“Yeah, I think I did.”
“I love you, my weird sexy boyfriend.”
He smiled. “Are we okay then? Do I need to worry about you? About us?”
“We’re fine. I’m fine. I just need you to be more open with me. I can’t really be mad though because I hold back plenty from you.”
“Anything I need to know about?” His eyes searched my face.
“I wasn’t going to even confront you about this. I was going to just let us fade.”
“The thing is, I wouldn’t have let that happen. I already told you I’m too selfish to let you go.”
“That’s not being selfish. Being selfish would be telling me my show isn’t important, or insisting that I drop everything for you. You’ve never asked that of me. I may have made fun of the bending analogy, but it’s true.”
“I just want this to work. I know we’re different, but that isn’t a bad thing.”
“I was jealous of more than the lyrics you know.” I felt the need to be honest.
“Oh?”
“I found a picture of you two on a website. You looked so good together—you matched.”
“Sometimes matching too much isn’t a good thing. Ever hear about opposites attracting?”
“Yes. But are we really opposites?”
“No. We’re not. I discover how much more we’re alike every time we talk.”
“It’s strange, isn’t it? How two people can be alike without knowing it?”
He shifted on the bed. “Why were you at that party when we met?”
“My friend dragged me to stop me from moping over Aaron.”
“And it was because of your hurt over Aaron that you did something crazy like hook up with a weird sexy guy like me?”
I laughed. “Pretty much.”
“Did you ever wonder why I did it? Why I was out on that balcony that night?”
“Not really,” I admitted. “I mean, I focused more on why you cared about me afterward.”
“A few weeks before, I found out Ariana was engaged. It killed me. For months after the breakup, I pushed forward with the small hope that we’d get back together, that she’d realize it was all a big mistake. Her engagement destroyed any hope for that.”
“Oh. That would be hard.”
“Hard?” He laughed dryly. “Try impossible. I was up on that balcony avoiding the rest of my band so I could muster the nerve to tell them I was quitting. I was done. I was busy trying to figure out what else to do with my life.”
“What?” I sat up straight. “You were going to quit?”
“We’d just signed with Interline, but I knew I couldn’t uphold my end of the contract. I couldn’t come up with any new material.”
“Wow. I had no idea.” Had I really been so oblivious to his mood?
“But then I met you. You did something to me with the first few words out of your mouth, and there was no turning back. After what happened on the beach—well, the block was gone. I wrote song after song about you and the way you made me feel.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Not crazy, amazing. You weren’t the only one who was broken, babe. We both were. The difference is you put me back together the first night we met. You took more work, but it’s the kind of work I would dedicate my life to.”
I started to cry again, but this time the tears were happy.
“I wish I were there to wipe those tears away for you.” He watched me intently.
“These are the good kind of tears.”
“Still, I should be there.”
“You will be, and I do want to come up to New York to see you eventually.”
“Yeah? That’s good, because it’s not something I’m going to drop. Maybe not this weekend, but another one.”
“I miss you.” I leaned back against my pillows, allowing my body to let off some of the tension that had been mounting all afternoon.
“I miss you too. I miss you every day and every night.”
“Wow, this fight really brought out the sentimental side in you.” What I didn’t add is that it had done the same to me. The only thing I wanted to do at the moment was melt into his arms.