Probably it was time for both of them to admit that they were in a relationship.
Lindsay’s throat was dry and her head throbbed, sure signs she’d overdone it on the martinis, so she got out of bed to get a glass of water and whatever headache pills were in her medicine cabinet. When she climbed back into bed, Brad stirred. His eyes shot open, and he looked around before his gaze landed on Lindsay and he seemed to understand.
“I wasn’t going to sleep with you again until we had a serious talk,” he said. “Whoops.”
“I can’t help it if I’m irresistible.”
“I wish you understood how true that was.” Brad yawned. “I had this whole plan for us to talkbeforewe had sex again, but then I had too many manhattans.”
“What did you want to talk about?”
“What? Here? Now?”
Lindsay didn’t want to talk, but she wanted to get whatever he was going to say over with. She was tired of talking. She wanted to just…be in this relationship. She knew relationships took work and hard conversations sometimes, but she was tired of dancing around Brad, of trying to work out the getting-back-together choreography.
Well, she knew they had to have a serious conversation. She just didn’t want the bubble to pop.
She ran a hand over Brad’s bare chest. “We can do something else if you want.”
Brad frowned. He put a hand over hers where it rested between his pecs, right next to the sun tattoo. “All right. Let me just ask you this, though. Are we back together?”
“I want to be, yes. You wore me down.”
That only made his frown deepen. “I didn’t mean to ‘wear you down.’”
“Come on, Brad, I was kidding.” Lindsay took her hand back and lay on her back. “What I actually mean is that I have come to realize I made a mistake in leaving you the first time, and I want to get back together because we’re good together. And I trust you, which believe me, is not something I say to anyone, really. But it is truly, honestly how I feel.”
“I know.” Brad rubbed his eyes. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“You know what the real kick in the teeth is in this situation?”
“Tell me.”
“I love you, Linds. I do. I did five years ago and I do now. You were always the one who got away. And hearing you say you want to be together again should be exactly what I want to hear, but…it isn’t.”
Brad delivered this entire monologue with one arm thrown over his eyes, not looking at Lindsay. It was like he was just talking to a room.
Still, he loved her. Helovedher.
That was big. Lindsay understood it was a big deal. This was the thing he’d been trying to tell her all along, wasn’t it? Since the first moment they set eyes on each other a couple of months before, he’d been trying to tell her that he loved her and she was the one for him, and she hadn’t wanted to hear it. She was hisone who got away.
Well, that was true for her, too. Her friends were right. She’d had kind of an unhealthy fixation on Brad. She’d never been able to let go of him. But love? Did she love him?
She cared about him, yes. She trusted him. But love?
“I should have trusted you then. I didn’t. I’ve learned that lesson now. You’re worthy of my trust.”
He lifted his arm and looked up at her.
She took a deep breath. He needed more. “I never opened my heart to you, not really. I kept it guarded, and I waited for something to go wrong. You were 100 percent right about me. And the fact that you know me so well should probably have told me something. So I’m telling you now that I trust you. I hope you believe me when I tell you that.”
He sighed. “I do, it’s just… Did you ever spend time imagining what it would be like when we got back together?”
“Sure.”
“What did you imagine our reunion would be like?”
