Page 53 of Tell Me You Love Me

Fuck, she smells good.

“I waswithyou when you’d plan out your counterattack, remember? Every time someone pissed you off, you’d decide if you were gonna punch them in the face or annoy them till they lost the will to live.”

And she feels so, so fucking good.

“You can’t punch me in the face.”

I grin, knowing she won’t see it. “Says who?”

“Which means you choose psychological warfare. You’ll continue tobother me till we’re on speaking terms. Consistency and all that. Maybe I’ll even get so used to having you around, I’ll stop panicking and start thinking of you as a friend again. But someday, at some point in the future, you’ll make me pay for leaving. When I least expect it, you’ll swing around, armed with your sword of retribution, and you’ll destroy me the way you feel I destroyed you.”

“That’s quite the intricate hypothesis.”

“But you can’t move on to the friend stage until I stop telling you to leave me alone. And you can’t move on to retribution until I feel safe in your presence. So, step one is to make yourself visible to me. Being where I am, going where I go?—”

“And just so we’re clear: I was here first tonight. I didn’t follow you.”

“It’s a small town,” she sighs. “It won’t even be difficult. One grocery store. One gas station. One elementary school. My son attends your gym for classes, and Caroline owns the only decent bar in a fifty-mile radius.” She pulls back, startling my eyes open and hurting my heart with the way she stares. “I know you, Tommy. And I know payback will sting. Can’t we just agree this isn’t healthy? Let me go on with my life without always looking over my shoulder, worried about when that sword will meet my throat?”

She has freckles on her cheeks and golden flakes in her eyes. Then and now. Her hair is lighter now because of the summer sun, but I know from experience it darkens a little in the winter.

Not a lot. Not like mine. But still…

“I’m scared of my own shadow,” she pleads, blinking her eyes clear and swallowing until her throat bobs. “Because I know you’ll hurt me back. It’s as certain as death. And taxes. And that, in itself, is part of the psychological warfare.”

“You make out I’m some kind of evil villain in your story. Which is so interesting, considering I’ve done nothing but love you my whole life.”

“Tommy—”

“Adored you. I fucking worshipped you.” I tighten my arm around her hips and push her shoulder with my free hand, dipping her backward when the music calls for it. And because I fucking earned it, I’m rewarded with the perfect view of her swollen tits and delicate, outstretched throat. “Even when we bickered back in the day, fighting and fucking, arguing and making up again,” I pull her up and inhale her explosive breath, “I’ve done nothing but be good to you. Yet you look over your shoulder and act likeI’mthe monster?”

“You know what I mean.” Her eyes darken. “Don’t act like I’m wrong.”

“You want me to admit I have some long con going?” I tug her in again and thrill at how perfectly her body fits against mine. She was the exact right size for me back then, and she’s exactly right for me now, too. “You’re the one who left, Alana. And you’re the one who came back. You’re living your life, and I’m living mine, but somehow, in your mind, you’ve convinced yourself I’ve got a plan for payback?”

“I know you.” Her eyes sparkle with tears she won’t let fall. Anger she tries so fucking hard to bottle up. “Why don’t you just say all the mean things you wanna say? Be cruel and horrible and take back the power I stole from you. Sever the ties that used to bind us, so then I might have a chance to get on with my life.”

“Me, sever the ties?” I scoff. “Babe, you did that already, remember? It was right around graduation. We’d been talking about getting married, and we didn’t even care what everyone else thought. We knew we were young and that people would have somethin’ to say about it, and weespeciallyknew the better-to-do folks would disapprove because I’m just Tommy Watkins, and you were way too good to slum with this kind of trash.”

Her chest shudders, visibly rocking against mine. “Tommy?—”

“We were talking about New York. You were gonna go to school, and I was gonna find a job. Didn’t matter what it was, so long as it paid enough to cover rent and food since I was never gonna let you be cold or hungry.”

“Tommy, stop.”

“We had those plans, and you even said it was cool that Chris came, too. You were totally fucking insistent on it, swearing you didn’t mind. So there I was, drunk on love and bursting with big plans, then you just… you went cold on me. We were fine, and then we weren’t. Somewhere between prom and graduation, everything went to hell, but you kept saying it was okay. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Yousaythings are fine, even when they aren’t.” I wrinkle my nose. “In fact, I remember you screaming it in my face.Nothing is wrong, Tommy! Just leave me alone!”

A single, fat tear swells over and dribbles onto her cheek.

“I didn’t wanna leave you alone. That’s not what I do… did,” I amend, my own words like a lash across my heart. “We fight it out until we figure it out. But you didn’t let us. We were fine, and then we weren’t, and when I gave you the space you screamed for—just one fucking night, Alana—you weren’t where I left you when I came back the next day.”

She drops her head, crashing her face against my chest.

“Are those the ties you want me to sever?” I snarl. “Because I don’tknow if you noticed, but you snipped those motherfuckers ten years ago. Now you want toget on with your lifebut act like I’m the bad guy?”

She tries to pull away, to shake my hands off and turn and do what it is she’s so fucking good at—leave. But I yank her back, crushing her so close she has no choice but to bend her neck and rest her chin on my chest.

“You don’t get to be the victim in our story.Youmade your choices, and for whatever reasons you had, those same reasons you choose not to share with me, at leastyougot to have an opinion on the direction of your life. The rest of us fucking trash you left behind in Plainview, we were just the fallout of your storm. You were a hurricane, and I was the house I thought I was building for our futures. But you blew right through me, babe, and it was so fucking unexpected, I didn’t have time to find shelter.”

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