but grateful.”

I want to be grateful, too, but I’m too busy being fixated on a mental image of him lying in a hospital bed, crumpled and broken.

“Why didn’t you tell me? You could have asked Elissa to contact me.”

He shakes his head. “I couldn’t. I mean, I’d almost killed myself because I was pining for you. How f*cking lame is that? Plus, I vowed the next time you laid eyes on me, I’d be the man you deserved, not some scared little boy.”

I look up at him. “And now, here you are.”

He brushes his thumb over my lips. “Here I am.”

He leans down and kisses me, warm and open and soft. When he stops, I’m boneless.

“You were always my incentive to get better, both physically and mentally. You were my reward.”

He wraps around me before burying his face in my neck. “Thank you.”

I take in a shaky breath and try to keep it together. He tightens his arms around me, and I almost can’t breathe.

“You know,” I say, and wheeze for effect, “there’s a difference between snuggling and holding someone captive.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve waited a long time for this, so I’m going to enjoy it.”

Nevertheless, he loosens his grip.

We stay like that for long time, intertwined and breathing each other’s air. Seeing who’ll pull away first. My bladder makes sure it’s me.

When I come out of the bathroom, he’s sitting on the edge of the bed.

I stop in front of him, and he takes my hands. “I want you to come to my place for dinner tonight. I’ll cook. I have something I want to show you.”

I smile and shake my head. “Ethan … I think we really need to take things slowly for a while. Besides, I’m pretty sure what you want to show me, I’ve seen before.”

“Not that,” he says, and pulls me onto his lap. “Although if you play your cards right, I could be persuaded to show you that, too. In fact, cards aren’t necessary. A simple eyebrow raise would do it.”

I roll my eyes.

He pushes my hair away from my face. “Hey, I’m kidding. I promise, my pants will stay on. Please, I really want you to come.” I make a face. “Over! Jesus. Come over, and let me make you come. Make you dinner! Shit!” He shakes his head. “Sorry. My brain is distracted. When I look at you from this angle I can see right down your robe.”

I slap his arm and pull my robe around me. He tries not to laugh.

I push him, and he falls back onto the bed. Part of me hates how right he looks on it.

He grabs my hand and pulls me down, then rolls on top of me. He’s so happy and comfortable, I barely recognize him.

“I really can’t be blamed for ogling,” he says, as his hands frame my face. “It’s all your fault for being so goddamn beautiful. Do you even understand how attracted I am to you?”

When he leans down to kiss me, I put my hand on his chest to stop him. He immediately rolls off like he’s expecting it.

He sighs and stares at me, unashamedly lustful. “So, yeah. I’m going through this phase right now where I don’t seem to know the meaning of the word ‘slow.’ I promise that from now on, I’m going to try harder not to hit on you every five minutes.”

I laugh and shake my head. “I feel like I should apologize.”

“For what? Not jumping into bed with me the moment you’ve decided you don’t hate me anymore? How dare you? I’m f*cking appalled.”

I dig my fingers into his ribs. He squirms and makes a very unmanly noise.

“Hey! You know tickling is now against the Geneva Convention. Quit it before I call NATO. I don’t want my girlfriend to be an international war criminal.”

I flinch. He notices, and his smile falls.

“Fuck. Cassie … I didn’t mean to—”

I laugh, but it’s forced. “It’s fine.”

A few years ago, I couldn’t convince him to call me his girlfriend without coercion and testicular clamps, and now he’s throwing around the term like he’s Mr. Commitment?