“I didn’t mean here, here,” she mumbles. “I meant here at my table.”
“Luna—”
“You’re confusing me, Gavin.”
“I don’t mean to.”
“Well, you are. Being around you, talking to you at night, it’s confusing. Part of me wants to cling to you and pretend the past thirteen years never happened.”
“Don’t you think I want to do that too?”
“Maybe, but we shouldn’t. And maybe that’s what you want to do because of Joshua. You feel guilty for not being his father, for leaving and you’re trying to make that up to us all now and you can’t.”
“That’s a mouthful…”
“Gavin,” she says with a sigh. “We can’t recapture the past. It’s gone. It’s dead.”
“I think I know that, Luna.”
“Then—”
“But at the same time,” I interrupt her before she can tell me to leave again. “At the same time, I know those feelings are still there, at least on my side.”
“Gavin, you don’t—”
“And, I don’t want to walk away from them. Luna, I’ve missed you for thirteen years. I’ve wondered about you, dreamed about you, grieved you. That doesn’t happen unless there’s something worth saving there.”
“You aren’t. God, Gavin, and we’re in a bar, definitely not in a church.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you can’t save what’s been lost for a very long time. You don’t have that kind of power.”
“I can try.”
“Why?” she questions, desperation and fear thick in her voice.
“Because I love you,” I tell her, finally laying it out and letting her see what has truly been right in front of her since the first day I stepped foot back in Stone Lake. I put my hand over hers, squeezing it, my eyes not blinking as I stare directly at her, willing her to see the truth.
“You don’t love me, Gavin. It’s been thirteen years. You don’t even know me anymore. I’m not the same girl, there are days I don’t even like that girl. She was naïve and way too damn trusting and she was weak.”
“She was sweet, beautiful, and honest. She loved with her whole heart and she gave me sunshine in a world that was completely dark before her.”
“You were lost and, in some ways, so was I, Gavin. You don’t know me, not anymore. If you’re in love, you’re only in love with the idea of me.”
“I’m staring at a woman right now, Luna. A woman who was strong enough to raise my son alone. A woman who built a life for herself, who managed to build a career and a home, all while being a wonderful mother to my son. That’s not an idea, Moonbeam, that’s you. I haven’t missed who you are now, I have just grown to admire you even more because of the changes in you.”
“I hate this about you,” she mumbles, pulling her gaze away from me.
My brows draw inward. “What?”
“The ability you have to always say the right thing. It’s annoying and irritating and I hate it.”
“I’ll see if I can stop,” I mutter, trying not to laugh but unable to stop my smile.
“No, you won’t. You’ll keep trying to be perfect and show me what I’ve been missing all this time and it’s not fair. You left me, Gavin, not the other way around. You shouldn’t be able to waltz back into my life, stand everything up on its head, and I just magically forget the past and swoon at your feet again. It shouldn’t go down like that. I shouldn’t be that stupid twice… hell, three times!”
“Do you want me to leave, Luna?” I ask, at a loss as to how I should reply or even begin to fix the hurt inside of her. I can’t even fix it for myself, let alone her.
“Yes,” she says, nodding vehemently. I push away from the table, figuring I can at least give her that.
“Then, I’ll—”
“But I don’t want you to go either and if you do, I’ll miss you instantly and wish you were back.”
“Luna,” I groan, that admission meaning more than I could ever begin to tell her. “You have to be the one to tell me what to do here, Luna. I don’t want to hurt you more. I don’t want to push you. I just know that I only feel alive when I’m close to you.”
“I think I feel the same, even if I shouldn’t,” she says, looking down at the table and taking another drink. “Which is why I’m here at the bar, getting drunk.”
“What do you want me to do?” I ask her again.
“Sit there,” she says and when I go to reply she holds up her hand. “Just sit there and don’t talk. Look pretty and just add to the scenery instead of the confusion in my head.”
I lean over and kiss her forehead. When I pull away her hazel eyes are confused, but the green in their depths are sparking with electricity. Electricity I feel in my body, and the same electricity I haven’t felt in my entire life, except when Luna is close by. I tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear, our gazes still locked. I don’t say anything, but I feel that knot of tension that has been inside of me for days slowly ease.