After (After 1)

“I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” he says. I don’t look at him because I know I will turn to mush. He needs to know that I won’t put up with him doing things like this. “Do . . . you . . . do you still want me?” he asks, his voice shaky.

When I look over at him, I can see his vulnerability. I sigh, knowing I am not able to hold on to my anger when his eyes are so full of worry.

“Yeah, of course I do. Come here,” I tell him and pat the bed next to me. I have no willpower when it comes to this man.

“Do you consider me your girlfriend?” I ask as he sits down.

“Yeah. I mean, it just seems a little silly to call you that,” he says.

“Silly?” I pick at my fingernails, a bad habit I have yet to kick.

“You are more to me than some adolescent title.” He puts his large hands on both sides of my face. His answer makes my stomach flip in the best way. I can’t help the grin that is plastered on my face. His shoulders immediately relax.

“I don’t like that you don’t want people to know about us—how would we live together if you won’t even tell your friends about us?”

“It’s not like that. Do you want me to call Zed right now and tell him? If anything, you should be embarrassed to be with me. I see the way people look at us when we are together,” he says. So he does notice the way people look at the two of us.

“They only stare at us because we look different, and that’s their problem. I would never be embarrassed to be seen with you. Ever, Hardin.”

“You had me worried that you were going to give up on me,” he says.

“Give up on you?”

“You’re the only constant in my life; you know that, don’t you? I don’t know what I would do if you left me,” he says.

“I won’t leave you if you don’t give me a reason to,” I assure him, but I can’t think of a single thing he could do to make me leave him. I’m in too deep. Thinking of leaving him sends a pain through my body that I can’t bear. It would break me. Even if we fight every single day, I love him.

“I won’t,” he says. He looks away for a second, then meets my eyes again. “I like who I am with you.”

I turn my cheek into his hand farther. “I do, too.”

I love him, every part of him. All versions of him. Mostly, I like who I have become with him; we have both been changed for the better by each other. I have somehow gotten him to open up and have brought happiness to him, and he has taught me how to live and not worry about every detail.

“I know I piss you off sometimes . . . well, a lot of the time, and God knows you drive me fucking insane,” he says.

“Thanks?”

“I’m just saying, just because we fight doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be together. Everyone fights.” He smiles. “We just fight more than normal people. You and I are very different people, so we’ll just have to figure out how to navigate one another. It will get easier,” he assures me.

I return his smile and run my fingers through his dark hair.

“We still didn’t get anything to wear to the wedding,” I point out.

“Oh darn, looks like we can’t go.” He turns his face into the most insincere frown I have ever seen and kisses my nose.

“You wish. It’s only Tuesday. We have all week.”

“Or we could skip it and I could take you to Seattle for the weekend?” He lifts an eyebrow.

“What?” I sit up. “I mean, no! We are going to the wedding,” I correct myself. “But you could take me to Seattle next weekend.”

“Nope, offer’s only good for a limited time,” he teases and pulls me onto his lap.

“Fine, I guess I’ll have to find someone else to take me to Seattle.” His jaw tenses and I trace my fingertips over the stubble on his chin and jaw.

“You wouldn’t dare.” His lips twitch to hold his smile.

“Oh, I most certainly would. Seattle is my favorite place, after all.”

“Your favorite place?”

“Yeah, I haven’t really been anywhere else.”

“Where is the farthest place you’ve gone?” he asks.

I lay my head on his chest and he lies back against the headboard, wrapping his arms around me. “Seattle. I haven’t left Washington.”

“Ever?” he exclaims.

“Nope, never.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, we just couldn’t afford to after my dad left. My mother worked all the time and I was too focused on school and getting out of that town that I didn’t really think of much else, except working.”

“Where would you want to go?” he asks, his fingers rubbing up and down my arm.

“Chawton. I want to see Jane Austen’s farmhouse. Or Paris. I would love to see where Hemingway stayed while he was there.”

“I knew you would say those places. I could take you there.” His tone is serious.

“Let’s just start with Seattle.” I giggle.

“I mean it, Tessa. I could take you anywhere you want to go. Especially England. I did grow up there, after all. You could meet my mum and the rest of my family.”

“Um . . .” I actually have nothing to say. He is so strange, he introduces me as his “friend” an hour ago, and now he’s taking me to England to meet his mother.

“Let’s just start with Seattle?” I laugh.

“Fine, but I know you would love to drive through the English countryside, see the house Austen grew up in . . .”