Melting - Sean Ashcroft Page 0,60

up in my throat at yet another reminder that he wouldn’t be here. Within hours, he wouldn’t be here.

“I will,” I promised.

I was not going to burst into tears in this airport. Hayden didn’t need that, this was stressful enough for him as it was.

I’d never actually been on a plane, but I understood long flights weren’t fun, and seven hours was long. I couldn’t imagine sitting still for that length of time.

“I know you have to go,” I said, letting Hayden take his suitcase from me, standing in the middle of the departure hall with a knot the size of a watermelon in my stomach. “But I have to say it: don’t go?”

“I don’t want to,” Hayden said.

The dark circles were back.

All I wanted was to wrap my arms around him, tuck him into bed, and snuggle up next to him. Just to be near him, just to hear his heartbeat under my ear again.

I’d never wanted that before.

“I was planning to stay all summer,” Hayden went on. “Maybe this is better, you would’ve gotten sick of me after the whole summer.”

I shook my head, eyes stinging with the threat of tears. “No. No. Never. Don’t ever think that. I would never have gotten sick of you,” I said. “I won’t ever get sick of you.”

I turned my face away as tears welled up in my eyes, spilling over before I could do anything about it.

So much for not crying.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Hayden soothed, voice soft. No one would believe me if they knew he was really like this. The world thought he was cold and hard and untouchable, and yet here he was—comforting me in an airport.

He wasn’t any of those things. He was just a little awkward.

He’d tried so hard on this trip. I could see now how much effort it’d taken to let himself be the warm, open, wonderful man he’d been in front of my friends—and that was before we’d been sleeping together.

I hated to think of him going back to New York and being cold again.

Hayden tilted my chin up with a gentle knuckle. There were tears shining in his eyes, too, and I didn’t want to set him off. One thing for me to go and cry in my truck once he was gone.

Another thing for him to be in tears as he went through security.

“Don’t you start,” I said. “Or I’ll never stop.”

A sound that was halfway between a snort of laughter and a sob escaped Hayden, but he covered it up in the next heartbeat with a kiss that was so him it almost set me off all over again. Firm and a little demanding, but still so sweet and gentle it would’ve broken anyone’s heart.

I could feel my own cracking in my chest.

“It’s not forever,” Hayden said as he broke off. “I’m coming back, and… I… I’m not good with… it’s… I want you to know…”

“I know.” I said, covering the hand on my jaw, squeezing his fingers. “It’s okay. You’ve said it a hundred times, you don’t have to say the words.”

“Can I, though?” Hayden asked. “Just this once?”

It’d break me if he did, but I knew how much effort it took for him. I couldn’t turn that kind of effort down, not from Hayden.

I nodded.

Hayden smiled a tiny, sad smile, eyes glistening with unshed tears as he searched my face, bracing himself to say what he was about to.

“Wes,” he said, letting his hand fall away and linking our fingers together. “I love you.”

Even through a second wave of tears, I couldn’t help loving the smile spreading across his face or the way my heart swelled at hearing that.

I kissed him again, harder this time, with a hint of teeth and a tiny fraction of the need and love I wanted him to feel from me.

“I love you, too,” I whispered against his lips, just as the boarding announcement for his flight sounded overhead.

“Come to New York,” Hayden said. “Give me, like, a week to get things under control, and then come to New York. I’ll buy you a ticket, you’ll stay with me, I’ll make sure Dad gives you the time off. Please? Just say you’ll think about it?”

“I’ll come,” I promised.

Scary as the thought was—I’d never left the coast of Oregon before—I would’ve done anything for Hayden. Always, but right now more than ever. Anything to make this easier for both of us.

“Then this isn’t goodbye,” Hayden said. “This is see you in a little while.”

I