Page 65 of On Your Knees

“I didn’t mean for any of it to happen,” I whisper, but he cuts me off gently.

“No, let me just . . . say this.”

I nod and gently bring my hands back up to cup either side of his jaw, and he exhales shakily.

“Zeland messed me up,” he admits, and his voice cracks just enough to slice me open. “I didn’t expect to like him the way I did. It was the small things at first—his smile, the way he was always at the coffee shop every day, how he’d find a way to touch my elbow or wink at me. I kept telling myself not to read into it, that maybe I was projecting because of how confused I already felt about you. I couldn’t just push myself on you, Aspen. You’re my coworker.”

His eyes search mine, desperate and raw. “But then I was falling for you all. I held back, though. For you. Because I didn’t want to disrespect what you had with him, or disrespect you because I had mixed feelings about the people chasing me, even though I didn’t know who they were.”

My heart stutters painfully in my chest.

“And then to find out it was you both behind the masks... it didn’t just hurt, Aspen. It broke something in me. Both of you knew who I was. You saw me falling, and you let me. You let me give myself to people who were already inside my world, already close to me. It was like being gutted from the inside out.”

I can barely breathe through the ache exploding in my chest. “Arlo...”

His voice softens, but the pain in it doesn’t wane. “I just wish someone had told me before I gave so much of myself away. Because I didn’t know how much of me was tied to you. To both of you.”

I lean in and gently rest my forehead against his. “You still have all of you,” I whisper. “And we’re the ones bleeding now. We never stopped wanting you—we just didn’t know how deep we were in until we were drowning.”

His breaths are uneven, his face held between my hands harrowed, like he might shatter if I let him go. His words echo through me, raw but honest, and something cracks open in my chest. I don’t know how to fix the hurt I caused, but I want to try. These emotions are new, and the pain of hurting someone is exactly what I was trying to avoid feeling.

My thumbs brush along the curve of his cheekbones and I tilt his face down just enough for our eyes to meet.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

His eyes flick to my mouth, then back to my eyes, and that’s all it takes.

I lean in, giving him a second to pull away, but he doesn’t. He leans down to meet me, and when our lips finally connect, it’s not rushed. I kiss him slowly, every apology whispered on my tongue and captured by his. I can feel him holding back, afraid to hand over anything to me—and I can’t blame him. But if he gives me this chance, I will prove he can trust me.

I kiss him deeper, and when his hands find my waist and he relaxes, I realize this isn’t just a kiss, this is him saying he might just be willing to forgive me.

I pull back first, and he takes a step back. “Do you think you could ever forgive me? Let me show you how sorry I am. I promise I will make it up to you. No more lies, no more secrets. I will be an open book.”

“What do you even like about me, when you have Ridge and Zeland?”

His insecurities are eating at him. “I like you because you are sexy in a nerdy way, you are smart, funny, and you show your emotions on your face so openly. I love how you love your mom, and how close you are to her. You don’t shy away from that or telling people she is your best friend. I love how you think of other people before yourself, but I also hate it as well, because you are worth putting first. I know I’m not easy to be around—I’m chaotic, and I do things before I think them through. Worse, I’m scared to put my heart in other people’s hands. I’m afraid people will leave me like my mom did and not look back. I know I deserved for you to walk away. It broke me, but it also made me realize just how important you are in my life. I need you, Arlo. In any way you will have me. If that means just being your coworker, I get it. Or if you just want to be friends. But please don’t walk out of my life for good.”

“I forgive you, Aspen. Hearing your voice was enough to know I would forgive you. But if you hurt me again, I don’t know if I can come back from that.”

Wrapping my arms around his waist, I pull his bodytightly into mine. “I missed your smell. If it wasn’t weird, I would climb inside your shirt and smell you all day.”

I lift his shirt and place my cheek against his heart. The steady beat grounds me more than I expected. When he laughs, it rumbles through his chest, and I close my eyes to savor it for a few seconds. I feel the smile stretch across my face; I have found my safe space, and you would have to pry it from my cold, dead hands before I let him go again.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Zeland

Personal boundaries are not something I realize I bulldoze through until I’m already on the other side. Yet with Arlo, I know I have to take things slow and go at his pace. After Aspen told me he was willing to give her a chance, I decided I’d start my own attempts at reconciling. I wait at the coffee shop, two coffees in hand. The door chimes and I look up to see Arlo walk in. He doesn’t notice me at first, but I see the smile on his face.

“Hi, sweetheart,” I say, and he glances over at me.

I expect him to turn and walk away but he doesn’t. Instead, he walks over and I hand him Aspen’s coffee choice for this week. It’s what we did—every week whenshe changed her order, we did as well. Some of her choices are shit, but this week it’s not actually so bad. I don’t mind the taste of nuts in my coffee or my mouth, whichever works for me.

“I was wondering how long it would take for you to come and see me,” he says as we walk out of the shop together.

“I have wanted to since the day you ran away, but my voice of reason told me I should let you process how massively I fucked up first. Also, I wanted to make sure you fixed things with Aspen. If she’s happy, I’m happy.”

He smiles at the mention of her name, and as he dips his head, the mass of curls falls in front of his face. We stop walking, and I reach over and tuck some behind his ear, making him blush.

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