Do You Take This Man (93)
“Maybe we both have some stuff to work on.” The wind picked up, and Lear slipped out of his jacket, handing it to me.
“Probably.” My instinct was to decline, accept being a little cold instead of taking the help, but instead I thanked him and slipped my arms into the sleeves. We paused, nearing the edge of the wet sand, where the surf rolled in, a cool breeze blowing off the water.
“When you invited me up, I wanted to say yes, I just . . .”
I shook my head and placed my palm on his chest to stop him. “I shouldn’t have done that. You had a lot on your mind. I got caught up with what I was feeling.”
A tiny grin crossed his face. “Is that your way of saying defeating me in soccer and bowling turned you on so much you couldn’t think straight?”
I took in the warmth of his hard chest under my hand, the way my hand looked over his heart. “No, I’m used to winning. It was the waffles.”
The wind whipped around us, along with the sounds of the surf crashing against the shore and the hum and low bump of the speakers in the distance. Lear’s jacket surrounded me, and his smell—spicy and clean—filled my nostrils. “I’ve missed you, RJ.”
I examined the long shadows on his face and the way his lips quirked when I bit my lip. It was the Lear I’d had in front of me for months. The Lear I hadn’t always seen. “Call me Ruthie.”
He didn’t respond, his expression unchanging.
“Lear,” I said, touching his forearm.
He dropped his gaze to my fingers and followed their path as I slowly dragged them over his arm, the tiny hairs tickling my skin until I reached the back of his hand.
“You can call me Ruthie.”
Our fingers intertwined, and he drew me closer to him. “You told me not to. Almost no one calls you Ruthie.”
“I know. I know I said that, but . . .” I looked out over the ocean, searching for the right words. There were none, though, just the moon reflecting in a million glittering spots. When I looked back, his soft brown eyes were still intent on me.
“But?”
“But . . . almost no one calls me that because Ruthie is sweet and nice and gentle, and I rarely want people to see that. You’re special, though, Lear. I know a lot of people have led you to believe you’re not, including me, and I’m sorry, but you are.” I rested my hand on his chest, tipping up my chin to take in his inscrutable expression as I stepped closer. “You can call me Ruthie, and maybe that will remind you that you get parts of me most people don’t get. That you’re special, even when I forget to tell you, and, despite my best efforts, I think you see a lot more than what I plan on you seeing. Or maybe I’ve just gotten comfortable with you seeing all of me.”
I kept talking, afraid that if I quit, I wouldn’t keep saying all the hard things. “I should have some grand gesture in mind here, something that shows you I know I was wrong and that I’m sorry, that I want you in my life. I wish I did, because I do want you in my life . . . standing here now, well . . . I don’t know how to prove to you I won’t push you away again, because I might try, but I have this.” I pulled the printed confirmation from my pocket and handed it to him, studying his expression until his eyes met mine again.
“You prepaid for bowling lessons?”
“For both of us. I never let people see me doing things at which I might fail. But I want to bowl with you, and I want a relationship with you, because even though you’ll see me fail left and right at both things, I want to be the person who lets you in. All the way.” I spoke faster and faster, pulling the words from a raw place in my chest, and I gripped his shirt. “I fell in love with the way you double-check details, and your maddening attention to butter, and that you sing along with musicals, and I fell in love with how you look at me like I can do no wrong even when I’m messing up all the time, and I fell in love with how I feel when I’m with you. So . . .” I finally stopped for a breath after speaking like I needed to get all the words out at once. I’d spent most of the time I’d known him comparing Lear to other men, but I wasn’t the same person with him that I was with other men. I was more me with Lear Campbell than anyone I’d ever been with. “Please come watch me be a horrible bowler, because I trust you to give me crap when I’m awful, and I know you’ll still love me when I make fun of you for the same.”
He still didn’t say anything, and the sound of the waves crashing was the only sound between us. “I’m in love with you, Lear.”
Slowly, so slowly, his palm slipped from mine, and I worried I’d made a mistake. Maybe he wasn’t ready for all that. Then he shifted his palm to my hip, fingers gripping me. His expression opened, almost in surprise, but he still hadn’t said anything. From the reception on the beach, the music floated down to us. The heavy bass faded out, and the opening lines of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” filled the air.
Lear lifted our linked fingers and deliberately kissed each of my knuckles before guiding my hand to his neck and pulling me to him.
“You know I hate silence,” I murmured, loving the feel of his body pressed to mine, the warmth intoxicating as the breeze swirled around us.
“I know.” A smile tipped his lips up. “That’s why I’m making you wait.”
“I hate waiting.”