Page 71 of Escape Girl

Another crooked smile. “No. For the first time in the history of us, I think all the cards are on the table. There’s no more puzzle.” He hesitated, his blue eyes somber. “But we’re still locked together, I think. And we need to decide what’s next.”

His gaze raked over me, from heels to hair. “You’ve never looked more beautiful,” he said, still quiet. “Your new life must be agreeing with you.”

So many thoughts wanted to jumble out at once that none did, and the silence stretched too long. Anxiety almost choked me—I could not screw this up.

Open your mouth, Emily.“A l-lot of it does,” I finally stuttered. “It feels good to be working on a case I actually care about. To make my own schedule.”

Keep going. Share, already.I took a deep breath. “To be getting help.” I was suddenly desperate for him to understand how hard I was working to process my grief, how much I wanted to be emotionally healthy again. I opened my mouth to describe my bi-weekly therapy appointments, the support group meetings I was religiously attending.

But he spoke before I could. “I’m so sorry, Emily. I am so ridiculously sorry.”

Wait, what? What in the world could he possibly be apologizing for?

“I knew something was wrong. Deeply wrong,” he whispered. “But I was an idiot and self-absorbed. I made it all about me.” He shook his head, anger tightening his jaw. “Here you were, in such enormous pain, and I didn’t find a way to get through to you.”

“Bobby. No,” I said firmly, my voice finally,finally, working the way it was supposed to. “There was nothing you could have done. I didn’t talk to you because I couldn’t even talk to myself. I had no idea what was going on inside. Nothing you could have done would have made a difference.”

I put my hands on my hips, super-frustrated. “Didn’t you understand that the point of the rooms I sent you was formeto apologize to you?!”

“My heart stopped when the invitation appeared in my inbox,” he said, and I ached to pull him into my arms. “I mean it. I think I was medically dead for a minute there. I had actually started to accept that I’d never hear from you again.”

Should I have let him go? “Part of me still wonders if that would have been the right thing to do,” I admitted. “To let youhave a clean break. To just disappear and let you move on in peace.”

His blue eyes narrowed abruptly into a furious glare. “That’s bullshit, Em.” He reached out and touched me for the first time, roughly grabbing my hands and pulling them into his lap. “I will never move on. It didn’t even matter that you didn’t want me, that you divorced me. I was still yours. I’m yours now. I’ll be yours until I don’t exist anymore. I fucking love you.”

He was saying everything I dreamed of, and I was trembling all over, but I couldn’t absorb the words. Not yet.

“But I’m…I don’t know. A mess?” I clutched his warm hands. It felt so good to touch him again, to feel the familiar fingers, curved around mine. “I’m not exactly the woman you fell in love with. I’m not the basket case you were married to either, but I don’t quite know who I’ll be yet.”

He shifted to grip both of my hands with one of his and ran the other one softly through my hair. “I don’t know exactly who I’m becoming either, you know. I’ve made a lot of changes and grown up a bunch since we were together.”

Tears sprung in his eyes even as he gave me a wide grin. “You can love someone who’s in progress. People are never their perfect selves at all times. We’re all changing—every day, every year. Em, I don’t want to wait to love you until you’re some pinnacle version of yourself. Loving someone is being a partner on the journey. I want to love you along the way.”

I should have known Bobby would say the exact perfect thing. A warm, fizzy mixture of acceptance and joy exploded in my chest and spread to every inch of my body.

That one, Emmy.

Her voice was as clear in my head as it had ever been in life. The shock of it took my breath away. And yeah, there was a spike of grief in the joy. I let myself feel it, all the way through, from my core to my toes.

“I wish she could have known you,” I whispered.

Bobby briefly pressed his forehead to mine. “Me too. Maybe, when you’re ready, you can tell me about her.”

I could learn to do that. I could.

Right now though, I could almost hear her impatience.Later, Emmy.

She was right as always. Now was the time for me to get Bobby and me out of an escape room and back into a life—together. I tried to launch myself at him. I wanted his arms around me. I wanted him to kiss me until I couldn’t breathe.

He stopped me though, bracing me back with his hands on my shoulders. For the first time since I sat down, he looked unsure. “I haven’t always been honest with you about what I want or need. Our wedding was a prime example. I want that to change. Right now…I need the words too, Em.”

Oh man. My heart was so full I hadn’t even realized I hadn’t said anything back. Shame on me. After almost a year of my silence, of course he needed the words.

“I’ve loved you from practically the minute we met.” I wasn’t even whispering. The words were loud and so easy. “I loved you when you proposed, and I loved you when we said I do. I loved you when I screamed at you, and I loved you when I left. Loving you was never, ever the problem. I loved you when you called me, drunk, and I loved you when you signed the papers.”

This time, he let me pull us together. “Today, I love you more than I ever have.”

I angled up for a kiss, but he backed away again, the brute. “And you want to be with me? You want to try us again?” he asked, tender and just a tiny bit scared. “My old heart can’t take a one-night experiment or a flare of nostalgia, sweetheart.”

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