Page 52 of All It Takes

WES

I stared at Tiffany, taking in her tousled curls, the bright blue of her eyes, and the way her mouth was set in a tense line. She was determined, and I wanted to argue the point anyway.

“Tiffany, all it takes is givingthis,givingusa chance. You mean more to me than that.”

Tears glistened in her eyes as her curls swung when she shook her head. “It’s not about what it takes for us. We have to think of Ross first,” she insisted.

“I understand. I’m trying to say that I think we can have it all.”

She stared at me, her eyes going wide. The doubt was so evident that my heart ached.

“Did I do something for you not to trust me?”

Tiffany shook her head. “It’s not you—”

I cut in, “Don’t you dare tell me it’s not you, it’s me. What the hell happened?”

“It isn’t you,” she retorted, her mouth twisting with annoyance as she drummed her fingertips on the table. We were meeting for coffee at Firehouse Café, and I’d all but forgotten we were in a public place. “Look, I don’t talk about it much, but you know my dad. He’s awesome, but my mom treated him like shit. The thing with Chase was just the icing on the cake of her being unavailable for us emotionally. When I was little, she dragged me all over while she ran around trying to get something that would make her famous. I was always bouncing around. Then she had two affairs.” Tiffany closed her eyes. When she opened them, the bitterness there felt like a spear being driven through my heart. “Trust just isn’t a thing that comes easy for me. I know that being decent doesn’t mean getting a good person to love you. My dad is one of the most decent human beings I’ve ever known. My surgery?”

“What about it?”

“I’d started dating a guy I’d been friends with. I only trusted him because we were friends first. Both of us started to have feelings for each other, or so I thought. I thought maybe it was worth giving it a shot. As soon as the possibility of cancer floated on the horizon, he ghosted me.” Tiffany swallowed. I could feel her willing herself not to cry, and it broke my heart. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” she ordered. A hardness I’d never seen entered her gaze as she stared at me. “So if we let this go somewhere and it doesn’t work out, I don’t know if I can handle it. I just don’t know if I can.”

She glanced around the café, which was bustling with people, all of them oblivious to our conversation over here in the corner. She’d texted me this morning, asking if we could meet for coffee. I’d stupidly thought she just wanted to see me.

“I have to go.” She thrust her arms into her jacket, which hung over her chair. She looped her purse over her shoulder as she stood, her hand curling tightly around the leather strap. “Let’s not have this get weird. Ross knows we kissed, but he doesn’t need to know anything more or worry about anything getting weird.”

She walked away swiftly. I sat at the table, feeling almost emotionally shell-shocked. I took a swallow of my coffee, almost by habit. “Do you need anything else?” A voice reached me, puncturing my emotional stupor.

I glanced up to see Janet smiling down at me. The moment she saw my face, she reached out, placing her hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I took a quick breath, scrambling for some composure as I nodded. “I guess. I just got dumped.”

“Oh!” Janet’s hand flew to her chest. “You love her.”

I stared at Janet as my heart began kicking up a racket against my ribs. “I guess I do,” I said slowly. “She’s worried it will mess things up for Ross.”

Janet sat across from me, sliding the tray with a few empty coffee cups onto the top of the table between us. “That’s a reasonable concern. Does she know how you feel?”

“I think so.”

“Youthinkso?” she prompted, her tone skeptical.

“I told her this really matters to me, that I wanted us to give it a chance.”

“Did you tell her specifically that you love her?”

I pressed my tongue on the inside of my cheek, idly picking up my fork and rocking it between my fingers. “Not specifically,” I finally said.

Janet’s gaze softened as she studied me. “Tiffany has plenty of reasons not to trust. None of them have anything to do with you, but you might need to build a bridge strong enough for her to cross safely.”

I let my breath out in a ragged sigh. “Ah. So I’m going to have to put myself out there?”

“Oh, yes,” Janet said with a firm nod.

I sighed again. “I guess I thought I was already doing that.”

Janet smiled softly. “Sometimes that’s what you have to do. That’s not to say you’re responsible for her baggage, but if you love her, you have to try to understand it. We all come with baggage. Tiffany is one of those people who has a big heart. She’s sensitive and goes out of her way for the people she cares about. The flip side to that is she has a lot to protect.”

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