Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(76)

I closed my eyes and sighed again.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sigh so much in a five-minute span.”

I could hear him smiling, and my lips smiled in answer.

“This was a terrible idea.”

“It’s one of those things we do for everyone else more than ourselves. They want to be here. They want to celebrate.”

I snorted a laugh. “There’s not a single man downstairs who wants to be here.”

A chuckle. “Fair enough. But did you see your mom’s face? Your friends? I think Amelia’s waited her whole life to throw a baby shower.”

“Honestly, I’d do it just for her, if she asked me. Which she didn’t, by the way. She told me.”

“She can be really bossy when she sets her mind to it.”

“You’re telling me.”

“Feel any better?” he asked, still fanning my neck.

“Much,” I answered, wishing I’d said no when he smoothed my hair and took his hand back.

For a moment, we were silent, looking into the empty courtyard as the breeze stirred around us.

“Thank you,” I said, reaching for the rail, my eyes on the greenery below.

“For what?”

“Everything. For taking care of me. For knowing what I need, always. For saving me.”

“You don’t need saving, Katherine.”

I hated when he called me that.

“Just because I don’t need saving doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel good to be saved.”

“Well, good, because I happen to like saving you. It makes me feel useful.”

“You’re one of the most useful people I know. And the closest thing to perfect I’ve ever seen.”

He stilled. I swallowed hard, regretting saying so much.

“There’s no such thing as perfect,” he said after a moment.

“I know. But for me, you are.” I stared through the brownstone behind ours, the bricks and windows blurring. “I wish it were different, Theo.”

“So do I.”

“How is it possible that we could care for each other so much and not be together?”

“I wonder that every day. Living with you through it all is torture and bliss. Because I want to spend every second with you, but you’re not mine.”

“Every day is hard,” I agreed, the door open and the words coming without thought or will to stop them. “Every day, I wonder if something will change. If we’ll wake up and be back where we were. Or if something in us will reconfigure, and we’ll suddenly be on the same page again.”

“Me too,” he said quietly. “I miss you.”

I turned to face him, searching the depths of his eyes. The pretense was gone, the falsity of our friendship exposed. “I miss you, too.”

He drew a heavy breath and opened his arms, stepping into me. “Come here,” he said.

So I did.

I wound my arms around his narrow waist, buried my face in his chest, breathed in the familiar scent of him, lost myself in the comfort of his arms and the feel of his lips pressing to my crown.

I wanted so desperately for things to be different, wanted so much to give him what he needed. I wanted to understand how I could change my perspective. I wanted a new definition of love.

But maybe this was love. And it was neither the brain chemicals I’d so proudly waved around, nor was it unexplainable magic. Maybe it was this, the feeling I had right now. The sense of belonging, the sense of purpose.

He was home. And I’d boarded up the windows and locked the door behind me.

If it was love, would it mean a way back in? Would it mean I could have him again? Was it possible I was wrong about everything?

Could I give him what he needed?

Could what he needed be everything I wanted?

His hand slipped into my hair, cupping the back of my head, holding me to him for just a moment longer.

“We’d better get back inside,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.

I wondered if it was the same emotion locked in my throat and decided it was.

And so, I followed him inside, questioning the things I thought I knew.

If anyone could ever change my mind, it was him. But if I was wrong, we’d only be in for more pain. I’d only hurt him worse.

And that was something I just couldn’t bear.





28





Take the Bull





Theo Every man in the room wore a toilet paper diaper but me.

I laughed, the neck of my beer hooked in my fingers. I brought it to my lips for a pull.

Even Katherine laughed openly, pointing at Rin’s boyfriend, Court. I didn’t think I’d ever seen a man so deeply disturbed as he was in that moment, donning a loincloth of two-ply over an expensive cobalt suit with a scowl to rival a Roman general.

The doorbell rang over the ruckus. Katherine and I exchanged a glance that transmitted an unspoken thought. Almost everyone we knew was in this room.

“Maybe it’s a package,” I said.

“It’s Sunday,” she studiously pointed out.

I stood, striding to the door, unprepared for the man on the other side.

John Banowski, tall and proud, in clothes I’d paid for and a cigarette I’d bought in his fingers. “Son,” he said in lieu of a greeting.