Page 44 of Crazy About Love (All About Love)

Chapter 10

PRESENT DAY

Rian convinces me to go to Central Park, filling our quota of long, silent walks. She gazes at her feet, looking like she has much on her mind, and when I try to ask about it, she gives whatever I say a sexual connotation, and I’m suddenly tongue-tied and sweating even though it’s mid-February.

I want to say what a bust Valentine’s Day has been, but my determination to make this night better still hasn’t waned. We’ve still got time to—

“It’s midnight,” Rian says, brushing a stray piece of purple hair from her forehead. She stops in front of me, letting her eyes fall slowly to my lips. Her long lashes sweep the tops of her high cheekbones. Her teeth gently bite the inside of her bottom lip, and I notice a hole where a piercing must’ve been, but she went without the metal tonight.

“I take it you want to cash in?” I ask, moving my gaze from her mouth to slightly behind her for some dumb reason. I’ve been trying to get that kiss all night, hoping that it’ll magically wipe the slate clean (or, as Rian put it, seal up the wound). And though I told her I’m not really a superstitious guy, I’m starting to believe that fate, God, the universe, or whatever you want to call it has intervened in every way it could.

She nods, smiling at me, and then rises on her toes like she has at least ten times tonight. Her breath is warm and her lips look soft and plump and she’s holding her breath. I cup her cheeks, cradle her in my palms, and check the moisture of my lips. Everything seems ready and good, and it’s romantic and starry. Her wrist taps my elbow slightly as she feathers her hands up my ribs.

It’s perfect. It should crack through my cement heart.

So I’m not sure why, but an undeniable hope builds inside of me, and not the hope to move on—it’s the hope that fate will decide to send another basketball into our faces.

THREE WEEKS, TWO DAYS AGO: 4:53A.M.

Theresa’s bare back rises and falls in deep, satisfied slumber. The wind blows in from the open window, wafting the strands of her long hair over her face.

She smiles in her sleep. It’s been so long since I’ve watched her sleep that I’d completely forgotten what it looked like.

It doesn’t have to mean anything.

The words were said right before it happened, but they were all lies. Every single one of them. My heart thuds hard, crashes against my rib cage, slides down into the pit of my stomach, and stops beating altogether as I slowly rise from the sheets. I stuff my legs into a pair of jeans sitting on top of my dresser, throw a shirt over my head, and take one last glance at the woman who just blew my mind.

I imagined our first “morning after” would be a lot different than this one. If I ever had the chance to make love to Theresa, I thought, I wanted her to fall asleep while I drew patterns across the skin of her back, and I wanted her to wake up next to me and make fun of my breath but kiss me anyway. I wanted to offer her breakfast, suggest another go-round in the sheets, or ask her to date me or kiss me or marry me. I wanted all those things, and I feel like calling a redo. Not a redo of our night together with her naked in my arms, but of the conversationbeforeall of the significant events.

Suddenly my body collapses in on itself from the inside out. Burning heat pricks at the back of my eyes, and I force it to stay inside, where I keep all the feelings I have for her locked away.

Even though it’s my room, I duck out, tapping the doorframe slightly before leaving her there alone. It’s the coward’s way, but I don’t want to wake up and see the regret on her face, watch her walk away like I was just another one-night stand to help ease the loneliness.

I don’t want to tell her I love her again, only to have her say that she can’t…shewon’tever love me back. And I have a feeling the next time I open my mouth, those will be the words that will roll off my tongue.

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