She scans my face, and the ever-present gleam in her eye’s flickers for the first time since I’ve know her. “But first, you need to tell me something that could end it all, right?” The resignation in her voice—as if she’d been expecting me to let her down—shakes my resolve to come clean. Am I about to confirm some hidden doubt she’s had about me?
She purses her lips and raises an impatient brow. “Just tell me.”
Because I know lies like this always catch up with a man, and because after everything she’s given me, the truth is the least she deserves. I take a deep breath and spit it out.
“I have a girlfriend at home. She and I agreed to spend the summer apart. I didn’t tell you when we first met because I thought this was going to be just sex.”
She blinks rapidly like water splashed into her eyes. “Oh…I see.” She turns away from me, but not before the light in her eyes dims completely.
“If I’d known that I wouldn’t have—” Her voice is hollow and distant. She shakes her head as if to clear it and walks over to the window the way she does whenever she’s stuck in the middle of a drawing.
A heavy, uncomfortable silence descends between us. I move to stand beside her and stare out into the garden that’s often played host to our late-night shenanigans.
“Beth, look at me, please.”
And as soon as she does what I asked, I wish I hadn’t. Hurt has fractured the ever-present gleam in her eyes.
“I’m so sorry—”
“Why’d you tell me?” Her voice breaks, and I put an arm around her.
“I wanted to be honest. I’m going back—”
She shoves my arm off and rounds on me, her eyes blazing. “You don’t have to be honest. I knew this would end. Why couldn’t you at least leave me with good memories?”
I cup either side of her jaw and tilt her head up, firming my hold when she tries to yank free. “Did you hear what I said? I don’t want this to end.”
She squints like someone flashed a bright light in her eyes and frowns as she scans my face. “You… don’t?”
I stroke the soft skin in the hollow of her cheek and shake my head. “No way. This thing between us is just getting started. I’m nowhere near ready to say goodbye to you.”
A smile starts to tug at the corners of her mouth but falters. “But what about your girlfriend?”
“She’s not anymore. I haven’t talked to her all summer. But, I called her before I came over here. It’s officially over. I want to see where this goes.”
“Really?”
Some of the tension I’ve carried since our phone call this morning eases. “Really. I’ll need to spend the next few months in LA writing and rehearsing. And after that, I’ll be traveling a lot. But you can come out and spend a weekend—”
Her wince and sharp intake of breath stop me mid-sentence. I brace myself before I ask, “Unless…you don’t want to?”
Her eyes widen and she shakes her head sharply. “Of course, I want to. More than I want to do anything.” She reaches up to cup my cheek and her smile creeps back. “But… maybe we should see how things play out. I mean, what you want right now may not be what you want once you’re too famous to grab a cup of coffee without someone taking your picture.”
“Oh, I’ll never be that famous.”
She rolls her eyes in dismissal as if it’s a foregone conclusion. “Oh yes, you will. Soon people will want to know more about you. And the other people in your life. And the people in their life, too.”
“Do you have someone? Back home?” I hold my breath and watch her closely.
She shakes her head.
Relief washes through me. That’s all I need to know. We can figure everything else out.
“Turn around.” I whisper in a voice made gruff by anticipation and white-hot lust. Her eyes heavy lidded and gleaming, a smile tilts her lush mouth as she does as she’s told.
She’s dressed in a loose fitting, dark green tank top almost open in the back. I know every inch of her body intimately. I can trace the patterns made by the spray of freckles that grace her elegant shoulders with my eyes closed.
I pick up one of the bottles of blue paint she pulled out of her cabinet and squeeze it out on to the small tray she’d