Page 91 of When In Doubt

I rest my palm against her jaw, rubbing my thumb over the soft skin under her eye. It’s our only point of contact and every part of me zeroes in on those nerve endings, memorizing her face. She opens her eyes and gives me a small smile that I’m sure is for my benefit. I lean over and press a gentle kiss to her temple, relishing the sound of her soft hum and the way her eyelashes flutter against my cheek.

“Can I hold you?” I ask, desperate to be close to her. Tension unfurls inside me at her nod and I loop an arm around her waist, fisting the cotton T-shirt at the small of her back and gently tugging her toward me. I slide my other arm under her head so she can shuffle forward and use my bicep as a pillow. “Freya?” I whisper, her silence starting to worry me. “Can you say something, baby?”

She sighs and shakes her head. I know she has a rough time trying to get her words out when she’s feeling overwhelmed, so I just tuck her in closer, resting my lips against the top of her head and breathing in the soft vanilla scent of her hair. “You just give me a nudge if you want me to back off. Whatever you need, I’m yours.”

I’m yours.

If only she knew just how much I mean that.

Chapter Thirty

FREYA

Iknow he’s doing his best not to hover, but he’s not doing a very good job. I’ve been feeling sluggish all day after what happened last night, and I can tell it’s freaking him out.

I woke up to him tracing lazy circles on the back of my hand. Sometime in the night, I’d rolled onto my own side and it made me kind of sad to not wake up in his arms. I hate that I scared him. I still don’t totally understand what happened, but I can feel the ghost of it in the air. It’s in the careful space Oscar leaves between us as we take a walk around town, like he’s afraid that touching me might make something shatter. It’s in the way he keeps opening his mouth, probably to ask for the hundredth time if I’m alright, before closing it again with a snap.

Honestly, fuck Aaron. Fuck him for screwing me up so badly that I can’t let myself trust this man who’s only ever been good to me. Fuck him for driving a wedge into the thing that feels like it could be one of the best parts of my life.

It’s Thursday, so the store’s closed, and we end up on a bench in the park. I stare across the empty duckpond, the water waiting for the birds to come back for the summer. Oscar sits a few inches away from me, his hands firmly in his pockets. I want to take hold of one, but he’s not giving me an opening.

“There was something you said last night,” I start. I barely registered it at the time, I wasn’t really able to take in any information, but I want to know what he meant.

He slumps down further on his seat. He knows what I’m asking. “Yeah?” he says warily.

“About what you thought of me when we were kids.” It sounded like he knew me a lot better than I knew him.

“I figured we were going to get back to that.” He scratches the back of his neck sheepishly.

“I’m just trying to put the pieces together. What you said, and the Jamie stuff…” I trail off. I’m half afraid to say it, knowing how ridiculous it sounds, but I’ve been mulling it over all day and what other explanation is there? “Did you like me?”

He takes in a deep breath, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other. “Yes.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t expecting that to be so easy. He liked me?

“I’m sorry, I should have told you before now.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“At first it didn’t seem relevant.” He won’t quite meet my eye. “Then, when things with us started changing, I didn’t want to put any pressure on you.”

I nod, looking down at my shoes. “That makes sense, I suppose.”

“And there’s still no pressure. We can take things as slow as you want.” He hurries out.

I blink a few times, hoping to clear my thoughts. I still don’t know how I could have been so oblivious to all this? “So, when you hit Jamie, that was because you had a crush on me?”

“I hit him because he deserved it,” he says forcefully. “But, yeah. The fact that it was you definitely made me a little more motivated.”

I chuckle. “That must have been one hell of a crush.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

We get back to my apartment around six and it’s like my whole body’s been dunked in ice. My skin’s itching to be touched, to be held, but I don’t know how to tell him.

I slip into the bathroom as soon as we get in, needing a minute to compose myself.

“Just ask,” I whisper to my reflection. “Ask.”