Page 88 of Back to December
“Confining us to one weekend a year.” I take another sip, like it’ll give me a boost of bravery. “We could’ve started this life earlier. We could’ve?—”
My throat tightens. The thought alone is too heavy.
“I’m hiding the melatonin from you,” he says with a smile. “That was some dream, huh?”
I wish I could explain thatthisis a dream, sort of. I’m still working out exactly what it is. So I give a slight shrug instead.
“I’m just so glad you were patient with me.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, some of my tension melts away. I need to tellmyHolden that.
“The best things in life are worth waiting for, honey.” He bends and presses a kiss to my shoulder. “I’d have waited ten more years for you if that’s what you needed.”
My heart flutters in my chest, and I don’t know if it’s from his words or the gentle gesture. Either way, I tuck the moment away.
“But you deserved?—”
“Nope,” he says, with a firm shake of his head.
I could really get behind this firm side of Holden. The pushed-up sleeves and exposed forearms propped on his bent knees aren’t hurting either.
I blink. “What do you mean ‘nope’?”
“I mean, you’re not hijacking your day based on a guilt trip your dreams sent you down last night.” He reaches over and tucks a hair behind my ear. “I know you really wrestlewith this idea of me deserving better than you, but lucky foryou, I’m in charge of who I think deserves me. And that’s you.”
“But—”
“And as much as I love how you compare me to your teenage crush Peeta, we’re not doing the ‘Peeta deserved better’ speech either.”
My cheeks heat. “I didnothave a crush on Peeta.”
“Ella would disagree.”
Oh, I’ll absolutely get her for this.
“She’s a liar.”
Holden gives me a crooked grin that would push me right into a proposal if I weren’t already married to him. Well, whatever this is.
“I kind of love being your ‘boy with the bread’, honey.”
“I have never called you that,” I hiss in embarrassment.
To your face.
He pulls me onto his lap, and I squeal—half out of shock, half out of pure delight.
“I need you to hear me right now.” His tone shifts from playful to gentle. “Focusing on how to survive your mother doesn’t make you a bad person. You thought you were protecting me by loving me with stipulations.”
Have I ever told him that? Or is he just that astute? Either way, he’s right. I thought pushing him away would keep us safe, keepmesafe. But all it did was land us in relationship purgatory.
Those feelings are exactly why I turned down his proposal in October.
But as I sit here, soaking up all of this knowledge, I think I might have it all wrong. I’m not sure what “it” is yet, but maybe that’s what I’m supposedto figure out.
“You’re so wise.”
“I’m just a man who loves his wife.”
