“For not being what you want me to be.”
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“But that’s the thing. You are what I want. I just want you to tell me what you’re feeling. I feel like I’m spewing my emotions at a wall.”
He kinda is. Quietly, I admit, “I don’t know if I can.”
“Try! You won’t even try,” he says, throwing his hands in the air. “I’m sitting here, my nose pressed to the fucking glass that you’ve surrounded your heart with, and I’m doing everything to bash it in. Am I even cracking the damn thing?”
“Yes,” I say, looking at him with pleading eyes. “Please don’t be mad.”
“Baylor, I’m not mad. I just want you to try. If we were on the ice and this were a game, you’d scream at me what you want. Please scream at me.”
“I want you!” I finally yell, letting out a breath. “I want you to love me, I do, and I want to love you. But what if it all comes crumbling down when we go into the draft?”
“Then it crumbles and we glue it back together,” he shouts, making me jump. “Stop saying we are going to fail. Believe in us. Believe in me.”
“I do,” I admit, meeting his gaze. Then I go to him, wrapping my arms around his neck and pressing my nose to his chin. “I do believe in you. I just don’t believe in me.”
Letting out a breath, he wraps his arms around my waist, hugging me to him. Allowing a tear to fall, I squeeze my eyes shut tight as he whispers, “Try, Baylor.”
“I am.”
“Then I can’t ask for more.”
“But you want more,” I say, pulling back to look at him.
“I do. I need to know I matter to you.”
Closing my eyes, I move my nose along his. “You do matter, Jayden. So damn much.”
“Good, because I love you,” he whispers. “And I don’t plan on stopping, so as soon as you want to join the party, that would be great.”
My heart swells in my chest as his words replay in my head over and over again. I’ve dreamed about someone saying those words to me and knowing they were true. My dreams could never live up to this moment. The way his heart feels against mine, his lips warm against my forehead as the words leave his mouth. But it isn’t just the sensations, it’s the way it makes me feel.
I feel complete.
Looking up at him, I nod. “I’m working on it.”
And I am.
But I need to work harder on it.
Before I lose him.
Jayden: Wish you were here.
Smiling, I lean back against the ottoman in my dad’s living room and type back.
Me: Me too.
Jayden: Come here.
Jayden: My brother came in, surprised his fiancée and us too. It will be fun.
Chewing on my lip, I look across the living room where Dad and Markus are shooting socks at the empty Christmas boxes.
Me: I don’t want to leave my dad.