Page 42 of Hello Handsome
“Stop.” Her voice was hoarse, eyes turning red with unshed tears. “Don’t you dare follow me. All my life I’ve wanted to be someone’s first choice, but you’re only giving me scraps of your heart. I wanted you–your past, your pain, your hopes, your family, all of you. But you’ve shown me I’ll never get it all.”
I lowered my hands, feeling more exposed than ever in my sticky underwear. She had seen through me more clearly thananyone else before. And she looked hurt and disgusted at the sight.
“I’m getting a room, and you can drive me home in the morning, and then I don’t want to see you again.”
28
GRAY
This pickup cabwasn’t big enough for the two of us. Where millimeters hadn’t seemed close enough only hours before, the feet between us weren’t wide enough to protect me from the shame at what I’d done.
I couldn’t believe that word had eeked out of me, the hurt I’d caused. How Aggie had withered in front of me and shied from my touch.
Especially when she told me she was getting a room of her own and only in the morning, after I hadn’t slept a wink, did she allow me to drive her home.
I felt like a monster, but I also knew good people made mistakes. I had to believe that, if only for my sanity.
But she wouldn’t speak, so I drove us out of the Dallas city limits. On the way here I hoped for our relationship to change.
It had.
But in the worst way.
Because she was right next to me, but I still felt like I lost her.
For two hours, those words echoed through me as we drove in silence.
I lost her.
And still, when I arrived at her house, I didn’t want to let her go. Her hand was on the handle, but I reached out, touching her forearm. “Aggie, wait.”
She turned back to me. Eyes puffy from crying. A heaviness in her shoulders that hadn’t been there yesterday.
“It was a slip in an emotional moment. I know it hurt you, but Aggie, I promise if you give me a chance, I’ll do everything I can to make it up to you,” I said. “I meant it when I said I love you.”
Sadness swept over all of her features, pulling her gaze down. “I spent years being the second choice. Second to my stepdad. Second to Porter’s freedom.Lastwhile I put my children first.” She shook her head slowly. “I can’t be second place when it comes to this. I have to put myself first.”
Her voice was choked, and all I wanted to do was go back to a night ago and shut my damn mouth to keep her from feeling this way.
“I can’t lose you,” I whispered.
“Is it okay if I say something to you as your friend?”
It was a slice to the heart.As your friend.
But I’d do anything for Aggie, so I said, “Of course you can tell me,” even as my heart anxiously scrambled to place bricks around itself.
She took a shallow breath, then met my gaze again. And I saw something in her eyes that I had never seen from Aggie before.Pity. “Sometimes I wonder if you think the only way to keep Maya close is to hold on to the pain of her loss.”
My breath caught in my throat for a second as her words corroded every brick. That familiar slice of grief edged through my heart, and... I held on to it. Aggie was right. I didn’t want the pain to go because... “It feels like that’s all I have left of her anymore.”
Aggie reached over, her hand soft on my thigh. It wasn’t a sexual touch, meant to be comforting instead, but blood rushedthrough me, nonetheless. Especially knowing what it felt like to be close to her in that way.
“You have five boys, all with pieces of her,” she reminded me. “You have the home you shared. You have your memories—good ones included. You have photos and recipes and coffee cups she drank from once upon a time. Don’t you see, Gray? She iseverywhere. With or without the pain you’re holding on to.”
Her words formed stinging tears in my eyes, and I quickly reached up to brush them away. Without the job of driving, there was nothing to distract me from this beautiful woman and the truth we couldn’t ignore.
Aggie gave me a moment to gather myself. Still, her hand was gentle on my thigh, grounding me in the moment.
