Page 126 of The Fix

My heart clenches when I feel him nod. “I’ll always choose to love you more. That is what I want over anything else.” He gazes at me with blazing irises. “Loving you kept me where I needed to be, for as long as I needed to be there.” His grip migrates to my face. “And loving you is what brought me back to you. Keep me if you want or don’t. You have a choice, always. But you’re it for me. I’ve never known anything more.”

I swallow against the emotions collecting in my throat.

“I don’t expect the trust to be immediate. Not in me, or these demons I carry. But if I could ask anything else, it’d be that you trust how much I fucking love you, Anna. How many demons I’d fight just so I could keep loving you.”

My lip wobbles, tears cascading down my cheeks. “I want to.” My chest pinches. “I want to trust you, Toby.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

“But I also …” I trail off when his jaw clenches and I know he’s thinking the worst. I would be.

“Say what you need, Mama. I’ll love you no matter what comes out of those pretty lips.”

He’s choosing me.

Toby has chosen me.

Just him being here, in this state, with a clear mind and enough conviction in his tone that I think I am starting to believe him.

He went to rehab and stayed.

He came home and kept up with the things he learned while he was away. I know, because Leo wouldn’t let me not hear all about when he actually got me on the phone.

The meetings. Therapy. All of it.

Toby chose to come here. To find me.

To love me.

Just like he promised.

Without a word, I pull at his wrist and break away from his hold. I cross the tiny space and grab both dark green bottles by their necks and tear them from the counter.

“Anna …” Toby drawls out, as I step up to the sink and uncork both bottles. Tipping them, I watch as the maroon and white liquid swirls its way down drain, disappearing beneath the faucet’s spray, and with it, my guilt.

My reservations.

My mistrust.

“For months,” I say to the sink, my fists gripping the edge. “I tried to forget. About the job, the guys … you.”

“Anna, I don’t want—” He’s close, but not close enough.

I shake my head. “I couldn’t forget about the guys, or the job. What I could do for you that was better than whoever took my place. What Leo was doing that I could do better … I tried to let it go ... Let you go.” I lift my gaze to the ceiling, the heat of Toby’s body burning at my back. “That’s why I came all the way out here. To get away from it all. Everything that reminded me of you.”

I drag in a deep breath, one that’s filled with sweet tobacco and citrus and warms me straight to my toes.

“Say what you’re not saying.”

“I’m saying that I’m not running in headfirst with you.”

I spin around, and my gaze clashes with his, but he’s already grinning and arching his brow.

“Doesn’t sound like a no, Mama.”

I shake my head to hide my smile, crossing my arms over my chest, and agree. “It’s not a no, either.”

Toby steps closer, so close that the smattering of hair across his chest teases my elbows. “Okay. I can work with that.” He leans in when I drop my defensive stance, the tip of his nose ghosting over mine, his torso boxing me in against the counter. “Either way, you look sexy as fuck in my shirt.”

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