Page 91 of Unbound
“It can… if you let it.”
I stop walking and turn to face him. “I want it to work.”
I’m so cold I start to shiver. He wraps his arms around me. “I live about four blocks away. We should get you out of the cold.”
“I don’t want to go back to your apartment, Rawley. I don’t mean that because I don’t want to be with you tonight, I do. It’s just… not in a room where you’ve probably taken countless women after your shows.”
He pauses, as if he’s a little saddened by that, and then nods up the street. “Well, I’m not letting you drive back in this snow alone. How about we get a hotel for the night.”
“I’d like that.”
“Come with me,” he whispers, flakes falling onto his lashes, knowing I will.
He flattens his warm hand against the small of my back, keeping me close as he leads me.
We walk in silence for a few blocks, the lights of a hotel now in view. The snow’s beginning to stick, about an inch so far in the hour we’ve been walking while cars slide around on the street. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever said to you. I know I said some awful things over the years.”
He did, but I also know I let him.
Bright red and blue lights reflect off the snow, police cars parked at the bottom of the hill we’ve started walking up, blocking cars from attempting to go up it.
My hand instinctively reaches for his, rigid cold fingers barely brushing. “We’ve both made a lot of mistakes.”
His exhale comes from deep inside his chest, his eyes searching. “I want to make you both happy.”
“You will.”
His thumb runs over my knuckles. His touch is shocking because my face is so cold. “I’m not sure how to anymore and I’m tired of making you cry.”
I stop walking, forcing him to look at me. “Then don’t.”
He tenses immediately and pulls me against his chest.
“I can’t ever go back to what we had before you left,” I breathe.
His expression changes. He doesn’t like what I’m saying. Focusing on my lips, his determination marks his eyes, as if he wants to argue but he’s resisting for the moment.
“Not this last time,” I clarify. “I mean before you moved to Seattle.”
He relaxes, slightly, blinking slowly.
“It’s partly my fault,” I tell him, watching his lashes flutter, his control slip. “I didn’t want to let you go completely so I held onto whatever you would allow me to, even if it was a side that didn’t love me back.”
“It wasn’t like that,” he says, shaking his head.
“No, it actually was.” I draw in a deep breath, moving forward because I have to. I can’t hold back any longer if I want a future with him. These are things he needs to know. “It didn’t matter to me who I was left with, just that I still had you in some way. And that wasn’t fair. I didn’t care about anything but you. And now I can’t. I have Lyric to think about. We both do.”
My throat feels tight and I pray he understands this is so much more than it used to be because we can’t just think of ourselves any longer. We have a little person who needs both of us.
He says nothing as he holds me like he did the night I gave him my virginity, my fingertips stroking the back of his neck. “We’re not those people anymore.”
And I believe him. We’re not.
WE END UP getting a room at The Edgewater Hotel, which looks over Elliott Bay. It’s also apparently a famous hotel because of the rock stars that have stayed there in the past.
When we’re inside the room, he’s suddenly serious, his brown eyes intense. “You know I don’t expect anything, right?”
The look on his face is something I’ve never seen before on him. He looks very much like a man now, no longer the boy I grew up with.
