He shrugged. “I wanted it to be a moment you’d never forget, so that no matter what happened between us, you’d never forget me.”
“Well, mission accomplished. It’s a pretty amazing kiss for any other guy to live up to.”
Jake leaned closer, his expression serious. “And after last night… there are never going to be any other guys, right?”
I shifted close enough I could rest my chin on his knee and looked up at him from under my lashes. “It’s just you and me from now on. No games. No walls. I told you, I love you. I’m letting the fear go.”
I closed my eyes at the feel of his fingers on my skin as he brushed my hair behind my ear.
“No games?” he asked softly.
My eyes opened. “Yes.”
“Then I have a question.”
I lifted my head, but only to rest my arms across the top of his knees. “Shoot.”
“The nape thing,” his fingers tickled under my hair, brushing gently over the back of my neck, “what’s it all about?”
I grimaced but determined to be honest, I said, “It’s stupid.”
“It bothers me. It’ll always bother me when you pull away.”
“Okay. I get it.” I smiled unhappily and forged ahead with the truth. “You used to hold me that way. I used to think it was something you did unconsciously, asking me for my entire focus. I loved it. I thought it was hot but sweet at the same time.”
Jake frowned. “So what changed?”
“The night at Teviot… the night you chased me out of the bar, asking me to give you a chance to apologize…”
“Yeah?”
“The reason I ran out that night is because I turned around and I saw you with Melissa… your hand on her nape, holding her the way I thought you only ever held me. See? Stupid.”
We were both quiet as the words danced on the air between us. Finally, Jake exhaled. “I can’t fix those mistakes, Charley. Even though it kills me that I’ve done things to hurt you, meant or not, I can’t take them away. I can’t undo it. But I can promise you this… no one will ever mean to me what you do.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “When I first met you at the bonfire, I was freaked out by what I was feeling. I was nearly seventeen, I could get girls, I’d been with a few, so I was cocky and arrogant and had no plans to date a girl exclusively.” He chuckled and I grinned as I remembered our first meeting. “You were kind of intimidating at first, but then you were funny and unconsciously sexy. I’d never met a girl like you and I’d never met anyone who I connected with so quickly. At the end of that party, I knew that everything had changed. I couldn’t give a shit about any other girl. I wanted to get to know you better.” His smile was a little shy. “I wanted to deserve to get to know you.”
I blinked back tears at the memories, reassuring Jake with a small grin when he saw the wet in my eyes. “Those six months with you were the best I’ve ever had in my whole life. It’s like… I don’t know, I’m just so relieved to be able to look back on them now and remember falling in love with you without feeling like one of us died.”
Jake nodded solemnly. “That’s how I felt too.”
“We don’t have to feel that way anymore. We’ve made it through.”
Jake cupped my face in his hands. “I’m never letting you go,” he murmured his vow. “Even if you try to make me… never again.”
I nuzzled into his touch. “Right back at you, Caplin.”
Jake laughed, pressed a soft kiss to my lips, and pulled back to stare down at the picnic. “Are we going to eat? I’m a little hungry after all that making up we did last night.”
“Mmm, me too.” I handed him a sandwich. “I should be exhausted, but I’m not.”
He grinned. “I’ll just need to try harder next time.”
“Try any harder and I won’t be able to walk afterwards.”
We laughed and continued to eat in perfect, comfortable quiet. Scrunching up my sandwich wrapper, I settled on my back and stared up at the cloudy sky. “You were kind of bossy last night.”
“Yeah. You didn’t seem that upset, though,” he pointed out.
“Nah, I wasn’t. That was just you asserting your dominance in a pre-evolutionary kind of way.” I rolled my head on the blanket to meet his gaze. “I just went with it, but you should know I would never have given in if I wasn’t about to anyway.”