Brazing

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tate

  I hadn’t felt this good in weeks, months maybe.

  Maybe my whole life.

  I lay on the small dorm bed, wrapped in Bridger’s arms and even though I felt like dying, I figured this was a great way to go.

  This boy. This boy and his gluten-free cupcakes.

  My heart ached right along with the rest of my body. I wanted to be honest with him. I wanted to tell him all about my sickness and that I might not make it. I wanted to stop him from getting in too deep with me and wasting his time on someone who might not have any time left.

  But I couldn’t bring myself to open my mouth.

  For a long time, all I wanted to do was live each day to its fullest. I wanted to forget my rough childhood and my even rougher adolescence. I wanted to forget that I was sick and might not graduate college. I wanted to forget that this degree I worked for would be completely useless to a corpse.

  I gave each day everything I had because it might be all I had left.

  And then Bridger came along and now I wanted to dream about the future and a life with this man that had stolen my heart and made dreams on a piece of property where he’d buried notes about me.

  My heart ached and my soul soared. My body succumbed further to the drugs and treatment each week, and the illness that worked so hard to kill me, but my mind reeled with possibilities of a future with Bridger and building our home on his family’s land.

  He stirred next to me. First he seemed to jerk in his sleep as if he couldn’t figure out where he was. Then, he sank deeper into my tiny bed and pulled me closer. His arms tightened around my waist, and his hands splayed out against my body. One gripped at my hip, the other rested hotly on my stomach.

  “Mmm,” he growled against the back of my neck through all my crazy hair. “I could get used to waking up like this.”

  My throat and mouth dried up as I tried not to hyperventilate. He couldn’t just let me sit at the edge of love, he had to come barreling in and knock me right over the edge.

  “Me too,” I rasped. My voice was still hoarse and rough from sleep, even though I’d barely slept while he held me like this. “This is very nice.”

  “Very nice,” he echoed in a whisper. “I’ve missed you.”

  My heart thudded in my chest and I hated the lies that tumbled over my tongue. Carter had disappeared an hour ago and the silence after his confession thundered through the room. I had missed him too. After all the time with him in Constance, and now the time apart, I realized how spoiled I’d been.

  During the worst of my treatment and the low points where I sometimes wondered if death would be better, easier than going through all this, I thought of him. Those stolen kisses, seeing him open up and lose his cranky defenses, reading his message in a bottle… Those had changed me. They’d reached down into me and evolved my spirit.

  But if I told him, if I brought him into this world of mine, things would change between us. He wouldn’t continue to open up, he’d shut down again. His moods would be shaped by worry and concern. Our relationship would continue out of obligation and sympathy. I didn’t want those things.

  I just wanted Bridger. Just like this. For as long as I could have him.

  But that didn’t mean I wanted to lie either.

  So instead, I decided on the truth. The embarrassing truth. “I’ve never had this before.” I rolled to my other side and he settled on his back to accommodate my new position. I snuggled into the nook of his arm and breathed him in.

  God, I didn’t want this to end. Not ever.

  “What? Such strong, sexy arms wrapped around you?” His tone dropped to an exaggerated octave and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Actually, no. I haven’t. I haven’t really, um, dated much before. Not like this anyway.”

  He stilled beneath me. His entire body stopped moving and his muscles went rigid. His arms banded around my waist and held me there against him. I let him. This moment seemed important to him and I hoped that was a good thing.

  He could so easily have realized my secret-loser status. It was okay to be free-spirited and adventurous. But was it really okay not to have dated?

  Ever?

  “You’ve never dated anyone before?”

  I cleared my throat and tried to push away my awkwardness. I hadn’t realized how uncomfortable this would make me feel. “I mean, I’ve been on dates. It’s just never gone very far. I was kind of a wild child in my youth and incapable of taking anything seriously.”

  “What about high school?” His words were concentrated and picked carefully. I wished I could read his mind because I couldn’t tell if he cared either way.

  “Nope, not high school either. Do you think I’m a loser?” I bit my bottom lip nervously. My stomach flipped over and over while waiting for his response.

  “I’m in awe, Tatum Halloway. In absolute awe.”

  And he sounded like it. But I couldn’t just let that go! I needed more adjectives. I needed all the adjectives! “Like… good awe? Or bad awe?”

  He chuckled at my obvious freak-out. The low sound vibrated through my body as his chest rumbled beneath me. “Good awe. Very good awe. I just… I don’t feel worthy of this, Tate.” He nudged me with his shoulder and I lifted my head to look at him. He cupped my jaw with his rough hand and held me so tenderly my chest ached with more emotion than I knew what to do with. “How did I get so lucky with you?”

  My cheeks burned with an emotional blush. I felt the same way; I just didn’t know how to tell him that without sounding cheesy. “I’m not sure I would call this lucky.”

  His eyebrows dipped down and made an angry slash. “I would,” he argued vehemently. “I would call this lucky, or blessed or divine providence. To find you again after all these years, to be lucky enough to get to hold you, to get to kiss you. And you haven’t done this with anyone else. You’ve saved this for me. Maybe not intentionally. And maybe you didn’t ever think I’d be the one you would give this gift to, but you did. And I couldn’t be more grateful.”

  It was unfortunate that I felt like complete shit. Otherwise I would have attacked his entire body with kisses. Instead, I leaned down and pressed a slow one on his full lips. I let my mouth linger on his until I felt dangerously short of breath and wobbly.

  His expression saddened when I pulled away and I couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across my face. “You’re welcome.”

  He laughed again, but it didn’t wipe away the melancholy frown. I pressed my thumb into the space between his eyebrows and smoothed out the grumpy lines.

  “What’s wrong?” I held my breath as I waited for his reply.

  “This is a gift, Tate. You’re giving me a gift and I want more than anything to be able to give it back to you. But I can’t. I have dated. All the wrong women.”

  I bit my bottom lip to keep from smiling. Bridger sounded absolutely miserable as he confessed that he hadn’t waited all twenty-one years of his life for me. As if I expected him to. Silly boy.

  “Bridger, I would never have expected you to wait for me. Neither one of us could have predicted we would find each other again. Or that we’d come to… care for each other. You couldn’t know that I would be waiting for you. And believe me, it wasn’t always by choice. I had… sometimes my life seemed as though I’d never have time for someone else. It wasn’t necessarily something I enjoyed doing or would ever think would pay off. But it did. And I’m really happy it did.”

  He finally let out a long, resigned sigh and nodded. “It did work out. I’m happy it did too.”

  I settled back onto his chest and started making a pattern across his t-shirt covered chest with my pointer finger. “Is that why you were a little relationally resistant? Because of all those wrong women?” My stomach clenched with nerves again, warring against the ever-present nausea.

  A growly, frustrated sound came out of his throat and I had just decided to tell him he didn’t need
to answer when he said, “Yeah. I was definitely relationally-resistant. I dated… well, I don’t even know how to say it. I dated a girl for a long time and she just didn’t turn out to be who I thought she was.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She cheated on me.”

  I popped back off his chest again and my fist clenched unconsciously in his t-shirt. I wanted to know who this horrible skanky shrew was so I could destroy her! I wanted to take her picture and make Herpes ads out of it and then tape them up all over campus. I wanted to duct tape her to a chair and make her watch Bridger take me on a date just so I could rub it in her face how much she’d given up!

  Who was this idiot?

  And did she not have a common sense thought in her head?

  “I hate this girl,” I told him.

  He laughed at my honest anger. “I might hate her too. Not so much now though as a few months ago.” His finger ran over the curve of my jaw. “She wasn’t right for me. Even without the cheating. I think I was always trying to be someone I wasn’t, trying to be the guy I thought she wanted me to be.”

  “But why? This guy is so much better. This guy is so much hotter!”

  He smiled affectionately at me and his eyes warmed with liquid heat. They glittered like bright emeralds in the low light of my room.

  “I think you’re right,” he told me. We did some deep, soul-sharing staring for long, endless moments before he said, “But she messed me up for a while. Maybe I’m still a little messed up. It’s hard for me to trust other people after she betrayed me like that.”

  “I don’t blame you.” The words were a forced whisper from a mouth that didn’t want to admit them. Guilt and shame punched me in my weak stomach. In my sickened state, tears pricked at my eyes and I felt the weight of my sins electrify through me. Gosh, why did he have to have trust issues? He was going to hate me.

  Now I couldn’t tell him.

  I mean, I knew I had to… But I couldn’t.

  I physically couldn’t.

  My heart felt too heavy and my lies sunk to the bottom of my soul like a concrete block to the depths of the ocean.

  “I thought I would never find another woman worth spending my time and energy on,” he continued. “I never expected someone like you.”

  “I hope that’s a good thing.”

  “That’s the best thing.”

  “I’m human, Bridger. I’m… I’m fallible. I’m going to make mistakes. I’m going to let you down and break your trust.”

  His eyes narrowed and I saw the thick pain flash behind his careful mask. “Are you saying you might cheat on me?”

  “Never!” I gasped. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to break your trust. I can let you down in other ways.”

  “You’re too hard on yourself.” His thumb rubbed my bottom lip as if to take away the warning I’d given him. “And I know you’re not perfect, Tate. Neither am I. But as long as we stay faithful to each other, I think we can work through all the other stuff.”

  “You have a lot of faith in me. Maybe more than I deserve.”

  My words were true, but I wished I could take them back. I hated the look of paranoia he now wore. I hated that I’d sparked suspicion in him when he’d been so trusting with me. So open.

  But my lies were too heavy to keep hidden and too horrible to confess. I had trapped myself in this place. Dug my own grave. And now I had to find a way out. I had to figure out a way to tell him the truth or he would hate me forever.

  “I trust you, Tate. And you trust me. This seems like a good place to start. Let’s go from here and take it one day at a time.”

  Tears wet my bottom lashes, but I refused to let them spill. “I would like that. I like taking it one day at a time.”

  “Good.” He smiled at me gently and I breathed easier at the way his tension seemed to melt away. “You don’t need to be nervous. I promise we can work anything out.”

  I gulped, but kept my mouth shut this time. “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  He leaned up on his elbow and looked at my bedside clock. “Do you need to get ready for class?”

  I glanced over my shoulder and groaned. Damn class. If I had known I was going to go through all this crap, I would have postponed this semester. Or maybe not. It was a pain in the ass to stop and then start again. I didn’t necessarily have the energy now for it, but I wouldn’t have the energy right away at the end of my treatment either. One semester would have turned into a whole year off and then I would have been really far behind.

  And there was always the fear that I would never come back.

  No, I would juggle school and chemo and cancer. And Bridger.

  To hell with everything else.

  I only got this one life and I was bound and determined to make it count for something. Even if that meant going to General Psych 101 when all I wanted to do was cuddle with Bridger from this moment until the end of time.

  I groaned out an annoyed, “Yes.”

  He chuckled at my lack of enthusiasm and shifted on the bed so we could both get up. He helped me to my feet and then placed the sweetest kiss against my lips. “This was by far, my most favorite morning of classes yet.”

  I smiled up at him. “I’m sorry I have to kick you out now. I’d much rather stay here with you than battle textbooks and pretentious professors.”

  Laughter brightened his already sparkling eyes. “What about later? After all your higher education wars? You busy?”

  “I have to work tonight.” I stuck out my bottom lip and pouted.

  “Tomorrow then?”

  I held back a cry of frustration. Tomorrow was the start of another treatment. I had three left to go and this one was definitely going to be brutal. I planned to be out of it for the rest of the week.

  My mom and little sister were headed up too. They had called, begging to come see me and I hadn’t been able to say no. Weakened by drugs and lacking willpower to stay away from my mama, I’d reluctantly agreed to spend the weekend with them and let them help me recover.

  “I can’t tomorrow either. In fact, I’m busy the whole weekend.”

  His expression fell and he took a step back. I hated the distance. I hated disappointing him. And I really hated keeping something from him. “The whole weekend?”

  I nodded. “My mom’s coming to town with my little sister. I told her she could have all my time and attention.”

  “Oh,” he said. But he didn’t sound convinced. “Well, family’s important.”

  “Right.” I didn’t sound like I believed him though. I did, I knew my family was important. But I wanted Bridger more than anyone right now. I wanted to follow this attraction and let our souls wrap up in each other while we got to know each other on deeper levels. I wanted this… whatever it was to become a real, solid, secure relationship. I wanted to be his. And I wanted him to be mine.

  “Why don’t you just call me when you have time for me?”

  “Bridger, it’s not that-”

  He pressed his fingers to my lips. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean it like that. Just… just call me, yeah?”

  I nodded and then watched him leave as quietly as he could. My heart sank to my toes and my skin itched with frustration. Why did this have to be so difficult? Why couldn’t we just meet and fall in love and be healthy like normal people?

  Ugh!

  Freaking cancer!

  Three more treatments to go. Just three more. I would be done the first of the year and then all of this would be over.

  Or… at least this part.

  I supposed it could only be beginning if the treatment didn’t work.

  No. I couldn’t think like that. I couldn’t get bogged down with negative thoughts or predictions. For my health, I needed to keep my mind and feelings positive.

  So, when I got healthy, when treatment ended and I went back into remission, I would be able to enjoy all the perfection of a relationship
with Bridger. It would be like my reward for surviving cancer.

  Twice.

  I could be with him and be as honest and happy as I liked.

  And I had a feeling Bridger Wright would make me happier than I ever dreamed I could be.

  As long as he stuck with me through three more treatments.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bridger