Love Me (Take a Chance)

chapter Sixteen


Broken noses hurt like a bitch.

But not nearly as much as the pain he’d felt when Brianna had run away from him, so convinced he was like every other man who’d ever hurt her. Every other man who’d left her—even Michael. It hadn’t been her husband’s choice to leave, but that hadn’t left Brianna any less alone. Any less wounded. Thomas hadn’t realized quite how wounded until he’d tried to tell her how he felt…and she’d jumped to the conclusion that he was rejecting her.

Especially when he started off his carefully planned speech with, I don’t want to date you anymore. He was a f*cking idiot.

Now she stared at him, her eyes wide and disbelieving, her lips parted and trembling. Everyone on the bus was watching him. He didn’t care. He’d been trying to nerve himself up to this for days, and he’d decided tonight was the night.

He wasn’t going to let one broken nose stop him.

The possibly broken fingers might be a problem, but he’d worry about that later.

The bus driver half rose from his seat. “Dude, you can’t do shit like that. Look, I got it on camera that you stuck your hand in, so we’re not liable—”

“I don’t care,” Thomas said without ever taking his eyes from Brianna, only it sounded more like I gon ger. Great. He was about to propose, and he sounded like a Swedish Oompa Loompa. He tried again, careful to articulate every word. “I. Don’t. Care.”

“Insurance is gonna care, and you need to get to a hospital—”

“I’ll go when I’m done with my business here.”

The driver sank back down with a mutter. “Yeah? Whatever, man. On or off. I gotta schedule to keep.”

“Brianna,” Thomas said gently. She wasn’t moving, wasn’t responding. He stepped up onto the bottom step and gripped her arm with his good hand, transferring the shoe to his bruised, cramping fingers. “Come on. Let’s find a seat.”

She stood shakily, still silent. Her silence, that stunned look on her face, left his heart heavy. Maybe he’d f*cked up too much. Maybe he was moving too fast, but he couldn’t help it. He loved her, and he didn’t see the point in wasting time with formalities when he already knew he wanted to be with her. But maybe she really didn’t want him…

He guided her to a seat and nudged her into it. She dropped down like a marionette with cut strings. He sank down next to her. She just looked at him, brows knitting.

“I don’t understand,” she said, voice lost.

“You didn’t give me a chance to explain. When I said I didn’t want to date you anymore, I meant it.” He tried to smile. It hurt like a whore, and the blood pooling on his upper lip felt disgusting. He could taste it in his mouth. “I didn’t want to just have meaningless sex with you again. Not without telling you exactly how I feel.”

A touch of fire snapped in her eyes, clearing away some of the fog. “You might have started out with that instead of what you said.”

“I know. I’m an idiot.” He caught her chin in his fingers. She was a mess. Her eyes red-rimmed, her hair everywhere in a wild blond cloud, her makeup streaked by sweat. He’d never seen her more beautiful. “And I don’t blame you for running away. I could have done that better.”

Her gaze dropped to the shoe. “Why is there a ring on my shoe?” she asked, her voice practically a whisper of a whisper.

“I’m getting there.”

He slid off the seat. His everything hurt; he’d hit the side of the bus pretty hard. But that didn’t matter right now. Ignoring the twinge in his spine and the creak of his knees, he sank down to one knee in the bus aisle. A chorus of gasps and excited chatter rose around them. He felt like an actor on a stage, audience and all—but there was nothing feigned about his feelings. This was too real. So real it was frightening, so real he couldn’t stand to let it go. Without Brianna, his life would feel like a shell. Like he was going through the motions.

He couldn’t stand the thought of going back to a life like that.

She was still staring at him, flushed, her hands fretting together in her lap. She darted a nervous glance around. “Thomas, I—”

“Let me, sweetheart. Please. Talking is a little painful right now. I’d like to at least get it out before the swelling gets worse.”

That got a weak, shaky laugh out of her, at least. His smile widened. Or maybe that was just his lips puffing up.

This was not how he’d imagined this going.

Then again, he’d planned his proposal to Nicole. He’d planned it so perfectly it had gone off without a hitch. Perfectly scripted. Passionless. Predictable. Fake. Just as fake as his marriage had been. This was real.

And there was no way in hell he could let this go.

He reached for her hand and enfolded it in his, gently stilling her trembling fingers against his palm. He took a deep breath. He’d planned a careful speech, too, every word precisely chosen…but that speech had been for a woman like Nicole. And Brianna deserved better.

As real as she was, she deserved the real Thomas.

“I’m an a*shole,” he blurted out. “I’m a blundering, stupid idiot. I came into your life and put us both in a compromising position that could have screwed up your career and mine. I have no clue how to tell you how beautiful I find you without repeating the same thing until I sound like a recording, because I suck at flattery. I came stomping into your family and started swinging around like I had the damnedest clue what I was doing, when I know as much about what to do with a kid as I do with a nuclear reactor, and with pretty much the same results. I’ve gotten a black eye and a broken nose all within a week of each other, but I’ve never been happier.”

She pressed her knuckles to her mouth, her lips twitching. “Like mother, like son. At least it wasn’t your eye this time.”

He chuckled. “I should start wearing padded armor.” He shook his head. “No. Scratch that. I’m tired of wearing armor around you, Brianna. I’m tired of keeping you out. And even if I’m an a*shole, and an idiot, and a lot of other stupid things…I love you. I love you, I love your kids, and I want to be a part of your family. A real part of your family. I couldn’t stand to even think about buying a house in Vegas, because it wouldn’t be a home without you in it.”

She was looking at him again, her expression stricken. His heart inched a little further south, relocating a few ribs down, somewhere around the spatter of blood spots staining his shirt. Hell. She wasn’t going to make this easy, was she?

Fine. He’d do this the hard way, and for once he wouldn’t hold back.

“I understand if you don’t love me. And you don’t have to give me an answer now, whether it’s yes or no. I know you probably need time to think. And if you don’t want me around your kids that much, I understand. I know they come first. And I…I’m not trying to replace Michael—”

“Shut up,” she said. Her voice cracked. She pressed her fingertips to his lips, her skin stained with his blood. “You talk too much, you know that?”

“I might have heard it once or twice before,” he said wryly.

She smiled. He could barely see the hazel of her eyes past the reflective sheen of tears. “You can’t replace Michael,” she said, and his gut knotted up tight. He braced himself, started to let go of her fingers—but she held on tight. “I don’t want you to. I was never looking for a replacement for Michael. I never wanted you as a substitute for him. Yes, I’ll always love him for who he was.” She hesitated. “But I also love you for who you are.”

Thomas’s heart stopped. Either he was hearing things past the throbbing in his skull, or she’d just said she loved him. Him, not some fictionalized expectation of who he should be. Not the man Nicole had wanted or the slick, smiling a*shole he pretended to be for work.

Him.

He let out a whoop—then groaned and clutched at his face. “Ow.”

“Idiot,” she said, then laughed and cupped his cheek gently. “I love you, Thomas. But everyone’s staring at us, and if you don’t ask me now I might black your other eye for Zach’s sake.”

“Ask…? Oh!”

He’d almost forgotten the shoe he was clutching like a lifeline. Brianna loved him, and that had eclipsed everything else. He let go of her hand and fumbled the ring free from the shoe; he’d wedged it on too tight, and with his swollen fingers he couldn’t get a grip on it.

“Let me,” she said with patient amusement.

She took the shoe from him and gently slid the ring free. He closed his fingers around hers and captured the ring against her palm, looking up at her. Her golden hair was like a halo, wild as she was, framing that lovely smile that he’d do anything to keep on her face.

“Brianna Faulk,” he said, and hoped to God he wouldn’t trip on the words that meant more to him than any words in his life. “Will you marry me?”

Her fingers curled into a fist inside his. “If you marry me, you marry my kids.”

“There’s nothing I want more.”

“Then…” Oh God, was she trying to kill him? That pregnant pause nearly turned his heart to stone, that unreadable look in her eyes—before she broke into another smile, so brilliant it filled him up with all the love, the life, he’d been missing for so many years. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

A sudden chorus of cheers, shouts, and catcalls cut off Thomas’s response. He startled, blinking and looking around. He’d forgotten they were on a public bus surrounded by people. Those people were grinning now, laughing. A burly-looking man with a hardhat in his lap gave him a thumbs-up. An older woman, her nut-brown skin wizened and grooved, favored him with a kindly nod, her dark eyes gleaming.

“Well, go on, young man,” she said, her voice creaking and whispery. “Kiss the girl.”

He laughed. God, he couldn’t even feel the pain anymore. He swiped a hand across his mouth. Once. Then twice. Finally, it came back clean. “Gladly.”

He drew Brianna down to him with their clasped hands and kissed her. Despite his bloody nose he could taste only her—her sweetness, her laughter, her warmth, her love. He’d always felt he was missing something in his life. Always thought it was just another midlife crisis he’d fill with a sports car and an executive title and a nice house, but all those things were empty. They didn’t matter.

What mattered was the woman whose mouth fit so perfectly against his—and the way she fit so perfectly into his heart.

Pulling back reluctantly, he stroked her fingers, coaxed them apart, pried the ring free. And when he slipped it onto her finger, gliding it over the softness of her knuckles, her breath hitched and she stared at him with wonder.

“You really mean it,” she whispered, and ran her thumb over the ring.

“I always will. Now, and when you’ve been Mrs. Jones for fifty years.”

“If you survive for fifty years,” she said, and laughed as she stroked his jaw with a sweet, tender touch before reaching up to pull the cord for the bus to stop. “Let’s get off here.”

He rose to his feet. His knees popped, and he hissed through his teeth. “Back to the hotel?” he asked.

“No, dummy. To the hospital.” She twined her fingers in his. The warmth of the ring pressed into his palm, and she looked up at him with a trust, a need, that he would hold on to for the rest of his life. “Then I’m taking you home…where you belong.”