The Liar

“Because this is now.” He said it simply. “Because I’m in love with you. Because I can see you have feelings for me. Maybe you’re not where I am, and I can’t argue about that, but you have feelings. What I see is you pushing them away, and me with them, because a sociopath, a con man, a thief, and apparently a murdering son of a bitch, used you, deceived you, and you’re letting yourself feel guilty and responsible for it.”

“I have to be responsible for my own choices, my actions and the consequences of them.”

“Okay,” he said after a moment. “You’re right about that. Now, when are you going to stop beating yourself up for them?”

“I can’t make another mistake.”

“I’m not a mistake.” He shoved up at that, had to stride away, pull his control back, grip it. “Don’t hang that on me.”

“No, no, it’s me. It’s—”

“It’s not you, it’s me? That’s a classic.”

“Oh, just shut up a minute. Just shut up! I do have feelings for you, and they’re scaring me. I can’t just run with my feelings again because, yes, this is now. Now I have a little girl. I have a life to make for her, for us. I have to know I’m doing right, not just taking what I want for me. I need to take a breath, damn it. I need to settle down and think, not just feel. I hurt people. I hurt my family, and I’m never, never going to do that again. I hurt myself in the long run.”

She rose as well, walked to the rail on the other side of the steps from him. Across the lawn, into the trees, scores of lightning bugs put on a show, countless pulses of warm light against the dark.

“I’m not beating myself up, or not much anymore. Or feeling sorry for myself. I’m done with that. I came home, and I brought my girl home, and I’m building that life for us. That feels right. I feel good about that. It would’ve been enough, Griffin, it would’ve been more than enough for me. Then you . . . I just . . . There were—are—feelings.”

“I planned to go slower. I figured to get you to go out with me and Emma Kate and Matt a few times, over a couple months, maybe. Get used to being around me. Then I’d ask you out. I didn’t follow the blueprint.”

“You have a blueprint?”

“I always have a blueprint. But the thing about them is, sometimes you see how to improve the whole with a change, or some changes. So you do. I planned to go slower, but . . . Did I push you?”

“No.” It was wrong, she admitted, it was unfair and wrong to let him think so. “No, you didn’t push me, Griff. You . . . appealed, and you . . .”

She looked out, all those pulses of warm yellow. He’d put a light in her, she thought. Pulses of light against the dark she’d carried.

“How much you appealed caught me off guard. I wanted—want—to be with you. You’re the opposite of Richard. And I asked myself if that was why you appealed so much. You’re so different from him. Not flashy or showy, just—”

“Dull?”

She glanced over quickly, relieved when she saw him smile. “No, not dull. Real. I needed real more than I can say, and there you were. I have feelings, and they scare me.”

“I don’t mind that. You take the time you need to work that out. Don’t make excuses not to see me—be straight about it.”

“I didn’t know how. I hadn’t figured out how because I didn’t want to stop seeing you. I felt I should, for a while, but I didn’t want to.”

“Has it been a while yet?”

“It feels like it’s been a lot longer than a while.”

“There’s a point of agreement. I’ve missed the hell out of you, Red.”

“You came by to see Callie when I was at work.”

“I missed the hell out of her, too. And Callie and I didn’t have a fight.”

With a nod, Shelby stared out at the dark, the light. “I kept thinking you’d come by to see me, too. You came to Friday Nights, but you stayed away from me.”

“You hurt me.”

She turned to him quickly. “Oh, Griff—”

“I’m telling you, Shelby, don’t stack me up against him, not in any way. It hurts me, and it really pisses me off.”

“I’m sorry for that. I can’t promise it won’t happen again, but I’ll work on it.”

“That’s good enough.”

“You hurt me, too, and really pissed me off.”

“I’m sorry for that. I can’t promise it won’t happen again, but I’ll work on it.”

That made her laugh, and mean it. “I really have missed you something awful. I don’t just mean the sex, though I’ve missed that. I just missed talking to you. But . . .”

“Uh-oh.”

“I thought I was in love once before, so fast it was like being swept under a wave. But I wasn’t in love, not the way it should count. Maybe you need a little time, too.”

“If he’d been who he pretended to be when he took you under that wave, would it have counted?”

“I . . .” She could only lift her hands, let them fall.

“You can’t say because he wasn’t. He wasn’t who you thought he was, so you can’t know. Here’s what I know. I wanted you the first second I saw you. That was more a holy shit moment than what they’d call love at first sight. Look at her. That’s the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in my life.”

She wanted to laugh again, but his words clogged her throat. “Wet and miserable, as I recall.”