Page 62 of She's Like the Wind
I let out a long breath. “You want to talk to me or just gut me with that look?”
“Depends. You bleeding yet?”
“Every damn day.”
That earned me the faintest flicker of a smirk. “Now, tell me why you wanted to talk to me.”
I told her everything.
About Lia.
About the car crash.
About how I’d built my life around the silence that followed.
How I touched Naomi like she was mine and left her like she wasn’t.
How I hadn’t even known I loved her until that evening after I fucked it up at the Mahogany.
“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” I admitted, giving a small nod as she rolled her eyes. “I just didn’t know how to let it be real.”
Aurelie took a slow sip, watching me like she was calculating how much more idiocy she had the patience for.
“You ever try to stop loving her?”
“What?”
“You ever actually try? Go on a rebound tour, delete Naomi’s number, put your body somewhere your heart wasn’t invited?”
I hesitated. “I tried.”
“No, not after butbefore, during….”
“No! I never stepped out on Naomi.”
“Then don’t pretend you didn’t know it was real. You knew. You just didn’t want to own it.”
I stared into my wine like it might explain me better than I could. “I didn’t think I could survive it…losing her.”
Aurelie’s tone softened by a degree—a very small one. “And you’ll survive never having her again?”
I didn’t answer.
“You can’t justfixthis,” she continued, voice firm again. “It’s not one of your old buildings. You can’t strip it down to studs, polish it up, and slap your name on the work. Naomi doesn’t need a fixer. She needs a partner.”
I eased forward, elbows braced against the counter. “Then tell me how to make her understand that’s who I want to be, a partner.”
“You can’ttellher. You have toshowher. With sweat. With time. With quiet-ass labor where no one’s clapping for you.”
She picked up her drink and nodded at the chef who was putting together what looked like a salad niçoise.
“She and I, and some others, are running a trunk show at the Marigny Opera House this Friday. It’s gonna be huge. Big turnout. Big pressure. We’re managing vendors, staging, lighting, chairs—all of it. You wanna prove yourself? Be there. Not in a tux. Not with flowers. With a damn hammer and a willingness to shut up and lift something.”
I nodded, the pressure in my chest tight and real. “I can do that. Also, I hate wearing a tux.”
She gave me a withering look. “Show up,” she ordered. “Not because she’ll thank you. Not because she’ll fall into your arms again. Show up because that’s what love does.”
Then her lasagna was placed in front of her, and she dug into it, leaving me to process what she’d said, which was that I still had a chance with Naomi, and that was the first win I’d had in months.
