Page 92 of Slow Burn (Driven 5)
“I have a few things I need to say—explanations, apologies—so I’d appreciate it if you let me say them, okay?”
He nods his head to me and leans back some before licking his lips and raising his eyebrows to tell me that the floor is mine.
Or rather the ring.
“I watched Lexi die. Day by day, breath by breath. And when I wasn’t watching her, I was busy watching Danny fall apart. We were all devastated when she died, but he lost himself for a while. And then there’s Maddie and everything she’s gone through….” My voice fades off as I try to get a grip on my emotions so that I can get through this without breaking down because I really need Becks not to just listen to me, but to really hear me.
He runs a hand up and down my bare leg, my concentration so fierce to keep it all together that I don’t even realize he’s doing it until I feel the ache unfurl in my center. I welcome the feeling but know I can’t sate it until I finish this.
I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. Talk, then action; reason, then lust.
“So after Lex died, of course, the worry turned to me in my family. I’d already thought about it, already knew deep down, somehow that I had the same fate.” He starts to shake his head and correct me, but I stop him by bringing my finger to his lips. “Not the dying part, but the breast cancer part. It all weighed heavy on me, stole me from myself really. Then one night after I picked the broken pieces of Danny off his living room floor, knowing he’d never really be whole again, I swore I’d never do that to someone. I’d never let anyone get close enough to me so that when I eventually got sick, they’d have to suffer like Danny did. I vowed to protect the people I cared about, the people who had choices to avoid being in that situation … to never let someone love me….” The first tear falls over and slides down my cheek.
“Haddie.” My name is a sigh on his lips as he reaches up and wipes the tear away before I shake my head for him to leave it. He can’t touch me or I’ll fall apart, and I can’t fall apart yet. I need to finish this before I can break. Then I can use him—use us—to help fortify myself so we can move forward.
“I know, but it made perfect sense to me. And then you happened.” I look at him and see so many things that I never expected, most of which are the parts of me I’d lost with Lexi’s death. “I don’t know how to explain what … how you …”
“You don’t need to because I feel the same.” He scrunches his head down so that his eyes are even with mine.
“No, I do need to,” I explain, finding my words again. “You told me you loved me, and I stood there and shoved you away. I hurt you on purpose, and that has eaten at me. All I wanted to do was to call you and tell you I was sorry, that I didn’t mean what I said, but I was trying to protect you from this.” I put my hands out in front of my chest, my eyes closing momentarily while I try to figure out how else to emphasize how sorry I am.
“Had.” His hands are back on my face, directing it up so that I have no choice but to meet his eyes. “I told you I was in it for the fight. I wasn’t going anywhere. I still am and always will be.”
He leans forward and kisses my forehead as we both accept the moment, the possible future, the definite fight we have ahead of us.
“But aren’t you worried that you’re going to be with this girl who’s going to be a hot mess … who’s going to lose her hair, possibly be infertile, be sick all the time from chemo or radiation … who might not make it?” My voice breaks. My words sound so hollow, so foreign as I try to disengage myself from those truths that I hate to say but need to clarify nonetheless.
“Montgomery.” I’m so in my own head momentarily that it takes the third or fourth attempt for me to hear him. Startled, my eyes flash back up to him. “I say this with all of the courtesy in the world … but shut the hell up. I don’t want to hear—”
“I know, but it’s reality and reality is—”
His hand goes playfully over my mouth so that the rest of my sentence sounds like a muffled garble. “Uh-uh. This is where you stay quiet, and I get to talk. Understood?” I hear the teasing in his tone but also hear the authority.
I nod my head as he blows out a breath and runs his free hand through his hair before setting it back down on my bare thigh. “You don’t get it, do you?” He smiles softly and angles his head to stare at me, his thumb rubbing circles absently on my leg. “That first night … hell, you asked for no strings, but I knew if I had you, I’d only want more. Then I tried tying those damn strings any way I could, but you severed them just as quickly as I knotted them.” He shakes his head for a moment before meeting my eyes with a vivid clarity in his gaze. “You’re that once-in-a-lifetime type of woman, Haddie.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re the goddamn priceless Macallan.”
I scrunch up my nose and look at him. Then our conversation from my doorstep weeks ago comes back to finally make sense of his words. The sincerity in his tone strikes me next, and his conviction has my chest constricting with the emotion I feel for him.
“Well, at least I’m a good one,” I say, earning a smile from him.
“The best.” He nods his head with a
murmured appreciation. “I wouldn’t care if you were a Two Buck Chuck bottle … I’ll pick you every time, Haddie. Scars, inability to have kids, bald, sick, emotional … you’re beautiful to me. Every single way. I’ll still pick you every goddamn time.” His eyes bore into mine. They dance with the same emotion his tone reflects. “There’s just always been something about you that I can’t resist….”
Tears flood my eyes—and the overwhelming acceptance he’s just given me is undeserved but gives me the courage to start taping up the boxing gloves for the fight of my life.
With him in my corner.
And it’s funny. All along I’ve told him no strings—pushed him away the minute they even started to intertwine—so I never realized how liberating it would be when I willingly tied them myself.
I start to become comfortable with the idea, accept it, and something he said at the farmhouse hits me.
“It’s the click.”
“Yes, the click,” he says with a soft chuckle. “But you know what? The click’s irrelevant now. The click was our initial connection. Now? Now it’s the clanking.”
