Page 183 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
I take a deep breath, try to quell the longing deep inside of me. “How’s your family?” I ask her when I can trust my voice.
“Good. My brother’s playing varsity football this year—”
“As a freshman?”
“Yeah.” She smiles proudly. “He’s good.”
“And your sisters?”
“They’re doing fine. I think middle school is rough for anyone, but they’re getting through. Shanda loves biology, thinks she wants to be a doctor.” She shakes her head. “Can you believe it?”
“Absolutely. You’re doing such a great job with them. They’re lucky to have you.” I want her to know I understand that her family has to come first. That she has to be there for them, even if it means we can’t be together.
“You never blamed me.”
I know I look at her like she’s crazy, but how can I not? Blaming her for her circumstances would be like blaming me for mine. Ridiculous. Not to mention completely useless. “How could I?”
“Other people would. Have. You don’t know how many of my friends’ boyfriends think they should be the only thing in their lives—”
“They should dump those assholes.”
She smiles. “That’s what I tell them.”
“But they don’t listen?”
“They tell me that I don’t have a boyfriend, so I have no room to talk.”
It’s exactly what I want to hear. “You’re not dating anyone right now?”
Dyani looks at me steadily. “I haven’t been dating anyone for three years, two months and seventeen days, Gage.”
I close my eyes as the relief washes over me. I feel like a total prick, a douche of the first order, but I can’t help being happy that she hasn’t moved on any more than I have. Even if it makes me a terrible person.
There hasn’t been anyone for me since I walked away from her, and if you’d asked me an hour ago I would have said that I wouldn’t wish that loneliness on anyone. But now that I’ve held her again, now that I’ve kissed her and touched her and imagined doing so much more, I can’t stand the idea of some other guy doing the same.
Dyani is mine. She’s been mine from the moment I set eyes on her, and there’s a part of me that insists she’ll be mine until the day I die.
When I don’t say anything—because there is nothing I can say that won’t make me sound like a complete asshole—she puts her head on my shoulder, cuddles in. I wrap my arm around her shoulder and for long, quiet minutes we just sit there watching night chase the sunset across the sky.
Finally, when it’s dark—so dark that I can no longer see more than the shadow of her next to me—Dyani whispers, “Take me with you.”
My heart stops. I swear, it actually stops, then restarts heavier, bumpier, more erratic than it was before. It feels like I’ve just barged a run, just done a trick that was totally front. At the same time, it feels like more. Like the whole world hangs in the balance.
“You want to come . . . with me?”
“To your hotel room. I want to be with you tonight.”
And the balance tips, just not the way I want it to. I brush my lips over her temple, pull her more tightly into my arms. “Are you sure?”
She pulls away, stares at me with those deep, obsidian eyes of hers. “It’s the one thing I regret about our time together. The fact that I was stupid and thought I wasn’t ready—”
“You weren’t ready. I never blamed you for that.”
“Maybe not, but I’ve blamed myself every day since you left town.” Her hands clutch at mine. “Please, Gage, love me. Even if it is just for tonight. I need you. I need you so much.”
“Like I could ever tell you no?” I pull out my phone, activate the flashlight app. Then wrap my arm around Dyani and guide her gently down the hill.
I’M NERVOUS. SO nervous that my hands are shaking and my teeth are chattering. Gage looks at me with concern, then turns the heat up in the car. I don’t have the heart to tell him it won’t help. That I’ve been imagining this moment for so long that now that it’s here it feels like a wish. Or worse, a dream that will disappear the moment I try to reach for it.
