Page 28 of Love Off the Rocks
“Yeah, I did. Every day for over a year.”
“I never got anything.”
“I never sent them.”
“Why not?”
He shrugs. “Part of me figured you left because you wanted to. You were done with me, and I didn’t know how to combat that, at least not then.”
His words give me hope. “What do you mean, not then?” I ask, despite myself.
“I’ve grown, matured, changed. Now I would just come after you. Ask you to stay if that’s what you needed. Admit how much I want you in my life. Make sure there were no misunderstandings or miscommunications. Make my intentions clear: to have you by my side.”
My breath catches.
Does he mean he’s doing that now?
Or that he would have done that if then was now?
“Do you ever wonder how life would be if we’d stayed together?” He hasn’t lifted his chin from my shoulder. The faint scent of his aftershave floats between us.
“Sometimes.” I don’t want to give him too much. I feel vulnerable and scared, but at the same time, there’s a rush of adrenaline pumping through my veins, making me feel like I can do anything. My body tenses as I wait for him to continue.
“I think about it all the time. No one has ever measured up to you, Mags. And I’ve looked, believe me—”
“I don’t want to hear about you all your girlfriends, Dev.”
“That’s just it. There weren’t any.”
“None?”
“Nobody serious, no. What about you?”
I consider lying, telling him I’ve had many boyfriends, that I have one now even. But it’s the semi-truth that comes out instead when I open my mouth. “I’ve dated, but nothing major.”
He makes a non-committal noise but says nothing more. I want to continue this conversation. I want to hear more about how much he missed me and how no one else compared. Well, not more about other girls, unless we focus on all the ways they were lacking. I want him to say he still loves me. That he wants me back. That we belong together.
He stays silent.
I force myself to relax against his chest, and he rewards me with a soft sigh in my ear.
“I like having you here,” he says.
“In the middle of the wilderness, facing untimely death?”
“We aren’t going to die,” he chuckles. “I mean in my arms, spending the night together, even if it is in a national park.”
“People still die in parks, Dev. It happens all the time. Selfies near waterfalls, poof, they fall in and drown. Hiking off the path, someone breaks a leg and is eaten by a bear. Hypothermia.”
“It’s not cold enough to get hypothermia and we aren’t taking any selfies.”
“So, you admit we could break a leg and be eaten by a bear?” I ask.
“Black bears have killed only twenty-three people.”
“That’s still a lot.”
“Since 1900.”
