Nightfall (Devil's Night 4)

But before I could fight, he said, “I still have the bus.”

The bus.

Our bus?

I paused, looking down into his glistening, sea green eyes as he blinked up at me.

“I don’t need the Cove,” he said over the rain. “I need more memories with you.”

I breathed hard, but I couldn’t move as tears filled my eyes.

“Memories that aren’t tainted with all the years apart right afterward,” he explained.

Everyone watching us from a distance faded away, and I looked down at his hair matted to his scalp and temples, droplets cascading down his cheeks and over his lashes, and all I wanted in the world was to stare at him forever.

“I build with you now,” he whispered to me, the heat of his mouth on my lips. “We make Thunder Bay together, Em. I love you.”

I love you.

I closed my eyes, my face cracking and my eyes filling with tears. God, I was exhausted.

So tired that I longed for the days when Martin beat the shit out of me, because those were also the days I saw Will laughing at school and

playing basketball with his friends.

The day he sat with me in the theater and joked around, and the night he took me to ride roller coasters and we were a couple, holding hands. For just a couple of hours.

Sliding off of him, I sat at his side, his words coursing their way through my heart as I wondered where the hell we were going to go from here.

“You came for me,” he said.

Yes. Yes, I did.

I didn’t need to search for an excuse. I knew why.

“I couldn’t lose you anymore,” I told him, staring at the street ahead.

I drew in a deep breath and tipped my head back, letting the rain cool my skin as I thought about my future and all of the things I thought were going to work out for me without him.

I fucking loved Will Grayson. I wanted to eat every meal with him, have that damn Mission: Impossible marathon with him, and let him knock me up as soon and as much as he wanted.

He stood up, standing over me. “I love you,” he said again. “But I’ll let you go.”

He started to walk away, my heart ripping in two, and I shook my head.

No.

He couldn’t let me go. He couldn’t move on without me. Everything we’d been through—everything—meant something. It all meant something.

Didn’t it?

This wasn’t where we ended.

Nothing was over.

“Will you marry me?” I asked, breathing hard and my heart hammering.

Slowly, I climbed to my feet and turned to face him, seeing him stopped.