Page 151 of Attached At Heart
Maybe a little dramatic, but he’d broken through a dam. He’d found the parts of me that I’d walled off because I didn’t think I wanted them. But I did. I just wanted to experience them on my own terms, in my own way, with people who didn’t pressure me and fought for me instead.
For our third date, I asked Blake to teach me how to box. I thought it was only fair. And the smirk that had slipped onto hisface in response had made my request worth it, even if I soon learned my punching aim was awful.
“Do you know why I got into boxing?” he asked me as we walked out of the gym afterward and onto the Boston streets, where brick buildings lined the cobblestone. Humidity soaked the midsummer night air, making me stickier than when we’d been working up a sweat with the bags.
I shook my head, and Blake sighed.
“I needed a distraction,” he admitted. “Needed something to obsess over that wasn’t you.”
My steps faltered; my breathing hitched. Everything about my existence seemed to skip a beat. It was painful knowing that Blake had gone through that. That I’d put him through that unknowingly. I suspected I’d always feel guilty about what I hadn’t known, what I probably should have figured out years ago.
“Did it work?” I asked.
He responded with a low, rumbling chuckle. “I’m always going to be obsessed with you, Lane.”
My stomach betrayed me, flipping and turning.
“But it did help me channel some of my…frustrations,” he added carefully.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He glanced down at me. “Which was especially helpful once you moved in with me. Sometimes you walked around in your fucking towel, Lane. Christ, it was like you were trying to kill me.”
I bit down on a guilty grin.
“I realized I liked it more than just being a distraction, though,” Blake went on. “It was good for my body, good for my mind. I needed that. Something I could do for me, to be better. I spent a lot of time visualizing what my perfect future might look like without doing the work to create it for myself. I needed to trysomething new, push myself a bit and live outside my carefully constructed patterns.”
“So you decided you wanted to punch people?”
Blake’s lips twitched. “It’s not about punching but learning to take calculated risks. Sometimes it’s okay to let things get a little messy. Coloring inside the lines doesn’t always create a pretty picture.”
“Calculated risks, huh?”
“Yeah.” Blake’s eyes wandered my face. “Calculated risks.”
“Would you consider asking your best friend to marry you a calculated risk?”
“It was definitely a risk.” Blake nodded. “Not sure how much time I really spent calculating it, though. I was too worried you’d end up engaged to someone else again if I didn’t get that ring on your finger as fast as possible.”
“I’m glad you took the risk,” I said, meaning it with every ounce of my being. “Even if our relationship did get a little…messy there for a bit.”
“I was scared of that,” Blake confessed. “For so many years, I’d been scared of blurring the line of our friendship. And that was exactly where we ended up anyway. For a terrifying few hours, I thought I ruined everything.”
“I think we’ve always been a little blurry, Blake. Has it everreallybeen clear?”
He shook his head. “No, not before now. But I think Iwantedclear. Watching my parents’ divorce scared me away from the messy bits of a relationship. I hated the thought of getting messy with you and losing you. God, losing you was all I was ever worried about. Even if that meant I only got to have you as a friend.”
“I get it,” I assured him. “But I don’t think you realize, Blake.”
He paused on the street corner, giving me his full attention. The streetlamp behind him created a halo around his frame, making him glow. “What?”
“If you want to get rid of me, you’re going to have to cut me loose,” I warned. But it wasn’t really a warning—more like an attempt to dispel any remaining fears he might have about us. “I’m too tied up in you to break free, even if we get pulled in different directions again.”
Blake’s gaze warmed. He stepped forward, backing me against a brick wall and bracing his hand against it so he could lean in, showering me with his stomach-flipping intensity. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
I blinked up at him, feeling my throat tighten. “Just don’t let go, okay?”
“Never, Lane.” He rested his forehead against mine. “Fucking never.”
