Page 157 of Dear #47, You're the Worst
“You took care of me. For two days. You could have gotten sick too.”
“Worth the risk.”
“Why?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, his fingers still moving through my hair. “Because you matter to me. Because when you went down at the airport, I thought...” He stops, swallows hard. “I thought about losing you, and it scared the shit out of me.”
His mouth softens into the smile I know he doesn’t give the world. It’s unguarded, like it belongs only to me. He’s trying so hard to be what I need.
“I thought I was the only one terrified of being too much,” I say. “Of being a burden.”
“You’re not a burden, Juliet.”
“What I’m saying is,” I prop myself on my elbow. “Maybe you’re just as scared of not being enough.”
He goes still. “Maybe.”
Vulnerability isn’t weakness, I realize. It’s trust. And I’m not sure I’ve ever trusted anyone like this before. Not even Patrick, who I was supposed to marry.
“Thank you for taking care of me. For staying.”
“Thank you for letting me.”
We lie there in comfortable silence, watching terrible sitcoms and not talking about the fact that everything has changed between us. That this isn’t fake anymore, hasn’t been fake for a while.
That we’re both falling for each other and trying to pretend we’re not.
“Hunter?”
“Mmm?”
“What happens when this is over? When the five months are up?”
He’s quiet for so long I think he won’t answer. Then he says, “I don’t know. What do you want to happen?”
It’s the question I’ve been avoiding. The one that keeps me awake at night when I should plan my next career move.
“I don’t know either,” I admit.
Lying here in his arms, feeling safer and more cared for than I have in years, I’m thinking I want to find out.
I’m thinking this man, who fixed my sink and held my hair while I was sick and played the cleanest game of hockey I’ve ever seen, might be worth the risk of believing in something real.
Even if it scares me.
Especially because it scares me.
“We don’t have to figure it out tonight,” Hunter says softly.
“No. We don’t.”
But as I drift back to sleep in his arms, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re both already in too deep to pretend this is just business anymore.
And maybe that’s not such a terrible thing after all.
Chapter36
Hunter
