I shrug, not wanting to meet his eyes, but I do. “Mom called me a late bloomer. Which means dick all when you’re sixteen and dying inside.” Viciously, I wipe at my eyes. “And you…” My voice cracks before I can bring it under control. “When I say you shine, I mean just that. You’re the sun around which people orbit. If you had been in my school, you’d have been the one everyone looked toward to lead. You never would have seen me hiding in the shadows.”
“Anna…” His voice is so gentle it sets my teeth on edge.
“No,” I snap. “Just…let me finish.”
He gives an awkward nod.
“I know it wasn’t fair to treat you the way I did,” I say. “Or to put you in some category that I created due to bad experience and old teen angst. But it’s hard, Drew.” My mouth trembles, I bite down on my lip. “It’s hard nullifying all of that, because it came back to me every time you paid attention to me in public and people stared. When they’d ask why you’re with me.”
“I don’t give a shit what people think,” he cuts in on a rasp. “Only what you think.”
My chin drops. I can’t look at him anymore. “Don’t you understand? I felt like an impostor. I kept waiting for you to realize that you’d got it wrong. That I was the girl you were never supposed to see.”
“Not possible,” he says with quiet fierceness.
“But—”
“Anna, baby, you would never be the girl I didn’t see, whether we had met now or in high school.” He pulls me in close, rubbing his nose along the tip of mine. “Don’t you understand? I know you wouldn’t be because, since the moment I laid eyes on you, you’re all I can see.” Drew kisses me, lingering before he pulls back to study me. His eyes are clear and filled with so much emotion that my throat closes up. As if he too is overcome, he swallows hard, and his voice is but a breath. “I love you, Anna Jones. That’s not going to change. I loved you when I thought we’d never be together, and I love you still.”
I let go of a sharp breath and then lean into him. I don’t kiss his lips but the tender spot on his neck where his pulse beats. “I should have told you earlier.”
His throat moves under my lips as he swallows. “Yeah.” His lips brush my temple, his warm, rough palms smoothing down my thighs. “But I understand now.”
“I’m so sorry, Drew.” I place a tender kiss on the center of his chest.
His voice is thick. “Don’t need that.”
No, he needs the words, at the very least to know that I care for him too. I owe him so much more. Sitting back on his lap, I meet his eyes. Emotion clogs my throat, makes my heart speed up to a desperate thud, thud, thud.
He appears almost stern, his mouth relaxed but not smiling. God, he’s everything. Everything. I touch his cheek, grazing the beard-roughened skin there with my fingertips. My mouth opens yet nothing comes out. With a garbled sound, I throw myself on him, hugging him hard and burrow my face into the smooth crook of his neck. He’s warm, his scent familiar and comforting in a bone-deep way that has me crying harder.
And though I’ve clearly shocked him, he wraps his arms around me and holds on tightly.
“Hey,” he says softly. “Anna…”
“I’m sorry.” I gulp down air, trying to calm. “I’m sorry.” But I can’t stop shaking.
His arms are steel supports against my back, his chest a solid slab that bolsters me. I snuggle in deeper. “I was so scared,” I whisper against his damp skin. “I saw you… the hit. I needed to get to you, and…” I can’t say the rest.
Beneath me, his body relaxes a little and his big hand cups the back of my head before stroking it. “Shhh. It’s okay.”
But it isn’t. How can I explain to him? If he hadn’t gotten up from that hit, something vital inside me would have died. The truth chokes me, burns my throat.
“It’s okay, Anna. I’ve got you.” His smooth, deep voice rolls over my skin like a caress. “I won’t let you go.”
He won’t. He never truly has. On a breath, I press my forehead to his. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“What wasn’t, baby?”
I run my shaking fingers along his jaw. “Finding you now. Before I got all of my shit together.”
“But you did,” he whispers. “And I’m not sorry.”