And he was still willing to sit here with me.
Scooting myself forward I climbed over to him until I was able to wrap my arms around his neck and shoulders. Instantly, his armscircled my back and carried me over to his lap. Bringing me close to his body and cradling me there in the safe embrace.
He’d always made me feel this way. Safe. Like the real me would be fine around him—the good and the bad. And what had I done for him in return?
My breath hitched.
I was trying to hold it back, trying to be strong because this was his time, not mine. But the realization of how mean I truly was, how wrong, and the shame of making him feel that way racked my body. My already weak body that Harper had showed up to care for.
A small sob escaped me and I immediately tried to bury it in his neck. He heard, and his arms tightened around me and scooped me up the rest of the way to him.
“Oh, honey,” he murmured close to my hair. “Please don’t cry. Not when you’re sick. Not ever for me, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” I stumbled out again. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way, Harper. I care about you too. I care how you’re feeling. HowImake you feel. Not just your body, but you. And I’m so sorry you’re the one who always sees this shitty side of me. It isn’t fair.”
“No,” he said. “No side of you is shitty, boss. We’re all human. We take missteps and we get better from them. We meet people and we learn them–get to know them, and if it matters enough, we grow with them. It’s not always linear. It’s not always easy. But sometimes the hard parts are worth it. For the right people, they’re always worth it.”
“I’m not worth you getting hurt over,” I said, voice small.
His arms tightened. “You’re worth a lot more than you think you are, Alta. Worth the world. I'm willing to do a lot to show you that.”
My entire body shook. I could just be exhausted, or it could be this electrifying feeling bursting all over my skin. Either way, I just sunk deeper into his embrace and cocooned myself right there. I was a broken record. The only thing my body and mind knew how to do was regret and repent. Because the last person I wanted to hurtwas the only person who’d ever truly seen me, all of me, and accepted every inch.
Whimpering, I apologized yet again and the big chest beneath me sighed. Pulling back, he loosened my cobra grip on him enough so that he could see my face. Looking at me, his expression went tender. “Can I do something, Boss?”
I nodded. I’d give him anything at this point.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked. “Whenever I want, I mean—Not just for our deal?”
With no doubt in my mind, my response was to lean forward. Because my lips had never fit more perfectly on anything than on top of his.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
AUGUSTUS
She liked to eat cucumbers daily, that's why she always smelled like them.
She loved citrus, but her favorite was lime. She squeezed them on everything, she could even eat them plain.
She didn’t run every day to stay in shape but to calm that brain of hers that seemed to be working a million miles a minute every minute of the day.
Being able to learn these small parts of her was like validating a feeling I already knew was there. I already had a feeling I would love knowing all of Alta’s little intricacies, getting to experience her so closely that I got to see parts of her that no oneelse did. What I didn’t know until it was too late was that I’d want her to know mine as well.
I meant it when I told her I wasn’t trying to hurt her that day. She was sick, and we weren’t together like that—aren’t. But for my own sanity, I couldn’t not tell her how words like the ones she spoke in the bathroom could absolutely crush me. They damn near did.
Still, the last thing I expected or wanted from her was a break down. It was precisely those kinds of hurt feelings that I was trying to avoid by addressing the issue. And talking about it had been productive, but that productivity didn’t extend to the guilty depression she seemed to slip into shortly after. Yep, a good healthy dose of shower crying and puppy dog stares when she thought I didn’t notice, and a string of apologies laced into everything she said when she knew I did.
At first I thought she simply took criticism hard, but after a while, namely when she woke up from a cat nap and nearly freaked out because she thought I was gone, I realized something.
She thought that me addressing this with her meant this was it. And I guess I understood. For someone whose biggest struggle was speaking up for themselves and telling people what they wanted, it made sense that she’d correlated me telling her what Ididn’twant with me being at my breaking point. Because that’s what she would do.
But I wasn’t like that. Mar had been like that and her breaking point was leaving, and aside from a few warning signs, no one else knew. I’d learned the hard way about being straightforward about things. Keeping things inside could ruin lives. Which is one of the reasons I’d offered to help Alta in the first place.
But despite Alta’s claims that she was doing better with asserting herself, that didn’t mean she was fully healed from the allergy of disappointing people. I should have taken that into consideration when I sat down to talk to her. I should have been gentler. But what’s done had already been done and the only thingI’d been able to do after was find a way to show her she was not such an easy thing to give up.
It had taken nothing less than bribery to get her to look me in the eye again. But I wasn’t against the act. Anything to make her smile. And smile she did when I somehow scrounged up an order of her favorite “ice cream” in Rhode Island.
“You got sherbert!” she’d croaked excitedly.
