He Loved Me in Secret, Until I Became Someone He Could Never Have novel · Chapter 28 of 32

Chapter 28: Upstairs

"It's a long walk," I said.

"I know where you live."

"I've walked you home before."

"Once. Five years ago."

"From your graduation party," he said. "You'd had four glasses of Sambuca. You sang the whole way."

"I don't remember that."

"I do. You sang Dean Martin. Badly. You made me do the harmony."

"You don't do harmony."

"I did that night."

I put my hands in my cardigan pockets so I wouldn't reach for him.

"Fine," I said. "Walk me home."

We went along the harbor in the dark.

The water slapped at the bulkheads.

The bars on Thames Street were letting out, and somebody was singing badly in a doorway.

We didn't touch.

He walked on the street side, the way his mother taught him.

I noticed.

I noticed everything about him that night.

The fish smell he never quite got out of his hands.

The healed stripe across both palms, shiny where the vault wheel had been.

The way he looked at the gold letters on our glass when High Street came into sight.

At the bank's side door, I took out my key.

I didn't put it in the lock.

I turned around.

He was standing at the bottom of the step, so for once we were eye to eye.

"You told me something on the pier," I said. "At the ice house."

"I told you a lot of things at the ice house."

"You said if I wanted you, I'd have to say it out loud. You said you were done guessing."

He went very still.

"I remember."

"You've done everything they asked," I said. "The name. The house. Every dollar. You stood in a room downtown for six hours and put your name on every page."

"Nata."

"Let me finish. I've been practicing."

He shut his mouth.

The corner of it twitched.

"You hurt me," I said. "For five years. You had a reason, and it was a good one, and it still hurt. I don't forget that."

"I know."

"I watched you pay for it. Every day since December. In front of everybody." My voice wobbled and I let it. "You didn't once ask me for anything back."

I took a breath.

"So here it is, out loud. I want you. I want you to come upstairs. I'm saying yes."

For a second he didn't move at all.

Then he came up the step.

He took my face in both his hands, the healed palms rough and warm on my cheeks.

He looked at me.

"Say it again," he said.

"Yes."

He kissed me against the side door of Mazzola Savings and Trust.

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