I wanted him to hold me even more tightly.
I wanted to get lost in all the amazing things that we were together.
I wanted to ignore everything I’d just learned, because he was the one I was meant to be with.
I pressed my forehead into his chest and breathed him in.
The curse—whatever it really was, even if it was something that could never be explained—didn’t suddenly make everything easy.
It didn’t make the path free of hurdles. And it certainly didn’t fix the problems that were already there.
I smoothed my hands out and slid them up his chest, stopping over his heart. My eyes closed, and for the first time, I felt the burn of tears.
“I feel like you felt safe not telling me this because you knew I’d stay hidden with you.” I sniffed when he ran his fingers through my hair. “I know I agreed in the beginning, but that was hard, you know?”
“I know,” he murmured, kissing the top of my head again.
I pulled back and looked him in the eye. “Do you? Do you know what it’s like to be on the fringes and not really feel like you belong?”
Tucker gave me the respect to really think about what I asked, he didn’t brush me off, didn’t give me a placating answer, didn’t try to kiss me to brush the subject under the rug.
“Not in the way you do here, I reckon.” His thumb brushed along my cheek.
“I wish you’d told me the truth,” I said in a fierce whisper. “I wish you’d trusted me to work through all of that with you.”
I wished a lot of things as I looked up at him.
That we weren’t having this conversation, even though we needed to.
That his mom hadn’t shown up.
That he’d said something different when she did.
I wished that when I told him I loved him, he’d said it right back, without a breath in between my admission and his.
I wished that my brother hadn’t been right, because almost everything he’d said had just exploded in a messy heap in front of us.
And most of all, I wished that I didn’t have the horrible sensation that this wasn’t even close to over. That we just unearthed a mountain of issues that had been hiding under the surface.
“Talk to me,” he begged. In the set of his face, I knew he saw something in my face. Something he didn’t like.
“This all feels so big,” I admitted. “Like if it came one at a time, spaced apart, each thing wouldn’t seem so bad. But I don’t know how to look at all of it together and see a way past it.”
“Grace, no.”
“It’s not about the sex, it’s not even about your mom.” My voice shook, and I pinched my eyes shut. “I feel a little alone in this right now. Because the truth is that you didn’t keep it from me to protect me. You were protecting you. You were worried about what everyone else thought, Tucker. Your worry about the people outside of this relationship was bigger than the reality about how it might hurt me. And I can’t see a way to be okay with that. To trust that you won’t sacrifice this,” I gestured between us, “for them.”
Because he didn’t love me. How could he possibly feel anything close to what I felt?
Panic crawled up my spine, maybe it was irrational, but I wondered if Levi ever felt like this when he was waiting for Joss. Waiting to see if she’d ever come close to catching up to what he felt.
Because that was the crux of it.
Tucker may not ever feel for me what I felt for him. Just because I slipped quickly into loving him didn’t mean he would do the same.
He didn’t open this part of his life to me because it felt safer to keep the door closed.
This place, everything that happened today just stoked the fire underneath the belief that I’d never belong. That I made a rash decision to follow my brother, who was already finding his foothold, while I scrambled in place.
“It’s not about trust, Grace. I messed up, and I’ll probably mess up again, because I’m not perfect.”
“Whether you want to define it differently or not, it’s still about trust.” I pulled back, out of his arms, until they fell limply by his sides. “I get it, I’m not part of this town to the point where it’s a given that I’ll hear the gossip, know everything that happens. But it should have mattered more to you that I might get hurt hearing it from someone else. Instead of trusting that I’d be on the fringes, just … snapping pictures of everyone else living life here, I want you to trust that I’ll work through anything with you.”
My eyes blurred and I willed those freaking tears to stay back. I would not lose my grasp on my emotions now. Every brick inside my heart might be crumbling into dust, but if there was one moment where I’d keep things in check, where I’d try my damndest to protect my own heart, cursed though it might be, it would be this moment.
I brushed past him and picked up my keys where they’d fallen on the floor of the garage.
“Hang on a second, Grace,” he said, grabbing my hand gently and pulling me to face him. “I’m sorry, I’m so damn sorry I didn’t tell you, that I didn’t explain what he did and why.”
I wanted to rub at my heart to see if I could stop it from aching. His was probably doing the same.
And that man, he saw it on my face, because he cupped my cheeks again in his big warm hands. “Don’t leave like this, please. Stay. Stay and talk to me.”
I turned my head and pressed a kiss to his palm. “I can’t. I know you’re sorry.” I shook my head. “But I need some time.”
“For what?” he begged. He slid his hands back into my hair and
