Page 124 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
I want to roll my eyes. I want to cover my ears and pretend I didn’t hear him. But more than anything, I want advice. Assistance. Anything to get Getty back.
“Fuck if I know.” My laughter sounds hollow. I tip the beer back up to my lips and think of what to say next. “I know there’s something there. She feels it too. I just can’t figure a way to make her really listen to me.”
“Tell her you love her.”
Colton’s comment has me sputtering out a response. Choking over the words. “C’mon, now. Those are seriously strong words.”
“You don’t love her, then?” Eyebrows raised. Lips pursed. Green eyes challenging.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, do you or don’t you, Zee? Shit or get off the pot here. If you can’t admit it to yourself, you sure as hell aren’t going to convince her.”
It occurs to me that he’s absolutely right with his blunt truth. How can I ask her to overcome her fears if I can’t even admit the one thing that scares me to voice out loud?
“I doubt saying ‘I love you’ at this point is going to make her listen. She’s going to think I’m just saying it because I’m desperate. She’s afraid—will find any reason not to believe me. Fuck.” Panic settles in. I look at him, asking for help with my direct gaze. “How do I make her believe me?”
“Convince her she’s your water.”
“What?” I pinch the bridge of my nose. Look at him like he’s losing his mind.
“What’s the one thing you can’t live without?”
“Water?” My voice hesitant. Answer hopeful.
He nods his head. “How does water taste?”
“Like nothing.” I shrug, then glance over to Rylee, who is sitting there with a knowing smile on her face like she knows where he’s going with this. She just nods
her head in encouragement. I look back at Colton as thoughts align. “Like nothing, but it’s really everything. You can’t live without it.”
“Exactly.” A lazy smile spreads on his lips. “She’s your water. Convince her you can’t live without her, son. That’s half the battle.”
It might be that easy, but still my mind is spinning on how exactly to do that when I thought that’s what I was trying to tell her before I left the house for Boston.
But I never told her I loved her.
Would that have mattered?
“What your dad’s saying, Zander, is that she’s been through a lot. You need to do something to prove to her you really mean it. Women love knowing you didn’t miss the little things. They love grand gestures that say you pay attention to all the reasons you love them.”
My heart stops. There are those two words again. Grand gestures. The same ones my mom used in her letter to me. The letter Rylee hasn’t read yet.
I’ve never believed it when people say they received a sign to do or not to do something. It’s all bullshit, if you ask me.
And yet how can it be a coincidence that both mothers in my life have said the same thing? Both used it to explain what I need to do to get the girl.
Now the question is, how grand is grand?
Chapter 40
GETTY
“This has got to stop.” There’s an exasperated smile on my lips as the delivery guy walks into the Lazy Dog with a fresh set of flowers. The fourth one in as many days. And even though I know who sent them and what the message says, I open the card anyway: Anticipation. XO Zander.
“Tell him if he keeps this up, I’m going to start a funeral parlor in the back as a side business,” Liam teases as he walks past and smells them out of reflex. The look he gives me means he’s secretly happy that Zander is proving to be the good guy he thought he was.
The problem is he’s winning me over too. And it’s not just the gifts that have been arriving to the house and the bar since Tuesday. No. I’ve lived a lifestyle where I could have anything materialistic without a second thought about expense. It’s more the thought that has gone into the gifts. The smiles they’ve brought to my lips. The happiness they evoked about that moment in time I shared with Zander.
