“That’s . . . pretty close to the truth,” he admits.
“I’m sorry it took me longer.”
“I’m not.”
“No?”
“It might have, I don’t know, scared me? Made me defensive. I didn’t want to be in love. I tried so hard to fight it, but if I thought you loved me back . . .”
“You tried to fight it?”
“Fuck yes, I did. Love never made any sense to me. The way people described it, it sounded like bullshit, especially whenthose people fell out of love almost as fast as they fell into it. And then I met you and you fucking leveled me, boss. Like a wrecking ball, and it pissed me off.”
“I know how much you hate to be wrong.”
“My least favorite thing, but it wasn’t just that.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No, I knew, even if I hadn’t admitted it to myself yet, that you were it for me. And I’d spent my entire life up until that pointknowingthat love wasn’t what I wanted.”
“After your parents?”
“Yeah, I couldn’t undo that particular coping mechanism, probably not even if I wanted to, and I didn’t want to, at least not yet. And then I just . . . couldn’t make myself stop. Every time I thought I managed to work past it, there you were again, stunning me with your brilliance and tenacity, calling me out on my bullshit while being the hottest fucking thing I’d ever laid eyes on.”
She laughs at that, but he shakes his head.
“It’s true. So maybe it was lust at first sight, but it was love . . . terrifyingly fast.”
“So all those times you asked me to partner up . . .”
“Oh, no, that was just academic survival. I knew if we worked together we’d kill it. Being able to be around you was just a bonus. I’d . . . shoved it to the side mostly and then at the end, I needed space because I was leaving and you . . .”
“And I just pretended like it didn’t exist.”
“You were protecting yourself. You’re so independent and strong and I know what it took for you to come here, to let yourself be vulnerable like this. Shit, it was so brave.”
“God, we wasted so much time.”
“Did we, though? Five years not together, but . . . you were there, in my life, and I was in yours.”
“Not . . . not how you should have been.”
“So we make up for it now.”
“But how . . . You can’t leave and I . . . I guess I could . . .”
“Absolutely not. You’re not giving anything up for me. We will figure it out. I love you. You love me. Anyone who says that isn’t enough is full of shit. There is literally nothing we can’t do if we decide we’re going to do it.”
“I don’t know how . . .”
“Me neither, but we’ll figure it out. I promise.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
He reaches out and lifts her left hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her fourth finger against the metal band, holding her gaze as he whispers, “I should have done this right the first time. I should have gotten down on one knee and asked you to spend the rest of your life with me, whatever what looks like, wherever we are in a year or five or ten or fifty. Marry me, Bianca Dimitriou,someday.”
“Yes.”
