Page 63 of Hero

“What do you think is happening?” I snap back. I don’t understand his reaction, and it’s making me even more upset. “I get it. I do. You fucked me because there was no one else, and it was better than not fucking anyone. You didn’t know I’d get feelings and mess everything up. Igetit. But you and Rina are the only people in the world I have. And I…” Damn it. Tears are streaming down my cheeks again. “And I love both of you. I can’t just put all that aside because you want to be freed up now to find… to find another woman—”

“Oh sweet Jesus,” he breathes, standing up, taking a step back and then forward, and then kneeling on the ground in front of me. He reaches up to grab my hands, which I was using to wipe my face and eyes. “What the hell is happening here?”

I stare down, so shocked by his dramatic reaction that the momentum of my outburst slams into a brick wall. “Why are you even down there?”

He’s right in front of me, edged between my knees. And his expression is transformed with what looks like hope.

Hope.

Illuminating his face. Illuminating everything.

“Did you just say… did you just say you love me?” he rasps.

I frown. “I said I love both you and Rina.”

“Like… like family?”

I’m so confused I answer him bluntly. “Rina like family. You more like… more like…”

“More like what?”

“Like… a man.” That sounds ridiculous. What the fuck am I saying? I’m not like this. I’ve never been like this.

“You love me like a man?”

“Why do we have to keep repeating it? You already knew it, didn’t you? Why else would you have gone through that horrible conversation last night with letting me down easy and telling me how things have to be from now on? I do get it, but it doesn’t make it any easier. And if I want to fall apart, I’m allowed to fall apart. If I want to pretend I’m okay, then I’m allowed to do that too. You don’t get to act like we’re together if you don’t want to really be together with—”

I can’t finish my embarrassing ramble, because he’s reached up and pulled down my head so he can kiss me.

When he lets me go, I say, “Wait. What?”

He chuckles, his expression finally softening away from that urgent tension. “I think we must have got some wires crossed. So here it is. I love you, Esther. I’m in love with you. I’m crazy in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for at least two years.”

I make a weird squeaky sound. “Wait. What? Wait.What?”

He laughs again, holding my face with both his big, warm hands. “I love you.”

It takes a full minute for the words and their meaning to penetrate my befuddled head.

Then, “Why didn’t you tell me before?” The question comes out as a rather loud outburst.

“Because you didn’t even like me.”

“I did too—”

“Oh, no you didn’t. I’m not an idiot. I know you didn’t like me. You were stuck with me, and we had to make the best we could of the situation. And if I blurted out that somehow over the years I’d fallen in love with you, it would have made everything worse. You didn’t need all that pressure. We didn’t need to be awkward and unnatural with each other. You didn’t need to feel weird and bad that you couldn’t return my feelings. I couldn’t tell you when I first fell in love, and then I guess I just kinda… got used to hiding it.”

“But surely you could see that my feelings finally started changing too. I mean, I was one who initiated sex the first time.”

“Sure.” He’s still smiling. Still kneeling on the ground between my legs. It can’t be comfortable, but he makes no move to get up. “I started getting hopeful then, but you didn’t act much different, except when we were having sex. So I figured it was a… a better-than-nothing kind of thing.”

“That’s how I assumed you thought about me.”

“Well, it’s not. I dated lots of women before Impact, but I’ve never been in love. Not like this. Not until you.”

My tears have stopped, but my throat still feels too tight. I take a few heavy breaths. “So… so you want us to be a couple?”

“Course I do. I want you to be my… my partner, my lover, my wife, whatever you want to be called. I want to make a life with you here in this town and try to get back some of what we’ve lost. You’re already the only mom Rina has ever known, and I want you to stay that way. To be a real family with us. That’s what she wants too.”

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