Page 189 of Hat Trick
“What if it doesn’t work? What if I give everything I have to this relationship and I come out on the other side alone like I always do? Alone.”
“What if you don’t?” Emmy counters, and from the woman who never wanted to settle down, it speaks volumes. “What if it’s the best thing that could ever happen to you?”
“I feel like a total bitch.” I wipe under my eyes. “I walked away from him. He poured his heart out to me, and I was the one who left. How could he ever want me after that?”
“He wants you because heknowsyou, Lex,” Piper says. “And he knows you need time to figure out what you want.”
I want him.Because I love him too.
How did this happen?
The thought races through me, and I have to grip the table to steady myself. I take a deep breath, the culmination of the last eight months playing in my mind like a movie, and I see it there.
In the doughnuts on my desk and his mumbled curses when I give him a difficult exercise to do. In a rooftop pool at a Chicago hotel, no one in the world but us, and his confession to me about how he wanted to end his life.
It’s also in the times when he’d hook his pinky around mine before he took the ice in his nice suits. When he’d throw me over his shoulder then toss me on the bed. The nights when he’d listen to me talk about my day and the mornings where I’d wake up, his arms wrapped around me like he wanted to keep me in his bed forever.
It might’ve been there all along, back when I saw the broken boy in our meeting after his accident, sunken cheeks and hate in his eyes. Before that, at the very beginning and the very first day we met, his sweaty palm shaking mine as he stammered out his name.
I love him.
I love him, I love him, I love him.
“I need to go.” I stand and push my chair back. “Right now.”
“Is this the moment?” Piper claps. “Our girl is finally going to get her happily ever after.”
“Can someone lock up? I—” I gesture around the kitchen. “I don’t care what you all do in here.”
“Go,” Madeline says. “We’ll be fine.”
I nod and race down the hall, only stopping to slip on a pair of sneakers and grab my purse. I pull out my phone, thumbs shaking as I type out a text to my pinned contact at the top of my messages.
Me
Hi. Are you free?
His reply comes back seconds later, as if he’s pacing around his kitchen holding his phone, waiting to hear from me.
Riley
As a bird.
Me
Can I come over?
Riley
Door is unlocked, sweetheart.
I grab an Uber, not trusting myself to drive. I’m still shaking. I feel a little dizzy. My heart is dangerously close to falling out of my chest, and when I make it to his apartment building and take the elevator up to his floor, he’s there. Standing in the doorway with a bouquet of tulips and the brightest smile on his face, and I lose it.
“I’m sorry,” I sob, my arms around his neck and my face buried in his shirt. “I’m so sorry I made you wait so long. That was horrible of me.”
“I told you to take your time.” He strokes my hair then moves his palm to my back, rubbing small circles between my shoulder blades, and the tension leaves my body. “Did you have a good week?”
“No. It was miserable.” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand, not caring about the snot or mascara I’m sure I’m leaving behind. “You weren’t there, and I hated every second of it.”
