Page 95 of What Hurts Us

32

CALLUM

“We need to talk.” The words were out of Layla’s mouth the minute she got out of her car. She looked like she had seen a ghost.

My shoes came to a skidding halt in the middle of my driveway. “That can’t be good.”

Layla looked unsteady on her feet. Her cheeks were pale, and her hands trembled against her side.

I grabbed the empty travel mug out of the cup holder and slammed the door to my cruiser. I met her at the hood of her car and rested my palm against her back as I led her up the walk. “Come on, honey.”

“Why did you give me this ring?” Layla blurted out as I closed the front door behind us. Cautiously, I set down the travel mug and dropped my keys on the entryway table. Something had spooked her enough that the affectionate looks she had been giving me at Gran’s house were gone. She was hanging on by a thread.

“I thought we were on the same page about the—”

“Not why did you fake propose to me with a ring,” she cut in. A sharp edge seared her words. “Why did you want me to wearthisring?” Brown eyes rimmed with tears stared up at me, silently begging me for some kind of reason that didn’t include me disrespecting my Gran.

“Come upstairs,” I said, taking her hand. “I need to show you something.”

Layla waited, standing in the corner of my room while I fished around my underwear drawer.She wouldn’t even sit on the bed.

I pulled out a grocery bag and dumped the purchase into my hand. Layla craned her neck, eyeing it curiously.

“This was the ring I was going to give you to wear while we faked it,” I began, holding the cheap piece of jewelry out for her to see. It was a band that looked silver, a gem that looked like a diamond, and it had only set me back about fifteen dollars. But I didn’t hand her the ring. I handed her the receipt. “Look at the date.”

She scanned the strip of paper. “The day after I moved in.”

I strode over to her, holding the worthless piece of costume jewelry to the heirloom she wore.

“You gave me Gran’s ring because it’s more convincing,” she said quietly.

Ihadtold her something similar before I proposed—the night that I pinned her against the wall and kissed her. The first night I tasted her lips and drank in her sweetness.

But that wasn’t the whole story.

“It’s part of the reason, yes,” I said as I pocketed the ring in my hand. “But that’s not all of it. Layla, I—” I dragged my palms down my face, trying to scrub away the jumble of thoughts clouding my mind. I could never think straight when I was around her. I couldn’t focus. She had me twisted in knots. She wrecked my very existence.

But she also put it back together.

She made it better. Brighter.

“I trust you,” I said with every ounce of resolve in my body. “You told me you love me because you felt it and knew that I needed to hear it. So, please, honey—hear me when I tell you that I trust you. For me, trust is greater than love. You can love someone without trusting them. You can give them your heart only for it to be trampled and mistreated and rejected. But trust—trusting you means that I’m giving you the parts of me that have been hurt. It means that I’ve given you the vulnerable parts of me that I don’t want anyone else to see. And I’m putting them in your hands because I know you love me.”

A lone tear glimmered like a diamond as it slipped down Layla’s cheek. I pressed my lips to the path it left behind.

“I gave you that ring because in the time we spent together before I got down on one knee, you proved to me that I could trust you. That I was safe with you. And I have never asked for it back because I don’t want it back.”

“Cal,” she whimpered, dabbing her eyes with her fingertips. “I—I can’t keep it.”

My calloused heart—now raw and bare for her—felt like it had been prodded with a branding iron. “Why not?” I croaked.

She slipped it off. “Because this belongs to the woman you’re going to marry, Cal. It means too much to Gran—to your family—for me to wear it when this engagement is a lie!”

“Who says it’s not going to be you?” The words slipped out smoothly. It wasn’t a lie. I stood toe-to-toe with her, not caring if I was coming on too strong. If there was ever a time for coming on strong, this was fucking it.

I was a stubborn asshole, but I wasn’t a stupid one. “I don’t care how it started, and I don’t care how we got here. You said it yourself—this is real. It’s fucking real. Don’t tell me otherwise, and don’t go running at the first thing that freaks you out. You let me cry on your shoulder when I needed it. So, whatever fears and worries and problems are in your head, let me help you carry them.”

My chest heaved as I sucked in necessary oxygen. Layla looked absolutely dumbfounded. Her jaw was on top of her shoes, and she stared at me as if I had just said I planned on quitting the force and starting a free-range ant farm.

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