Cooper deserved to be seen as the bright, intelligent, wonderful girl that Wren had raised her to be.
It was why I needed to get Wren to understand that I was all in. That there was no stopping this thing between us anymore. I could tell she was still hesitant, defensive and prickly, and I couldn’t fuckin’ blame her.
She might not believe the words when I said them; nothing about our history gave her any reason to trust that I meant what I said.
No, she might not believe what I said, but I could show her.
I was gonna fuckin’ show her.
Following Wren into the kitchen, I shook off my nerves, ready to offer my heart to this incredible woman and hope to hell she saw fit to accept it, battered and bruised as it was.
But before I could even open my mouth, Wren whirled on me again, her suspicious glare cutting me from across the kitchen.
“Why are you here, Hawk?”
“Where else would I be, Bird?”
“Literally anywhere but here.” Crossing her arms and lifting her chin in defiance, I could see how much it was taking for her to hold herself together, and my admiration for her grew again.
This woman was a fucking fighter.
“I thought the whole idea was to distance yourself from us. Damage control, remember?”
Her words cut, but I knew I deserved them.
“Wren, that’s not—I mean, it was, but not any more.” Blowing out a breath, I gestured to the table. “Let’s sit. I need to tell you some things, and I just want you to listen for a minute. Please,” I added when it looked like she was gonna argue.
Taking the chair closest to hers, I spun it so that I was facing her, needing to look into her eyes as I said what I needed to say.
“I know things this week have been shit, and I’m sorry. I don’t blame you for being mad at me. I shouldn’t have left you here alone.”
“I’m quite capable of being on my own, Hawk.”
“I know you are, baby. That’s not what it’s about. You’ve been doing it all alone for a long time, and you should be fuckin’ proud of that.” Looking down the hall for a second, I smiled. “You’ve raised an incredible kid, gotten an education, built a home. And you did that all by yourself. That was fuckin’ hard work, so, yeah, I know you’ve never needed me.”
Swallowing hard, I watched Wren watch me, her confusion evident as I fumbled my way through the speech I’d rehearsed a hundred times on the plane.
“The thing is, even if you don’t need me, I was hoping you might want me.” A soft gasp escaped her lips, but I pressed on before she could say anything. “Because I want you.” Reaching for her hand, I held it in both of mine, my thumb stroking over the soft skin of her wrist, near her rapidly beating pulse. “I want you so fuckin’ bad I can hardly breathe, Bird. I thought it was hard when I’d spent the last fifteen years dreaming about you. Dreaming about a girl who showed up backstage one night, changed my life, and then disappeared like a ghost. I looked for you, baby. I tried to find you. Every concert. Every crowd in every town in America, I looked for your face, hoping that would be the night you finally came back to me. The night my dream came to life and I got to have you again.
“It never happened. No matter how many shows I played, or how many places I looked, I never found the girl who’d haunted my entire existence.”
Releasing her hand, I cupped her face, my eyes following the path of my thumb as I traced her gorgeous, full lips.
“But then, when I had nearly given up hope—when I was certain that you’d been nothing more than a figment of my desperate imagination—” I breathed, my words shaky as the emotions of the moment threatened to overtake me. “Then I found your letters.”
“Hawk.” Wren’s voice was wet, her words just as choked as mine were. “Hawk, I—”
“I got to know you through those letters, Bird,” I said, cutting her off because I needed to finish. Needed to lay it all out for her, so that she could be sure—completely and utterly sure—when she made her choice. “I learned about a girl who was so into the music she could hardly contain it. A girl who wasn’t afraid to call me on my shit, or to ask me to bemorewhen I wasn’t being my authentic self. Those letters showed me a young woman who felt powerless in a town that was intent on keeping her down, but never let the hopelessness overshadow who she was inside. And, even though she was burning with anger at the unfairness of her situation, she never let it destroy her poet’s soul.”
Wren was crying now, her tears trailing silently down her cheeks as she listened to my words.
“Those letters show a woman who makes me so goddamn proud, I feel like my fuckin’ chest will explode with it. So I need you to believe me when I tell you that I know you can do it alone, baby. I’m just hoping you don’t want to.”
She didn’t speak. Sitting there, my heart literally carved out of my chest and handed to her, and she wasn’t speaking. Panic started to rear its ugly head, the sneering voice in the back of my mind telling me that I was too late. I’d fucked it all up beyond any hope of repair.
Just when I was about to try again—to fall to my knees and offer her anything she wanted if she’d only just be mine—Wren lifted her head to look at me.
“I’m so tired,” she whispered, her big brown eyes full of longing. “I’m tired of doing it alone. All the moments—the memories and milestones that should have belonged tous—those were stolen from us. And it hurts when I think of all the things that could have been.”
