“How long have you had this––you didn’t answer me earlier.” I look up into his rust-colored eyes. Glinting brightly, they move away for a beat, as if he’s deciding how to answer.
“Since you left,” he rasps.
I draw back for a moment. Startled…angry. Startled wins. Which raises more questions begging to be spoken out loud. Prudence stops me though. Because then what? What do I do with it? My feelings for him are as temperamental as spring in Oklahoma. There’s still too much hurt mixed with the love and I can’t make out which portion is bigger.
My finger slides north, over the divot at the base of his neck. Noah shivers and his eyes fall closed. Wrapping my good hand around his neck, I place my thumb over his Adams apple and press. His eyes meet mine and his lids lower, the thick fan of his black lashes throwing shade, the good kind. He tips his head back, exposing himself.
“I could strangle you sometimes.”
“So do it.”
“Too easy. I’d rather see you suffer.” There’s no bite to my voice though. His suffering isn’t going to change the past.
“Baby––” he chuckles. It’s humorless and pained. “I’ll be suffering till the end of days. That’s guaranteed.”
Easing up on the pressure of my thumb, I draw it down over the writing across his collarbone, the red ink spanning from clavicle to clavicle. It’s then I know for sure I don’t want him to suffer any more than he already has.
“Never give up on your dreams,” I read out loud. My eyes slide up to meet his, which are steady on me and filled with warmth. “But you did give up on your dreams.”
He remains quiet. The dig doesn’t seem to have affected him at all.
“I got a new dream,” he very directly answers.
“Oh, yeah, what’s that?”
“You.”
One word. One word makes my knees shake, and my face fall, and my heart pump so loudly I can hear it clamoring to be free of my chest. The spike of pain that comes with it is almost unbearable. “Stop it.”
“You’re my dream,” he continues. “You’re the only reason I’ve gotten out of bed for the last ten years.”
“Stop! I’m not listening to this.” Alternating between fury and disbelief, I stalk out of the tent, in a hurry to get as far away from him as possible.
“Maren!” I hear him shout, the sound right over my shoulder. “Stop.”
“No!”
It’s pitch black out, the moon and stars hiding behind a thick bank of clouds draped across the night sky. It’s impossible to discern one direction from another so I walk whichever way straight is. Unfortunately, before I can get anywhere, a strong hand wraps around my bicep and spins me around. He grasps both my arms and pulls me in, his naked chest colliding with my barely clothed one since I’m still in my sports bra and shorts.
“Stop––you could get hurt.” I know he’s right. In the back of my mind, where some of my faculties are still functioning and not polluted by a powerful cocktail of anger and lust, I know he is. But I’m way past the point of reasoning.
He hugs me closer, his scent filling my lungs. I hate that I love how this jackass smells. “You won’t explain yourself, and yet you expect me to believe this bullshit!”
Wedging my arms between us, I break free. “You must take me for a total fucking idiot.”
“Cool your goddamn jets.”
“You know what I wish, Noah––” I say, talking over him. “What my dream is? I wish I never met you.” The second the words are out of my mouth I regret them.
I few seconds tick by in silence.
“Do you really?” he eventually asks. I can hear the hurt in his quiet voice.
“No,” I grunt because I can’t lie for shit.
He huffs and I get the sense he’s laughing at me. “If you’re laughing at me I will murder you in your sleep.’’
He huffs again and takes my face in his hands. His thumbs caress my jaw, skate down the side of my neck. I smack his hands away and stare into the darkness, straining to see what his face says, which is pointless since I can barely make out the silhouette of his jaw. It’s that dark. Dark enough that secrets are revealed and inhibitions disappear. Where it’s okay to kiss the man I once loved more than life itself.
“Can you imagine––and I know it’s going be really hard with your worthless male brain––standing on the grass at Wimbledon a winner. A winner, Noah. A freaking winner! And yet not feeling like one because something was missing? Can you understand what that was like for me?”
I get more of his noncommittal silence, which stokes my rage.
“You’ve taken everything from me. Every accomplishment was hollow, every win bittersweet because I couldn’t share it with the one person I wanted there!”