“Yeah,” he breathed out, “I did it anyway. I was shallow, ruled by money, and without regard for anyone else’s feelings or desires. When I woke up this morning, I snuck downstairs and called my mom to apologize.”
My breathing paused for a second. “Apologize for what? You didn’t do anything to your parents.”
His thumb brushed across my lips, and they puckered on their own accord, kissing the pad as he trailed across them. “I did, though. I treated them like an afterthought, the same way I treated you. I wanted her to know how important she is to me and how much I loved her. I hope you don’t have plans on Sunday because we’re going to their house.”
I chuckled with amusement because you never got off the phone with Birgitte without agreeing to dinner. “I’ll be there,” I promised, crossing my heart. “Just a short visit, though. She has surgery next week.”
“I know,” he said on a nod. “I want to spend some time on the lake with Mor before Tuesday. She won’t be able to do that for a month or so after the surgery, and by then, summer will be half over.”
I covered his hand with mine where it rested on my face. “She’s going to be fine.” I turned my head to kiss his palm. “I promise.”
He smiled, but it wasn’t relaxed or convinced. “I’ll feel better on Wednesday morning.”
“What did Birgitte say when you called her? Did she figure out something was wrong?”
“She didn’t need to,” he said on a head shake. “The papers reported Milas’s death this morning. She already knew they’d found him. That made it easier to talk to her about it. She had a better understanding of where I was coming from.”
“I’m glad you were able to make that connection with her.”
“Me too. Now the only person I have to make serious amends to is you.”
“No,” I said immediately, my head shaking. “We’re good, Mathias.”
His pointed stare told me he disagreed. “Honeybee, you’re lying. Every time I look into your eyes, they tell me how much. You didn’t just stop trusting me, you lost faith in me, and that”—he pounded his chest with his eyes closed—”it kills me. I can’t deal with that look in your eyes anymore.”
“I’m sorry, it’s not intent—”
His finger came down on my lips to hush me. “You’re not allowed to apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong. You have that look in your eye because of the things I’ve done, not what you’ve done. When I think about it . . .” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I’m a thoughtless, worthless ass, Honey.”
I grasped the nape of his neck and held his forehead to mine. “Stop beating yourself up, Mathias. I understand that you’ve come to some realizations about your life, and now you want to make amends and chart a new course for the future. That’s okay, but I won’t let you do it so negatively. My God, you just lost a friend in a brutal, terrible way. Cut yourself some slack, Mattie,” I whispered. “Grieve for your friend, help me get these businesses back together and running smoothly, and take some time to breathe the fresh air on this land. I know you have responsibilities to Milas, but don’t lose sight of your goals. If we have to, we’ll hire a lawyer to help with dispersing his business holdings.” I shook his shoulder to get him to loosen up. “You have to relax before you have a heart attack at thirty. You’re nothing but a ball of tension.”
His face slowly relaxed, and he offered me a genuine Mattie smile. I traced my finger over the curve of his lips and returned one. “There’s the boy who used to cherish me as much as I cherished him. Use this smile more. It truly transforms your whole being.”
The smile didn’t disappear when he spoke. “I can’t begin to explain the feeling inside me every time you call me Mattie. It’s like joy and forgiveness in six letters. That boy cherished you, but the man he is now knows there’s more hiding inside that word.”
“More inside the word? I’m struggling to make sense of what you’re saying, Mattie.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down when he swallowed. “Honestly, me too. I guess what I mean is, now that I’m a grown-up and understand more complex feelings, I also understand the complexity of the word ‘cherish.’”
“There’s that grown-up word again,” I teased. “The turmoil is rolling off you in waves, and it’s killing me. My only wish for you is that of peace. Even if that means I lose you in the process.”
He shook his head, holding my hand to his face. “No, you’re not going to lose me. We’ve been in this together for twenty years, and we’ll be in it for twenty, thirty, or forty more. I can promise you with every fiber of my being, we aren’t going to lose each other. I do cherish you. I always have, honeybee.”
Last night he had cherished me in a way that wasn’t just as a best friend. Last night he cherished me as a woman, and I wanted to demand that he say it, but I couldn’t. Not yet. He was changing, fundamentally so, and it was going to require patience on my part to wait it out until that change was complete. Making demands of him to talk to me, or tell me things he wasn’t ready to say, would only serve to drive a rift between us.
I nodded until he grasped my chin to stop it. “I want to believe you, Mattie, but damn, it’s hard in the light of day.”
I wasn’t kidding either. Staring into those baby blues and knowing they weren’t mine was hard. Wishing I could say those three words to him in a way a woman says them to a man was hard. Knowing I had to leave this bed and the intimacy we’d carved out for the last few hours was the hardest thing of all, though.
“One day at a time, okay?”
“That’s the story of our life together,” I said on a sigh of resignation. “One day after another until those days become months and years of the same day and the same story.” His eyes told me I was right, but they also told me the dig had landed right where I wanted it to. It wasn’t said in anger or to hurt him. It was said as a reminder that eventually you will run out of days if you don’t change something along the way. “Regardless, I guess we should face the day.”
“I’m ready for the day. You’re the lazy bone still lounging in bed. Chop-chop, times a’wasting,” he said, clapping his hands together.
“Chop-chop?” I asked, my brow tugged down toward my nose.
He winked and his laughter filled the room. “You’re cute when you’re mad.”
