Page 94 of The Exit Strategy

“We talked about his graduation party.”

I memorize the flash of uncertainty that darkens her expression before she reels it in. “He did it, didn’t he? He said something that made you leave. I was there, did you know that? When he talked to you that night. I saw you both and felt the shift in your body language.”

My fists clench at my sides. It’s all I can do so I don’t close the gap between us and take what I’ve always wanted.

“What he said and what I heard were two vastly different things.” The admission of my fault is excruciating.

She shifts her weight without breaking eye contact.

“I misinterpreted what he said.” I press forward until I’m invading her space because if I stop now, I’ll rebuild the wall, and she deserves more from me—she always has. “I heard leave, but he meant stay. I—I chose the version that let me run because I already had a devastating reason to. His words gave me the permission I thought I needed.”

“W-what reason?”

I cup her face in both hands. “I’m not here to unpack all of it tonight because there are still obstacles between us that I don’t know how to share yet. But I needed you to know thatthe version of me who left you, the version who used your brother’s words as permission, made the biggest mistake of his life. I acted on information I didn’t know how to process, and I’ve been paying for it ever since.” I stare into her eyes, as unguarded as I’ve ever been. “I’m not that man anymore, Junie. I’ll prove it to you, if you allow me to.”

She’s quiet for long enough that I prepare for her anger. At the very least for her to send me back across the driveway to lick my wounds in private. “Whatever Nolan said, he shouldn’t have been so cryptic.”

The sound that comes from me is half laugh, half heartache. “No, he shouldn’t have.”

“And you shouldn’t have assumed the worst. Whatever he said, whatever…else made you think leaving was your only option?—”

“There’s still a lot I wouldn’t change about that night, Junie. Not for anything. But I was wrong to leave the way I did.” So fucking wrong, and we’ve all paid the price now.

“And I…” Her gaze flickers back and forth between mine, like she’s just now remembered how close we’re standing, and that my rough fingers are cradling her face as though she’s precious. “I should’ve asked you for answers instead of burying my pain as though it didn’t exist.”

She stares at the wall instead of me—as though she can’t afford the cost of that admission.

“You should never experience pain from me, Junie. For that, I will forever be sorry.”

Then I kiss her the way I should have kissed her years ago—not like the storm that brews between us, not like something that escapes before I can stop it.

I kiss her like a decision.

Like a man who finally understands what he’s choosing and stopped being a coward about it.

Like a man who knows that the darkness of his past is about to surface again and the only way through it is with this woman by his side.

She only fights it for half a second.

Then her small hands wrap around my wrists, and she simply falls into the inevitable—she falls into the hope of us.

My tongue seeks entrance to her mouth, and she grants me access on a gasp. It’s a slow, sensual claiming too many years in the making.

The kiss is alive in every molecule of my body—the rightness, the love, the earth-shattering sensation that this is where I’m meant to be.

I pull back too soon. There are still tragic truths to lay at her feet, but first, my job is to protect her heart—like weatherproofing a house to save what’s inside.

“I want to give you…everything, Junie, but I need time to…” I break eye contact, just for a second, because there’s no easy way to explain our past. “Straighten things out, so you have to decide if this, if what I can offer younowis something you want in your life.”

She stares at me as if that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever said.

I press my lips to her forehead, and she sags into me.

“I have to go.”

“Yeah.” She chuckles, but there’s no ice in it. Just an understanding that everything’s about to change.

Leaving her is still the hardest thing I know how to do, even when I’m planning to come back.