International Player(70)
I took a deep breath. “I love how you like to be excellent at everything. How you think your sister outshines you when the opposite is true.”
She looked away. “That’s just not true. Abigail is . . .”
I collapsed on the sofa next to her. “Abigail just has a shit ton of confidence and understands her power. She’s a total Michael Hutchence.”
“You think my sister is like the lead singer of INXS?” She looked at me as if I was in the middle of some kind of mental breakdown, which was quite possibly the case.
“Yeah. Michael Hutchence thought he was the best-looking member of his band, so people went along with it. The rest of the band were happy with him taking the spotlight, but all those guys were good-looking. Hutchence just had the hair and a leather jacket.”
“What is it with you and eighties rock?”
“Whatever. If you want to spend your whole life thinking your sister is prettier, more popular, better than you at God knows what, then do it. Just know that I disagree. You are the most beautiful, most special woman I’ve ever met in my life. No one has ever come close.”
She offered me a smile, and it warmed me, encouraged me, like a small beacon of hope.
“You mentioned I like a challenge, that I enjoy conquering things,” I said. “You’re right. The accident set some kind of pattern in my brain where I liked to set myself a challenge and achieve it.”
She nodded and brought her legs up, tucking them underneath her.
“So, that’s how I work. I don’t look beyond what I’m focused on—what the challenge is. And I think that’s partly because I know how futile looking too far into the future can be. I’m better at concentrating on whatever’s right in front of me.”
“I understand that,” she replied. “And what happens if you look up and decide I’m not going to fit into whatever you have on your radar next?”
“I heard what you said at the ball. But, Truly, I’ve lived like this a long time and it’s taken a while to see where you’re coming from, but I am trying. I understand that you like certainty and knowing what’s next but there are no guarantees in life.”
She rolled her eyes. “You sound like my sister.”
“But I can guarantee you this. I don’t look in my future and see anyone but you. I can’t imagine tomorrow without knowing what you thought about breakfast. I can’t imagine next year without waking up beside you. You are the only woman I want. The only woman who’s ever really interested me. I like hanging out with you. I like kissing you. I think you’re the smartest woman I’ve ever met. And I’ve missed you—even though it’s just been a few days.”
She uncurled her legs and we sat staring at each other.
“Is this you wanting what you can’t have? Because I’ve now become a challenge?” She pushed her hair over her ears like she meant business, like she wanted to get into the nitty gritty of the situation.
“No.” My tone was firm. Definitive. “Women have never been like that to me.”
She laughed. “They’re a three-month challenge. Once they fall in love with you, you’re done. You move on.”
I frowned. She wasn’t getting it. “You’ve got that wrong. Women have never been a challenge to me—not until you. That’s the whole point.”
“If that’s true, I don’t want to be your first challenge. I’m not wired to handle that. I’m not strong enough to hold a part of myself back out of fear you’ll leave me.” Her voice faltered, and it was as if each syllable was a spike through my heart.
“I’d never want you to hold back from me. What I’ve realized this last week is that you’re my lifetime’s challenge—the girl I never conquer. You’re the woman who joins me in the challenges to come. We face them together.”
Truly set down her water and looked at me from under her lashes. “I’m scared. Of everything. Of me wanting you more. Of me messing things up.”
I shifted to sit on the coffee table opposite her and took her hands. I caught her knees inside mine. “This is worth being afraid for. You and me. You know it.”
I circled my thumbs over her wrists, her pulse tripping under her skin. She was always so comfortable without words, with thinking through everything she said before she spoke it out loud.
“I feel as if I belong to you, Noah. And it’s the scariest thing I’ve ever known in my life.”
I hadn’t thought about it like that before, but when she said it, it made perfect sense. I felt whole when I was with her and like a piece of me was missing when we were apart. “I feel the same way.”
She cupped my jaw. Her touch was like going home. “There’s no guarantee that this is going to work. But I’d never live with myself if I messed things up.”
“We have to trust that when one of us messes up, the other one will get it right. Life doesn’t stand still, and anything is possible—we could all be wiped out by asteroids next month—but I do know that we have to try.”
She scowled at me, hating that I was getting the science wrong.
“Okay, not next month.” I had to fight the urge to chuckle and pull her into a hug. “I’m trying to make a point. You’re the only person who really understands me. The only person I tell every thought in my brain without censorship. I can’t let you go.” I don’t know why it had taken me so long to see what was right in front of me. “It may have taken some time, but I’ve realized how you’re not just some girl I want to date. You’re my partner in crime. The love of my life. The person I want to be with forever.”