“I don’t know anything except that I wish you would go.” She turned her back on him as she squatted by the river to dip a washcloth into the water. “Just leave me alone, Pike. This isn’t going to happen. There’s never going to be anything between us again.”
“Why are you so scared?” Pike asked softly. “And what can I do to prove that you don’t have to be? Just name it, Tulsi. I’ll do anything you ask. You can call all the shots.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” she said, the words ending in a sob. “Now please just…go.”
Pike crossed the pebbled bank between them and sat down next to her, his heart breaking when he saw the tears on her cheeks. “I hate that I keep making you cry.”
“Then leave me alone,” Tulsi said with a sniff as she swiped her tears away with her fists. “Just leave me alone, Pike. I can’t give us another chance. Not even if I wanted to.”
“Why?” he asked, reaching out to cup her sad face in his hands. “Look at me, tell me why.”
She turned with a ragged sigh, gazing up at him with blue eyes filled with so much longing and pain he felt it cut through him like a knife through hot butter. “Because everything is too screwed up, okay? We won’t ever be able to trust each other the way we did. There’s too much water under the bridge, too many mistakes. We’re doomed before we even get started.”
“That’s not what you really think,” he insisted, determined to banish the hurt from her eyes. “That’s not who you are, Tulsi. You see the best in people. You see the silver lining, not the cloud.”
Tulsi shook her head, sending fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. “Not anymore. I’m not that kind of person anymore. Not when it comes to relationships. I’ve been lonely too long.”
“I’ve been lonely, too,” he said, pushing on when she rolled her eyes. “Sure, I’ve had other women in my bed, but there’s been no one in my heart. I belong to you, Tulsi, and nothing can change that. Not time or distance or being the biggest slut in professional baseball.”
She made a sound that was almost a laugh, giving Pike hope that she was considering what he had to say.
“I’m tired of running from the truth and pretending I’m fine without you,” he said, brushing his thumb back and forth across her soft cheek. “I’m not fine. I’m broken and sad and half the man I want to be, half the man I was when you were mine. And that’s why I went to the jewelry store downtown yesterday and bought you this.”
He reached into his shorts, pulling out the diamond ring that had been burning a hole in his back pocket all day. He lifted the ring up between them, watching Tulsi’s eyes widen with shock as she realized what he was holding.
“Jesus, Pike,” she whispered, eyes as big as saucers. “You can’t be serious.”
“Yes, I can,” he insisted, keeping the ring right where it was. “I know we both made mistakes in our past, but we were kids then. We’re not kids now and I want you to know nothing is going to make me run away. We don’t have to get married anytime soon—I know we have a lot of work to do to get back to where we were—but this is where I want us to end up.”
He took her hand in his, squeezing her fingers. “I promise to love you for the rest of my life, Tulsi, and to do whatever it takes to earn your trust. Please take this ring and give us a chance. Let’s leave the past in the past and get started on a future together. I know I can make you happy if you’ll let me.”
Tulsi swallowed hard, but there was something in her eyes, something that made his already racing heart slam in his chest.
“Can the past really stay in the past?” she whispered. “Is that even possible?”
“It is,” he promised, hope spiking so suddenly he felt dizzy with it. “If we just decide to let it go. Let it all go and start over with just you and me and the way we feel about each other.”
“What about…Clementine?” she asked softly, peering up at him through her long lashes.
“Well, she invited me to play poker when she gets back from camp and announced her intentions to take me for my weight in candy, so I think she likes me,” Pike said with a cautious smile. “Hopefully, she’ll keep liking me as long as I do everything I can to make her mama happy.”
“But could you love her?” Tulsi asked, voice trembling. “Even though she’s part of the reason things ended between us?”
“How could I keep from loving her?” Pike asked, holding Tulsi’s uncertain gaze, willing her to see that every word he spoke came straight from his heart. “She’s a part of you and I love every part of you, Tulsi Hearst. I’ve been falling in love with you my entire life. I was just too stupid to realize it at first and too stubborn to fight for it when things went wrong.”
He paused, gathering the courage to lay it all on the line. “But now I know pride isn’t worth the price I’ve paid. Fuck pride, fuck the past, fuck anything and everything that stands in our way. I can let it all go because I know that none of it is worth losing you. I don’t want to live another day of my life without seeing your smile, without being able to hold your hand and tell you that I love you.”
Tulsi covered her mouth with one hand, stifling a sob as she shook her head swiftly back and forth.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, hating himself for being unable to say the right thing no matter how hard he tried.
“Nothing.” Tulsi sucked in a breath, the hand covering her mouth falling away as it rushed out. “Everything. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do, Pike. I don’t know what’s right. I just… I want this so badly.” She swiped at her damp eyes, blinking hard. “I’m so tired of fighting to forget. It doesn’t work. I still wake up loving you every morning, no matter how much it hurts.”
“It doesn’t have to hurt anymore, baby,” he said, cradling her face in his hands and pressing a kiss to her forehead as her fingers wrapped around his forearms and held on tight. “Just love me and let me love you. All the hurt can be behind us if we decide it’s time to move on and get back to what we do best.”
“Hot monkey sex?” she said in a teary voice that made the words even funnier.
Pike laughed as he pulled back to look into her eyes, his smile widening when he saw the hope softening her expression. “We are good at hot monkey sex.”