Page 33 of The One

“This may sound peculiar,” Rhys’s jaw tightened as his gaze turned to the window, “but I hadn’t slept with anyone since she died.”

“That’s not peculiar, that’s grief,” I challenged him, reaching to hold his hand as it clenched into a fist on his thigh. “You can’t just move on from that, Rhys.”

“Maybe not on, but forward.” His other hand covered mine. “Maybe I hadn’t found the right one, the one who kept me safe. Maybe not the one forever, maybe not the one who would love me as deeply as I would fall for them, but the one who I could trust. The one who gave me damn butterflies whenever my phone buzzed.”

Smiling gently at him, I shook my head in disagreement. “There is no one. You have to be the one for yourself.”

Rhys looked away and adjusted his posture against the headboard, sitting silently while my nervous heartbeat filled my ears.

“So then, what is this? Because this is why I was a mess in Paris, Mia,” he finally confessed. I took my hand from between his and pulled the blanket closer to me as I turned to watch him. “I went away to visit her, like I often do, but this time was different. It was strangely depressing and liberating, but it was incredibly difficult.”

“What made this time seem that way?” I swallowed, not sure if I could handle his response.

Rhys moved to mirror me on his bed, our legs crossed beneath the covers. I held my breath when his fingertips grazed my cheek, his fist dropping limply onto my knee. “It was difficult to tell her I was falling for someone else, but realizing that and accepting I was okay felt like freedom. I feel horrible saying that, and hearing my thoughts come off like this must make me sound like a terrible person, but that’s not what I mean at all. The old man in that café, the one I told you about, he finally did me in.”

“The man eating alone, but ordering for two?” I clarified, still trying to keep my heart and ears in a balance as Rhys continued.

“He loved someone so much that he ordered a plate for them,” Rhys assumed, “and I want that. I crave that connection and longing, but it’s different now. It’s with someone who is here, who I trust with my most scattered and peculiar of thoughts, with whom I feel secure.” My hands were in his, warmed by Rhys’s soft kisses to my knuckles as he continued. “I don’t want to be an old man alone in some café, Mia. I want to share a meal with you, and be with you.”

Grief was reckless, and so was Rhys with my heart. All along, I’d been working on a journey for me and that meant we were working on ourselves, both together and separately, which brought us together in ways we never expected.

“That weekend was the anniversary of her death,” he paused, looking at our hands and rubbing his thumb along my bracelet, “and I said goodbye.”

“I wish you would’ve told me that when we talked.” Taking my hands from his, I spread my palms over his chest, feeling his warm skin beneath his thin shirt. “We were both messes then. The past finds its sneaky ways of popping up to remind us, or maybe it’s causing us, to check what we have.”

“We have something here, Mia. You’re not my sympathy flirt.” Rhys remembered one of the last things I’d told him on our phone call. I felt horrible, filled with guilt and regret over not hearing his side of the story then and busying myself with work so I wouldn’t think about him. That argument didn’t need to happen, and it only did because he was alone in his café and I’d so stubbornly had a fit about all of it.

“Wait.” I held my hands up, remembering more of our conversation. “This is what you thought neither of us planned?”

“Did you? Because we hated each other,” Rhys snickered.

I shrugged, smiling. “Sometimes opposites attract.”

“We’re not opposites,” he corrected, his brown eyes flicking between mine. “We’re more alike than we realize. Both stubborn, hopeless…”

“Falling when we shouldn’t,” I uttered, climbing from the bed. “I’ve been here before, Rhys. It won’t work.”

He watched me from the bed, crossing his arms and smiling at me. “Your confidence is the sexiest thing I’ve ever known, and I’m glad as hell it’s back. It looks good on you.”

“Stop flirting,” I rolled my eyes, trying not to laugh, “and listen to me, Rhys.”

“No, Mia.” He crawled across the mattress to stand in front of me, gliding his hands along my body until they squeezed around my backside. “You listen to me. I’m not making you decide the next ten years of your life right now in my hotel bed. I’m not asking you to choose your life or mine. All I’m doing is being honest because I can’t go another day without talking to you, let alone another month like we had been, because you’re my one. However that may be, I want it because I want you.”

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