So many revelations on this day. So many mixed emotions. So many truths shared.
But this? Hayes asking, no, begging me to say yes?
Slayed.
Owned.
His.
Perhaps he’s right though. Words can be cheap, but he’s sure as hell proved it with actions.
So I give him the only answer I’ve ever had when it comes to him.
“Yes.”
The storm has passed.
It’s my first thought as my eyes flutter open and feel the sun warming my skin through the open blinds. We forgot to shut them last night when we finally collapsed into bed after a midnight snack. And another round of incredible sex.
The Captain definitely knows how to steer this ship of his to ecstasy.
I bite back the giggle over my ridiculously cheesy thought and snuggle deeper into the heat of Hayes’s body behind me. I revel in the weight of his arm over my hip, the possessiveness of his hand resting on my abdomen, and the unmistakable morning hard-on pressing against my backside. Everything about him feels like my perfect heaven.
And then I remember what the morning brings: our last day. I sigh and close my eyes, trying to memorize this feeling, and enjoy it despite the sudden dread that shadows the few hours we have left together.
I run last night through my head. Mitch and Sarah get a fleeting thought. Their weird relationship and bizarre need to confront me at their wedding of all places. Then I move on to Hayes. To how he made me laugh and put me at ease despite the constant scrutiny and nastiness from the guests around us. Then the dance. Sigh. The dance where he lit the match just enough so I’d be left wanting but unable to have him. To my confessions in the thunderstorm and his long, slow, wet kisses that I swear could have lasted all night without any complaints from me.
Well, I lie. Because what happened next was pretty damn incredible.
So why am I the only one who did all the talking? All the soul-baring? I know he said words are cheap and action is everything, but I can’t help wonder if stepping in to kiss me was his way of not having to figure his own feelings out. The thought triggers a flicker of panic. I shove it down along with the sudden unwelcome idea that maybe he doesn’t feel the same as I do. I told him I love him, had always loved him.
Don’t do this, Saylor. He showed you how he felt all night long. With tenderness and reverence and passion. I hold onto that thought along with the reminder that he was never very expressive about his feelings.
Cocooned in his security and warmth, I realize I need to accept what he was able to give me in the way he was able to show me.
Time passes. Seconds I soak up. I lose myself in the emotion. The acceptance. The hope for something more, something better than we could ever have imagined, and purposely try to ignore the particulars of how that might be able to happen.
The minute he wakes up I know it. I can feel the fleeting tension of his muscles and the break in his even breathing. And yet he doesn’t speak.
So we lie in the silence of the morning, the storm having moved on, and the rain having washed away the grime from the past. The breeze blows in off the ocean and our hearts try to settle in their new places. A little fuller. And hopefully, a lot less permanently broken.
“I could buy us a house halfway between cities, you know.”
It takes everything I have not to turn over and stare at him, mouth agape, because I’m shocked at his words. Surprised that his thinking is that far ahead when mine was merely afraid to even hope for something more than our last day.
I draw in a slow, steady breath in an attempt to calm the hope that just bubbled up before I respond.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that.” I say the words all the while thinking YES. Please. Anything to hedge our bets against the grim statistics of how many long distance relationships actually last. “You’ve told me yourself that there are some days you are on set for a ridiculous number of hours. I couldn’t ask you to work that long of a day and then drive well over an hour—because let’s face it, LA traffic is horrific, so we both know the commute home would be way longer than that.”
“I would though, Saylor.”
And I know he hasn’t said the love word back to me, but that comment alone says it just the same.
“I know you would.”
“It would be a compromise for both of us. It would allow us both to keep doing what we love to do as well as make us work. I know you love Sweet Cheeks but this would allow you to have some distance and a life separate from work . . . or as separate as you allow yourself to get.” He chuckles against the back of my head. The heat of his breath causes goosebumps to chase over my scalp. “And for me, it would let me have a place where I could escape from the glitter of Hollywood and its endless bullshit. Give me the chance at living an everyday, normal life.”