Loving someone and refusing to acknowledge it.
I dug into my bag for my keys. I pulled them out, but they slipped from my trembling hands, clattering to the ground.
I choked over a sob as I leaned over to pick them up, and cries were tearing out of me by the time I managed to unlock the door and let myself into the hollowed vacancy of my home.
Loneliness howled from the depths.
Cold and stark.
This place no longer felt like a sanctuary but rather a reminder of what I had been living without.
I let my bag slide from my shoulder and drop to the ground, and I shuffled down the short hall and flipped on the light switch to the lamp on my nightstand.
I blinked against it, through the haze of tears, and I moved to my dresser and pulled out a pair of pajamas.
A whimpered cry slipped out when my fingers brushed against the metal frame where I’d buried Aaron’s picture at the bottom of the drawer.
I hadn’t done it because I was trying to forget him, but because it was hard to remember him when I felt the way I did about Trent.
As if it were a slap in his face.
A disrespect.
And I would forever cherish the sweet man for who he’d been.
Harmony had been right. Aaron had been a safety net. A shoulder to lean on. An ear to listen. And I had to guess I’d been the same to him.
I unzipped the knee-high boots, kicked them off, and shoved out of the leather shorts and tank and jerked on the cotton shorts and a tee.
I pressed my hands to the top of the dresser and tried to catch my breath. To stop the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. To remind myself Trent had been worth the risk.
He’d jumpstarted my heart.
He’d shown me that I could feel.
That I could burn and need and love.
But it just hurt so goddamn bad I didn’t know how to breathe under the weight of it.
No longer able to stand, I sank down on the edge of the bed.
Weak.
Worn.
Broken.
I reached over and clicked off the light, then curled up in a ball and hugged my knees to my chest.
Let the pain bleed out.
The hopes.
The fears.
I had no idea how long I’d lain there, but I’d drifted, lost in the crashing waves of this heartbreak that beat over me time and time again.
Partially lucent, the other lost to a bad dream.
As if I were floating through a reality I didn’t want to recognize.
It only made me feel more disoriented when the doorbell rang, and I shot upright, my face still soaked as I blinked through the lapping darkness.
I rolled off the bed and stumbled out into the hall. My hand pressed to the wall to try to get my footing, and I sucked down the shuddering breaths that kept hammering my chest.
My lungs burning and my world spinning.
I made it to the front door, and my heart slammed against my ribs when I peered out through the drapes to the front stoop.
To that dark force that obliterated and shook.
So intimidating and wrong and so terribly right.
He held his sleeping son in the safety of those strong, strong arms. Gage’s face was buried in Trent’s neck, and Trent held his sweet frame like the treasure he was.
I tore through the lock and whipped open the door.
Then I froze.
Speared by the intensity that cut me to the quick.
Knocking the air from my haggard lungs and piercing me to the spot.
Because all the fury was gone, and the man stood there staring at me.
As broken as me.
Swallowing hard, he tightened his hold on his son. “You ruined everything, Eden Murphy.”
Hot tears streamed down my face.
“Everything I thought I knew.”
“Trent…”
His head barely shook. “Look at me, Eden.”
That time, it was surrender.
Everything clutched.
“Look at me. You think there’s a chance that I’m not in love with you? That I’m not gone for you? And I’m fuckin’ terrified of it. Terrified of losing someone else I love. Of failing you, too. And I could fight it forever, but I think I’d still end up standing right here in front of you, begging you to love me back.”
Sorrow lacerated the words.
His confession.
The same thing I’d begged of him.
“Trent.” I whispered his name.
“What happened tonight…” He trailed off, his tongue swiping his lips. “I lost it because of what I feel for you. Because I can’t fucking lose you. Because I love you. You said I brought your heart back to life, but Eden, you made mine beat for the first time.”
Thirty-One
Trent
Eden.
Fucking beautiful, sweet Eden.
She widened the door after the bullshit I’d pulled tonight. After I’d lashed out because I was fucking scared and, rather than just admitting it, had put the blame on her.
Like any of this bullshit was on her.
Forgiveness.
Was something I’d never really believed in. But for the first time in my life, I might have felt what it meant.